Neopet Training: Cheaper Than Ever Before!

So what has changed, exactly? Well, for starters, the introduction of Noda's Fortune Cookies in the Neocash Mall has made getting stats a bit easier. Training Fortune Cookies randomly award you a decreased training time (30-75% less time) for a period of five days. For those who like to get stat increases by testing their luck at the secret laboratory, Lab Ray Fortune Cookies grant you the chance at getting up to three extra zaps per day for an entire week. However, the real winners in the Neocash Mall are the Faerie Quest Fortune Cookies. These amazing cookies guarantee you one faerie quest every day for seven days, which means that you will almost for sure receive stat increases every single day that you use the cookies. These stats will most likely be cheaper than straight out training as faerie quests are typically low in cost. If you caught on to the "almost for sure" bit two sentences ago, you may be wondering why you are not be guaranteed stats on every day. The reason? Fountain Faerie Quests. Yes, the quests that most Neopians love because they allow us to paint Neopets really expensive colors for a fraction of the price are also possible with the Faerie Quest Fortune Cookies. Icing on the cake, if you ask me!

The other insanely helpful part of Neopian life that has changed recently with regards to training is the makeover of the battledome. As part of the battledome's revamping, a prize system was implemented for winning battles. Each Neopian is allowed to win a handful of neopoints and up to fifteen prizes a day. While these prizes range from cheap food items to expensive paint brushes for those who are extra lucky, the most significant prizes have been the red codestones. Red codestones are used in the Secret Ninja Training School for Neopets who have reached level 250. Now you may be thinking that this is not really helpful as only serious trainers actually reach level 250. If that is your mindset, then you are partially correct. This is where things get interesting! With the old system of training, getting high enough stats to use the red codestones in the Secret Ninja Training School most likely required that you use an insane amount of regular codestones at the Mystery Island Training School first, which essentially translated into a ridiculous amount of neopoints spent. For this reason, the majority of people who actively trained their Neopets had still not reached the Secret Ninja Training School at the time of the battledome makeover. As the new battledome began to give out massive amounts of codestones – both regular and red – people continued to train.

This is where the major shift in training occurred. Regular codestones have had a history of flooding the market. In recent years, these codestones have always been readily available as they can be found with regularity through random events and as prizes for Key Quest. Although red codestones can also be won as Key Quest prizes, they are a less likely prize than their regular counterparts. Likewise, you could not rely on random events to get red codestones. Instead, you could take one of each regular codestone to a volcano in Mystery Island to create one red codestone. In other words, red codestones were very expensive. The impact of the regular codestones being flooded into the market was small as they were already flooded in, and the grand majority of trainers used them to train. Remember how I said that a very small portion of the Neopian population was at the level of the Secret Ninja Training School? This did not change when the red codestones became common prizes. Because they were not used anywhere near as often as the regular codestones, the influx of the red codestones far exceeded the demand for them, which caused their prices to plummet while the regular codestones remained somewhat stable in price. A huge benefit of the Secret Ninja Training School was that the length of time required for training was greatly reduced at just four hours compared to the twenty-four hours required at the highest level of training at the Mystery Island Training School, yet in the past it made sense to continue using regular codestones because they were considerably cheaper. That definitely is not the case anymore.

So what should you do? Your best bet at this moment is to train your pet evenly until it reaches level 40 with even stats (40 level, 80 strength, 80 defence, 80 hit points), or possibly up to the next codestone tier, depending on the going price of the red codestones at the time that this article is published. Keep in mind that events such as plots may temporarily raise the price of codestones, but unless the battledome stops giving the red codestones out as prizes, the overall price should remain relatively constant or at least increase at a very gradual rate. Once you reach level 40 with even stats, your next step should be to get to level 250 so that you can enter the Secret Ninja Training School! This is by far going to be the most tedious and expensive part of your training as you will have to go through all of the trainings that range from 3 regular codestones to 8 and 4 hours to 24, but once you reach level 250, you will be glad you did it!

Luckily, there are some things that you can do to speed through your training. In order to raise your level, you can complete some Kitchen Quests in Mystery Island. These quests do not guarantee level increases and you may get other stats and junk items instead, but overall the stat increases do help. You can also try scratching Faeries Fortune Scratchcards at the Ice Caves Scratchcard Kiosk and Festering Fortune Scratchcards at the Deserted Fairground Kiosk as they occasionally grant you level increases. For both the Kitchen Quests and scratchcards, it is highly recommended that you temporarily move all of your other Neopets to your side accounts as all three award stat increases to a random pet on your account. Once you actually reach level 250, you will be able to train at the Secret Ninja Training School with affordable red codestones through short training durations.

Before these recent changes, many users used items to increase stats. While these items still exist, they really only remain useful to those Neopians who have been serious into training for years and have ridiculously strong Neopets. To put this idea into perspective, I will use my battledome pet, Greggzor, as an example. Prior to these changes, the only item that I found to be cost effective was the Armoured Negg, which at around 30,000 neopoints a pop would raise Greggzor's defense by one defense point. As I write this article, Greggzor's HSD is currently at 1447. Assuming prices stay somewhat constant, using Armoured Neggs will not be cost effective until Greggzor has around 2400 HSD now. Considering the stat-raising items that currently exist, the majority of Neopians will most likely not benefit from their use. Those that would benefit from such items most likely have far more battledome knowledge than I do as they would have to have been training for many, many years. However, that isn't to say that things may not change in the future with the possible introduction of new items.

One of the great things about Neopets is that things can change instantly. Most people did not expect the flood of red codestones to happen as it did. Likewise, there may be changes in the future that could affect battledome training positively or negatively that are currently unforeseeable. While I firmly believe everything I have written in this guide and follow my own advice when it comes to training, it is totally possible that this guide may be irrelevant with future changes. I highly encourage you to follow this guide for the time being, but always keep your eyes open for future training guides (even if they are written by other users!) as they may shed greater insight and include more up-to-date information in this ever-changing Neopian world.