Aquamentis12

Ah, I didn't know he was a former Art Director for Neopets! That's cool!

While I haven't signed up quite yet, as usual, I plan on supporting Maraqua! So, who's joining up with Maraqua?! Any thoughts on the team members? We've seen a couple of newbies replace players from Mystery Island and Faerieland, are there Maraqua team members you'd like to see traded/replaced? Share your victories, foibles and close calls or weird happenings during your games! What are your goals, (pardon the pun), for this year's AC? Most importantly.... Let's have fun!!

Cool vandagyre player! Good luck to Faerieland! JellySundae, that guy had some cool art, thanks for posting his link!

Interesting, I wonder what she'll bring to her team? Good luck to Mystery Island. They usually put up a good competition!

Definitely would prefer The Sway wins, but I'm still considering which faction I'm gonna join. As much as I like a good battle, I really don't like the boons that the Brutes were given by TNT. Just, not too much that's very useful except in certain circumstances or conditions. Edit: Went with The Sway, just because I'd prefer their boons.

Just joined The Awakened and added my vote to the count. And I'm NOT talking about Count Von Roo.

Oxbridge786 Has a decent number, 50% chance, of The Sway winning, so I'll probably go with them as well.

Thanks Duma! I was pretty sure it was from The Art of War, so I'm glad you can (kind of) confirm it! I didn't know it was an audio book too. LOL But yeah, let's fight hard and win this time! Depending on the poll here, I tend to spread my attacks out based upon the 2nd and 3rd placer factions according to the poll, or if there is minimal or the same votes for both the other factions that I didn't join, then I'll go by who I would think would be the greatest faction "threat" and target the boss of that faction for attack. If it's like a tie in the polls or close, then I split my attacks. Usually 1 battle for every 2 battles against the primary faction I'm targeting. So, for this skirmish for example... If I battled The Awakened 20 times, then I'd do 10 against the Thieves, and keep going with that ratio. Just to hedge my bets a bit in case there are more thieves this time than Awakened. I think the Awakened would be the Seekers' top competition because of the chance of randomized boons, vs the Thieves who have some decent boons, but not quite as good, imho as The Seekers or the random chance of boons that the Awakened has.

Yes, it certainly does! lol It's too bad though, it's not good for those players who are not connected to these possibly giant Obelisk guilds though. Well, right now all we can do is vote and fight fight fight! XD

It could even be that the guild that Mario has the contact in, might not know until even closer to the sign-up deadline than he finds out. What was that saying.... 'To deceive your enemies it is sometimes necessary to deceive your friends/allies.' I THINK that's from Sun Tsu's, "The Art of War". I've never actually read it, but I've seen quotes from it in other games I've played where war and diplomatic strategies were heavily involved. I've signed up with The Seekers now too. I prefer the boon selection they have, tbh. I too am getting tired of the factions I join not winning. I don't know if I agree with you entirely on the significance of the boons now. If that alone were the case, then would not the Seekers, Sway, and Awakened, probably be the only 3 that would be most likely to win each time? But the Brutes have won several times very recently, The Order and Thieves too, even though they were up against the Seekers, Sway and/or Awakened. This feels more, coordinated than that. I mean, the Seekers haven't won for 14 rounds now according to Oxbridge's petpage. For a faction with a decent boon selection that seems like an unusually long dry spell. The guild, or guilds that might be coordinating this could be really big, especially if it's more than one. That way, they could theoretically game the system and if anyone else happens to be fighting for the same faction as they are, they would win out of luck, not so much out of their own contributions. Again theoretically speaking, they may even rotate victories if the leaders are more part of a council across guilds. So one round, perhaps x-number of guilds choose one faction, while a guild leader among the other guild leader collective tells his/her guild the wrong faction, so that the wrong info gets out, and the leader can just chalk it up to dumb luck that the faction the other guilds under the council win easily. NOTE: This is ALL SPECULATION. But if you think about how much some people like to play other people or skirt the rules in online games. Really, just about anything SEEMS possible. I go by Oxbridge and the vote trend here before I usually make my call on a faction. There might be some threads on the Neopets forums about factions, but I can't imagine anyone from these Obelisk-busting guild(s) would be on there telling people who to go with, unless deception was part of the game. But by keeping things secret, they ensure their guild members will get whatever boon set is up that round. Or perhaps they will choose a faction to help members get the faction avatars and site-themes like we've done here for other TDNers? Just too many unknown variables and facts here so far.

