Unlocking New Phobies - Thoughts And Ideas From A Newer Player

(This whole post is a touch disorderly, so I’ve included a TL;DR at the bottom)

Hello there everyone! I’m a newer player when it comes to the game of Phobies, as I started during the middle of last week, and it’s safe to say that I’m having a fantastic time! The game really scratches that tactical nostalgia itch I had for an old mobile game called “Outwitters” that is no longer really available. And while I have been having a great time, I have quite a few thoughts swirling about my brain regarding the game. My main focus as far as the game goes is unlocking new Phobies one way or another. I can easily understand why the game is designed and monetized the way it is, don’t get me wrong, but from what I’ve come to understand, a varied pool of Phobies is very important to developing and dealing with various strategies, especially later on. There are many Phobies that I want, there are many that I think I need, but what I get is almost completely random, even including when I get said new Phobie. I think the current pack and currency systems are in a great spot, honestly. Coffee is earned at a pretty good rate for what is a “premium currency” in a game with microtransactions, I mean developers are often extremely stingy with said currency. You have a lot of options for packs, and which ones you pick both do and don’t matter, in a sense. To me, personally, it makes the most sense to simply buy the cheapest coffee and tears packs, since they realistically have about the same or even a higher chance to net me a new Phobie than the more expensive ones, and I could not care less about cards or XP. To me, XP and upgrade cards can be very powerful, but ultimately they do not matter in the context of a powerful strategy. I really care about getting new Phobies, not upgrading them. The problem, of course, is that I am looking to obtain very specific Phobies, like Finnigan, Barzilla, or Noxious, which is something I cannot do unless I am favored by luck. A majority of the Phobies I’m interested in getting are actually commons, with the strong exception of Mildred.

Now what exactly might be a good way to approach obtaining specific Phobies? Well, I have some suggestions! Firstly, I suggest contests/contest rewards. I noticed while scrolling through the log of Steam Updates for Phobies that there’s been a community contest or two, and I think that it would be a great way to not only encourage submissions for the contests, but also reward winners adequately, by allowing them to earn a Phobie of their choosing, with some limit, of course. This would be especially great since I see a lot of creative critters in this community who want to make their own Phobies (And I do too!), and that seems like it would make for a fantastic contest! Now for a broad approach to this idea, really, is the concept of something like… err… We’ll call them “Phobie Tokens” for now. Think of Phobie Tokens like a kind of ticket that you’d exchange for a prize. You earn a Bronze Phobie Token, and you can exchange it for any Common Phobie that you’ve discovered in a special little shop. Oh, you’ve gotten a nice and shiny Gold Phobie Token? Well that can be exchanged for a rare Phobie! Of course, you wouldn’t exactly hand these things out like candy (God forbid you want everyone and their mother running around with the very best Ultra Rare!), but I think they would make for a great reward for something like in-game events, challenges, maybe reaching a new ranked level for the first time in a season (Ex: Heebie Jeebies to Horrors nets you a Bronze one), etc. Perhaps you could get them for hitting certain Stress Levels or buying one for… hmmm… I’ll go ahead and say for Coffee. I don’t think every Phobie would cost one of said tier of Phobie Token, like maybe some would cost three, some would only cost one, that sort of thing, but I think it’s a neat idea if you’re really looking for specific Phobies over everything else. Tokens wouldn’t be super easy to get, as I’ve said, but they would be a blessing every now and then that’ll help you get that Stabby or AWOL that you’ve been opening packs to try and get for aaaaagessss.

TL;DR I suggest exploring avenues for allowing the player to unlock specific Phobies that they want through events, contests, and ranked progression.

Uh, just kind of an unhinged, not-so-formatted blurb of thoughts I streamed from my head. I’ve thought about this all a bit, but probably not quite enough. I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this all, especially the in-game events and community contests!

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True, it’s like the tenth time I say this,
The fact it’s so hard to unlock the useful phobies, or any new phobie really, is the most (and pretty much only) annoying aspect of the game.
Especially if you consider the huge amount of phobies this game has.

Basically absolutely no one has unlocked all of the phobies. I’m sure that if you tell this to every new player at least a third of them wouldn’t keep playing.

I don’t think that having rewards be capped daily would be much of a bother if I could pool said rewards into more guaranteeably getting a new Phobie, but it can instead be quite… Mmmm… Demoralizing? Frustrating? Disappointing? Something of the sort- when you purchase a pack earned from your hard work only to… Get nothing at all… I would be perfectly fine with having to pool my tears for a bit longer to be guaranteed a new Phobie of a lower rarity. The very vague “greater chance” and “higher chance of getting a new Phobie” notes on each pack (especially the tear ones, since you can’t read up on the drop rates of those online) leads me to just purchase Frightening packs about every day or so, since it’s the same amount of Scratch Cards as a more costly Scary pack, so it probably has pretty much the same chance of getting me a new Phobie anyways. Hell, it’s probably best to just buy Uneasy packs since you get one a day! Don’t get me wrong, this system is WAY better than just about every other mobile game with a “chest” or a “slot machine” or whatever system that you have to roll the dice on for a new unit, even if you aren’t guaranteed a new one every time, but that also doesn’t mean I don’t have some strong opinions on it. I think, at the very least, make it so that the coffee packs GUARANTEE a new Phobie every time until you open one until you own… We’ll go ahead and just say somewhere between 50 and 70, probably 50. That, and make the tear packs have a different number of Scratch Cards! You could probably keep Uneasy and Frightening the same at 1, but I’d appreciate it if Scary gave you 2, just to make it actually worth… Something…

That all said though… I don’t think any of what I’ve suggested in this message is really necessary if the developers go through something like what I suggested above with events and contests and such, which is significantly more fun and interactive than “Hey we boosted the chances more.”

I understand that there’s a lot of moving parts in the game, and obviously not everything works, not everything is a problem, but more Phobies for the people struggling to get them sounds pretty important.

Anyhow, I think I’m starting to dig too deep into this…

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Yep, what you’re concerning is pretty much the games biggest defect. The fact that new phobies are hard to get paired with the resource cap + a p2w system ruins a a certain charm you would otherwise get from the game…
Games like Clash Royale are p2w but at least it isn’t that hard in those games to unlock the characters you want.

I can’t completely say that the game is p2w, but for many, money can have a strong influence on winning or losing. Certainly I’d wager that the guy with tons of rare Phobies at high levels would probably win most of the time, but people tend to have higher level Phobies than me, but I can very much still win. Just this week I beat a guy with two URs and every unit past level 10 (I decided to cap mine at level 5 for the time being) because I played strategically over just using brute force and stronger characters to win. It’s possible, but I won’t deny that it’s tough.

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Yeah, but when it comes to two players with equal skill, the higher leveled should in theory always win :\

For sure. That’s why I honestly don’t think I’ll make it very far into Doomsday if I actually get there in my current state. I can beat good players who have little and bad players who have a lot, but I know for a fact that the higher ranks will just be genuinely good players, so it’ll be rough if I don’t have what I need.

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The tear cap is just not enough :frowning: