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Quests Quest overhaul

DeletedUser1657

Guest
Idea spawned from comments by @SoggyShorts, @Midnightsidhe and @Bobbykitty

Current situation
Currently there are 2 quests lines, one for the main story and one for repeatable and triggered quests. We also occasionally gain event quests.

Issues
  1. There are current concerns regarding the fight/explore quests in relation to staying in the "goldilocks zone".
  2. A lack of balance of the repeatable quests.
  3. Confusing warning messages when declining quests
Idea
Add a quest menu with multiple quest advisors.
Menu_Bar.jpg

Quest_Menu.jpg

The mainline quests would remain but the current decline-able ones would be removed (in its current form) and replaced with a several quest advisors (see picture above). Selecting an advisor would change the lower half of the screen to display the active quest and its status.

Each person/advisor would have quests related to those specific areas, certain mainline quests could be shifted into these areas for balance.
  • Military advisor - fight and win type quests, solve encounters
  • Exploration advisor - scout, gain relics, visit x neighbours, research advanced scouts (if possible non decline-able) etc.
  • Trading/Merchant advisor - produce x goods/supplies/coins, trade x, accept trades, etc.
  • Tournament advisor - complete x tournament encounters, complete x round, complete a round in the 5th province, etc.
  • Special quests - would include the quests that appear based on certain in-game triggers. Can also include, produce spells, use spells, use x kp in wonders, etc.
  • Building advisor - Complete a building at level x or higher, build x wonder to x level, etc.
  • Event advisor - Solstice, winter flurry, etc.
  • Quest advisor - New quest to provide rewards for completing a set number of quests in a specific timeframe, like a week. Triggers might be 3 quests, 5, 10, 15, etc. Counter resets weekly.
  • Rewards advisor - auto completed quests for tournament and ancient wonder rewards. (idea from SoggyShorts)
Those quests in the blue section would cycle around similar to the current declineable quests and alter slightly by era like the current ones. A limit would be placed on how many quests from each advisor can be done in a week. The quests would then repeat.

Having different categories also opens up different quest opportunities like more quests related to the MA or tournaments without impeding those who do not participate with these areas. A player would be able to focus in on areas of the game that they prefer to focus on. If one area is problematic they have more areas to work with without being blocked from 50% or more quests as is the current situation.

The message for declining a quest needs to change so the mainline quest is clear that declining a quest will not be repeated. For those in the blue section the message should be something like "Are you sure you wish to pass on this task at this time?"

The quest advisor is designed to provide extra rewards for active players who are completing quests. Rewards could be more rewarding then normal quests, particularly for larger rewards with supplies and runes as good reward options.

Certain quests from the military and/or exploration quests for era 1 and 2 would offer troops from the unit types unable to be unlocked. This would help early towns have better troop options initially to balance the current difficulties in those eras.

There are a lot of options with this idea that could be played with.

Downsides
  • This would be a major overhaul of an existing game feature but should be able to compliment other game aspects
  • Would see an end to endlessly repeatable quests and could cause some balancing concerns with new quest options as well as for those who rely on repeatable quests to make their town function.
 
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DeletedUser1657

Guest
By splitting the quests into "areas of interest" it should provide more option to achieve some without incessant scrolling. Can't say they won't be boring though :p but at least you would have more choice for areas of the game that do interest you, hopefully. :rolleyes:
 

DeletedUser1767

Guest
100% in favour. In addition to all the other advantages, this would make it much easier for newer users to tell which things they have to and which things they can choose to do, which is a huge plus.

What would be an example of a Special Triggered quest? Would that be some of the things moved in from the main questline?
 

DeletedUser1657

Guest
What would be an example of a Special Triggered quest? Would that be some of the things moved in from the main questline?

These are already in game like "have x relix of a boosted good". The quests that when they appear you have already completed, usually.
 

DeletedUser651

Guest
This sounds like more drudgery only now you won't be able to prepare for it and thus it will have limited use. The last thing I would want to do each day to have my factories be able to run is to set 50 or 100 beverages. And what happens when you get quests that are awful....like build buildings you don't want that you can't delete? Then you are either stuck with a building you don't want or you lose yet another quest line. It seems like another way for the devs to control each and every thing we do.

No. If you are going to overhaul this game, then give supplies for every neighborhood visit, just like you do with the coins and that will fix the imbalances. It never should have been that the only way you get the supply bonus is if a neighbor visits you too. We just don't have the players.
 

DeletedUser1657

Guest
This sounds like more drudgery only now you won't be able to prepare for it and thus it will have limited use. The last thing I would want to do each day to have my factories be able to run is to set 50 or 100 beverages. And what happens when you get quests that are awful....like build buildings you don't want that you can't delete? Then you are either stuck with a building you don't want or you lose yet another quest line.

