Puzzle & Dragons

[Necronopticous]

Is anyone else into this? I'm hopelessly addicted.

http://www.gunghoonline.com/games/puzzle-dragons/

Free(mium) on iOS & Android.

[guigui]

I'm currently forbidding myself from buying a newer phone than my Nokia 3310 (still works like a charm) or a tablet.
So I'm just waiting for 3DS release,


I never played the game but had a really good time with Puzzle Quest. Will I love this one ?

[scrilla4rella]

Me and my wife are super addicted. It is, and has been the #1 game in Japan. Btw, the creator of it seems like a humble and pretty cool dude despite being filthy-fucking rich. When asked at GDC why his game is so successful, he replied that there is no formula, and that him and his team just got lucky.

[BryanM]

People have been talking this one up lately for whatever reason. I'd like to try it; just, no PC version.

My only option appears to be downloading around ~500mb for the Android SDK to have a chance of playing the thing... and that's a lot of megablops.

[Necronopticous]

I never played the game but had a really good time with Puzzle Quest. Will I love this one ?

I think so. I also liked Puzzle Quest, but I find Puzzle & Dragons to be a much better game for many reasons. Primarily, though, is that the puzzle mechanic is truly unique (not just bejeweled) and requires actual dexterity and skill to play well. There is so much team-building and orb-matching strategy that goes into some of the later-game content, as opposed to Puzzle Quest which just sort of broke once you unlocked the most powerful skills since you just nuked the board and didn't even really have to play the puzzles anymore at all.

Me and my wife are super addicted. It is, and has been the #1 game in Japan. Btw, the creator of it seems like a humble is a pretty cool dude despite being filthy-fucking rich. When asked at GDC why his game is so successful, he replied that there is no formula, and that him and his team just got lucky.

Let's see your Pazudoramons.

[guigui]

Well, now you have me super excited about the game.
But december 2013 is far away, not to mention this is japan 3DS release...

[Ganelon]

When asked at GDC why his game is so successful, he replied that there is no formula, and that him and his team just got lucky.

Ahh, Japanese modesty. I'm very curious about this game's success and hope to try out the hinted US version of the 3DS release.

[BryanM]

I think the secret is in making a novel game that doesn't suck and then getting lucky. This is essentially a Pokemon MMO of a sort, no?

After all, you only have to be better than the competition.

[Necronopticous]

This is essentially a Pokemon MMO of a sort, no?

It is very Pokemon, but definitely not an MMO. There are some key online aspects (events & game state marshalled by server, borrowing pets from your friends) but it is mostly a single player experience. They're even lacking a trading mechanic, though I hear that will be present in the 3DS version.

[Pretas]

A Skinner box game by any name is still a Skinner box game.

[nZero]

So the version 7.0 client update with Puzzle & Dragons W is out for people playing the JP version.

The weird part for Android users: while they both launch from the same client app, P&D only needs Android 2.3 while P&DW requires Android 3.0+. To be fair, most people are going to be on newer phones/tablets running 4.0+, but it still seems strange to have different requirements for the two.

[BryanM]

So when are they going to release a desktop client for us PC peasants ;_;

[Vexorg]

I'm pretty well established on US these days (I have accounts on both my phone and my iPad and the iPad account has fared much better on the Rare Egg Machine, although I've recently started to get some good descend leads out of the REM on the phone such as Dark Metatron,) so I figure I'll wait for PADW to show up in US. GungHo also recently added the game to the Kindle app store, so they seem to be trying to expand to other platforms.

I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever get the 3DS version in the US though, although at this point I suspect the PAD community is more interested in the potential of getting the JP-only REM monsters from the PADZ collaboration or the arcade collaboration than they would be about the actual game...

[Blackbird]

Checked this out and the first video I saw was a guy complaining that gold eggs weren't falling out of a literal slot machine. He then microtransacted himself into more resources so that he could pull on the slot machine more times and get more "drops". Yeah, I'm not doing this again. Diablo II is a much better Skinner box if you must condition yourself into the developer's trained lapdog.

[Necronopticous]

I zero-stoned Gold Keeper for the first time today!

[SuperSoaker360]

Only recently getting into this game over the past month. Once I got past the simplicity of how the game worked and I started sinking my teeth into the depth involving teams, I started feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Any good starter tips on what I should basically focus on for now?

[Necronopticous]

Save every single magic stone you get and only spend any on box space whenever you start to feel cramped. When you are a much higher rank with a lot more knowledge about the game you'll be happy you didn't waste them prior, trust me on this.

Try to work your way through the normal dungeons until you unlock Dragons of the Tower within the Tower of Giants, then grind on that dungeon on the weekend when it is at 1/2 stamina cost. You can rank up like crazy.

