Personally, exploration is my least favorite aspect of the game because of the very slow and tedious interface. I understand that reprogramming the exploration system would likely be complicated and time-consuming, so I would like to see an auto-explore option instead. I understand if the resources collected and experience gained from auto-exploration would be lower than manual exploration, but I'd still prefer the option. I don't have time to slog through exploration 20 times a day, but I'd still like a way to collect resources and such. 

That sounds great. 1 vote agree.

Although it would make things a lot easier for us, it's not really a great idea. It would be too easy to obtain resources, since everybody would be auto-exploring when they normally wouldn't have time to actually explore, and the economy would screw up. The point of exploring if to reward resources to people who are willing to work for it, so if auto-explore were implemented, explore would lose its meaning. Many people don't use up all 20 of their island searches, since they don't have time and if they could auto explore then they would be able to use them all. The number of resources being collected would rise dramatically, and like I said before, the economy would crash.

In addition, what you collect on an island depends on your own moves. For example, say you lose a battle when you are out of energy and are forced to leave the island. You wouldn't get to collect the rest of the resources on the island, right? So how would auto-explore determine what to go to first? How would it know which resources you would have picked up before having to leave the island? Also, what about buildings? Auto-explore would have no way of knowing if you'd like to trade materials with a building or not.

No support here, sorry!

I could not have said it better myself, Imitatia.

If this was added the rewards would need to be so low and so rare so it could not harm the economy, but then the auto explore would be near useless, so may as well not add it at all.

It would most likely be easier and better if the moves the pet makes from square to square was made just a tiny bit quicker.

On a sort of related note, if you are wanting more of a certain material you can build and upgrade an astrologist building, and or check the player guides to see what island gives that material most commonly.

The problem is fundamentally that the exploration interface is atrociously slow and tedious. Even if the rewards were 50% or less of the average collected from manual exploration, I'd still take it. That's how much I hate the exploration system. Speeding up the moves slightly doesn't change the fact that it's an interface straight out of late 80s ASCII RPGs. It's not that I would mind exploring, it's that the current system is so painfully slow that it literally feels like punishment. You're either forcing players to wade through it and suffer for resources or decide that it's not worth their time. That's not why anyone plays a game, and certainly not why anyone pays money for a game. If I'm expected to pay money, I don't want an important and central part of the game to be so dislikable that it makes me consider leaving and playing something else.

But fixing that would require a complete overhaul, whereas implementing an auto-explore algorithm would be much easier. For the people who want to explore manually, you get more rewards, access to buildings, and so on. Personally, I'd probably explore manually with one pet and then send the rest to auto-explore. That's as much of that as I care to deal with per day. On any given island, you can easily access more than half the resources without fighting enemies, barring some really strange geography. The auto-explore would just assume that your pet collected those resources but didn't fight enemies, giving players incentive to manually explore but still providing auto-explorers with baseline resources and income.

As for the economy, yes, it will result in some instability, but in a freemium game, the economy is never very stable to begin with. Even little things like the Christmas gifts can wreck the market for certain items like energy drinks. All the auto-explore would do is incrementally increase income and spending power, lowering demand for certain items. That will smooth itself out, just like every other change to the game. It's not something that fundamentally upsets the value of resources.

And yes, the Astrologist helps, but it's still a slow, mindless grind. At the end of the day, a game shouldn't feel like work. I have no problem spending money on free games; I love Team Fortress 2 and buy a key or two every month, because it's endless fun and doesn't demand anything from me. Right now, Beastkeeper is doing the exact opposite, and it's getting to the point where I'm on the fence about continuing. I really like many aspects of the game, and with a few changes, I'd spend some money. But as it is, the game is forcing me into a dislikable grind and giving me very little in return, and that definitely doesn't give me any reason to spend money. I'm sure other people do, and if it makes them happy, that's fine. But this is where I'm drawing the line. I'm fed up with the exploration and I'd like a viable alternative. Not 'each pet can bring back 1 item while auto-exploring', but an actual viable alternative, like 'your pet will gather whatever resources it can without fighting enemies' or something like that.