Actually the idea is designed to improve both those situations. We already get quests like that and there are only so many of things they can do. By having multiple quest lines open you can work on multiple quests at a time. If there is one you do not want or cannot do then you are only stopped in one area, right now when that occurs you are 50% blocked. Other then the mainline and event quests there is no reason the quests would not be decline-able and could work in with your other idea of ignoring the warning when declining. Actually some of the idea was inspired by comments from you in respect to all of the scout and encounter quests as it also helps with these.

If they go with a quest advisor and you could get rewards for completing x number of quests in a day/week they could use extra supplies or even runes or other less common bonuses as rewards for players who are active in the game. A bit like a mini-event but there regularly.

No. If you are going to overhaul this game, then give supplies for every neighborhood visit, just like you do with the coins and that will fix the imbalances. It never should have been that the only way you get the supply bonus is if a neighbor visits you too. We just don't have the players.

Actually there are sufficient supplies already to run our towns, sure more would be much better and help reduce the difficulty of the puzzle. Again this idea helps with that too by providing more options to have ways of earning supplies but without endless looping. There is also the potential to resolve another major game imbalance with something like this. Merging another idea suggested in a thread on US forum by Lyapo is to have troops as reward for certain quests. For those in era 1 and 2 their military advisor with quests that give the much needed unit types that are missing in those eras could be a life saver.

Granted the other ideas mentioned don't require this idea to work on their own but there are definitely synergies that can be found with all of them.
 

DeletedUser651

Guest
Then I don't understand your idea. You have said contradictory things. Are the new quests declinable and looping? If they are, what is the difference? Or are they declinable and not looping in which case the devs need to write unlimited quests.

If there are already "sufficient" supplies (my lord and master thank you for your proclamation followed by the thinly veiled insult about reducing the difficulty of the puzzle for the dullards like me), then why have any quests at all?
 

DeletedUser1657

Guest
Then I don't understand your idea.
I have revised the original post and hopefully made things a little clearer. Let me know if there are aspects that need better clarification or could be improved.

If there are already "sufficient" supplies (my lord and master thank you for your proclamation followed by the thinly veiled insult about reducing the difficulty of the puzzle for the dullards like me), then why have any quests at all?

I am disappointed by your response. I made a simple statement based on knowledge that there are people on the forums who do not loop quests and still play and advance in the game. As such I have inferred that they must have sufficient supplies to do this. I never made any judgement or comment about looping quests nor did I comment on my approach and whether I do or do not do this.

There was no thinly veiled insult or any insult at all and no comment about any persons ability in the game. Again a simple observation that if more resources are made available to us than that helps everyone, similarly should we login tomorrow to find the supplies halved it would hurt everyone.

Should you wish to continue this aspect of the discussion I would prefer it if you would send me a private message.
 

DeletedUser651

Guest
You have revised the post so now the quests are declinable but not repeatable. In that case the devs have to write an unlimited number of quests or you will just sit there on the last one and never get a new one. If they aren't repeatable you won't be able to plan for anything. You wouldn't have any clue how long to set factories for or you would have to wait for a 2 day build or something.

And what do you gain?

You said you are redesigning this so that people will stay in the goldilocks zone and yet you have a military adviser that will give them the very quests that are the problem. Or the exploratory adviser will have them scout too far. Or they won't have any quests in that quest line.

I don't agree that splitting up the quests into a bunch of advisers will balance the quests out any more than they are now. You could end up with lots of advisers that are giving you quests that you don't participate in.

You would have a more interesting quest system this way. It gets old seeing the same ones over and over, but as I said, I don't imagine the devs will write unlimited numbers of quests so either they will still be repeating on a loop, or they will be non declinable and you will be stuck doing really awful things. They seem to have a finite number of tasks they ask of us, so this would just put the quests on an unpredictable loop.

A much easier fix for the 50% problem would be to have the quest stay there for a month or so and if you don't complete it then it moves on to the next one. Or simply make that "have a magic academy quest" declinable along with the magic academy (if I remember correctly, that was the number one request from players).

Or they could write some new quests. I don't remember the last time the looping quests changed. I think I have seen the same quests for 3 chapters now or is it 4?

Or just end the quests and only have them for contests.

I am disappointed by your response.

As was I with yours.
 
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DeletedUser607

Guest
I stopped completing quests somewhere around dwarven era. It's time consuming, boring and.. boring again. Scrolling through 50(?) quests to complete 2 of them, that's really stupid.

I don't know if this system would work, but at least it's worth thinking about. I say yes.

I know what you mean. I've arranged the quests for myself to do more quests in the same 3h stint. but yes, it's boring and time consuming.
4k planks, 4k dust, 4 scrolls, 16k supplies, 8x bread... then a long line of declined quests (unless there is a building upgrade, 4 relics, or so), then 2x adv. tools + 200k coins, then 6x adv. tools. and the whole thing starts over again. a bit boring, but who cares...

the stupid thing is, that the 8 workshops at the end of the orc-chapter are still not sufficient...

