Discussion Autumn Zodiac

[Marusia]

In our language version there is guy who has 3 brown bears and 3 polar bears, all at level 10.

Oh no, here we go again... Well @Shino, we already had a similiar "discussion" here after I got 12 Mermaids Paradises, remember ?

It's all thanks to you, because you changed max value of keys from 180+ to 80
He got to 180+ and made many quests before you lowered the quantity after first 24 hours.

That's not correct. The additional amount of currency I gained on day1 for completing 80+ quests is smaller, than the amount of currency left after I got 3 brown bears. Conclusion: I would have 3 brown bears on day7 anyway. That's a fact, numbers don't lie.

@Marindor please tell creators they did a good job, dividing players into better and worse ones

I have to agree. I had criticised the system long before the event went on live. They are destroying the game balance permanently.

and because of players abusing the system.

I beg your pardon ? Since when playing the game means "abusing the system" ? Since when thinking ahead and saving time boosters gained in the last event is "abusing the system" ? Me and few other players, we did nothing wrong, it's the system that is broken. To the state, that 3 brown bears could be just a beginning. Frankly, right now I'm not quite sure what to do. Don't get me wrong, but at the end I could "easily" (I mean it would be fully realistic) end up with 6-7 brown bears (no real money involved), but on the other hand I don't know if I want to participate in this madness any further..

I tried to warn Inno what would happen, if they don't change the current system, in the post below. Long before the event went on live. Shino, please read it carefully.
https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/autumn-zodiac.13647/page-10#post-77868
Some outtakes:
"You have created a "Perpetuum Mobile"-style mechanics that allowed many players to turn your intended pretend-to-be-endless quest cycle into a really endless one."

"Leave the quest line endless and some players will always beat the system, they will always find a way to do it. No matter what what you try, no matter what hurdles you put in their way - you will not succeed as far as some players are concerned, but the "normal" casual players will suffer because of these hurdles."

"if this event appears on live in this shape and form you will damage the game balance permanently (at least the tournament balance)"

"One Brown Bear is totally OP in my opinion (as the Fire Phoenix was), but allowing players to have more than one is... I don't know, "careless" is a polite way to describe it, especially the Brown Bear is waaaay to powerful to allow that"

"You think the reduced amount of pet food will make it impossible to "run" more than one Brown Bear on pet food permanently ? Surprise, surprise. Players are already exchanging some ideas how to deal with it and they will succeed (as I mentioned before, they don't suffer under lack of imagination or creativity)"

"2. but please make it impossible to get more than one Bear of a kind.
3. or add some REALLY hard quests to the late cycle.
4. or reduce the amount of keys for late cycle quests significantly."

"you will never be able to prevent some players from finding a way to jump over your hurdles and you will always have a great number of unhappy players as a result."

Well guess what ? That's exactly, what happened. I wasn't the only one being able to predict it. Inno had it all, they were provided with opinions from some high-performance players, they had their statistics from the Mermaids event and did nothing about it. Or should I rather say: they did exactly the wrong thing. They tried to make it harder for everyone, rather than rising the difficulty level for those high-performace players instead.

We had an intresting discussion on our national forums yesterday. The subject was: what will Inno do in order to repair the damage done ? How can they fix the balance ? We were not optimistic, we think that Inno will try to silently reduce the amount of pet food even further in order to prevent players with 3-6 bears from using them 24/7. We agreed that it would be exactly the wrong thing to do again, based on short-term thinking.

Dear Inno, please let me make another prediction. If you do that, it will backfire and you only will make the life of normal players harder, but those "bear collectors" will remain unaffected. They already know how to adjust they play-style to remain unaffected You should find another solution. This one would be easy, it would be quick to implement and it... would be just wrong. I have no idea what the solutuion should be, but in the current state this game is broken, it's balance destroyed.

As far as future events are concerned, I have some proposals:
1. Gaining more than one set of main prizes like bears should not be possible. Other prizes like A.K. Monuments, Trading outposts and so on should still be available.
2. The amount of currency for all quests (starting with quest 1) should be constant (e.g. 80) and not progressive, .
That would help players that are not able to complete many quests (for whatever reasons)
3. Decrease the difficulty level for quests 1-100.
4. Keep the current difficulty level for quests 101-150
5. Increase the difficulty level for quests 150-infinity significantly.

Under the line: I really started to miss our old-style events. Ironically enough, I used to criticize them for not rewarding more active players. Well, times and perspective change, I would gladly get back to the previous system. The begginning of the Mermaids event was pretty exciting, but what is happening now is a real mess

 

[Heymrdiedier]

It seems like @Jasper decided not to stay and watch this play out. That is a big pity. I played with him for quite a while and found him to be very knowledgeable and helpful. Too bad that it came to this.

yes he's gone and i totally understand his reasonings.
He enjoyed events in the old way because it allowed him to finish it in a few days, and then have the rest of the event to relax and do city building stuff etc. With the new setup you have to be bussy the whole time and as soon as event is over, theres something else active (FSA or whatever). So he never had time to relax anymore. Of course it didnt help that he played 5 or more accounts.

