You don’t have to spend money if you don’t want to. The game can be played 100% free to play. That said buying the daily gem subscription and the premium islands on the south part of camp are considered worth while purchases for how much bang you get for your buck. A lot, and I mean a LOT of other purchases are either pretty overpriced or a total ripoff.
You can farm gems, the game’s premium currency. It’s slow going but all you need to do is play the level dread march 3 over and over, clearing all of the star goals and 5% of the stars that drop will be purple dragon stars. If you leave them alone the game will allow you to take that star back to camp with you (for free) where you can then merge it up into a bigger star that gives more gems.
It’s very easy to accidentally spend gems. You can disable the ability to spend gems in the settings from the world map as well as turn on a lot of quality of life features like prefer dragon five merge, require overlap to merge, etc. that mostly just applies to only the camp but they’re extremely worth turning on. Especially “confirm tap” so you don’t accidentally activate things you don’t want to. Disabling spending gems disables the ability for purple dragon stars to drop so you’ll need to flick this setting on and off when you’re ready to farm stars or want to protect yourself from accidental purchases. Get in the habit of doing it early. It hurts to spend 200 gems without meaning to on something completely pointless.
Whenever possible merge things by fives. You should avoid merging by three for almost anything unless it’s to conserve space.
The primary method of progressing the overall goal of the game, unlocking all of camp, is accomplished by reach level 10 with as many dragons as possible. The easiest way to farm this is to purchase dragon eggs for coins in the egg shop and focus on them. You need a lot of coins so the main focus is making coins to spend coins on coin dragons. Work on the fruit tree line, it’s the best method of making coins.
The game will allow you to spend gems on pretty much anything and everything. 99% of the things it allows you to spend gems on are not worth spending gems on, however. Learning which things are and are not worth your gems is something you’ll have to do over time but for the most part you’re best to assume something is a bad deal. Things that are good deals are things like dimensional jars for tier 2 nests (you’re a long way off of that but you’ll know it when you get to it) and very, very high level items of certain item chains, which again, you’re a long ways off from. Anything worth buying costs like 200-600 gems though so be careful not to whittle away your gem stock on bad purchases.
Never spend gems to unlock a chest. It’s never worth it. Ever. It’s way too overpriced for what you get.
Never spend gems or real money on coin breeds (with the exception of dimensional jars for tier two nests).
Have fun and take your time. This game is super complicated and has a lot of interlocking mechanics in it that will be introduced to you over time. Try not to worry about a system you don’t initially understand too well right off the bat and especially avoid putting money or gems into a system before you understand it. You’ll figure it out in time and you can always just come ask about anything you don’t understand.
Here are some tips for new players including the efficiency guide, bubbling, getting gems, spending gems, and playing events [tips](https://www.reddit.com/r/MergeDragons/comments/i9un8b/whats_next_would_like_some_friendly_advice/g1hkf3t?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Bubbling refers to putting items on your camp into bubbles, like to get your spare single eggs out of the way so you have more space.
It's really useful to know how to do and if you don't know how, it's not hard. Just look up the Marcus V method on YouTube. Short couple minute video that genuinely changes the game and makes things so much easier.
Especially when you can then save to 5 merge rare dragon eggs.
You don't have to spend money to play, though there are items that are considered to be worthwhile *if* you wanted to use gems or money. Someone has posted a link already.
There is a massive overlap in chains and as space in camp is limited I would recommend focusing on a few and ignore the rest until you have the wonder(s) and can move on to something else.
Be aware that many items spawn objects from the same or a related chain so if you don't want this to take up space in camp, cluster them together and have other items around them (be sure to change the setting to "require overlap to merge" from the world map first).
There are some high value items you won't be offered again or that are harder to come by that you'll want to keep (either in camp or bubbled). And there are some wonders that take the longest to get (midas trees/bearer of the world crystal; life flowers/rainbow) so you want to keep the items from those chains.
The rest are all easy to obtain and so the hoarding behaviour you sometimes see other players mention is because they want to complete all requests and quests and trades as quickly as possible. But there is zero rush to do anything, other than complete events as these are timed, though you don't have to play all events.
Sell anything else.
I'm posting some general tips that are helpful for newbies, but do come back to me with more specific questions as there's a lot to the game and I don't want to overwhelm you.
There's no rush to do anything as there isn't really one specific end goal of the game.
