The problem I can see with super-ascension is that the "end goal" of idle gets even more vague. From the get-go idle never had a clear end goal. Rather than perhaps "max out all advancements" and "have all artifacts". And while I understand that enough players got close to "having done everything worth it", such that Fizzer was on the right track to come up with a new challenge for these players, I believe that super-ascension more or less got rid of anything to strive for.

"Max out all advancements" is not a stable state anymore as super-ascension can reset all.
"Having all artifacts" sort of still could be a desired state for some. But while I still have one artifact of each type (in whatever rarity seemed worth keeping) for the odd situation that some game update will (again) open up the way for other strategies beside market-and-merc-rush (still a pity that the game heavily leans towards a single viable play style) I can imagine that the majority of players will be happy to have and be able to keep a handful of artifacts on legendary or insane. Seriously, who needs Fog Buster? Or how much buff would it need to actually be usable.
And all the other super-ascension rewards are perfectly (and infinitely) stackable. So, yes, you can super-ascend until your longest digs are done in a minute, but even then, you could bring it down to seconds. So, when is idle defeated? (similar reasoning for the other rewards)

As I said, idle was never clear cut, but super-ascension seems pointless in the way that there is no rank to achieve, no (more) goal to unlock, no (new) medal/achievement to earn (other than having beaten the new levels at all, but that only requires a single super-ascension).

PS: This all boils down to the question, when should Fizzer add a new level of difficulty to idle? If you can't find any indication for when players are "done with idle" and need new features to not lose the interest, then at the same time, the players have nothing to strive for. And a single forum thread where everyone can show off their super-ascension count surely is fun but no replacement for new features that eventually HAVE TO COME in order to keep idle the money cow it is. Without new features at some point it becomes outdated in today's fast-paced world. Whether or not it has a loyal fan base.

Edited 6/7/2022 12:39:43

The new goal for idle is super-ascending for 69 times.

The goal for Idle has always been passing time for as long as it's fun.

Treat it like a game of solitaire. You're going to win in the end**, just a matter of how long it takes and whether it's still fun or not.

** = you can actually lose in Solitaire, you just tend not to once you get good at it

4th!

The goal for Idle has always been passing time for as long as it's fun.

News flash: WZC's only point is passing time as well. In fact - as long as you aren't a professional e-sports player - every game's sole purpose is make time pass (while ideally transferring enough money to the game's makers to create the next sink for your leisure time). And that's not inherently a bad thing.

Still, does super-ascending keep up with the "as long as it's fun"? Did the addition of the super-ascend feature extend the phase where playing is fun? And for how long? As I said in my previous statement, for idle existed a (rather) clear indication when players might not get anything more for their time, aka. at some point the only reason to collect more APs was to boost your mine productions. If someone got this far, it was clear that the game effectively was played to its maximum. Now, there is no such indication anymore (hence no real objective for players) and therefore I can totally understand if players don't see a reason to super-ascend (or super-ascend another dozen times). (Even some veteran players were unhappy to see the formerly permanent rewards being now temporary like so many things already were before. Therefore, you could argue that for some players the introduction of super-ascension alone reduced their fun-level.)

But I guess that's enough off-topic discussion from me in this thread.

Well fun will always be subjective.
And its always a hard thing to balance, especially since when given the chance players will ALWAYS OPTIMIZE THE FUN OUT OF GAMES. If the best and optimal way was terrible and unfun, people would do it and complain. Even though there would be other more fun ways of playing.

So its not easy. Personally, i think super asc ads to the game. The end game was artifacts, super asc gives a way of getting those faster. Theres a trade of though. No idle/game lasts forever. And pausing them for a while is always good. But seams to me (as a newer player, remember that please) that super asc was a success in that regard as it extended the life of the game.

Though in a way, it also sort of gave it a life span, after enough super asc and enough +ap% you will fly through the game in a way you couldn't before. And thats permament even if he ads to the game. he "cant" make a "mega asc" that deletes super asc rewards... thats awful. So what then? Harder levels for people with max on all 4 tiers? sounds like a better plan to me. But wtf do i know?

Maybe a separate mode like gemcraft series "ironman like". You play it but you dont either have artifacts or advancements. or both maybe. That should be fun (as long as it doesn't interfere with the normal idle).

Anyway this is off topic and im talking about things i have no experience with so, forget it.

I joked about 69 super-ascensions as a goal.

On the serious side, I view 134k starting AP as a clear ending goal. It's the point where you can't do anything more to improve because you can just super-ascend instantly as much as you want.

Oh wow o__o

@Math
That's only a "clear" goal in a theoretical manner. No one is ever going to achieve that under the current ruleset.

Assuming average earnings of 100 AP/hr of play (many levels are lower esp when you're weaker, some levels are higher), first SAsc takes 1340 hrs, second SAsc 1339 hrs, etc, and the last few take 3 hrs, 2 hrs, 1 hr, 0 hrs (when you finally achieve 134K starting AP).

Sum it all up across the whole journey of 1340 Super Ascensions, you 102.6 years = no one will ever achieve this. So it shouldn't be a goal.

However, if you focus on +25% AP earning, instead of inching towards a goal, you can leap towards it. The first SAsc takes the same duration (1340 hrs), but the 2nd only 1072, then 893, 766, etc. Do to the same 1340 SAsc's now only takes 3.7 yrs, at which point a single SAsc would take only 3.7 years, and a single SAsc takes only 4 hrs.

