it is definitely a chore to get several early upgrades so that you can actually run a reset in an hour of near constant crystal number 2 to great profit. It's balanced IMO to encourage people to pay for the X2 crystals and X3 all factions buffs, if you pay for those two you have like 1/6th the effort to reset.

I recommend getting a couple demon upgrades like crystal power, then a couple souls power undead contracts, and then running a run with Ark of the Drowned to get a Chest reset. It took me WAY too long to do a reset with Drowners, and the balance is definitely set up with the expectation you'll have X10-100 mana production from Drowners contracts. They really should unify the reset tutorial tips, and mention the chest in the junkyard with the other two.

Honestly, once you get some Drowner contracts, it's not too hard to get to the point that you can grind, but it takes awhile to get those contracts for sure.

Edit: Be aware, the multipliers from crystals 2 and 3 increase crystal 1. I used a bunch of crystal 1, not realizing it would have given me e.g. 4X as much to use crystal 2 early game, to use 2 and then 1 instead of 3 1s.

Originally posted by Clawdius:

it is definitely a chore to get several early upgrades so that you can actually run a reset in an hour of near constant crystal number 2 to great profit. It's balanced IMO to encourage people to pay for the X2 crystals and X3 all factions buffs, if you pay for those two you have like 1/6th the effort to reset.

I recommend getting a couple demon upgrades like crystal power, then a couple souls power undead contracts, and then running a run with Ark of the Drowned to get a Chest reset. It took me WAY too long to do a reset with Drowners, and the balance is definitely set up with the expectation you'll have X10-100 mana production from Drowners contracts. They really should unify the reset tutorial tips, and mention the chest in the junkyard with the other two.

Honestly, once you get some Drowner contracts, it's not too hard to get to the point that you can grind, but it takes awhile to get those contracts for sure.

Edit: Be aware, the multipliers from crystals 2 and 3 increase crystal 1. I used a bunch of crystal 1, not realizing it would have given me e.g. 4X as much to use crystal 2 early game, to use 2 and then 1 instead of 3 1s.

This is possibly the single worst advice I've EVER seen.

Firstly, in early game, you should ONLY be using Boiler A. The waste is more helpful than the nearly insignificant prestige.
Secondly, you should NOT be touching Undead contracts until you've gotten to the second letter break (the Hall of Fame) with everything other than A maxxed.
Thirdly, the chest is NOT something that early game should even be thinking about, hence why it's not shown. Magic Powder is mid-game, and like any other idle game, mid-game takes a while to get to.

This is honestly one of the faster idle games, if you play it right, and not like Clawdius.

Intriguingly I never say the word boiler or imply that you need to maximize demon prestige at all, so I'm not sure WTF that guy is smoking. I didn't even suggest any numbers for the demon contracts (I personally hit a wall where grinding lost any appeal it held.)

He must have read crystal number two as boiler number two, and his incoherent rage necessitated an immediate response to the besmirchment of the honor of this prestigious free to play idle game.

But I'm sure his "This game is one of the fastest idlers git gud nubs" was well meant.

Originally posted by Clawdius:

Intriguingly I never say the word boiler or imply that you need to maximize demon prestige at all, so I'm not sure WTF that guy is smoking. I didn't even suggest any numbers for the demon contracts (I personally hit a wall where grinding lost any appeal it held.)

He must have read crystal number two as boiler number two, and his incoherent rage necessitated an immediate response to the besmirchment of the honor of this prestigious free to play idle game.

But I'm sure his "This game is one of the fastest idlers git gud nubs" was well meant.

I love how you ran into the point and still missed it.
The entire PROBLEM with what you said is that you should be getting everything in the Demon contracts (almost) up to Hall of Fame before you even worry about crystal 2 or Drowners.

And don't misquote me. This is not one of the fastest idle games. This is one of the faster idle games. Massive difference. And I never told you to 'git gud', nor did I call you a "nub" (mainly cause I don't know or care what that is).
I said you had terrible advice because, let's be honest, you do.

