The game feels too slow at A6.

[Russ]

I really enjoyed ascensions 1-3. 4 and 5 were pretty painful making the game somewhat less fun. It seems at 6 that the game is no longer fun, for me at least. I'm now seeing RP start to slow down sharply about 3000 points away from the next ascensions (even with most of all reinc things pumped up), and it feels like I've run out of things to really look forward to.

I was looking forward to the card game would be this until I realized it's stuff like I can let the game run for 12 hours to lock in a 0.03% (literally) improvement on my reincarnation points, with heavily diminishing returns because it's additive. Not really doing it for me.

Maybe this is because this game is still in early access? Basically when making progress in Wizard and Minion Idle (by the same developer as FAPI) it always felt like there was something interesting just around the corner to check out. And you also had a lot more strategic flexibility in how to play the game. But in FAPI, it's basically max everything reincarnation related + have a gear finding team, and then well.. there's just not much else to it.

I'll definitely stick around to see how the event turns out, but I'm curious for people who made it beyond A6 - what kept it interesting for you?

[Alendert]

I'm at A6 too right now. 9638/13286 rp (1d 22h played) - feels totally fine and cards are great. I think this idle game is the best in the world.

[Russ]

We're, probably unsurprisingly, at very close to the same spot and time. So you're certainly noticing your reincs are dropping hard and fast. I'm down to 93 levels for 2 hours, with about 3000 to go. That's going to probably be ~5-6 days of just crawling progress, with minimal ability to strategically influence anything.

It's clearly optimal to re-equip about once a day, reinc every 2 hours (if you can tolerate it), and charge a card as late as possible (though given how slowly and little impact it all makes, when you charge cards probably has near 0 effect anyhow).

I'm curious how you find this enjoyable. Like maybe there is some strategic layer I'm missing, or it could just be this isn't really the sort of idle game for me, because I like at least be able to have some sort of meaningful freedom on strategic direction or choice. But like here the choices are so ridiculously obviously good (e.g. residue) or bad (e.g. confection) that I feel like there's no real room for input - it's just about idling and then picking the painfully obvious choice.

Compare to something like Melvor Idle where you have a million interesting choices and the ability to gear up for something specific to see major gains in a day or 2, all the way til the "end" of the game. Or even in WAMI where the system was at least complicated enough that it *felt* like you had some strategic control.

[Alendert]

I like how many mechanics this game has. Every A you get powerspike and find something new.

[Alendert]

I just checked at this point 2h give me 186 levels.

[muljostpho]

The game is a slow burn for me and just not the only game I'm running (plus in general I just don't tend to do idle games efficiently anyway, like in this game when pets were first added and to some extent also when new batches of pets have been added after that I wasted a lot of time just waiting for pets to drop instead of worrying about reincarnations / ascensions) so it's certainly possible to do things faster than I have (plus in the time I've been playing this game many updates have added new features that have smoothed things out for players starting it more recently) but...

Looking over the times, reinc counts, and reinc levels for my ascensions... Heck, throwing a quick sheet together to analyze them a bit...

Understanding of course that reincarnation levels do end up frontloaded in the earlier reincarnations and slowed down in the later reincarnations (best thing you can do to remedy that somewhat is actually longer reincarnations, the "time bonus" line in the reinc calculations is really powerful), here are my averages for number of reincarnations per day (r/d) and number of levels per reincarnation (l/r) for each run:
A0 = 2.19 r/d, 64.17 l/r
A1 = 2.21 r/d, 125.67 l/r
A2 = 2.55 r/d, 129.95 l/r
A3 = 1.48 r/d, 237.14 l/r
A4 = 1.12 r/d, 256.73 l/r
A5 = 1.57 r/d, 272.33 l/r
A6 = 1.55 r/d, 233.68 l/r
A7 = 1.51 r/d, 343.51 l/r
A8 = 1.43 r/d, 508.34 l/r
A9 = 0.99 r/d, 723.44 l/r
A10 = 0.76 r/d, 939.79 l/r
A11 = 0.75 r/d, 891.64 l/r
A12 = 0.71 r/d, 1463.54 l/r
A13 = 1.34 r/d, 947.53 l/r
A14 = 1.28 r/d, 1397.79 l/r
A15 = 0.65 r/d, 2184.10 l/r
A16 = 0.68 r/d, 3705.19 l/r

It looks like A6, A11, and A13 have been speedbumps for my reinc levels. Slight breaks in those spots from the overall upward trend through the rest of them. Well, A14 didn't surpass A12. Maybe I did something unusually well in A12 that hasn't been the norm for me elsewhere, and/or something really dumb in A14. Hmm, it's too early to say this right now of course but that A16 performance actually feels like it might also be unusually high...

Exact times for each ascension I've done have ranged from 16 to 49 days. A3 was the shortest, and A11 was the longest.

Exact reincarnation counts in each ascension I've done have ranged from 26 to 60. A12 and A16 are tied for fewest (hmm, those two eh? interesting), and A0 had the most.