I'm holding my vote for now. But according to Oxbridge, the Seekers are due for a win. They give the Seekers a 61% chance of winning this round, as it's been 14 round since they last won a skirmish. So I am leaning that way, but I don't usually decide until the last minute. lol

Thank you! I've just recently started working on a new project, should take me close to a year, given past projects similar in scale. Plus it's a personal project, so I'm soloing it, as usual. lol It's a great way to learn though, and challenge myself to think, try, and hopefully discover new things I haven't thought of, or done, before.

Duma's post is an awesome place to start out if you're not familiar with how to prep and battle. And Gypsyknees has some great tips! Jaydeed has a good point too. If you are looking for certain prizes, like stamps or books, etc. TDN's pages on the 1p challengers has prize data too! And boy did it take a long time to collect! lol If you post your battle pet stats, and available equipment if you have some already, people can also help you out with different builds (ways to train your pet) for a style that works for you. Just don't go into battle with nothing equipped! LOL When I first joined Neopets, many years ago, I figured there would be a default action to attack without any equipment. there wasn't. lol This was in the old battledome of course, but still, go in with something, even against Punchbag Bob, or you'll have to withdraw, which will count as a loss. That was my experience anyway. lol As for opponents. Before the prices dropped so much, I liked to battle the Jelly Chia. He drops some stamps and a book. Jelly Pop Stamp, Jelly World Stamp, and Jelly Mysteries which is a book. Made some nice NP on the stamps back when I was trying to figure out all of Jelly Chia's prizes. Not sure what they sell for now, but the last time i checked they were both still very much under 100k np on the shop wiz. Different domes lend to different prize types too. If you take place in the Obelisk Skirmishes, those are all in the Ugga Ugga Dome. The prizes as I recall from there are so common in the user market because of this. There might be a few decent rare prizes there. I usually battle some other opponent in a different dome before I do the battles for the skirmishes. Rattling Cauldron Dome, basically the Haunted Woods Arena, you'll get lots of spooky foods. A lot of which is not as valuable as it once was because they are common prizes in that arena now. Neopia Central Dome has a lot of regular food items. If you're lucky you might get Chocolate Ice Cream, worth about 40k the last time I won any. lol Again each opponent also has some pretty unique stuff, as well as codestones of course. Shadow Usul, for example, has a plushie that sometimes drops, and sells for around 15k-20k. Anyway, depending on your budget, stats, and the opponent(s) you'd like to battle, post that info either here or in a new thread, and I'm sure you'll get lots of tips. I spent my time budget battling for as long as I've been on Neopets. I'd say that my battle set is still in the low-intermediate to regular intermediate range. I've a few weapons from plots I earned. The majority of my NP spent for battle gear was on my healer, and a Ghostkerbomb. So I consider budget-battling my specialty. I recommend training over expensive weaponry. I mean, I've got my Strength and Defense stats maxed, but my weaponry is not terribly great, as I said above. If you read about "Boosts", those are basically the multipliers for the amount of icons a weapon attacks or defends. If you have a 10 icon weapon, and you've got the highest strength boost, 16, which you get when your strength is 750. Then that attack, if nothing is blocked by your opponent, will do 160 damage. I also recommend balanced training between Strength and Defense. But that's my training style. lol Movement/Agility is pretty useless except for a couple of items. If you have agility of 201 and an intelligence of... I believe it was 37+, you could consider a Heavy Robe of Thievery to steal a random item once per battle, but stealing is not working right now, so the point is moot right now. Though it might be a good time to buy a Heavy Robe of Thievery for the future, because when stealing gets fixed, the price will probably go back up a bit. Intelligence, it's useful for some higher-end tunics from the Brightvale Armory. But reading books and visiting Coltzan's Shrine should yield you some decent INT increases. I think the most Intelligence you need for a pet in the BD would be 1000 for one of the tunics. Again though, not something to worry about if you're just starting out. The USEFUL tunics sell for some millions mostly. Phew! I haven't pulled a post this long in awhile. Sorry, i hope it all makes sense and wasn't too much at one time. Happy battling!

Wow, what a dismal faction choice, boon-wise at least.

I'm thinking about The Seekers, since I like their boon selection. Not really wild about the Brute's boons, nor the randomness of the boons from The Awakened. I mean they may or may not have boons worth using, kind of a carp-shoot. And we all know it's not nice to shoot carp in a barrel. LOL Not sporting at all.

I was JUST about to try Kass Basher after reading through this thread, but the space for it in the games room just stays grayed out when I click to open the game. I wonder if they are working on issues with the game now? I'm on a PC using Firefox. I haven't tried any (formerly flash) games since Flash died and Adobe decided to be dumb and block Flash everywhere after the death of Flash. I'll try it later.