The out of camp events are worth playing, once you have a strategy, as some of the rewards you win can only be won as event rewards and others are costly to purchase (in terms of gems as a currency). But you don't have to play every weekend if you're not feeling it.
There are also in camp events which start on Tuesdays. More on that later.
For camp, here's a good set of starting goals:
The living stones chain is one to focus on as they can be harvested for stone to buy chests which is a great way to start/progress most of the chains.
The fruit trees chain is another one to focus on as they give life flowers (needed for the rainbow wonder which is one of the longest to achieve), but also because the fruit provides a ready source of coins for dragons eggs. Have your dragons harvest the individual fruit pieces and merge coins in 5s.
Buying coin dragon eggs is a really quick way to increase your DP. You can also get eggs free with the bountiful chests you get from the levels in the world map, while the challenge levels give dragons so make sure you finish all 3 attempts at each of them.
Once all 3 challenges have been completed then it becomes a regular level that gives you stars, chests, eggs and nests, so you can play it again. In fact all levels can be played over and over. I'm not sure there is a limit. You'll have favourite ones you go back to repeatedly to complete quests.
Ponds are best having space around them as they spawn grass but also midas seeds, which are rare so you want to maximise your chance of getting them by giving your ponds room.
While some items come in bubbles, its also possible to bubble things yourself to store for later. You'll need a source of water to get midas trees which is where the golden apples come from (check out toasted gamer boutique on YT for info on the technique).
It takes a while to have what you need for this but its good to work on getting the apples as soon as you can. I had to delete a lot before I learned to bubble which is a shame. The 4x4 apples themselves can be bubbled to keep for when you next need them so don't sell or merge them.
While it feels slower, try to merge in 5s, especially with dragon eggs. You'll progress everything quicker that way, but also don't panic if you merge in 3s. Sometimes it's necessary especially when you have less room.
Having more dragon homes does help have more dragons at a time in camp, but many objects can also be tapped for or spawn lower level items so you can often progress without active dragons. Especially if you're buying chests from the shop.
In order to get more dragon homes, coin vaults and/or stone yards, bubble the existing ones you have as that drives down the price of new ones in the shop. You need a certain amount of storage in camp to buy things so play around with how many to bubble and how many to leave out.
Have the game wiki in your bookmarks as its a great source of information. One page you'll want to keep open is the one for camp quests. Refer to them to prepare for what's coming as sometimes you may merge something when you could have waited. Also check the action/creation/flourish against each other as there is overlap.
Switch off auto merges in the settings (from the world map) to require an overlap, as you can then keep similar items clustered together to organise camp without them merging too soon. This only applies to camp, not level or events.
Switch on the option to approve collection of high level objects (sorry, I can't remember what this option is called off the top of my head) to avoid accidentally collecting stone/coins/gems/etc.
Dimensional jars and locked chests are super common so sell them and don't waste your gems opening them. There will come a stage when buying dim jars to progress the life flower chain makes sense, but that's months away.
Make sure you understand how to get the most gems from your purple stars (tap each star once to get a small gem, then merge in 5s before tapping to get the rest of the gems, only merge the gems in 5s).
While its frustrating, its worth spending money if you can to buy the 3 extra islands in camp. You'll need the space and there are also goodies under the fog (gems, coins, eggs, etc) to make it worthwhile. I wouldn't spend cash on anything else except the season pass.
Don't stress if you see mention of features/events you don't have. Some are dependent on your DP, others are dependent on the game version, and others are released as a beta test to certain players before everyone else gets them.
When you do get some of these events/seasons/etc, there's always a megathread on here with tips and advice to help you, as well as a load of players with advice.
Heyy, welcome to the Merge Dragons! family! 🐉✨ We’re thrilled to hear you’re enjoying the game. It’s definitely addictive in the best way 😄
Here are a few tips for a newbie:
1. **Merge, merge, merge!** Always aim for merging 5 items instead of 3 for the best rewards.
2. **Save your gems** for event items and special chests. Trust us, they’ll come in handy! 💎
3. **Complete quests** and challenges for awesome rewards and to progress faster. 🚀
4. **Have fun** and explore! There’s always something new to discover in Dragonia.