Then I don't understand your idea. You have said contradictory things. Are the new quests declinable and looping? If they are, what is the difference? Or are they declinable and not looping in which case the devs need to write unlimited quests.

If there are already "sufficient" supplies (my lord and master thank you for your proclamation followed by the thinly veiled insult about reducing the difficulty of the puzzle for the dullards like me), then why have any quests at all?

I'm afraid, the thing here boils down to: instead of having one row of quests, which are boring, we will get 6 lines of quests that are quite boring, but the really boring quests are at least stuck in another line, while the rewarding ones are in another line.

frankly, there are a lot of quests that are just stupid. do 4 encounters. and at the same time, the devs/mods/admins are complaining that people should not be at scouting times beyond 12 hours... or gather some supplies and a 24h production of your favorite boosted good? who does 24h productions, unless being forced to?
 
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DeletedUser1767

Guest
I think better than declinable but non-looping would be declinable, looping, but on a timer, so that you can't complete more than X quests (of type Q) during Y time period. That way, no one gets stuck on a specific quest because they don't want to make a twenty-four hour production, and the devs aren't stuck writing infinite quests either.

The issue with the Goldilocks zone could be dealt with by just not having an advisor of that type. It could also be handled by having a strict limit on the number of quests telling you to scout a province/gain U relics of type V/solve N encounters that are made available during a specific time period.

My initial suggestion of a timer was based on the idea that having a timer would enable better rewards to be offered (like broken shards or even rune shards), since the time limit would prevent people from exploiting a loop to gain insane numbers of rune shards. But I think it could also be utilised to control (e.g.) the number of quests telling you to go do something on the world map. If those came up rather rarely, but had a very good reward, people wouldn't be encouraged to scout too frequently, but the quest would be worth doing when it came up.

Or, for another example, yeah, I basically never do the twenty-four hour production quests unless a big event is involved, but if I were offered such a quest every few weeks for a better reward than the rewards currently offered, it might very well be worth my time.
 

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
You said you are redesigning this so that people will stay in the goldilocks zone and yet you have a military adviser that will give them the very quests that are the problem
Simple fix: The military advisor that tells you to
1. scout a province
2. fight and win x encounters
3. complete a province
4. Train X of Q
And once you have cleared enough provinces to unlock the next chest
5. Research advanced scouts (not declinable)

@Mykan Don't forget the Diplomacy advisor: "visit and provide help to X neighbors!" (maybe part of trading/merchant advisor quests)
 

DeletedUser1657

Guest
You have revised the post so now the quests are declinable but not repeatable.

You said you are redesigning this so that people will stay in the goldilocks zone and yet you have a military adviser that will give them the very quests that are the problem. Or the exploratory adviser will have them scout too far. Or they won't have any quests in that quest line.

Sorry still hadn't made that clear, have added the line that they will repeat. currently weekly, I have debated daily. This part is to address the endless looping multiple times a day. The additional quest options is to try and increase opportunities for people to obtain the supplies so they have less reliance on looping (not necessarily less reliance on quests) and as a result hopefully add some variety. I have often debated if daily might be better then weekly for the reset timer. I felt daily might make the special quest addition too short so went with weekly. If daily works better we could do that and if needed drop the special quest addition if we think it wont work. That addition was to also increase reward opportunities so active people using quests for supplies will be rewarded for it but rewarded for obtaining a variety of quests.

I don't agree that splitting up the quests into a bunch of advisers will balance the quests out any more than they are now. You could end up with lots of advisers that are giving you quests that you don't participate in.

You would have a more interesting quest system this way. It gets old seeing the same ones over and over, but as I said, I don't imagine the devs will write unlimited numbers of quests so either they will still be repeating on a loop, or they will be non declinable and you will be stuck doing really awful things.

Or they could write some new quests. I don't remember the last time the looping quests changed. I think I have seen the same quests for 3 chapters now or is it 4?

Yes you may end up with several quest lines that you are stuck on there is that chance, the entire blue section is declineable and repeats so there is some option there to move past, the way on how to limit the repeating is the challenege. Many quests in the repeat quest section currently are situational, I think that is why the decline/repeat option is there currently so we move about to quests that suit our current needs. I would hope a decline of a repeating quest wouldn't make in unavailable until the reset but perhaps a limit on once it is completed (x times) it vanishes until the reset timer. This might add a crazy hard coding issue though.

This is mentioned to be a major overhaul so new quests would be needed, I am also mindful that as it is such a big change there is a strong likely hood myself and anyone else contributing to this thread is wasting our time but I have hope that maybe some aspect of our discussion will spur ideas for the devs, and t could be something as simple as you mention of just rewrite the current quests. My fear with that is the 2 or 3 most used quests will be removed and/or made overly difficult to the point of pointless.

