First it was the RSB, SC, WOR and BOD. Then it turned into the Frozen Wand of Crystals and the Cloudy Wand of Storms. Then, before we knew it, it bloomed into Psillas Fighting Fan, the Pike Pike, and Cobrall in a Can! And all of these are low rarity. Nine-iconers will probably be accessable to budget-battlers soon. Wonderful, eh?
But the big question here is: Does this sort of cheapen the system? Part of the fun in BDing is the challenge. The way its going... we'll be able to bring down the toughest oppenents in one hit or so later! Your thoughts, please.
Don't forget the Stone Club.
Personally, I think it helps those who aren't uber rich to get decently powerful weapons. Guys like me can put their money into training instead of hoping to horde away millions needing that 11 million SOS or something.
I don't know what you're talking about 9 iconers being available soon, they already are. The Fan, Club, Pike, do a solid 9 icons at this point, going for under 500k all of them.
The best weapons are still millions of points away. As long as they don't bring out, say, a constant 20+ icon weapon that comes at any rarity below 99, I think you're ok.
When I say they're going to be availble soon, I meant that they're going to be available to budget battlers- meaning at an extremely low price.
it's bad for people who already bought a rsb and stuff like that cause they went down a lot
It seems TNT is trying to make the battledoom appeal to newer players, by giving them good weapons they can afford (first Scarab Ring, then Bone Sceptre and Obsidean Dagger, and now this)
I think it's great, as long as they keep making challenging DoN opponents/war opponents/regular old 1-player challengers for the more experienced battlers. And I hope they keep making SoS/PCC-level expensive weapons for the "big boys" and leave the lower rarities/cheap prices for the 10-icon range.
One thing I really like is that they fixed it so 1-player challengers can only use their once-per-battle items once per battle. It's become a lot easier to beat the current challengers, but that's not a bad thing... I imagine TNT will continue making more challengers with higher strength boosts and better weapons to make up for it. And if they code it so the opponents use (for example) their jade to heal when they're in the red, it'll require a more real strategy -- better than withdrawing over and over hoping you'll get lucky and they won't use the jade two rounds in a row.
So I'm liking the recent changes, but one thing I think really, really needs remedied is the healing situation. Right now, if you have 200 HP and above, your options are a LEV or a Jade (and how many people can really afford those?), a Crisp Blue Tunic, or a species healer (of which there are only a few options). I think we need a hidden tower healer (that ridiculous ice scorchstone does not count) that heals 50% of max HP. TNT fixed the freezer situation by sticking the magical marbles of mystery in the HT; why won't they do the same for healers?
Yeah, I'd agree with most of what Cranberry said- especially the part about the healer. Perhaps if they're going to make a HT healer, though, it should be a bit more than 50%- that still keeps pets who don't want to morph at a disadvantage by forcing them to pay more for the same thing (since HT weapons are rarely under 1 mil, and the species weapons are very cheap, relatively speaking). Perhaps a constant 66% healer might be a better idea?
I'd also like to see reasonable weapons in the 14-to-18 icon range, as well. Currently, it seems like there's a huge gap with weapons- you go from the 3.5 mil NQII Insane weapons to the 11 mil SoS... that's a huge price gap, and a huge power gap.
I'd have to say that the healer should be the biggest priority, though.
There is the
werelupe claw necklace, but that's the only in-between weapon that even comes to my mind. So yeah, some 5-8 mil(?) weapons that do 14-18 icons would be nice, too.
Most of what's in the hidden tower right now is pretty bad. A lot of those weapons were considered okay when they came out, but now, with the 13-icon NQII weapons for just 3.4 mil or so and all the new 9/10-iconers for much less, why would anyone pay more (sometimes a few mil more) than that for a HT item like the
Amulet of Thilg, the
Battle Dung family,
Maractite Battle Duck,
Meukas Snot Trail,
Pocket Cooking Pot... I could go on. TNT should retire and replace more things, or lower a bunch of prices.
And I wouldn't complain about a 66% healer!
What price do you think would be fair for something like that? I know a few of the 50% species healers go for 3-4 mil, while others are 100k or even cheaper.
It's still odd to think that the One Player Opponents can only use their OPB/SU Items once...
I've been turning over a different idea for why TNT's releasing so many stronger Items without turning around and downgrading them: Now, while I don't think Neo has seen a boom in the number of new users, increasing the number of Items on the market helps to lower their price (so long as there is an abundance, or so long as people are selling). I don't think there's ever been a time when middle-class weapons weren't in enough abundance to be obtained, but this is more-or-less guaranteeing that all battling Neopians can acquire the weapons they're looking for.
From what little I recall of my newbie days on Neo, Dark Battle Duck approached a peak in its price around two million before TNT downgraded it. Once I hit the middle-class battling bracket, we had DBD, Florbix Blaster, and one or two other things to choose from, going around 700K-800K (Ramtors Spellbook's current price, give or take). Brain Tree Mace was released at some point around that time, and was going for around 250K, as I recall. The gap was a much larger one than we see today, and will see in the foreseeable future, where the "gaps" come in between Scuzzys Comb/Ramtors Spellbook and Goo Blaster/Garoo Elite Blaster/whatever the other eleven-iconers are and Portable Kiln/Mask of Coltzan/Wand of Reality/Bow of Destiny.
And, as has been pointed out, Werelupe Claw Necklace is the only real "step" between the thirteen-iconers and Sword of Skardsen (though after getting to play with the latter in Two Player recently, I'm inclined to value the former over the Sword, not even considering the cost or icon difference). If TNT's working from the bottom-up, it's the next range we have to see "fixed."
Personally, I think it's mass overkill. Enchanted Wooden Bow, Spectral Forest Bow, Cloudy Wand of Storms, and Frozen Wand of Crystals are more than enough to fill the gap between the six-iconers and the NeoQuest II weapons. It's going to drive a very sharp difference between untrained and trained Pets.
i think it's great to have such a variety of 9-10 iconers at such a low price! it gives people more to choose from! with a more diverse selection of weapons, don't defensive straddegys have the potential to become, well.. if anything more dynamic!
the only people buying these cheaper weapons (ahem- ME) are neopians with relatively low leveled pets... even with these 9-10 iconers we still aren't doing massive amounts of damage. i just hit the 85 boost today!!! with a pff and a stone club i can do like 80+! its exciting!
meh, its like 1:30 goodnight!
I think that all these new weapons are good for bding as a whole, but at the moment is extremely bad for any battlers at the 10-11 icon level, like myself. My weapons used to be decent, but with all these new weapons people will be able to get a set that does as many icons as mine for under half the price. So I should upgrade, I hear you say, but what to? There are 11 iconers, the TCG weapons, but thats only a one icon increase and nothing too special. Apart from that there are two 13 iconers worth a mention, and then nothing really that good until the Werelupe Claw Necklace.
My point is, if they want to make this whole thing work, they need more weapon in the 13-15 icon range, so that current battlers at the 10-12 icon range have something to upgrade to immediately, otherwise we're just going to find that everyone is at pretty much the same stage with the same icon dealing weapons.