Once again, the event is badly designed

[ovni.demon]

To not change, the event here is impossible (or close to impossible) without spending Darwinium. Just change the formulas of the events, maybe something like fixed max ressources per day like most of the other idle games do. Or make longer duration

[dave.iceman42]

An autoclicker is not a "cheat engine", whatever the hell that means. It's not hacking into the game code and giving you anything and everything you want. It's not infinite resources. It just speeds up the game and also allows you to earn while AFK, If you've never used one you have no idea what you're talking about.
It makes the game a lot more fun. Try it for a while and you'll see. Or, you can continue plodding along in your slow and monotonous way and join the group that, every time a new event is released, fails to complete it thanks to their own stubbornness.
Just don't whine about it. You fail at the events because you choose to fail.

[DiMono]

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

An autoclicker is not a "cheat engine", whatever the hell that means. It's not hacking into the game code and giving you anything and everything you want. It's not infinite resources. It just speeds up the game and also allows you to earn while AFK, If you've never used one you have no idea what you're talking about.
It makes the game a lot more fun. Try it for a while and you'll see. Or, you can continue plodding along in your slow and monotonous way and join the group that, every time a new event is released, fails to complete it thanks to their own stubbornness.
Just don't whine about it. You fail at the events because you choose to fail.

Cheat Engine is a program you can use to alter a game as you play it by directly changing the values of certain variables in memory, to do things like give yourself infinite resources. That's why I said in my post that an autoclicker is a tool, but Cheat Engine is deciding not to play the game at all.

[DiMono]

Anyway, the end of this event is literally just a way to stretch it out for as long as possible. After the Research called What's The Answer for 2.00E29, there's one called Thinking... for 5.00E29 where the description just says "This is a big one. It could take a while..." The research tree is literally telling the player that it's just there to waste your time. They wanted it to take long enough to entice people to spend money, but couldn't think of any more nodes to add, and instead of settling for a complete event they decided to put in time wasters to stretch it out.

That is a poor design choice. it's called "artificial difficulty" and it is a classic hallmark of developers who don't understand their own game.

[Mobile Doll Cordelia]

I ended up finishing the event with no autoclickers, but I did spend some Darwinium. In fact I think I spent a little too much and I wasn't very optimal with it, since I finished a day early. It wasn't even Darwinium I bought, just the stuff I got for free.

[dave.iceman42]

Originally posted by DiMono:

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

An autoclicker is not a "cheat engine", whatever the hell that means. It's not hacking into the game code and giving you anything and everything you want. It's not infinite resources. It just speeds up the game and also allows you to earn while AFK, If you've never used one you have no idea what you're talking about.
It makes the game a lot more fun. Try it for a while and you'll see. Or, you can continue plodding along in your slow and monotonous way and join the group that, every time a new event is released, fails to complete it thanks to their own stubbornness.
Just don't whine about it. You fail at the events because you choose to fail.

Cheat Engine is a program you can use to alter a game as you play it by directly changing the values of certain variables in memory, to do things like give yourself infinite resources. That's why I said in my post that an autoclicker is a tool, but Cheat Engine is deciding not to play the game at all.

I see. Forgive my ignorance. I've never heard of Cheat Engine, but I agree with your assessment of it. I'm not one for straight out cheating a game, but I'll mod one for QoL reasons, and autoclicking, to me, is little different from a QoL mod like one that would allow me to use a controller instead of mouse and keyboard in some old game without controller support.
And, yes, I can see how events are designed purposefully to entice people into spending money. You'll get no arguments from me on that point. I'm not a fan of spending real money on fake currency in ANY game, and look very unfavorably on such a business model.
But I can also attest personally to the fact that you don't HAVE TO spend money, but you may have to AFK autoclick for long stretches using Darwinium to boost the income.
So while I agree that the devs are enticing people to spend money, to their credit they haven't made it compulsory. The design seems more to be a "pay for convenience" rather than a "pay to win or else" variety.

[ovni.demon]

You can argue all you want, but at the end of the day using an autoclicker is cheating, albeit in a lesser measure than cheat engine. It's not just a QoL like information mods for example. It gives you an evident edge compared to players not using it and it's a feature not intended by the developper.
I also want to point out that not everybody can keep the game running non-stop with an autoclicker. I need to use my computer to work during the day, so using an auto-clicker is out of question.
Also, everything we talk doesn't change the fact that the event is badly designed (or cash grab designed). Though the game as quite a bit of bad design problem: the primary simulation is useless past a certain point; the dinosaur simulation arrives to a snail pace past a certain point; some of the constellations are useless; ...
What was a fun little indie game with a good concept becomes more and more a big mess.

