Offline automation

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

How does automation work offline? Does everything work? Do only some things work? Or does nothing work? I often end up beyond the auto-prestige reset point, so I doubt that one works offline, but what about the other abilities? Can I farm bosses offline? Active Play rewards? Does Idle Energy give a bonus while offline?

[Cypher]

It doesn't work offline I believe.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by Cypher:

It doesn't work offline I believe.

That's disappointing. I want to make progress even when my computer is off. Needing to have the game open for the automation to work is kind of lame. I hope they fix that eventually.

[jim]

Well not many games continnue after you have turned it off. This 1 is an exeption. Without all a player needed to do is to start the game and sometimes distrubute their rez into the choises wished. Need some active playing to even be called a game iguess. Atleast how i think....

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by jim:

Well not many games continnue after you have turned it off. This 1 is an exeption. Without all a player needed to do is to start the game and sometimes distrubute their rez into the choises wished. Need some active playing to even be called a game iguess. Atleast how i think....

Actually, it's fairly common for idle games to have offline time. After all, the main appeal of an idle game is that things happen when you aren't there. There will obviously be some active gameplay, but if most of the gameplay needs to be active, then it isn't really an idle game. The addition of automation fixes a lot of problems, but the fact that it doesn't work offline means that your progress is crippled when the game is closed. That's not really good for an idle game.

[Cypher]

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

Originally posted by jim:

Well not many games continnue after you have turned it off. This 1 is an exeption. Without all a player needed to do is to start the game and sometimes distrubute their rez into the choises wished. Need some active playing to even be called a game iguess. Atleast how i think....

Actually, it's fairly common for idle games to have offline time. After all, the main appeal of an idle game is that things happen when you aren't there. There will obviously be some active gameplay, but if most of the gameplay needs to be active, then it isn't really an idle game. The addition of automation fixes a lot of problems, but the fact that it doesn't work offline means that your progress is crippled when the game is closed. That's not really good for an idle game.

These days it's actually not anymore :( I'm playing like 10-15 idle games at the same time and the majority doesn't have offline progress. IHTD still has offline progress for resources & exp.

[PichuYang]

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

Actually, it's fairly common for idle games to have offline time. After all, the main appeal of an idle game is that things happen when you aren't there.

Yes and No. Legend of Idleon gives too much offline progression, where it can be very tough to re-learn, and the development went sideway due to it. Farmer vs Potatoes have good offline progression, but the switching and re-grind phase is very exhausting.

I think IHTD is fairly balanced and rewarding. I could use Auto Prestige for rank grinding, but it takes longer to claim Ultimus, and it's usually a good time to go offline. Actively claiming stuff like Dummy can easily catch up the progress without the Auto Prestige.

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

The addition of automation fixes a lot of problems, but the fact that it doesn't work offline means that your progress is crippled when the game is closed.

Maybe it is true, but mostly for the Tech Scroll part. Ultimus gives less when spawned at low Wave, Runes are nice to have more but it's not high priority. Other bosses, especially Dummy, works better when you actively optimize it.

I actually quite go offline a lot and close computer overnight. I has one month of offline gameplay due to Lunar New Year and diarrhea. But I still manage to get on pace with Rank 1000 Heroes. Battlepass, AP bonus, and Ultra Boss are already rewarding Active play, so I don't think you can easily get "crippled" without the Auto Alien and Prestige.

Auto Aliens has very long cooldown, and whales already get far ahead with maxed upgrades (and 2x Pass XP), so I don't see a point of competing with them. Overall I think this update does its purpose.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by PichuYang:

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

Actually, it's fairly common for idle games to have offline time. After all, the main appeal of an idle game is that things happen when you aren't there.

Yes and No. Legend of Idleon gives too much offline progression, where it can be very tough to re-learn, and the development went sideway due to it. Farmer vs Potatoes have good offline progression, but the switching and re-grind phase is very exhausting.

I think IHTD is fairly balanced and rewarding. I could use Auto Prestige for rank grinding, but it takes longer to claim Ultimus, and it's usually a good time to go offline. Actively claiming stuff like Dummy can easily catch up the progress without the Auto Prestige.

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

The addition of automation fixes a lot of problems, but the fact that it doesn't work offline means that your progress is crippled when the game is closed.

Maybe it is true, but mostly for the Tech Scroll part. Ultimus gives less when spawned at low Wave, Runes are nice to have more but it's not high priority. Other bosses, especially Dummy, works better when you actively optimize it.

I actually quite go offline a lot and close computer overnight. I has one month of offline gameplay due to Lunar New Year and diarrhea. But I still manage to get on pace with Rank 1000 Heroes. Battlepass, AP bonus, and Ultra Boss are already rewarding Active play, so I don't think you can easily get "crippled" without the Auto Alien and Prestige.

