I've been playing this game actually for quite awhile. I played for almost a month about a year ago and am now returning and have been playing about a week. I have read information on the wiki and browsed the forums, but I still feel overwhelmed. The old stickied thread of guides [here](https://www.kongregate.com/forums/60-anti-idle-the-game/topics/133991-user-made-guides-helpful-threads) is helpful, but almost as overwhelming as the game itself. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do in *Battle Arena* . Looking at the list of guides, most are calculators, graphs, or a list that explains a set of items. So those are all out as I don't yet have the knowledge to utilize those. So, I pick one that is labelled as a guide, [[Guide] Spirit (Accurate to v1575)](http://www.kongregate.com/forums/60/topics/315042). Let's see: - First section, guide tells me what spirit is, very helpful. - Second section, guide tells me how spirit works, very helpful. - Third section, "*What about the new passive skills that affect Spirit?*". Well since I'm too new to the game to be concerned with this yet, I haven't even gotten a spirit item, this doesn't concern me. - Fourth section, "*I can’t use half of these skills! How do I get more Spirit?*". I don't know what to do or where to go to be on my way to effectively earning/crafting spirit gear, so not helpful to me yet. - Fifth section, "*So, what exactly is the maximum amount of Spirit possible?*". Again don't know what to do to effectively get the gear, so not helpful to me yet. - Sixth section, "*What is your opinion of Spirit?"* Don't know how to get it yet. For a new player this is the problem, the guide doesn't actually guide me. It doesn't tell me where to go to get spirit gear, what and how to craft it, do I need a recipe?, what level does spirit gear become relevant, what do I do with it after I get it? And that's how most these guides go. They are either a guide for a more advanced player and the guide is just explaining *what* something is or it's effects, but not *how* to go about getting or doing that thing. And the other guides are either lists that explains the effects of new items/stats/bonuses/etc., or calculators, or graphs. Even the wiki does the same thing. I just want to know the major differences between ranked and unranked arcade. I know that ranked arcade does not use the upgrades you've purchased, but are there any rewards that are exclusive to ranked or unranked? The wiki page, found [here](http://anti-idle-the-game.wikia.com/wiki/Arcade) Gives a short description of each arcade game, explains how the rewards work, and how par score is calculated, which is great, **but it never discusses strategy**. The wiki never discusses strategy, things like: - What game gives best rewards or the best reward of certain type. - Effective ways to increase your score at the games (as in strategy of playing the games). - What game should I have the cyborg play, if I want it to play arcade. (I actually read a thread that said basically *Whack-a-Greg*). ___ Basically, I'm having trouble finding beginners guides, especially beginners guides for the Battle Arena. The guides I've mentioned are all great and have great information, but with so much to do, and so many sections, buttons, items, monsters, and the player is just thrown right in. I have found some helpful guides. To illustrate the kind of guide I'm looking for. I'm looking for things like this: - [[Guide] Another Guide to Another Garden](http://www.kongregate.com/forums/60-anti-idle-the-game/topics/193301-guide-another-guide-to-another-garden) - [Another Garden (Wiki)](http://aitg.wikia.com/wiki/Another_Garden) - [[Guide] -Infinity for Dummies. v1553.](http://www.kongregate.com/forums/60-anti-idle-the-game/topics/319709-giude-how-to-idle-in-infinity-for-new-players-v1553) - [[Old][Guide] Dark Pyramid for Dummies. v1553.](http://www.kongregate.com/forums/60/topics/320683) ___ I've been trying to jump into the game and "*get my hands dirty*" but the further I go, the more lost I get. I usually turn to guides so that I don't just waste my time playing aimlessly, but in this case (for Battle Arena especially) I'm having some trouble. Even something like an outline of what to do and when would be helpful. Something like: - Levels 1 to 500, unlock things and then focus on *Button Machine* - Levels 501 to 1000, focus on expanding the *Gardern*. - Levels 1000 to 2000, *Battle Arena* get Infinity Ally, grind X zone, play TukkunFCG. Any help, even on just what guides to read first would be great.

The majority of guides are very outdated (the Spirit guide was from around 300 versions ago). Just enjoy the game perhaps? There's also a chat room, which tends to get out of control at times but might be able to provide some good help. It's difficult to make guides about strategy because like you said, this game does have quite a lot of things and I'm not even sure if the best players know the greatest strategies. After all, it's not like you have to play this game super strategically. Regardless of what you do, you'll be able to progress anyway. It's more important to have fun. Also there was a relatively up to date Battle Arena guide often circulated in chat and used by many people, but it became blank. I'm unsure of the reason. Maybe its owner doesn't want to share strategies anymore. As for early game Battle Arena, just fight monsters, rank up, craft things that feel appealing to you, play around with your skill build, and stuff. Even if your strategy isn't optimal, you can't really progress backwards so there is no worries. Perhaps the reason why there aren't many guides for early game is that it doesn't really matter what you do.

Sounds good to me! I also want to say thanks for this great game! I actually really enjoy the Battle Arena. I like that there are a lot of items, enemies, areas, etc. It captures the essence of an MMORPG and has all the stuff I enjoy about MMOs: finding different gear, getting the sweet loot drops, crafting, raiding. I've played enough Flash games to know that there usually aren't that many items or enemies in them as well as crafting and gear set options. And then there's also the FCG, Fishing, Button, etc. I can't imagine the amount of coding that went into this. On top of Battle Arena (items, enemies, bestiary, invisbile ally, crafting, etc.) there's TukkunFCG (an entire card game), the Cyborg (automation), Challenge Mode (additional mode), that can't be easy. With all that Anti-Idle has to offer it really gives the player a great sense of exploration and the feeling of progress, which I think are key elements to making a solid game.

Ask in chat for Uroogla and Radionews guides. Those should explain what's what in battle arena. For actual up to date strategies though ask the chat.

I found what I was looking for [Battle Arena Guide (v. 1713)](https://www.kongregate.com/forums/60-anti-idle-the-game/topics/518743-battle-arena-guide-v-1713). ([The link to the guide](http://tinyurl.com/uroBAGuide)) It may be outdated, but it should still be really helpful. I should say, even though I had trouble not being able to find a guide that "guides", a lot of the guides and calculators are really impressive and go into great detail in terms of large lists with several statistics.

Amazing. People are still using Radionews' guide. Is he/she still playing?

Radio and I quit a couple years back over (different) disagreements with the direction of the game. She put a lot of time into her guides and they're nowhere near as dry as mine (the difference between a creative writer and an academic writer, I suppose), so I'm not surprised that they're still passed around (for the armor one, the thought process and description of stats and so on probably still works, though the details are no longer remotely accurate). Similarly, I'm flattered that people still use my (2 year old, presumably very outdated, and excessively lengthy) guide - I was amazed to see 18 people with it open after so much time. Sadly, even if I were interested in starting to play again and updating the guide, I simply do not have the time anymore, since I am closing in on the end of my doctorate degree. I have given it a little bit of thought, and have decided to change the permissions to allow people to comment on the guide. This preserves my original work (I am not comfortable giving full edit privileges for a document in my name, even if it's merely a screenname) while still allowing the community to update it as they wish. I am glad that something I wrote continues to be of even minimal use all this time later. Additionally, people have my permission to copy the guide to their own file/doc and use it as the basis for their own updated guide.