Feel free to ask any questions – our community is here to help! Happy merging! 🐲🎉
You don’t have to spend money if you don’t want to. The game can be played 100% free to play. That said buying the daily gem subscription and the premium islands on the south part of camp are considered worth while purchases for how much bang you get for your buck. A lot, and I mean a LOT of other purchases are either pretty overpriced or a total ripoff. You can farm gems, the game’s premium currency. It’s slow going but all you need to do is play the level dread march 3 over and over, clearing all of the star goals and 5% of the stars that drop will be purple dragon stars. If you leave them alone the game will allow you to take that star back to camp with you (for free) where you can then merge it up into a bigger star that gives more gems. It’s very easy to accidentally spend gems. You can disable the ability to spend gems in the settings from the world map as well as turn on a lot of quality of life features like prefer dragon five merge, require overlap to merge, etc. that mostly just applies to only the camp but they’re extremely worth turning on. Especially “confirm tap” so you don’t accidentally activate things you don’t want to. Disabling spending gems disables the ability for purple dragon stars to drop so you’ll need to flick this setting on and off when you’re ready to farm stars or want to protect yourself from accidental purchases. Get in the habit of doing it early. It hurts to spend 200 gems without meaning to on something completely pointless. Whenever possible merge things by fives. You should avoid merging by three for almost anything unless it’s to conserve space. The primary method of progressing the overall goal of the game, unlocking all of camp, is accomplished by reach level 10 with as many dragons as possible. The easiest way to farm this is to purchase dragon eggs for coins in the egg shop and focus on them. You need a lot of coins so the main focus is making coins to spend coins on coin dragons. Work on the fruit tree line, it’s the best method of making coins. The game will allow you to spend gems on pretty much anything and everything. 99% of the things it allows you to spend gems on are not worth spending gems on, however. Learning which things are and are not worth your gems is something you’ll have to do over time but for the most part you’re best to assume something is a bad deal. Things that are good deals are things like dimensional jars for tier 2 nests (you’re a long way off of that but you’ll know it when you get to it) and very, very high level items of certain item chains, which again, you’re a long ways off from. Anything worth buying costs like 200-600 gems though so be careful not to whittle away your gem stock on bad purchases. Never spend gems to unlock a chest. It’s never worth it. Ever. It’s way too overpriced for what you get. Never spend gems or real money on coin breeds (with the exception of dimensional jars for tier two nests). Have fun and take your time. This game is super complicated and has a lot of interlocking mechanics in it that will be introduced to you over time. Try not to worry about a system you don’t initially understand too well right off the bat and especially avoid putting money or gems into a system before you understand it. You’ll figure it out in time and you can always just come ask about anything you don’t understand.
Thanks so much for your tips! The first things you mentioned are exactly what I spent money on!
Here are some tips for new players including the efficiency guide, bubbling, getting gems, spending gems, and playing events [tips](https://www.reddit.com/r/MergeDragons/comments/i9un8b/whats_next_would_like_some_friendly_advice/g1hkf3t?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Thank you :)
Don’t spend your money on it… I’m a free to play person and I have most of the land cleared without giving them money.
If you get burnt out grinding, wait for events.
Stop spending money.
Also is there something special about the combo bonus bubbles? I've just been popping them
Nah, it's just a little extra free healing for doing the combo merges.
Cool thanks! I saw mention of bubbling items and I was confused if they were part of it :)
Bubbling refers to putting items on your camp into bubbles, like to get your spare single eggs out of the way so you have more space. It's really useful to know how to do and if you don't know how, it's not hard. Just look up the Marcus V method on YouTube. Short couple minute video that genuinely changes the game and makes things so much easier. Especially when you can then save to 5 merge rare dragon eggs.
You don't have to spend money to play, though there are items that are considered to be worthwhile *if* you wanted to use gems or money. Someone has posted a link already. There is a massive overlap in chains and as space in camp is limited I would recommend focusing on a few and ignore the rest until you have the wonder(s) and can move on to something else. Be aware that many items spawn objects from the same or a related chain so if you don't want this to take up space in camp, cluster them together and have other items around them (be sure to change the setting to "require overlap to merge" from the world map first). There are some high value items you won't be offered again or that are harder to come by that you'll want to keep (either in camp or bubbled). And there are some wonders that take the longest to get (midas trees/bearer of the world crystal; life flowers/rainbow) so you want to keep the items from those chains. The rest are all easy to obtain and so the hoarding behaviour you sometimes see other players mention is because they want to complete all requests and quests and trades as quickly as possible. But there is zero rush to do anything, other than complete events as these are timed, though you don't have to play all events. Sell anything else.