[dave.iceman42]

I agree about the game lacking in late game content. I've stalled at 102 levels in the main game and see no reason to go any further. I had been hoping for something to happen at level 100, but no such luck. And Beyond I'm only running the Expeditions for Dark Matter and the chance for more stars to complete constellations.
The main game and Beyond are both in bad need of Prestige levels like Mesozoic.
But, back to the original point ... so what about "the edge"? Are you competing against anyone? Is this advantage somehow unfair to anyone else in a single-player game? It's just YOU and YOUR TIME. I can't think of a single good reason NOT to use an autoclicker.
Complaining that it's "cheating" in a game you're playing by yourself is like saying using your TV remote is cheating and you'd rather get up and change the channels manually.

[Varka Thrin]

I bought Darwinium for this event when I realised my normal pace wasn't going to finish in time. Does that indicate a design problem? Maybe... hard to say TBH.

But have I enjoyed a free game for nearly 2000 hours? Yes.
Did I feel good throwing a few bucks at the devs? Yes.

[DiMono]

Originally posted by ovni.demon:

You can argue all you want, but at the end of the day using an autoclicker is cheating, albeit in a lesser measure than cheat engine. It's not just a QoL like information mods for example. It gives you an evident edge compared to players not using it and it's a feature not intended by the developper.

I don't think anyone is arguing that using an autoclicker isn't cheating. As Dave said though, it's a single-player game. You're not competing with anyone, therefor you're not gaining an edge because there's nobody for that edge to be over. Personally, I use an autoclicker on the events because they have a time limit, and I don't use it elsewhere in the game because there isn't any such restriction. That's my choice, and it only affects me - nobody else.

The problem is that the events are designed in such a way that it's required to use outside help if you want to finish the event without spending money or cashing in Darwinium (at the cost of time or of slower progress through other parts of the game). My autoclicker runs the game at the equivalent of about x3 speed, and after starting the event about 2 hours after it began I just barely finished in time this morning. For a game that's under the umbrella of "free to play" that's a problem.

Basically, all three of us agree on basically everything we're talking about. Yay us!

[Northgod]

Agreed. I was not able to finish the last two objectives, even with the heavy use of Darwinium. I had no problem in past events. Not very tested it seems.

[dave.iceman42]

@DiMono. Your autoclicker is better than mine. LOL.
Mine only gives me about double of what I can get by clicking the mouse left and right buttons as fast as I can, just waggling my fingers rapidly over them. But I'm just using the Microsoft Mouse & Keyboard Center's functions to make a macro tied to my mouse's side buttons.
It's good enough for me. And I'm always running it, not just in the events. If I were stuck mindlessly clicking away for hours at a time instead of having it done for me while I'm up making a sandwich or something, I would have quit this game a long time ago.
After all, the fun part is SPENDING your points, not in the monotonous clicking it takes to get them. I mean, who has fun just blankly staring at the screen clicking away on your mouse or keyboard?
I'd say the REAL cheating occurs when you DON'T use an autoclicker. You're cheating yourself out of the fun you could be having spending your game time doing the FUN part of the game instead of focusing on the tedious clicking part.

[DiMono]

I use OP Auto Clicker. I just tell it to click every 20ms.

Also, this isn't a clicker game - it's an idle game. You're meant to open it, buy some stuff, close it, then re-open it some hours later, etc. Clicking is meant to be obsolete after the early game. At least that's my opinion.

[dave.iceman42]

To each their own. The only thing I'm even playing now is Mesozoic, of course. This game badly needs Prestige levels for Beyond and the Main Game.

I 'm currently on 4th level Prestige in Meso, and able to gain about 2 levels per day if I just check in while I'm drinking my morning coffee, and after dinner. I can get more than that with the autoclicker, like this morning when I left it running while I was making breakfast and got an extra level out of it.

Nothing like the flurry of activity you get with a new Prestige level. I try to time it so I'll have a block of time free, because you can breeze through the first 25 levels without needing much in the way of clicking at all.

[Mickstache]

Originally posted by Tubera:

Originally posted by ovni.demon:

1) If you need to use external program to complete something in a game, it's a bad design. If it was good design, it would include the external program (or its function) directly into the game. Just to say, except for the first event, I used cheat engine each time to get the necessary ressource to unlock everything. Heck, I could even do that from the very start if I just wanted the final reward.
2) If you need premium currency to complete a free event, it's either a cash grab or a bad design because the event is no longer free

It's the whole point of the game that you buy Darwinium.

cheat engine disagrees

[IronAngus]

Originally posted by Mobile Doll Cordelia:

I ended up finishing the event with no autoclickers, but I did spend some Darwinium. In fact I think I spent a little too much and I wasn't very optimal with it, since I finished a day early. It wasn't even Darwinium I bought, just the stuff I got for free.

Same here. No autoclicker, only free Darwinium used, finished early.