Blight and Dazzling

This is a new twist to the game so we will cover the basics here and add more as we discover additional details.

Currently all areas have been afflicted by what is known as ‘Blight’. This has meant that otherwise hidden Dots are appearing all over the world (one per S2 L17 cell) as Feral Dots in the wild. If there is a Feral Dot in your close proximity you will see a marker next to your Map icon (which will have turned green) on your main screen:

Tap on the green map icon to see what is around you:

Your overworld map shows a green haze wherever there is a Feral Dot waiting to be rescued, and the closest Feral Dots to you (those that are in range) have the Feral icon (the colour of which is a very approximate indication of the colour of the Feral Dot). The location of Feral Dots is determined by S2 L17 Cells, more about which can be found here.

If you cannot see the green haze then either the Blight has been totally cleared from your area (unlikely) or you may have ‘Show Blight’ disabled. Make sure that the lower slider (of the 2 at the top right of your screen) is slid to the right.

You can also see that there is a Habitat in range, however it is within the green haze and will have one or more Dots ‘locked’ (meaning that you cannot Hatch with them) until you or another Keeper, rescues the Dot from that location.

If you tap on one of the Feral Dot icons, you will see a pop-up providing a little information about the Feral Dot.

We can see the Feral Dot Level (equivalent to Keeper Dot Bond Level), and a Trait Match Multiplier which provides a Dazzle Buff should you want to try to rescue the Feral Dot – more on that later.

Tap ‘See Traits’ and you will be able to see exactly which Traits you have matched with the Feral (matching Traits will have a thin grey outline):

So, if you are ready to start an encounter simply tap ‘let’s go’ on the initial Feral Dot pop-up and the Feral and your Dot will appear in AR. The Feral Dot will take a second or two to settle into position and then the Dazzling can commence!

The object of Dazzling is to ‘Lasso’ the Feral Dot until its Health diminishes to zero, at which point it is deemed to be ‘rescued’. Lassoing involves drawing complete circles (or ellipses or any other shape as long as they are unbroken, do not touch the Feral Dot and are effectively closed).

For a circle to count at all, it must be ‘complete’ – meaning that the start and end must meet or cross over to ‘close’ the circle. This becomes much easier with practice.

The official pictures above do not make it crystal clear that you must make three consecutive, completed, circles first, before the initial lasso is counted, subsequent consecutive circles count as one lasso per completed circle. After you have completed the three initial circles, the screen will prompt you to ‘release’, which means lift your circling finger off the screen. THIS IS NOT AN INSTRUCTION – this simply means that if you do release, from this point forward, Damage will be inflicted on the feral Dot and it will lose some Health – read more below:

As you complete consecutive lassos you will notice the Feral Dot Health Bar declining and a lasso Multiplier number (bonus) increasing. The Lasso Multiplier number increases by 0.25 (rounded on screen) for each successive completed lasso after the initial 3. When you release, the Damage done to the Feral Dot’s Health will be scaled by the Lasso Multiplier active when you released.

Be aware that the maximum lasso Multiplier is 4x, completing any further circles without releasing will not reduce the Feral Dot Health any further so keep one eye on that, and when/if it reached 4x, release straight away. You can then start circling again to reduce the Feral Do’s damage further. Lasso Multipliers can be seen here:

The Multipliers shown on screen in the game are rounded to 1DP.

Note: once you have released, you will need another 3 consecutive circles before the Lasso Multiplier starts to increment again.

When you have reduced the Feral Dot’s Health to zero, you have ‘rescued’ the Feral and it will be freed from the Blight. You have ‘Dazzled’ the Feral Dot and ‘rescued’ it.

(Quite why causing Damage and reducing an entity’s Health to zero results in a ‘rescue’ we have no idea but those are terms used in the game!).

Tip:

If you want to skip the animation after Dazzling - just tap on the Feral Dot and you will go directly to the BlightBux Reward.

After completing the recuse mission, you will be rewarded with BlightBux and Dot XP, the quantities of which depend on the Level of the feral Dot you have rescued. This table shows the current Feral Levels and Rewards:

BlightBux are a new in-game currency that can be used to purchase items from the Store. Some items are fairly static, others rotate daily, and there are occasional special one-off offers. There is little point in hoarding BlightBux as you can only retain a maximum of 25,000 at any time. If you have reached 25,000 then any additional Ferals you rescue will only reward Dot XP.

Tips (not guaranteed but worth a try if you are having difficulties):

If the feral Dot appears too close on your screen, take a couple of steps backwards – if you are lucky, the Feral Dot will take up less space onscreen and you will remain within range.
Feral Dots tend to do most of their movements by jumping from side to side, try tipping your device on its side into landscape (or widescreen) mode to allow a little more flexibility in lassoing the feral Dot.
You could also experiment with ‘tricking’ the AR by trying to get the Feral Dot to initially settle between two objects that contrast with the surrounding area. It may just be possible to prevent the Feral from jumping around if the AR thinks that there are solid obstacles in the way.

So, you have successfully rescued a Feral – what next? Well, the rescued Feral will appear in your Visitor Dots tab and you have the option to Hatch with them should you wish. The Hatch cost of rescued Ferals is currently set to base cost (i.e. 1x). You can check out the cost by simply tapping the Feral Dot in the Visitor Dots tab.

Rescued Dots will remain in your Visitor Dot tab for 24 hours, after which they are gone forever!

Blight has a partial refresh every Friday, and also during Feral Events. Only about 1/3 of the cleared Blight will refresh each time so your neighbourhood won't look as if it is permanently blighted!

Feral Trait Match Multipliers

So, we have covered the basic `Lasso Multipliers, but there’s another one to consider too! For every Trait that your Dot matches with the Feral, there is an additional factor – the Trait Match Multiplier. Once again, this scales with increasing Trait matches as listed in this Table:

The Trait Match Multipliers appear to compound with the other Multipliers therefore making the Feral Dot easier to rescue!

Feral Dot Health and Keeper Dot Damage.

As with any battle system, there must be baseline values for Health (Feral only) and Damage done (Keeper Dot only) which determine the difficulty or ease with which the Feral Dot can be rescued. The current Damage base stats vary according to the Bond Level of your Dot and are summarised here:

Feral Dot Health similarly scales with the Feral Dot Level and the current base stats can be seen here:

Ever wondered how the Difficulty Level of Ferals are determined?

This table shows that there are ranges of Feral Levels, depending on Keeper Level. Meaning that a if you and another Keeper (of different Keeper Levels) encounter the same Feral, the Feral may appear a different Difficulty Level to each Keeper.

Feral spawns:

Feral Dots re-spawn on Fridays (FDF or Feral Dot Friday) with approximately 30% of the L17 Cells are affected, so don't expect all your Feral Dots to come back all at once! Feral re-spawn can also be significantly affected by any Bight or Feral Event and may (rarely) even result in a 100% re-spawn.

Misc.

There are other parameters within the Feral Dot Dazzling and rescue mechanic however for now these appear to be as yet unused and are perhaps intended for further tweaks or special Dazzle events. When they become an obvious part of the game, we will add them to his page!

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