I agree that explore is really, really, boring, and is a pain that only Travelling Magicians, Astrologist, State Portal, and purposefully skipping 80% of every island can fix (slightly). But instead of adding auto-explore (which is just a band-aid to the main problem), I'd rather time was spent actually making explore more fun. I think the increasing levels in the Lykos event is a step in the right direction. Not just adding different biotopes to explore, since it doesn't change how explore actually works. Add stuff to break the monotony - Things like chokepoints with puzzles blocking the route. Or extreme maps that show up at random, with special prizes (Gauntlet styles, maze styles, tiny map, spike pits that decrease energy when you pass over them, etc). Or maps which will only allow pets with a certain stat/color/collection of genes to pass to 90% of the map. Its nice to not be able to 100% complete every island. Gives us something to be surprised about.

Even better, add something that is completely different from explore, but will let us get some of the same materials. We have the battlefield, but that's a long term activity which can only be touched every 10 hours. Another short term activity would be good, something to do other than explore and arena battling.

I'd love to see that, but as a programmer, I don't know how realistic that is. It all depends on the way the game was coded and how much flexibility exists therein. I know for sure that an algorithm for automatic exploration could be added, which is why I felt it was a safe suggestion. But if there's a way to spice up the exploration, that would definitely be welcome.

If an overhaul of the exploration system is viable, then above all else, please change the movement from turn-based to realtime. Even if it's clunky 4-direction Pokemon Red/Blue movement, that's still better than what we have now. I need to feel an instant reaction to my inputs.

@Senorali

Sorry, there won't be an autoexplore option. It was suggested and discussed a lot of times on the beta phase. Although we always welcome the ideas about making the explore more exciting and interesting, as well as the ideas of other gameplay mechanics incorporated into the game world too.

If an overhaul of the exploration system is viable, then above all else, please change the movement from turn-based to realtime. Even if it's clunky 4-direction Pokemon Red/Blue movement, that's still better than what we have now. I need to feel an instant reaction to my inputs.

It's not possible at this time since we need a step-by-step validation on the server side to avoid abuse. We already tried to find a solution like this and failed. For example, there's an unresolved problem with how to deal with the same island opened in a few tabs (meaning that the object is duplicated several times which gives a cheater a vast field for exploiting as we don't validate any steps). I'm sure that as a progammer you understand the importance of security and the ways how to achieve it in the current environment, and can easily track the whole process through the browser dev tools to understand the current explore validation process. If you have an idea how to realize the explore without validating every move and still have it fully secure, we will gladly listen to your suggestion. As you understand, moving the validation to the client side and verifying only the result isn't a way out; it's very easy just to send whatever you want in ajax query. It's easy to change the swf results as well. We're not aware of a technology that allows to achieve such result.

I'm probably necro-ing this but, I've seen an auto-explore being added to a game/s before;

What the one I remember did was, made it so that the party take a day (24 hours) to explore a region, and you receive some items/things from it -- you get to choose what you're exploring for, such as money, items, credit, etc. Also, they made it so there are variables depending on equipment, levels, and so on.

So a way I think, that could work, is maybe make it so that only squads can auto explore. Maximum squad is 3, unless you buy the premium to increase it (don't know if you can find them, I haven't, or if there is some traveler that increases that, I don't remember), so it wouldn't ruin the economy, plus if you made it so you only get silver from the exploration, then you may be boosting it instead*. -- Also, it would be like quests/construction/pregnancy/etc, where they would take XX hours to complete, and energy becomes 0.

*Reasons being:

A. Exploring is one of the main ways to make money -- either by finding it, or finding items and selling them.

B. The other two ways of making silver is questing and selling. (items and beasts)

B1. Quest -- There is a max of 7 quests, and if you're unlucky, your only going to complete a few, and/or not make much from the ones you complete

B2. Beasts -- They aren't worth much, I've seen some sell for 500, and higher ones are usualy rare*, deviants, and/or have good genes / genetic power. *Rare as in event-limited, such as Kamis, Battlefield specifc like Symurgh, or new breeds like the Lykos (that was only obtainable during the event, breeding, or buying).