 

[Kasia]

@Heymrdiedier Even if you just have cities in each world and beta it would be overwhelming. I have one city on beta and I admit there are times (like this one) that by the time the event hits live I'm bored with it

 

[Verde]

@Shino, did you see these bears that you speak of in the player's city with your own eyes? Even if I discount the fact that the player got inside information in some magical way, I would very much like to know how it would be possible to have so many maxed bears so early.

I'd like to know where the player found enough space to put the blessed things!

 

[Verde]

Sitting here looking at my beta city, also a city on live, and trying to work out whether I can be bothered continuing with the event in either (admittedly, beta doesn't have long to go). One of my friends always had a bah-humbug approach to events, even in earlier times. Always thought that was a bit too scrooge-like but slowly coming around to his way of thinking.
In future, perhaps I'll try an event in Beta and just give it up there if it doesn't interest me, with a plan to then skip it completely for live. Could then just continue with city building.
Perhaps I'll give myself the night off and it'll all look better in the morning

 

[Kasia]

Okay, so for a bit of positive feedback - one of the quests I actually did like the format is the encounter/spire quest. This one has an AND/OR within it so if you are asked to do 5 spire and/or 5 encounters it can be a combination. So if I am only able to do 3 spire encounters those still count toward my completion when I finish off with normal encounters.

I think it would be very helpful to have the solve encounter/tourney encounter in this format as well. Granted, I do also think that the tourney encounters should be pared down to 4 to represent the tourney province completion...

 

[Kasia]

So today... 4 scout/research quests in a row.... this is beyond ridiculous.

 

[Verde]

Okay, so for a bit of positive feedback - one of the quests I actually did like the format is the encounter/spire quest. This one has an AND/OR within it so if you are asked to do 5 spire and/or 5 encounters it can be a combination. So if I am only able to do 3 spire encounters those still count toward my completion when I finish off with normal encounters.

I think it would be very helpful to have the solve encounter/tourney encounter in this format as well. Granted, I do also think that the tourney encounters should be pared down to 4 to represent the tourney province completion...

Agree with this, Kasia, this quest is one that I like as well. Feel like I get something extra for the Spire quests, without needing to commit to managing 5 of them

 

[Kasia]

Well, for beta looks like 2 fully evolved bears and one to 7 for me. I did not purchase the building or diamonds. I did freely use speed boosts for many quests, especially those of 9+ hours. Of course, now it will take several weeks for my city to recover.

 

[aliceFalling]

last day...15 hours to go...i can do it...then... POOF!...TOOLBOXES! LMAOROTF

@Marusia please tell me how you get multiple bears/mermaids etc...on the platforms i play...basically UK and Italy ...it would seem to be impossible.

 

[palmira]

last day...15 hours to go...i can do it...then... POOF!...TOOLBOXES! LMAOROTF

and toolboxes for me too so the event is also over I am not complaining, I got 3 fully upgraded bears but I used an humongous amount of time instants and was pretty lucky with keys on chests. Live i have been plagued with toolboxes after toolboxes (when the tourney is on and 45 encounters or 11 relics when is off, sigh...) so I won't be that lucky for sure even though I have been using a lot of time instants too.

 

[Karvest]

I wanted to build up last bear today using 2 rounds of tourney, but said "it's enough for me" after getting last 4 quests this morning:
scout or research
5x24h WS
scout or research
scout or research

 

[Dony]

I like endless quest system, but i dont like gameplay around instants (even tho we could do quests till the end, it was most boring event for me to date), that kind of system doesnt reward activity like it is advertised

 

[SirSmithy]

I like endless quest system, but i dont like gameplay around instants (even tho we could do quests till the end, it was most boring event for me to date), that kind of system doesnt reward activity like it is advertised

Exactly... it rewards the biggest time instants stock

 

[Jackluyt]

Comments and Suggestions from EPL
Feel free to submit comments and suggestions here https://tinyurl.com/y5o2e9fx!

1, As always, congratulations to the Elvenar team for excellent artwork and technical production.
Well done!!

2. For me, evolving buildings are a great improvement over building sets - so much more power packed into a smaller space!
I like the concept!

3. Despite the teething problems, I really love the new ‘random quest’ format - and see it as a very positive change from the designers. It is no longer possible for strong players to swamp their cities with lots and lots of tiny little level one buildings and finish the event in three days - which was never the intention for Events!

