Figurine / Playset Ability Optimization

Like many other LEGO games, portions of the LEGO Dimensions campaign and various levels are gated by obstacles that require the abilities of certain characters. There are some characters that have multiple abilities (e.g. Cyberman with hacking, drone, etc.) and there are some abilities that are limited to a small number of characters (e.g. ghost puzzles only available via Peter Venkman).

I'm the kind of person who wants to have access to all aspects of the game, but I obviously also want to minimize the amount of money spent on all of the playsets and figurines. Based on what's currently available for sale and known character abilities, has anyone compiled or found a resource that presents the optimal purchases to ensure that all abilities are available in some way? How far down this rabbit hole do I have to go?

good question, i so far have not found a easy to use list ( want one! )

also no lego love at all on this site? after all of the infinity and skylanders video's i'm a bit surprised...

Jeff said on the most recent Bombcast that they were not sent a copy of the game, so that would be why they haven't done any coverage.

@mcmax3000: that explains it, thanks! hopefully soon because i just want to see them play with lego's.

I've watched Greg Miller over at Kinda Funny do a couple of streams, based on what I've seen so far:

Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle: These are in the base set and will get you most of the way.

You need at least one character from each brand ("YAY BRANDS") to get into their adventure world. Plus each of the level packs for those levels.

On top of that, you need certain abilities to collection/complete certain tasks:

Break Silver Blocks: Get the Simpsons Level Pack, gets you homer(rage ability, and break glass), the car (tow ropes), and the family tv(blows up silver blocks)

Melt Gold Bricks: Not sure if there is someone better, but Cyborg can do this.

Hacking: Doc Brown is needed, there was another but I can't remember maybe Doctor Who? In that case get the Doctor Who Level Pack when it comes out as that will get you the Doctor (hacking, if I'm right), the TARDIS (there are TARDIS specific areas in other levels, Greg showed one inside the Simpsons Level Pack), and K9 (whose abilities are unknown to me currently)

Clean up toxic waste: Krusty can do that, or with the Ghostbusters level pack you get the Ecto-1 which has a second (and third like every other vehicle) form that sprays water, also you get Venkman, who you need for..

Ghost clouds???: Not sure what the exact name was, but you need Venkman for these, literally the only character on the list that could do it.

Portal Walls: need the Portal level pack so you can use these, Chell comes with that one.

That's all I can remember seeing so far. Could be more. Probably is more. I'm so excited for this game, like stupid excited. Can't wait to go buy it in a few weeks.

@goku13k: thats a amazing start!

the Simpson will be my first addition :D

Check out this pretty thorough guide: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps4/144665-lego-dimensions/faqs/72460

I would really love to know one thing about this game.

@towolie: np. just what I had seen during those streams

@ablaze: thanks for the link, man is that an eye chart, but useful

@devil240z: What's the one thing? Maybe we can answer it?

@devil240z: a bit odd to have a statement like that and not follow it up with a question...

what is the question!

@towolie: @goku13k: I meant like any one thing cause I know absolutely nothing about this game other that its lego and has lots of licensed stuff and its 'toys to life' in some way. I don't have a clear idea of how it actually works. what even comes with the base game and what you have to buy if you want a specific thing(licensed property). I'm really hoping they do a QL of it.

Do you build something out of lego and some how it appears in the game? Or is it more like skylanders?

@devil240z: ah i understand, i'll try to explain.

in basis it works the same as every previous lego game.

the base pack comes with the game, the portal and 3 mini figs + 1 vehicle.

you have around 18 ( guess ) levels that you can complete with just the base pack. each level plays out in a different franchise but they are all linked by a main story.

on top of that you have 1 adventure world ( over world with collectibles and a few quests and stuff ) for each different franchise, to unlock the adventure world you need at least 1 mini fig from that franchise.since you get gandalf, batman and wildstyle in the base game's those 3 adventure worlds are available with just the base game.

to 100% everything you also need specific character ability's ( look at the chart posted above ) that is because some areas are locked off by those ability's, those are however never needed to just finish the story!

hopefully this is written at least understandable ( i'm not a great writer ) and if you have more questions i'm willing to answer them all since i own the base game and am going to buy a extra minifig pack tomorrow xD ( it hooked me! >.< )

Funnily enough, this question has caused me to start a new coding project to find optimal purchases based on a number of factors. This includes whether or not to include level packs (if you don't care about the levels/worlds they contain) and which waves to consider (packs are being released in five waves at regular intervals - so far, only wave one has been released). The image that @ablaze linked to has been invaluable, along with the information LEGO Dimensions wiki, in finding out which figurines have which abilities.

To add to what @goku13k mentioned, here are the additional abilities that are required to access everything in the main story (according to the IGN wiki:

1. Dig
2. Drone
3. Electricity
4. Flight Dock Switch
5. Gyrosphere Switch
6. Hacking
7. Hazard Cleaner
8. Laser (Gold LEGO)
9. Mini Access
10. Portal Gun
11. Rainbow LEGO
12. Silver LEGO
13. Suspend Ghost
14. Target
15. Towbar
16. Weight Switch
17. X-Ray Vision

The problem that I'm facing is determining which of these are actually necessary on a level-by-level basis. I'm not deep enough into the game to know if abilities like the Gyrosphere Switch (which comes from the Jurassic World Level Pack) is necessary for the main game's levels and/or worlds. I'm hoping to play through each level in the main story and keep track of the abilities required per level to get a more complete picture.

I've got a Ruby on Rails project in progress to try and answer these questions. I've got a basic snippet of code completed to find the least expensive combination of packs to find the above "required" abilities, and I'm currently in the middle of seeding data entry. Hopefully, I'll have something more in a little while.

@devil240z:In response to your question, the lego figurines in each pack are entirely cosmetic. Each figurine comes with an individual base upon which you mount the final assembly, but the game doesn't know which figurine in which configuration is mounted on each stand. This includes the portal itself - the game starts with the portal disassembled and you are given an opportunity to build it within the first ten minutes of the story. You could play the entire game with a stock portal and the RFID stands and throw away all of the LEGO pieces, if you so desired. However, half of the fun comes from building the sets and reconfiguring them as the game suggests.

If you want a sentence description of the game, it's like every other LEGO game that you've probably played aside from the new experiences offered by building real LEGO and interacting with the portal. It's got the same diorama-like levels filled with LEGO punching, building, and problem solving. However, in addition to the inclusion of real LEGO figurines, this game differentiates itself by having several gameplay features tied to physically moving the figurines to different sections of the portal while playing. For example, an early ability involves the game placing different colored warp exits at various locations within a level. Picking up and placing a figurine on a colored section of the real-world portal will relocate that character to the corresponding warp exit in the game. The act of physically moving a Batman figurine and watching him warp across a level works a lot differently than simply pressing a button to perform the same action, and I think it largely works. This may have been done in other games (this is the first toys-to-life game I've ever played), but I'm still really impressed by the apparent novelty of this interaction.

I hope that helps!

@guyline82: oh ok that sounds pretty neat. Thanks for the info. I have never played a toys to life game so all I know about them is from Jeff talking about skylanders. I was looking at all the Lego dimensions stuff listed on amazon started to get kinda interested in it.