Next goal is beating the Castle of Satan, which is also in the normal dungeons. This will unlock technical dungeons and allow you to do the pengdra cycle to level up your monsters quickly and make the most out of daily dragon dungeons.

Don't waste your stamina on collaboration or special dungeons until you're a higher rank with a team that can tackle the harder difficulties.

[Vexorg]

Since there seems to be some discussion going on here now, I'm curious what types of teams people are running these days. To a large extent your teams will depend a lot on what you happen to get out of the Rare Egg Machine, but here's roughly what I've got:

(Both accounts on US)

Main account: Rank 196, about 220 days played, moderate amount of IAP that mostly resulted in junk pulls from the REM)
https://www.padherder.com/user/Vexation/teams/#21786

Main farming team: Valkyrie lead, UEvo Echidna, UEvo Siren, Water Mech Warrior Midgard, King Shynee (Typically Valkyrie or Light Metatron friend leads, I've manaaged to beat some of the easier descends with this team)
Alternate healer team: Valkyrie lead, UEvo Echidna, UEvo Angelion, Fuu the Dancer in the Grasses, King Shynee, Midgard
Mono-red team: Freyr lead, Gigas, Flame Sprite Parrot, UEvo Echidna, Dark Flame Ifrit, typically a Red Odin or Ares friend lead

Developing leads: Dark Metatron, Karin, Amaterasu

Alt account: Rank 180, about 205 days played, some IAP but not much)
https://www.padherder.com/user/Vanity/teams/#33928

Main teams:
Mono-Red (row enhance): UEvo Ares or Red Odin lead, UEvo Echidna, Gigas, Red Sonia, Red Odin or Ares depending on which one isn't currently the lead (Usually Freyr, Ares or Red Odin friend leads, I beat Trifruit with this team last week)
Devil team: Red Sonia lead, Awoken Hera-Ur, King Baddie, Jester Dragon Drawn Joker (need a better replacement still), Dark Archdemon Lucifer (Red Sonia or Lu Bu friend lead, I have beaten Hera-Ur, Hera-Sowilo, Two Heroes and Takeminkata with this team as it currently stands)

Developing leads: Da Qiao & Xiao Qiao, Blue Sonia, Leilan, Light Metatron

When it comes down to it, probably the most useful thing I've done with a lot of these is to max skill some of my leads and my main orb changers. Max skilled Echidna has gotten me out of a number of jams, and 5-turn heartbreakers like Valkyrie, Gigas and Vampire are a big help too if you can get them skilled up. Skill boost awakenings are big too, especially when you start getting into stuff like Twinlit, Trifruit and descends.

[Necronopticous]

Main farming team:



Wednesday Legend:



Dual Delay Kirin:



Pandora (In Progress):

[Necronopticous]

I'm still hooked on this. Somebody talk to me about it.

[Vexorg]

Still playing this quite actively. On my main account, I've mostly switched over to using a Green Zhuge Liang team (very powerful, but also very finicky with the sub 80% requirement to activate his leader skill), although I also have a well developed Dark Metatron I haven't done a whole lot with. I've also got Pandora and Andromeda teams I could develop, but have not yet done much with those yet. I also rolled a couple of Kirins not too long ago, but I'm terrible with combo leads.

On my alt account, I'm just 3 +HP eggs and 3 skill levels short of maxing out my Red Sonia, and still use that as my main lead there (currently with a team of Awoken Hera-Ur, Divine Flying General Lu Bu, Dark\Fire Lucifer and a slot that I usually run Red Odin in, but switch around as needed.) I also recently rolled a GZL on that account, but need to develop it more, and have had a DqXq lead I haven't done much with. I'm also still working on developing a Light Metatron team, and I think I've got some good pieces for one of those but don't use it much.

Also, if you're looking for an active board for this, try http://www.puzzleanddragonsforum.com. I post over there (as Vexatious) fairly regularly, and I've been working on the team buillding guide for GZL.

[Strikers1945guy]

First time hearing about this game! Looks cool downloading right now. How long does it take to really get into it?

[Vexorg]

You should be able to understand the basics pretty quickly, but it will probably take you a while to develop proper teams. I've been playing for nearly a year with occasional stone purchases, but I'm just barely getting to the point where I can start doing some of the mythical descends. One thing to keep in mind is that what you get out of the Rare Egg Machine after the tutorial won't necessarily be all that useful (find a guide on starting rolls to get some ideas of what's good) so if you get something that isn't all that useful you might want to reset and try again. They're fairly generous with giving away magic stones (the "currency" used for things like rolling the REM, increasing box/friend space and refreshing stamina) but they tend to accumulate slowly if you aren't buying them. Fortunately they recently changed the game so you generate stamina twice as fast (1 point every 5 minutes, it used to be 10) so using stones for stamina really isn't necessary unless you're trying to do something like farm a time-limited dungeon.

