Definitely don't support. Don't get me wrong, I find exploring tedious and typically only do it with a handful of pets while the rest just kind of sit around. But this would be game-breaking in a bad way, especally so as a premium feature.

As an alternative, I would support a much more watered down version aimed explicitly at gathering food. Perhaps a 'hunt' option or a 'harvest' option or the like. You send the pet out, and based on their stats, they bring back a randomized amount of food after some hours and their energy is set to zero (like with quests). Only food. I don't feel this would be as gamebreaking as allowing them to find anything and everything they could otherwise.

I've changed my mind somewhat, I might support something like this (witht he limitations irrimn and others mentioned) as a premium perk if the basic accounts are still allowed the autobattle while exploring. 

Again, I support this as a very limited feature. If you have more pets than you can feed, I don't think you should get help in feeding them, but for people like Tooki, this feature would really be a help (Tooki, if you want, I would explore with your pets and send you what they find). This could wreak havoc if you get too much, but I see where it could be useful.

Perhaps if there was limited auto-explores per day, or maybe you could only fully auto-explore with one or two pets per day as a premium perk, or have a limited amount of explores. I'd probably only support if autobattle was also allowed to free users, which would give premiums a step ahead of the game.

Support. Make it expensive, put a limit on it... Or even just have the normal 'take' be cut... I work three jobs, and am a dual major in a university. I don't  have time to explore with more than one pet a day if even! I would gladly pay though... I know it does defeat some purpose.... but I would be willing to pay high cost to at least get some of my other pets through explore and find some resources.

Unfortunately this idea's been nixed, apparently it goes against the concept of the game.

I'm sorry to read this, because in the long run, it will come down to who can put in a lot of hours a day and who can't. While I think it's important to have things that keep people on the site and occupied, the game should be playable for casual players, who just want to breed a bit too. If you can't explore due to your connection or your time, you are basically screwed, which is rather disappointing.

Thanks for the feedback though, DragonSage.

Your welcome; you can read more about it in the closed thread about premium changes

I can see it both ways with the auto-explore idea.

I've just got a little over 25 pets, coming up on 30. How in the world are you supposed to be able to explore with all of your creatures when you build the higher level stables that can house 100 pets? There just isn't enough time in the day, with how long the current exploration system takes. It could potentially be argued that we're not supposed to be able to explore with all of our pets, every single day...which...like TeilChen said, will create a glaringly obvious gap between casuals and people who have the time.

Angel's listed alternative of increasing the exploration cost to 5 energy with increased reward may be enough, though I will admit I greet the idea with at least a little bit of skepticism as it makes getting kicked off the island that much more detrimental to your resources gained for the day and I feel it ultimately doesn't address exploring with large amounts of pets when players attain higher level stables in the game's forseeable future. If auto-explore goes against game concept - fine - but I would at least like to hear the how's and why's of why it goes against game concept to better be able to make more intelligent suggestions and input rather than just being left with the impression of "We're done here". Any time a player or a community even suggests the word "auto" in a context like this (especially with auto-battle) it's a red flag from a design perspective - the players are saying that they would rather skip the feature because there is something about the feature that isn't enjoyable and detracts from their gameplay, which is ultimately directly expressed in their willingness to stay and potentially support the site with their patronage.

Going to stop here before I say anything else that might be construed as flaming. I might not always post when I see threads like the previous auto-explore/battle threads and even the old art infringement thread, but I do at least read. I'm concerned for the well-being and future of this game.

I do think we were meant to pick and choose what pets we want to explore with. I just never got the impression we were expected to explore with every pet we can possibly have. The time it takes is a good counter to inflation for the items you can pick up on the map. For the pets I want to level but don't have time to explore with, I train them via the Riding Hall instead, which I assume is what it was basically made for.

That said, I just don't agree with either auto-explore or Angel's idea. I don't get why there can't be any other ideas we can hash out, but we've blatantly been told to shut up (and there have been threats of banning, so...).

It's at the point for me where I don't know if I should put anymore time into this or not.

There were so many things discussed and the only answer is "it's against game policies.". The thing is, this is supposed to be a breeding game, right? But in order to breed successfully, you have to explore to get Vermillion. You can't buy the amount needed, because everyone needs it and people rarely sell them and if they do, they are really expensive. So the argument that "if you can't explore, just buy the stuff", doesn't work here, at least not for the next couple of months.

Till then people that can't explore or only rarely because they don't have the time, will have lost interest in the game, because they (probably) came here to breed, but can't do that without doing the tideous part of the game - which I get, it has to be something to work for.

What I don't get is why all the suggestions are smashed down with the same ultimate argument every single time, instead of just braining together with people about it. We are here to test the game. The fact that you are in this stage of game development says to me that you need help with bugs and balance things.

I'd prefer if you, Angel, would actually take the time to brainstorm with us about these things, instead of just closing threads. People aren't trying to hurt you or insult you or flame you. They are trying to help make this game a success.

Back to suggestions instead of auto explore, how about a building to construct that lets you send 3 pets a day on an expedition at a level 1 building and up to maybe 8 at lvl 5. Sending them on an expedition would cost 10 energy for a trip and you'd get back either food or building materials (including vermillion), the user would have to choose for every trip what rewards they are after. The pets should be out for at least the same time as while doing quests/building stuff, maybe even more (4+ hours).

No exp gaining on these expeditions, just materials/food. For silver we have quests, for exp gain the riding hall for people who can't spend a lot of time.

That way even casual players that can only spend like an hour a day here can actually keep playing, without worrying about their pets being send to the pound when they run out of food or without not being able to breed properly because they are missing vermillion and the people manually exploring would still have a HUGE advantage in terms of materials, food, silver, exp from battles and nice items from chests.

I have an idea. Here goes.

Newbie: You've just started playing. You only have a few pets, and exploring is still fun, so you do it completely manually.

A little after:

You've bred at least 8 pets, raised a pet to level 12, made 40 posts in the forums, and caught at least two pets. You still have time to explore with almost all of them, but not manually fight with them all. You get autobattle on the islands.

A little after: You've bred at least 14 pets, raised a pet to level 25, and made 85 posts in the forum. You're getting the hang of this place! Unfortunatly, there's no way you can explore with all of those pets, so you get autoexplore. You can only send 5 pets a day, and they only bring back food, 6-20 silver, and the other items on the grid other than premium items. It also takes 5 energy per trip alone. You can still use autobattle while exploring.

Finally: You've bred at least 20 pets, raised a pet to level 50, built a level 2 stable, and made 120 posts in the forum. You have quite a lot of pets, and there's no way to even attempt to explore that much, so your autoexplore gets upgraded. Now, you can send 10 pets a day.

This method rewards you for being active on the site. I'm not sure how fair my numbers of things needed to get these are, so please help me.

Mouse it's a nice idea, but Angel's said that autobattle is a premium only feature; basic accounts will not be able to use autobattle, they'll have to use manual battle

The only thing I'm worried about is that if we remove autobattle for all, people won't be interested enough in staying long enough to get autoexplore. The game is meant to be for all of us, not just those with large amounts of time. Once I'm done with lunch, I'll time myself exploring both manually and auto battling and compare the times.

I tried manual battle myself, it took forever--plus you have to remember what your strongest attack is otherwise your more likely to lose the battles