Originally posted by Russell:

I was looking forward to the card game would be this until I realized it's stuff like I can let the game run for 12 hours to lock in a 0.03% (literally) improvement on my reincarnation points, with heavily diminishing returns because it's additive. Not really doing it for me.

Originally posted by Russell:

It's clearly optimal to re-equip about once a day, reinc every 2 hours (if you can tolerate it), and charge a card as late as possible (though given how slowly and little impact it all makes, when you charge cards probably has near 0 effect anyhow).

Card "game"? We have a card collection. They give bonuses just by existing.

But the charges to use on cards can be practically worthless earlier in an ascension. Takes a long time for them to really ramp up in value. (I haven't paid attention. Do card power gains scale up with what expedition waves you can handle?) I can start a new ascension with 0 charges available because I used them all before ending the previous ascension, and they still won't be worth using yet when enough time has passed to gain all 6 charges, waste them, and wait to gain all 6 charges back again. Before I ended A16, with the temp power I had on the cards, the charges were capable of pushing the permanent power on a lot of my cards from the double digit e9 range into the single digit e12 range.

[Russ]

Originally posted by Alendert:

I just checked at this point 2h give me 186 levels.

Yeah, that sounds about right. ~170k bonus on your reincs, yeah? There's a ~doubling every ~600 levels. And you've got about 5 more sets of 600 levels in front of you. So that's 100 levels/2 hours for next 600, then 50, then 25, then 12.5, then 6.25. Of course those values will be bumped up a bit by your pets, residue, and equipment, but you're going to be running through knee deep sand.

---

@muljostpho - Interesting data/style. And yeah I suppose this just isn't the right sort of idler for me.

[Alendert]

Originally posted by muljostpho:

Exact times for each ascension I've done have ranged from 16 to 49 days. A3 was the shortest, and A11 was the longest.

A0 - 17d (yeah I was a total noob)
A1 - 7d
A2 - 5d
A3 - 6d
A4 - 9d
A5 - 8d

As for A6 I think it will be faster than A5, I'm not sure if I can even finish 50 levels of my current expedition to unlock new one... (10359/13286 rl, 23/50 expedition).

[Dragon]

A0 -11d
A1 -6d
A2 -5d
A3 -6d
A4 -7d
A6 -8d
A7 -12d
A8 -13d
A9 -17d
A10 -17d
A11 -17d
A12 -11d
A13 -11d
A14 -11d
A15 -17d
A16 -17d
A17 -7d
A18 -6d
A19 -5d
A20 -5d
A21 -7d
A22 -13d

I play 3 Idle type games in the background, I don't spend a lot of time on them but they give me something to focus on when i feel like pushing them. I like this one alot because in the later ascensions you don't need to micromanage it much and they continue to add content. The devs are still interested in community and it doesn't feel money like they are out to scavenge your money so i stick around.

[Russ]

Yeah just different strokes for different folks, I guess. I actually enjoy the more micromanagey stuff, or at least the option of it. Not necessarily like your attention is constantly captured by the game, but more like being able to change the direction you're on or whatever.

Like imagine if there was some way (equipment, skills, whatever) to focus hardcore on healthy potatoes, but perhaps at the expense of e.g. reinc levels. Suddenly there's a fun balance to work out there where the answer is not entirely clear.

Here's my stuff:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3165306608

And it feels a bit too slow to me!

[Dragon]

Originally posted by Russell:

Yeah just different strokes for different folks, I guess. I actually enjoy the more micromanagey stuff, or at least the option of it. Not necessarily like your attention is constantly captured by the game, but more like being able to change the direction you're on or whatever.

And it feels a bit too slow to me!

Yea this is still an idle game, if you are looking for something that takes more thought into progression but still idle like try Unnamed Space Idle. it's under your profile but doesn't look like you have played it yet. i think it took me 35days to reach the last content cap. and another 40ish days for the 2nd content cap. it's worth a try to see if its more your style/

[Russ]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Yea this is still an idle game, if you are looking for something that takes more thought into progression but still idle like try Unnamed Space Idle. it's under your profile but doesn't look like you have played it yet. i think it took me 35days to reach the last content cap. and another 40ish days for the 2nd content cap. it's worth a try to see if its more your style/

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll give that a go. I actually just picked it up last night when making this post!

[Alendert]

Originally posted by Russell:

Yeah, that sounds about right. ~170k bonus on your reincs, yeah?

For 2h run it's 219k.

[Russ]

Originally posted by Alendert:

Originally posted by Russell:

Yeah, that sounds about right. ~170k bonus on your reincs, yeah?

For 2h run it's 219k.

I meant at the time, before you regeared. At 219k you're probably now around level 10,200 or so?

[Alendert]

Originally posted by Russell:

Originally posted by Alendert:

For 2h run it's 219k.

I meant at the time, before you regeared. At 219k you're probably now around level 10,200 or so?

10800 right now.

[Russ]

Originally posted by Alendert:

Originally posted by Russell:

I meant at the time, before you regeared. At 219k you're probably now around level 10,200 or so?

10800 right now.

Ah yeah that makes sense. I was comparing our relative progress, but didn't account for the fact I've kind of stopped playing and wasn't regularly reincing anymore.