Also, if you understand Japanese you might be better off playing on the Japanese version, as things tend to get updated much more quickly there, and the content is generally about a month ahead of the US version.

Also, http://puzzledragonx.com is your friend.

[Necronopticous]

Yeah, I post on puzzleanddragonsforum as Pixelblip, but I lurk a lot more than I post.

I recently rolled GZL, and I have most of the subs people typically run with him (Sasuke, Bard Robin, Kushinadahime, etc) but I've currently been focusing all of my energy into my red team with the new Minerva and Hinokagutsuchi evos which, in my opinion, are so good they are borderline broken.

When I last posted, I mentioned my Pandora team which I was working on at the time, and shortly after that I ended up enjoying her play style so much that I invested fully into dark and made some absolutely killer teams with her (can clear a good deal of Mythical-level descends with ease). She is definitely my favorite card/leader, and certainly the card I'm most eager to see an ultimate evolution for.

I have 3 cards at +297 now: In chronological order, Light Valkyrie, Echidna, and Red Sonia. My Dark Metatron is almost there at +210, and I'm thinking of doing Pandora, Hanzo, or Hinokagutsuchi next.

My friend ID is 362 268 225. Add me!

[Aisha]

I've gotten into this over the past few months. I was looking for something that I could distract myself with for a few minutes here and there, and this game does the job quite nicely.

My only working team right now has Marvelous Red Sonia as the leader, and D/D Haku, D/D Loki, D/F Hadar, and King Baddie for subs. My goal is to eventually replace Hadar and King Baddie with the D/F Lucifer and Lu Bu cards I have waiting on the sidelines, but my rank is currently too low to allow it. At that point I'll probably put Lu Bu in the leader slot and use Sonia as a sub.

Red Sonia doesn't require a lot of thought or strategy compared to other leaders, so in the future I'd like to build a team around a color- or combo-conditional leader; perhaps Umisachi&Yamasachi. I wish it were easier to work on multiple teams at the same time without spending stones.

[Cagar]

Alright well...
Long time ago, because of this thread I downloaded the game.
I played it a little, got through maybe 30 (?) dungeons until it got weirdly unbalanced and I feel like I'm missing something.

The enemies 1-hit KO me no matter what, so health is not even a statistic anymore. Is this normal?
And If the dungeon is water-based, why should I be using anything other than leaf-type monsters?
What monsters should I start evolving and why?
I'm just so damn lost that I pretty much lost interest quickly, but I'm trying to get back to this again so please help.
Should I just randomly start evolving my strongest characters based on gut feeling? Is leaning to wikis in this regard a MUST if I want to become a professional player like you guys?

Also I'm too scared to fuse much monsters because there are so little of them. :C

At least DonPaccin had shmup-gameplay!

[Necronopticous]

I definitely recommend reading some new player threads/FAQs on puzzleanddragonsforum such as:

http://puzzleanddragonsforum.com/showth ... p?tid=8279

Tons of good information. Also, puzzledragonx is an almost necessary companion to the game if you're at all serious about the game:

http://www.puzzledragonx.com/

In general, you want to focus on ranking up and building some sort of spike team (meaning leader & friend leader with multiplicative damage increase for some type of subs, and a full party of that type of subs). Spend every single magic stone you get on box space until you don't feel limited, then save all of the rest of them for rolling the REM during Godfests, or stoning through descendeds of monsters that add value to your team.

You're most certainly going to hit difficulty walls and go back to the drawing board/farming to overcome them, but building up and executing the right team to knock those walls down are the meat & potatoes of the game, and a whole lot of fun once you know what you're doing.

[Vexorg]

I rolled a Hino Kagutsuchi at one point, but never really figured out what to do with him (this was back when he was still useless for anything but blasting through low level dungeons.) The UEvo form looks pretty strong, but I don't think I have a team that can take on the Izanami descend for the evo materials at this point.

Really at this point I've got plenty of options for teams I could build, but right now the GZL seems like the best choice for what I'm doing. He definitely has his limits though (although a max skilled Kushinada seems to help get past a lot of that.)

[guigui]

Hum, any chance of a 3DS western release of the game ?

[CptRansom]

This is pretty much all I play anymore because work + girlfriend (and she plays too). I'll be at 200 days tomorrow. More IAP than I care to admit (though considering I don't play/buy other games anymore, it's somewhat justified), but here are my teams as well as a list of every descend I've 0-stoned, and you can check my box as well.

If you're on NA and you want to add me, my ID is 375,023,300.