Before you grab your torches and pitchforks... hear me out.

I think the energy cost from battling in Celestial Explore should be removed for the following reasons:
1. It's tedious to have to switch between Explores so often.
2. Everyone already explores there at 0% energy anyway since you aren't negatively affected by having no energy for a battle.
3. It overall doesn't make sense to lose energy in a battle if exploring there doesn't cost energy.


I'll explain my reasoning for each point below:

1. Switching between regular Explore and Celestial Explore at the moment is tedious. I want to use the 1500 Meteorite Shards on each of my accounts, but I don't always have time to do that because I have to deplete my energy first. As we know, the elusive Interstellar base applicator can be found this month in regular Explore. However miniscule the chances of encountering it may be, I don't want to miss out on it.

But man, switching between both Explores gets bothersome very quickly. Especially if you have to go back and forth every 15 minutes or so with a sliver of energy. Even more often if you choose the energy-giving option from encounters in Celestial Explore.

A lot of the time I spend on Lioden is at work during small increments of downtime - 5-10 minutes here and there - so often I am only able to do my regular Explore stuff. (I am aware not everyone is in this sort of position, but I do know of at least a few others who log on at work or school.)


2. Everyone explores without energy anyways, so losing energy is essentially a non-factor. I don't think I need to explain this one much. Essentially, removing the energy cost from the battles will remove the micromanaging aspect of maximizing your gains in the event. You can explore in the Celestial zones for a while and come back to the regular Explore with a good chunk of energy to go through.

I'd also enjoy selecting the energy-giving options as well if it was actually able to add up to something reasonably significant. Let's be honest - how worthwhile does it feel to get 5% energy, switch over to Explore, and take 2 steps?


3. It doesn't make sense to lose energy in a zone that doesn't cost energy to use steps. In Explore, each step costs energy and each battle costs energy. It's practical, just like the real world would work. Walking and fighting would make a lion tired eventually.

But you don't walk in the Celestial zones - the shards are now "energy". Something something Demiurge. Presumably, since using the Shards means you don't expend any actual energy by moving, would it not make sense that battles might work similarly?

Now, there may be a problem with not having the battles cost anything, so I will tentatively suggest having them use Meteorite Shards instead. I understand if that would be going too far for some people, though, and I would appreciate feedback in the comments regarding that as well! The cost would be lower than the cost of the step itself - 2 per win and 1 per loss, the same ratio as regular battles. Alternatively, it could cost 1 Shard per loss and 0 per win, so that only losses are detrimental.

I included that last suggestion because in several other events with just regular Explore, you have to make a decision: battle for guaranteed or possibly better currency, or conserve energy in the hopes of finding more event encounters? July has NO downsides to battling, with the obvious exception of it being somewhat time consuming en masse. I don't think that aspect is good game design, no offense to any of the game designers of course.


Ah, that's about it I suppose. I'll add and remove stuff as I think on things, and I welcome any and all suggestions and/or criticism!

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My other suggestions:
Masterpost here