Look, I said that I experienced a specific problem, namely that I ground out Mushroom Farm before I got 1-2 levels of Drowner contract A. This was a mistake, and after you've ground out a few undead contracts it would be easily possible to get the drowners prestige required for 10-100X the productivity of Leviathans, and ease waste requirements for progression.

I don't know how to say it any clearer than that, because at no point did I offer any specific contract recommendations.

You came in, read crystal as boiler, and had a tantrum.

I personally ran into a specific issue, and passed that information along to another player without any additional attached advice (perhaps I could have been a little more clear in what I said.) A sort of "If you, too, feel like this game is built to make you give the developer money to progress then maybe you're experiencing the same barrier to progress I was!"

You on the other hand are advising people to not use crystal 2, which it seems like you may still be confusing with boiler 2.

The fact that Crystal 2 multiplies the output of Crystal 1 is also something that drastically affects balance, if you get 12X the productivity of Crystal 1 while Crystal 2 is active you get 5000 energy worth of resources from 1500 energy, and if you can't see how not having that knowledge makes the balance of progression speed tilted there's no hope for you.

Originally posted by Clawdius:

Look, I said that I experienced a specific problem, namely that I ground out Mushroom Farm before I got 1-2 levels of Drowner contract A. This was a mistake, and after you've ground out a few undead contracts it would be easily possible to get the drowners prestige required for 10-100X the productivity of Leviathans, and ease waste requirements for progression.

I don't know how to say it any clearer than that, because at no point did I offer any specific contract recommendations.

You came in, read crystal as boiler, and had a tantrum.

I personally ran into a specific issue, and passed that information along to another player without any additional attached advice (perhaps I could have been a little more clear in what I said.) A sort of "If you, too, feel like this game is built to make you give the developer money to progress then maybe you're experiencing the same barrier to progress I was!"

You on the other hand are advising people to not use crystal 2, which it seems like you may still be confusing with boiler 2.

The fact that Crystal 2 multiplies the output of Crystal 1 is also something that drastically affects balance, if you get 12X the productivity of Crystal 1 while Crystal 2 is active you get 5000 energy worth of resources from 1500 energy, and if you can't see how not having that knowledge makes the balance of progression speed tilted there's no hope for you.

I did not read Crystal as Boiler, nor did I have a tantrum.

They are complaining about early game, and you're giving mid-game advice, AT BEST; and even then, from what I've seen, it's STILL bad advice.

When did I say not to use Crystal 2? I said to worry about it BEFORE getting most of the demon contracts, aka, you don't need to upgrade it in early game. Save that for when you're stably running through Undead runs.
Just use it, as normal, to boost your production. If there's any crystal you should be avoiding in early game, it's 3, because it's genuinely useless, until you have most of the Undead contracts, which is, again, not early game.
And again, I never said not to hit Crystal 2 then 1. You're trying to misquote me in order to make me look bad, but the problem with that is that we're TYPING, so I can READ my own REPLIES, and so can everyone else. Before you start the personal attacks and the misquoting, how about you read what I actually said and not just what you wanna hear?

Nope. Actually this game is perfectly balanced, you just need to find right spot.
Oh, the feeling when I was able to chain Obelisk resets without doing Boiler reset in the middle. Or the fun when you will get enough waste to skip Swamp Ritual and take Unholy Alliance ...

P.S. Mushroom farm is a trap, don't use it until you get Underad contract that give you spoiled mushrooms on restart.

Originally posted by Howru:

Nope. Actually this game is perfectly balanced, you just need to find right spot.
Oh, the feeling when I was able to chain Obelisk resets without doing Boiler reset in the middle. Or the fun when you will get enough waste to skip Swamp Ritual and take Unholy Alliance ...

P.S. Mushroom farm is a trap, don't use it until you get Underad contract that give you spoiled mushrooms on restart.

The game is most certainly not balanced

I'm 12,000 hours in... the game is most definitely poorly balanced.

Originally posted by s20mike:

I'm 12,000 hours in... the game is most definitely poorly balanced.

One of your reviews is Huniepop, calling it the "best game on steam"...I don't think you get a merit in this conversation, I'm gonna be honest with you, chief.

