island-digger
Greetings digger of islands & fellow diggers everywhere. Wanted to reply to this post yesterday...had a bit of time, but by the time I'd got it all straight in my mind the time was gone 😲. Firstly, addressing the issue of making materials from higher regions available in the events. On the face of it, it would seem that it would be quite easy for Pixel to put materials from (for example) the next region (let's not get greedy!) just in the most expensive challenge level....even if they had to make it more "challenging" by increasing the overall clearance cost. Players that wanted to could clear this level & obtain these rewards - players that didn't want to could just leave it alone. Everybody happy, right?
Not so! It is the lack of these materials at the start of a new region that dictates how quickly the player is able to buy new region equipment, particularly with post China regions. For example, when I arrived in Atlantis in September 2020, most of the equipment was "available" in the sense that I had reached the required level to unlock it. Money wasn't an issue (as it was with lower regions) & if I'd been able to squirrel away a reasonable amount of Atlantean materials as I progressed through China then it would be party central....buying literally dozens of new region materials the second I got there 🤩🎉🤑. As it was, even though I got lucky with Red Rings week very early on plus all the materials from buying Christmas 2017 the same day I got there (this gave me a double boost almost immediately, plus I knew I'd have time to open up the repeatables before postcard week), it still took a while to refurbish my camp with the new Atlantean equipment. That being said I had all of it long before I finished Gaia's quest line. So, apart from the 10 pieces of Atlantean equipment that become available by collecting the relevant locks of hair, no new equipment available until Greece, apart from events, obviously.
The problem seems to be with the setting of the levels for unlocking new equipment. There seems to be a "drift" which just gets worse the higher the region you're in. I have a chart...
region & level range to unlock new equipment
Egypt levels 1-100
Scandinavia levels 51-159
China levels 104-219
Atlantis levels 156-279
Greece levels 201-339
New World levels 251-390
Terra (in progress) levels 300-380
I am currently about 42% of the way through Atlantis & at level 388 (and a half!); a diligent daily player who always tries to max out the camp & has never spent real world money. Honestly, I feel like sending out an Orichalcum caravan so I can jump to level 390 when every item of equipment in the game is theoretically unlocked (apart from the "specials" such as hair locks etc), even though most remain "locked" by being in higher regions. When I do eventually get to Greece, it will only be the lack of materials that prevent me from buying everything straight away! But still, right now I'm not even half way through the overall game.
Anyway, my point is that these level settings of when a player is expected by Pixel to get to a certain region are way, way off. Maybe a relatively small amount of players that have bought all the real world money deals....maybe in future, some shrewd players that take advantage of the good equipment in the 100 gem games & sometimes bought a few extra gems with cash to facilitate this strategy....I really don't know.
This imbalance will only get more obvious with each added region over time & is at the heart of the problem. It becomes impossible to balance this out to make it fair for both players that spend real world money & players that don't. Clearly, the former group do more to support Pixel & help them to grow & keep adding to the game, but I feel the latter group make up the much greater majority of players (& we all watch the ads 😉). It is for this/these reasons that we will never get significant amounts of "higher region" materials. Also, significantly increasing the power of event equipment would undermine & undervalue the regular shop equipment, so that can't happen either 😶.
The only way to solve the weak equipment problem is to somehow increase the value of all existing equipment.....a total redo of all equipment values. I remember this was done in a small way a couple of years ago so it is possible to tweak existing values at their end. Once that was done they could improve the event equipment, even adding one mega piece that costs all of the special collectable items & maybe requires the player to fully clear out the event in order to obtain it? No easy answers, but something has to change at the heart of Diggy to make the middle & higher regions more playable & for players to feel they are actually making worthwhile progress. This is all just my take on things.....not everyone will agree. Maybe I'll just start again in Egypt with the 100 gem games & extra doubles available on certain bonuses 😛. I did run two accounts for about a year (one on now defunct tablet) & it was exhausting....just like this post 😵. Happy digging all!