But if you only did 50 SAsc with +25% AP, you earn +1250% AP, and a single SAsc would take ~99 hrs. And if you really wanted to get 134K AP starting point, you could do another 1340 SAsc to earn that but only require an additional 5.6 yrs for total of 9.3 yrs. So while you this enables a quicker path to 134K start AP, this still doesn't actually achieve anything useful.

B/c 134K AP starting point isn't actually the goal, it's the mechanism to achieve the real goal. Which is probably something like getting 1 of every artifact type to Insane level - this is really the only "goal" that makes sense, b/c any other (reasonable) goal means you can accomplish it best just by not SAsc'ing. And while 134K start AP will then let you get 41 carryover slots for artifacts quite quickly, but it won't get you the 41 artifacts to Insane, and you still need more time to dig & upgrade. So Faster Digging is required to cut that time down. 134K start AP doesn't help with that other than letting you unlock Faster Digging Adv more quickly.

So the real goal is full set of 41 different artifacts to Insane with ability to carryover after a future SAsc, and the method to achieve it is (likely) a judicious blend of +25AP + 39x Additional Artifact Carryover Slots + 20% Faster Digging rewards. Not sure exactly how many of each SAsc rewards are required other than the Additional Artifact Carryover Slot which is obviously exactly 39 (first come free). And there's still a bit of randomness involved as getting each artifact type requires getting them from digs. But safe to say it'd still take a few years to execute all of this.

Maybe someone else could take a stab as some rough calculations at how to best optimally achieve it.

134k start ap does help with getting every insane as you can get infinite SAsc with 25% reduced dig time. At some point the dig time will be lower then the time it takes for you to get to the Adv. Tab.

Dig reduction is the most pointless of the 4 rewards imo. I made a roadmap and I would get all the artifacts that I care about to insane just getting the 2 "free" epic (WZIB + Hard CCC) + 1-2 "free" rare (WZIB) with close to no digging involved by the time I get all the +1 arti, +100 AP, and +25% AP that I want. The only digging involved is actually fishing for the artifacts that I want and getting it to rare but I'm saving those uncommon artifacts from CW for getting them to rare if needed.


Fizzer needs to buff the +100 AP reward since it's soul crushingly low but I doubt it would happen.

@krinid

Assuming average earnings of 100 AP/hr of play

here spent 8 days between second super-ascension (27th Dec) and third super-ascension (4th Jan)

That translates to around 700 AP/hr. here can probably do it a lot faster than that now with much better artifacts and more AP buff.

I'm already at 4 and at phase 4 of it.

I'm going to do my first superascend in ten days, when i will have my artifact insane (alloy value) and epic time warp.
I will finally see the color of insane.

Mathematician, i don't understand how you can collect 130 000AP in few days.

134k start ap does help with getting every insane as you can get infinite SAsc with 25% reduced dig time. At some point the dig time will be lower then the time it takes for you to get to the Adv. Tab.

Definitely possible. What I'm saying is that in the time it takes you to get 134K start AP, you could use another method to do all you plan to do with 134K AP start time about 5-10 times over. It's absolutely NOT a wise method to complete all your Idle dreams.

Mathematician, i don't understand how you can collect 130 000AP in few days.

It's definitely possible - but (I think) only once you've actually got a few key artifacts and/or powers that you can clear levels quickly to get back to Hex and finish it 5-6 times, Ascend, reclear another 5-6 times, etc. And you're probably playing Idle about 8-10 hrs/day for 2-3 days to accomplish this.

I will finally see the color of insane.

Welcome to the club! It's nicer from the outside. (; Or if you haven't done it yet, don't come in, you're better off where you are. LOL

Mathematician, i don't understand how you can collect 130 000AP in few days.

I'm not sure what you're asking about. Are you asking about how did here spend only 8 days between 2nd and 3rd super-ascension?

Ask here lol. Don't ask me.

Between 2nd and 3rd is perhaps a bit tight (unless you drop a lot of powers), but once you get to 6+ SAsc's if you're invested in +25% AP, I can definitely see passing through the next SAsc quickly. Especially if you pick artifacts like high level IM & TW on your 1st SAsc that will help you clear Hex more efficiently, and/or use TW/IM/SAC/FC powers to clear through levels.

Kind of like this:
- SASc
- Clear/Skip to Hard Ursa, get Superpowers
- Use all SLs you have to skip 10 levels
- Play whatever levels you're good at (have intel on, etc)
- Maybe target Hard Far Land, Hard Scand to get the bonus mobile buffs & 4th slot
- Clear EH to be able to Asc later
- As soon as you have another 5 SLs, SP SL to skip 10 levels, repeat until you're at Hex
- Clear Hex 5,6,7 times (do you calcs, as many times as you need to be able to SAsc with either 2 or 3 Asc's, whatever you fancy/whatever is optimal, depends on your +25% bonus counts)
- SAsc & repeat

The majority of your AP should come from Hex, and whatever other levels you like/are good at (HEH, HT, HC, etc), so it's a matter of how good you are at either clearing and/or skipping all other levels and getting back to those levels. If you're good at it & are putting lots of time into playing, you can SAsc again in <10 days. If not, strap in & take the slow route. (;

i have the insane artifact and see the color.
it is time of superdescend for me.

updated

hello i like this game