Originally posted by DeaderSurvival:

Originally posted by s20mike:

I'm 12,000 hours in... the game is most definitely poorly balanced.

One of your reviews is Huniepop, calling it the "best game on steam"...I don't think you get a merit in this conversation, I'm gonna be honest with you, chief.

Any Huniepop enjoyer is a valid person

Originally posted by DeaderSurvival:

Originally posted by s20mike:

I'm 12,000 hours in... the game is most definitely poorly balanced.

One of your reviews is Huniepop, calling it the "best game on steam"...I don't think you get a merit in this conversation, I'm gonna be honest with you, chief.

I've never, in all my years of being on Steam, felt the need to go creeping through someones player profile to find some tenuous excuse to attack their opinion... The fact that you have done exactly that tells me, and probably most casual observers, everything we need to know about your "merits" in this conversation.

Originally posted by s20mike:

Originally posted by DeaderSurvival:

One of your reviews is Huniepop, calling it the "best game on steam"...I don't think you get a merit in this conversation, I'm gonna be honest with you, chief.

I've never, in all my years of being on Steam, felt the need to go creeping through someones player profile to find some tenuous excuse to attack their opinion... The fact that you have done exactly that tells me, and probably most casual observers, everything we need to know about your "merits" in this conversation.

And I've never, in all my years of being on Steam, take people on the internet seriously without at least doing a cursory check of who they are and what they know. I didn't "creep" though your profile. I looked to see what games you've played because your opinion is just weird at the best, and downright wrong at the worst, and I wanted to see what games you had experienced.
Imagine getting upset that people are doing the equivalent of looking up your Twitter to see what your interests are.

If it shows anything about my merits, it shows that mine isn't based on taking other people at face value.
Later bud. Next time, don't get upset when people try to check what you know.

Originally posted by DeaderSurvival:

Originally posted by s20mike:

I've never, in all my years of being on Steam, felt the need to go creeping through someones player profile to find some tenuous excuse to attack their opinion... The fact that you have done exactly that tells me, and probably most casual observers, everything we need to know about your "merits" in this conversation.

And I've never, in all my years of being on Steam, take people on the internet seriously without at least doing a cursory check of who they are and what they know. I didn't "creep" though your profile. I looked to see what games you've played because your opinion is just weird at the best, and downright wrong at the worst, and I wanted to see what games you had experienced.
Imagine getting upset that people are doing the equivalent of looking up your Twitter to see what your interests are.

If it shows anything about my merits, it shows that mine isn't based on taking other people at face value.
Later bud. Next time, don't get upset when people try to check what you know.

That last line is interesting. Your response comes off as aggressive, even if that is unintentional. That aside, your standard of "creeping" seems to be particularly different to ours (the guy you replied to). For me, going into someone's game library and subjectively picking out games that "invalidate" their opinion is, well.....creeping. Also, the amount of hours some random spends on what is essentially a porn game is realistically non-impactful to their experience with incremental games. But you don't care about that. Rather than look at the numerous hours that person has spent on other incremental games, which entirely validates their response, you specifically cherry pick a single game that is, at most, irrelevant.

Why? Do you specifically go out of your way to get mad when someone disagrees with you? You aren't very good at hiding whatever intent you had when responding to this person. CLEARLY you disagreed but couldn't make any other valid critique other than "You play porn games". "If it shows anything about my merits, it shows that mine isn't based on taking other people at face value." is simply untrue, as you have shown that you took their opinion at face value, got mad, and then checked their entire profile to find any source of what you think is relevant evidence. This weird arguement of "muh, credentials" when this post was made publicly is shameful. I hope in the future you don't try to "invalidate" someone by using their game history, as it shows that you yourself are invalid.

Originally posted by Cosmic Disdain:

Originally posted by DeaderSurvival:

And I've never, in all my years of being on Steam, take people on the internet seriously without at least doing a cursory check of who they are and what they know. I didn't "creep" though your profile. I looked to see what games you've played because your opinion is just weird at the best, and downright wrong at the worst, and I wanted to see what games you had experienced.
Imagine getting upset that people are doing the equivalent of looking up your Twitter to see what your interests are.