C. You only generate 1800 ~ 3650 silver daily, and depending on how much pets you have, can lose a sum to food. Meaning the only viable way to make money are quests, trading, and exploring -- exploring being the best, due to how they can net you some premium items like Energy Drink and Rainbow Jars, that you then can trade for silver, or other items.

Anyways, I don't really mind having it or not, but I tend to get nauseous after a few, due to how grindy and slow it can be. (I can't seem to be able tp stand repetitive actions for too long, for some reason.)

Wireath, this is a new concept for us actually, not an auto-explore for the existing islands that was discussed here :) And this is a brilliant idea that solves the main auto-explore problem because there's no need to utilize the islands themselves and create a pathfinder that can be easily exploited. Thank you for the suggestion, this may be a graceful way out for this long-lasting problem. Though it will require a significant amount of work to build it from scratch and make it adjustable and having valid results depending on the pet / party stats. We don't have anything similar that can be inhereted and modified for a quick solution, and it's quite a massive task (probably like the current explore system itself). At this moment we're working on a different major update that will add a whole new layer to the game, and it probably will take at least a couple of months more, so right now we can't start any other things that require a lot of work. But we'll consider this thing for the future updates.

I agree with Wireath, it does sound like a lovely suggestion. Similar to sylestia, or even gryffs. I actually quite like the gryffs model. Each pet is allowed to explore only 'x' amount of times given their energy. Or in the meadow you are limited by the amount of moves that your account can male in a day. Regardless of the pet. I do think that Wireath's suggestion is a lovely one. I would like to elaborate more, however I'm mobile and on the run. Just wanted to add my support! :)

This was just something I encountered while pursuing my hobby, of finding something to interest me, so not really my idea. Just thought it could work, so suggested it.

Also, I think there are quite a few things you can use as a basis for it, such as: The exhibitions' calculations, Battlefield, and maybe even rarity of genes, how quests (how you sometimes receive items), and construction (Artissan), etc

Anyways, glad you like the idea, and that I necro-ed the thread to suggest it.

Edit: Going to expand on my 2nd paragraph: You don't really have to read it, it's more of just me babbling on, as it could just make this more tedious, like how you guys were stuck on tracking movement for the last suggestion, pretty being trapped in a box. Kinda wish there was a spoiler tag or something :P

Exhibitions: This could help with how pet's are judge -- e.g scores, and depending on the place, the pet/party's score could vary, due to different requirements.

Battlefield / Arena: Though I haven't really been here much, it might be useful for collecting battle results, or you could just use the one already in place for the Arena. -- Also, if I remember correctly, there was a scoring system for wins/loses here too, as well as tactics.

Quests: This may be used for requirements, or for bonuses -- E.g if you meet the requirements, you get a bonus to your score, and depending on your overall score, you either get more rewards, or maybe fail.

Construction: This is more of concerning the gene Artisan, and other related abilities; there is already a code for if you have more then the required stat, you get back some of the required material, might be able to expand on it for auto-explore.

Levels: This could give a multipler to the reward, say something like 1.5 for level 50, 1.1 for level 10, etc -- It could be tied together with what my Construction idea.

Expanding a bit further:

How I see it, you could probably do something like a score system, and depending on how much your score is, you'll get a percentage of winning/failing, and if you're over, you may get more rewards -- I'll try to make an example.

Lets say we'd be able to auto-explore the Desert.

The terrain would be suitable for lizards, due to the heat, so they'll get a bonus for there. It may also include some stat requirement like constitution. -- Pretty much something like "The Desert is a harsh terrain, and in order for you to successfully explore it you'll need a lizard and/or high constitution [80] (though I don't know if the requirements well be visible or not). Then if you meet the requirement, you get a bonus to your score. -- This would be what I meant when I talked about quest.

For the Exhibition -- the pet could gain scores through color, genes, etc, and it can be used as a base for the overall success scoring.