Bank Bribery is my Boon of choice, Quest Refresh a close 2nd. Cartographication is ok, but in dozens and dozens of times of finding my way to the treasure in the Faerie Caves, (with or without cartographication) I have NEVER found any items when opening the chest. Just a random amount of NP, 600-10000 is about the range. If I recall the low-end correctly. Haven't decided on whether I'll go for The Sway or The Seekers. I'll see what others think first. lol

Wow, seems this old thread got some new attention. lol. A few months back I upgraded to this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GE59RZI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Decent price for what came with it. Plus It's my first tablet (2nd overall) that has a screen to it. My old tablet (see my 2018 reply above), I just couldn't get the feel for it without being able to see what I was drawing, it was a smaller tablet so the size differences were also a bit hard to work with. I've only done a little bit with it. I still prefer the tactile sensation of Pencil on Paper, but I did convert an old sketch into a piece of digital art with just using the tablet and a program called Clip Studio Paint. Kind of, FORCED practice. I still prefer my ancient programs, but I'm TRYING to get modernized. lol I'm looking for a new animation program, where I can rig a decent skeleton to an existing sketch and make it move. Tried one recently called Cartoon Animator 4 Pro. But it's not really what I'm looking for in that department. Someone in a group I'm in, suggested Moho 13, it's about $400, so I'll have to save up a bit to be able to budget it, if I decide to buy it. Fortunately, it's got a 30 day trial period, so after I watch some tutorials on it, I'll probably do the trial. I'm also in the market for a new picture host. Photobucket absolutely SUCKS nowawdays! Anyone knows of a cheap or free host, I'd appreciate being enlightened. I haven't had the best of luck with searching so far. ^^;

lol To be honest, I don't really know the numbers for how faction wins are determined, nor about how many "points" each opponent might be worth. I usually focus on the Faction leaders in the skirmishes. It's a one-round battle for me anyway, so I choose the leaders on the chance that they MIGHT be worth more toward the team effort. JUST speculation though. If going contrary to a faction that has been predicted to win, I will battle that faction's leader more than the faction leader of the other faction I'm up against. Something like a 2 to 1 ratio. It doesn't always work of course, ONE player's efforts don't amount to much when you've got hundreds if not thousands of players participating. lol Also, just because a couple big guilds are backing a faction doesn't necessarily mean that faction will win. As shown by the Brutes surprise victory this round.

Flash dying is one thing, but for Adobe to actually BLOCK flash content with that stupid death of Flash (EOL) thing, is really adding insult to injury. Can't even play the Test Your Strength thing now. I wonder if TNT was caught by surprise by Adobe doing that and is now Scrambling to update the games? Back on topic, I'll probably go with The Awakened too. At least it's a chance at better boons than either Brutes or Thieves can provide.

C'mon SEEKERS! Bank Bribery, all the way! XD

I went with the Sway, LOVE Bank Bribery. lol The boons for the Thieves and the Brute Squad really aren't useful for me anyway. The guild I'm in is going with The Sway as well. Though we're a small guild these days. lol Good luck to all fighters!

Thank you both, @Secre and @jellysundae! I'll just say it's way out of my price-range, which it is. lol I'm trying to save up for some new battledome gear, and even if I had 35 mil, I wouldn't blow it on a TCG card like that. Thanks again for the advice!

Someone messaged me out of the blue on Neopets, asking if I'd like to buy his Island Peophin (TCG) card. JN has no price on it, and there isn't another one listed in trades, SSW, or Auctions. He wants 35mil for it. I'm not going to agree, not at that price. But it would be NICE to have a pricing idea of what the TCG card is actually worth. I might be able to counter his offer with a more reasonable amount. But most likely, I'll wait until I start working more on my Peophin gallery. Which has been on a hiatus for quite a while now. lol Another thing that make me a LITTLE suspicious about his asking price, is that his account is only 3 months old, and he's got some message in his profile about wanting his accounts freed. He's also got a number of rare items up for Trade on the trading post. I mean, ranging in the 3-20mil NP, EACH. Not for any one lot. Including a Wand of the Dark Faerie, no price asked just "mail offers". Which I'm also surprised to see, for such a "young" account. Thanks in advance for any info regarding the asking price and real value of the TCG and such!

I'd say I've picked fairly decently this year, not my best, but not bad. I too would like to know why some of the returning players aren't at their usual top of their game this year. lol Also, I've picked players who have been selected for the star-player, they've been on my team, but I picked OTHER players as the star player instead. I still don't get how Ehlo Froyo had that massive score in week 1, but was not the Star Player. Sure would like to know HOW TNT picks their star players if not highest points earned by that player! Anyway, my total score is 23265 right now, and that's not too shabby! Even though I've got a number of new-players on my roster. They've done pretty well for their rookie year. Good luck to everyone with your final picks for the Staff Tourney!