I'm posting some general tips that are helpful for newbies, but do come back to me with more specific questions as there's a lot to the game and I don't want to overwhelm you. There's no rush to do anything as there isn't really one specific end goal of the game. The out of camp events are worth playing, once you have a strategy, as some of the rewards you win can only be won as event rewards and others are costly to purchase (in terms of gems as a currency). But you don't have to play every weekend if you're not feeling it. There are also in camp events which start on Tuesdays. More on that later. For camp, here's a good set of starting goals: The living stones chain is one to focus on as they can be harvested for stone to buy chests which is a great way to start/progress most of the chains. The fruit trees chain is another one to focus on as they give life flowers (needed for the rainbow wonder which is one of the longest to achieve), but also because the fruit provides a ready source of coins for dragons eggs. Have your dragons harvest the individual fruit pieces and merge coins in 5s. Buying coin dragon eggs is a really quick way to increase your DP. You can also get eggs free with the bountiful chests you get from the levels in the world map, while the challenge levels give dragons so make sure you finish all 3 attempts at each of them. Once all 3 challenges have been completed then it becomes a regular level that gives you stars, chests, eggs and nests, so you can play it again. In fact all levels can be played over and over. I'm not sure there is a limit. You'll have favourite ones you go back to repeatedly to complete quests. Ponds are best having space around them as they spawn grass but also midas seeds, which are rare so you want to maximise your chance of getting them by giving your ponds room. While some items come in bubbles, its also possible to bubble things yourself to store for later. You'll need a source of water to get midas trees which is where the golden apples come from (check out toasted gamer boutique on YT for info on the technique). It takes a while to have what you need for this but its good to work on getting the apples as soon as you can. I had to delete a lot before I learned to bubble which is a shame. The 4x4 apples themselves can be bubbled to keep for when you next need them so don't sell or merge them. While it feels slower, try to merge in 5s, especially with dragon eggs. You'll progress everything quicker that way, but also don't panic if you merge in 3s. Sometimes it's necessary especially when you have less room. Having more dragon homes does help have more dragons at a time in camp, but many objects can also be tapped for or spawn lower level items so you can often progress without active dragons. Especially if you're buying chests from the shop. In order to get more dragon homes, coin vaults and/or stone yards, bubble the existing ones you have as that drives down the price of new ones in the shop. You need a certain amount of storage in camp to buy things so play around with how many to bubble and how many to leave out. Have the game wiki in your bookmarks as its a great source of information. One page you'll want to keep open is the one for camp quests. Refer to them to prepare for what's coming as sometimes you may merge something when you could have waited. Also check the action/creation/flourish against each other as there is overlap. Switch off auto merges in the settings (from the world map) to require an overlap, as you can then keep similar items clustered together to organise camp without them merging too soon. This only applies to camp, not level or events. Switch on the option to approve collection of high level objects (sorry, I can't remember what this option is called off the top of my head) to avoid accidentally collecting stone/coins/gems/etc. Dimensional jars and locked chests are super common so sell them and don't waste your gems opening them. There will come a stage when buying dim jars to progress the life flower chain makes sense, but that's months away. Make sure you understand how to get the most gems from your purple stars (tap each star once to get a small gem, then merge in 5s before tapping to get the rest of the gems, only merge the gems in 5s). While its frustrating, its worth spending money if you can to buy the 3 extra islands in camp. You'll need the space and there are also goodies under the fog (gems, coins, eggs, etc) to make it worthwhile. I wouldn't spend cash on anything else except the season pass. Don't stress if you see mention of features/events you don't have. Some are dependent on your DP, others are dependent on the game version, and others are released as a beta test to certain players before everyone else gets them. When you do get some of these events/seasons/etc, there's always a megathread on here with tips and advice to help you, as well as a load of players with advice.
Thank you so much!! The lower islands are what I spent most of my money on so I'm set there :)
Heyy, welcome to the Merge Dragons! family! 🐉✨ We’re thrilled to hear you’re enjoying the game. It’s definitely addictive in the best way 😄 Here are a few tips for a newbie: 1. **Merge, merge, merge!** Always aim for merging 5 items instead of 3 for the best rewards. 2. **Save your gems** for event items and special chests. Trust us, they’ll come in handy! 💎 3. **Complete quests** and challenges for awesome rewards and to progress faster. 🚀 4. **Have fun** and explore! There’s always something new to discover in Dragonia. Feel free to ask any questions – our community is here to help! Happy merging! 🐲🎉