Auto Aliens has very long cooldown, and whales already get far ahead with maxed upgrades (and 2x Pass XP), so I don't see a point of competing with them. Overall I think this update does its purpose.

There is no such thing as "too much offline progression" unless it somehow gives more progress than being online. If a game can't handle full offline progression without breaking, then it has a problem as an idle game. Of course, there's no issue with being something other than an idle game, but if you have "idle" in the title then the game should be close to a pure idle game.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by Cypher:

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

Actually, it's fairly common for idle games to have offline time. After all, the main appeal of an idle game is that things happen when you aren't there. There will obviously be some active gameplay, but if most of the gameplay needs to be active, then it isn't really an idle game. The addition of automation fixes a lot of problems, but the fact that it doesn't work offline means that your progress is crippled when the game is closed. That's not really good for an idle game.

These days it's actually not anymore :( I'm playing like 10-15 idle games at the same time and the majority doesn't have offline progress. IHTD still has offline progress for resources & exp.

Can those really be called idle games at that point? The main appeal of an idle game is that it runs when you aren't there, so it's a bad sign if so many developers are forgetting that fact. Maybe it would be better to call them idle-like games or something like that.

[FSK]

One month, I did grind for 2-3 days to get 75 battlepass. I left my phone plugged into a charger and let the game run at night while I slept.

There's no competitive PvP, so it isn't that big a disaster if you get slower progress.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by FSK:

One month, I did grind for 2-3 days to get 75 battlepass. I left my phone plugged into a charger and let the game run at night while I slept.

There's no competitive PvP, so it isn't that big a disaster if you get slower progress.

That HAS to be bad for your battery though. Plus, I like going fast regardless of PvP. Optimizing idle games is fun. It becomes a problem though when you can't be even remotely optimal without leaving your phone/pc on and running the game most of the time.

Also, is 2-3 days really enough for battlepass 75? Is there something later on that makes it faster? I remember it being something you have to be grinding for a whole month when I was playing several months ago.

[PichuYang]

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

The main appeal of an idle game is that it runs when you aren't there, so it's a bad sign if so many developers are forgetting that fact. Maybe it would be better to call them idle-like games or something like that.

The thing is, Auto-Prestige and Battlepass XP do run even if you "are not there", you just leave the game open. Even without the game open, you could try to raise the resource/hour stat and remove Heroes that do not need the XP. Or keep a DPS layout to progress the wave close to Ultimus. I still did not leave my game run overnight with Automation update.

We could debate that maybe just let Auto-Prestige and Battlepass XP happen. But Tbiz is very likely already forseen it, and knows what is better for game development. ($$, in good faith, basic survival)

The definition of "idle" has never been hard defined into "offline progression", it's just how much the developers want to scale it. Even in Cookie Clicker, if you want make progression in Garden, you still have to open the game at right time and click things, which doesn't make it very "idle" tbh. The current main issue with active idle progression however, is that it does not favor mobile devices.

[Little Bunny Foo Foo]

Originally posted by PichuYang:

Originally posted by Little Bunny Foo Foo:

The main appeal of an idle game is that it runs when you aren't there, so it's a bad sign if so many developers are forgetting that fact. Maybe it would be better to call them idle-like games or something like that.

The thing is, Auto-Prestige and Battlepass XP do run even if you "are not there", you just leave the game open. Even without the game open, you could try to raise the resource/hour stat and remove Heroes that do not need the XP. Or keep a DPS layout to progress the wave close to Ultimus. I still did not leave my game run overnight with Automation update.

We could debate that maybe just let Auto-Prestige and Battlepass XP happen. But Tbiz is very likely already forseen it, and knows what is better for game development. ($$, in good faith, basic survival)

The definition of "idle" has never been hard defined into "offline progression", it's just how much the developers want to scale it. Even in Cookie Clicker, if you want make progression in Garden, you still have to open the game at right time and click things, which doesn't make it very "idle" tbh. The current main issue with active idle progression however, is that it does not favor mobile devices.

There can be various problems in leaving your phone/pc running when you aren't there, so that only really counts if you are fine with increased real-life risk or an increased real-life energy bill. Not exactly a great trade off.

Also, Cookie clicker is a clicker game. It's similar to an idle game, but a clicker is based around becoming stronger by clicking the resource generator. Of course it's going to be have more active play.

You say active idle progression is worse for mobile devices and that's absolutely true. A game should not be encouraging you to destroy your device's battery by leaving it on for an extended period of time. There are also people who don't want to leave their computer on when they leave the house or people like me who sleep in the same room their computer is in (and tend to sleep worse when their computer is on). Frankly, there are a number of problems with active idle play.

Offline progression doesn't need to be perfect (I get that sometimes it's difficult from a programming perspective), but it should simulate things to at least some extent. Especially when it comes to boss spawns and idle bonuses since those should be fairly easy to calculate.