In our Event Note, we have posted a list of what one typical player encountered in her event to give you an idea of what you may expect; everyone will get similar quests, but in a different order. So now one has to play the event one quest at a time, rather than just reading and reacting to a string of known quests from a 'cheat sheet' - which was never the designer’s intention.
(I spoke with one of the event designers a while back - and they do not want 'cheat sheets'. If they wanted all the players to know exactly what is coming next, they would post a list in the Wiki.)

To me this format is infinitely more satisfying and I am enjoying the event a lot. I think many skeptics, as so often happens in the game, will eventually come to see that this is a more satisfying way to play Events!!

4. There is little doubt that this new event format is going to make events easier and more fun for smaller cities - who in the last few had no chance to finish!
I have always felt that Events should not require you to rip up your city and build itty-bitty little buildings that have no place in your city; it is so nice now to be able to use buildings that are there already!

5. I am really enjoying the event! Very relaxing; and one gets 5 - 10 quests done every day on average without any fuss and bother.
I am particularly enjoying the absence of ‘Upgrade x buildings to level y’ - I hope they will never return.

Events should be FUN - they should not require you to rip your city to pieces to build things that you really don’t want or need!

6. For me this event gets 9 out of 10 - the prizes are a bit ordinary; but not complaining; lots of KP and boosters to be made!!

7. There has been a lot of hoo-hah about the quest changes! I for one am very happy with the changes - I think they are constructive and will improve the game for all of us. They will just take a little time to grow on us.
Generally speaking, the people who run into troubles in this game are those who do not follow the common sense recommendations - and one of those is always keep every building maxed - because it is the best use of space.
The designers expect 'the average player' will design their city this way - and they create events that work with this ‘average city’.

I have been warning people for years - the more you deviate from the 'typical' city set-up, the more likely you will run into problems with game changes! It is perhaps less risky to play conservatively, rather than smarty-pantsing your way through to the end.

I might mention that I have only 5 of the required planks workshops and 8 workshops - which are part of my normal city architecture - and I have already done more than 170 quests without spending Diamonds. So really, the new event format is totally do-able.

8. The last-minute change to the questing system really did not work!
Too many Scout-or-Vapors by far.

Next time they are looking for a filler to slow down the game - how about ‘Collect 20 Golden Keys”? That would take 24 hours out of the game, and would be something different, at least!

I strongly feel that event quests should not be random or destructive - they should add to our game knowledge when we first start - and they should be relevant to the Event too!

One gets the feeling that many of the present set of quests are just there to take up time and prevent players from progressing too quickly

Here are some suggestions:

• get people to trade more with place x trades;
• get people to visit more;
• encourage us to do things that we have not discovered yet - particularly the ‘newbies’. Quests like ‘zoom in and zoom out again’; ‘post a message on chat’, ‘post a trade’, ‘use an enchantment’, ‘sell a culture building’, ‘visit x neighbors’.;
• Receive x Neighborly visits would be a great one too - to encourage those who do not play in Fellowships to at least make the effort to meet their Map neighbors;
• Why not include Tournament encounters in the quests? Like ‘solve x Tournament encounters’.
  It would create more interest in Tournaments! So why not use the Events to get people involved in Tournaments? Because this to me is what the Event Quests are ideally suited to!

The Quests could be a wonderful way to educate the newcomers - instead of endless repetition of same-old, same-old; boring and meaningless. That is why I am sad that the second questline was dropped - this is an ideal slot for in-game education.
I hope they will consider bringing it back again.

9. Another suggestion: I know the designers don’t want ‘cheat sheets’ where you know exactly what is coming next - but what about at least telling us the next quest or two?
That would really make things a lot easier - adding a ‘Next Up’ box inside the quest window!

 

[Lovec Krys]

For the author of this:

Next time they are looking for a filler to slow down the game - how about ‘Collect 20 Golden Keys”? That would take 24 hours out of the game, and would be something different, at least!

If you enjoy hurting yourself, please hurt only yourself and not anyone else!

 

[Loki Blue]

So long as at least one person is happy with the event, the developers can pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

So long as at least one person is happy with the event, the developers can pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

that one person would be me then?
i did like the the event loads better before they did the patch with the less workshops/factories tho. It ended up with getting same quest over and over and over.

 

[iDavis]

encourage us to do things that we have not discovered yet - particularly the ‘newbies’. Quests like ‘zoom in and zoom out again’; ‘post a message on chat’, ‘post a trade’, ‘use an enchantment’, ‘sell a culture building’, ‘visit x neighbors’.;

Please do not force us to posting messages. Anywhere (private messages / chat). I have experiences with one game I played years ago where players had quests to do that and everyday I was getting amount of messages like "hi", "sup" or "sldkfkrdhdkj".

 

[Loki Blue]

that one person would be me then?