If it shows anything about my merits, it shows that mine isn't based on taking other people at face value.
Later bud. Next time, don't get upset when people try to check what you know.

That last line is interesting. Your response comes off as aggressive, even if that is unintentional. That aside, your standard of "creeping" seems to be particularly different to ours (the guy you replied to). For me, going into someone's game library and subjectively picking out games that "invalidate" their opinion is, well.....creeping. Also, the amount of hours some random spends on what is essentially a p**n game is realistically non-impactful to their experience with incremental games. But you don't care about that. Rather than look at the numerous hours that person has spent on other incremental games, which entirely validates their response, you specifically cherry pick a single game that is, at most, irrelevant.

Why? Do you specifically go out of your way to get mad when someone disagrees with you? You aren't very good at hiding whatever intent you had when responding to this person. CLEARLY you disagreed but couldn't make any other valid critique other than "You play p**n games". "If it shows anything about my merits, it shows that mine isn't based on taking other people at face value." is simply untrue, as you have shown that you took their opinion at face value, got mad, and then checked their entire profile to find any source of what you think is relevant evidence. This weird arguement of "muh, credentials" when this post was made publicly is shameful. I hope in the future you don't try to "invalidate" someone by using their game history, as it shows that you yourself are invalid.

Sarcastic bluntness was the intent but that's admittedly difficult to get across in text. Considering their game library is private, and I wouldn't have gone there anyway as that doesn't tell me anything, so, the rest of the rest of that paragraph has lost any form of basis and therefore blatantly isn't correct.

I should be the one asking Mike that question, considering I'm not the one that's mad and you just seem confused. The critique isn't adult games. I'm an ace and I have those, and they were fun back when I played them. Let's be honest, just because a game has adult content doesn't mean that anything other than the graphics have changed. There's adult content mods for literally everything and it doesn't impact gameplay. And that doesn't change as you add more adult content. It's like the anime girl/character mods for most games; unless it's specifically coded to change something (which most cosmetic mods are going to keep to the cosmetics), they don't change anything. Left4Dead 2 is the same whether you're playing as the base survivors, or you're a degenerate like me, and have turned all 8 survivors into various Danganronpa characters. It's almost like your graphics and theme don't change the gameplay, and it's the gameplay that decides literally everything else about your game.
It's the contradiction of Huniepop, well known for only being competent BECAUSE of it's adult content, and having mediocre or awful everything else, being praised as "the best game on steam" when it's not even close to the top in the adult category alone, or the few hundred other categories and genres that exist on the platform by the same person who's trying to accuse an idle game of being improperly balanced, even though most idle games are designed to take a long time, because they are IDLE games. If you can beat an idle game in an hour or without rebirthing (or whatever soft reset there is), then you don't want an idle game, you want a movie.

I clearly didn't take them at face value, considering I checked them. These are two direct opposing ideas. If you take someone at face value, you aren't going to question or looking into them. If you are questioning or looking into them, you are not taking them at face value.

And you're right, y'all two not understanding the difference between "creeping" and the internet equivalent of asking for someone's college degree is shameful. I hope that in the future, you don't try to "invalidate" someone who's doing literally the minimum cursory check on someone, as it shows that you are the one that needs to get better at basic research and slightly advanced human interaction. I have nothing against you, but for the next time, I suggest you stop making assumptions and actually start looking for evidence, especially if you're going to make accusations.

Edit: I'd love to check how many hours they have in idle games, or (more usefully) check what idle games they've played, but until they either show their game list or actually review an idle game, I have to settle for the fact that their tastes in game are in direct opposition to the only category/genre community I know of, meaning that their tastes are probably different here as well.
As well as pointing out that, regardless of game genre, they're known for speaking in hyperbole, so they probably aren't entirely speaking the truth. And yes, hyperbole doesn't mean they're lying, but it does mean that their actual opinion is a little watered down compared to what they actually typed, which is a good thing to be aware of.