So even with all the hiccups with the introduction of the library system and the move to book based war rules, I think we've seen enough to start to see some trends. Here are some of the things I think are changing, what have you noticed so far?

• Single target elemental attacks have a renewed importance, and correspondingly, single target special damage ones are a little less valuable. Now that you're not always assured to be facing the same element monsters in the war rules, having elemental based damage isn't quite as a big a drawback, and can make a big difference if you can match up to a defense that has weaknesses.

• Team Speed runes are in great demand. All of my recent rune gambling have been to try to create decent level Team Speed runes. With the absence of C/UC/R/E monsters, having legendaries carry Team Speed is important, and long term I think everyone will want at least one carrier of 2-3 TS runes in every book, whereas you may not necessarily need one speedy denier in every book.

• Immune to Possession trait has greater value. Now that monsters with possession skills are dispersed throughout the books, you have to worry about that defensively a lot more often than before, when it was mostly in Magic or Dark wars (and to a small extent Nature wars since Laomu was so prevalent).

• Value of Hardened, Tough, and Bulwark traits went up. Now that there are denial type moves of all types within each book, having a monster that has a chance to resist them all is important. Before this, I felt those traits were obviously very good, but best in the Dark and Magic elements where there were multiple types of denial native. This is just one more reason why I think it's a tough sell to make the Team Shop Generals less accessible to up and coming players/teams.

I agree with you.

I agree for the most part. Some nuances:

Not sure team speed runes are in great demand. Important, sure. With the book rules there are not many combinations (yet) that allow for a quick and easy 'sweep whenever you're faster' (this will undoubtedly/unfortunately change when Voltaik hits a book). Any well conceived attack plan with the right combination of speed, strength and life can succeed in most rules.

Not sure about the increased value of 'resists' either. Yes, there is a wider variety of denial options in the books, but there also is a wider variety of OHK options in the books (easy to obtain heavy hitters like Arch Knight, Nishant and Holter are in multiple books for example).

@Ekto-Gamat said in Observations in the new library era:

(this will undoubtedly/unfortunately change when Voltaik hits a book).
He is there in the Super Heroes book page 3 ;)

What exactly stops SP from adding a new monster to a book BEFORE they release it? Are they worried people wont buy it if they aren't interested in the book?

In that case, the Library has failed its purpose (actually, much like the Lab has failed, too).

@Clackers said in Observations in the new library era:

What exactly stops SP from adding a new monster to a book BEFORE they release it? Are they worried people wont buy it if they aren't interested in the book?

In that case, the Library has failed its purpose (actually, much like the Lab has failed, too).

I do not understand this statement. Why would you say it has failed it's purpose? What do you assume is the purpose of the library?

@Nynaevelan said in Observations in the new library era:

@Clackers said in Observations in the new library era:

What exactly stops SP from adding a new monster to a book BEFORE they release it? Are they worried people wont buy it if they aren't interested in the book?

In that case, the Library has failed its purpose (actually, much like the Lab has failed, too).

I do not understand this statement. Why would you say it has failed it's purpose? What do you assume is the purpose of the library?

and why has the lab failed?

@Nynaevelan The library is supposed to shake things up, but like the lab, it won't.

Serious players only want to rank up their monsters...if they cannot obtain cells then it is a pointless exercise.

The library was...well, actually what was the point? SP have made it so new monsters cannot easily be added (at least not to existing pages).

@Clackers said in Observations in the new library era:

@Nynaevelan The library is supposed to shake things up, but like the lab, it won't.

Serious players only want to rank up their monsters...if they cannot obtain cells then it is a pointless exercise.

The library was...well, actually what was the point? SP have made it so new monsters cannot easily be added (at least not to existing pages).

Again I do not understand, according to the description the library is for the collectors, it is an upgraded improvement over the old monstergram. It also has the added benefit of being used in the team wars so I do not see why you assume it has failed. It is a work in progress, so how about we give SP the time to actually add all the monsters to it and then hopefully more features.

Team wars aside I do not think this has failed. Do they have all the monsters in it I want to fight with? No. Have I given up on it? No. Will I rank up every monster? No, and that does not matter what they do with the books, that is just too expensive and I am not that kind of player.

Maybe it is just me but I am not ranking based on these books, I will continue to rank as I did previously, those that I find useful as fighters. At most the only affect the book has to my war preparedness is making sure I have at least one monster in each book so that I will be able to participate. But then hey, I didn't have level 130s before so I am not that crazed with the changes.

@Clackers You say the library doesn't shake things up I think it totally does, you can like it or dislike it but it has definitely shaken things up

@Clackers said in Observations in the new library era:

What exactly stops SP from adding a new monster to a book BEFORE they release it?

Uhh, nothing prevents them from adding monsters to books as they are released. Even if there were business or technical reasons, it's entirely within Social Point's control to fix them.

Are they worried people wont buy it if they aren't interested in the book?

I have the exact opposite issue, it's very difficult for me to decide to invest my resources in to monsters before knowing where they'll be in the books. How happy will I be in a month if I just got 3 great monsters and ranked them up and then find out they are all overlapping in books? I'd then have less resources left to try to shore up coverage everywhere else.

The library is supposed to shake things up, but like the lab, it won't.

I'm not sure how you have come to this conclusion, the library has already shaken things up in Team Wars. If it didn't have much impact there wouldn't be so much frustration over SP's slow rolling the release of the full books.