I'm afraid, the thing here boils down to: instead of having one row of quests, which are boring, we will get 6 lines of quests that are quite boring, but the really boring quests are at least stuck in another line, while the rewarding ones are in another line.

Yes definately risk, the hope is with more rows that either the ones you want are grouped, good example is if you plan not to do tournaments well you just ignore that section. I am also hoping by having more quest lines we can see more variety in quests although there is a risk that anything new just becomes stale and old in-time anyway.

I think better than declinable but non-looping would be declinable, looping, but on a timer, so that you can't complete more than X quests (of type Q) during Y time period. That way, no one gets stuck on a specific quest because they don't want to make a twenty-four hour production, and the devs aren't stuck writing infinite quests either.
That was my intention but not worded well, is it clearer now? I feel this is one of the complex aspects of the suggestion.

The issue with the Goldilocks zone could be dealt with by just not having an advisor of that type. It could also be handled by having a strict limit on the number of quests telling you to scout a province/gain U relics of type V/solve N encounters that are made available during a specific time period.

My initial suggestion of a timer was based on the idea that having a timer would enable better rewards to be offered (like broken shards or even rune shards), since the time limit would prevent people from exploiting a loop to gain insane numbers of rune shards. But I think it could also be utilised to control (e.g.) the number of quests telling you to go do something on the world map. If those came up rather rarely, but had a very good reward, people wouldn't be encouraged to scout too frequently, but the quest would be worth doing when it came up.

I think some of the existing quests need re-working in wording and/or reward. The 24hr ones at one point were crazy overpowered now they are so underwhelming one only does them if they know they will be absent for 24hrs and are using that production length. Love the idea of a strong quest reward as an incentive to hold on scouting until that quest. I saw a suggestion somewhere (can't recall who suggested it) that some of the do x encounters could be more era specific for the GZ and be complete an encounter in x ring, probably still situational but an interesting suggestion.

Simple fix: The military advisor that tells you to
And once you have cleared enough provinces to unlock the next chest
5. Research advanced scouts (not declinable)
@Mykan Don't forget the Diplomacy advisor: "visit and provide help to X neighbors!" (maybe part of trading/merchant advisor quests)

Nice I like this. I put the quest suggestion under exploration as I couldn't think of lots of diplomacy related quests unless they overlapped with trading.

Thank you for the feedback everyone, I think there are some great suggestions and comments to refine the idea. There are definitely still some challenges with the concept to overcome (not counting getting the devs attention :p:eek:) and it is only by exploring this with multiple perspectives that we can flesh out the idea more. :rolleyes:
 

DeletedUser1767

Guest
That was my intention but not worded well, is it clearer now? I feel this is one of the complex aspects of the suggestion.

Yes, much clearer! :) One more related question, though: when you say the quests start repeating again with the new cycle, do you mean that the loop starts over at the beginning with each new period, or just that the questline becomes available again? The really good rarer rewards should probably be somewhat rarer than weekly given that there's multiple questlines (even if not all of them offer those), so if the whole loop resumes each week, that might be a harder sell for the devs.

What do you think about having the number of available quests per week differ from advisor to advisor? It occurred to me that that might be another way of helping keep the exploration quests from pushing people out of the GZ.

I think some of the existing quests need re-working in wording and/or reward. The 24hr ones at one point were crazy overpowered now they are so underwhelming one only does them if they know they will be absent for 24hrs and are using that production length. Love the idea of a strong quest reward as an incentive to hold on scouting until that quest. I saw a suggestion somewhere (can't recall who suggested it) that some of the do x encounters could be more era specific for the GZ and be complete an encounter in x ring, probably still situational but an interesting suggestion.

Agreed. I think they need to re-balance everything. And I am definitely in favour of having more era-specific quests, especially for the exploration type (it would be good for tournaments too, and maybe also the MA?). You'd think that having the questlines tailored to the era of the player wouldn't be too hard to code, since that information seems to already be used for tournaments, although I don't understand coding, so. The "do an encounter in x ring" is a great idea, but especially for the more distant rings, it probably needs rings on the world map to work well. But hey, that could be another argument in favour of our getting rings...

Where would quests for guest race stuff fall? If things were tied to player era, they could introduce declinable quests like "produce P dream sheep" or "collect Q mana." Those could either be folded into the Merchant/Trader or (probably better) be a new Guest Race advisor that you only get once you get to guest race chapters. I guess in the latter case, you'd technically change advisors each time you entered a new chapter.

Also, as an aside, I would love to see some "cast an X spell" quests. They'd definitely need to be declinable to work, so I get why they don't turn up in events, but it seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity.
 

DeletedUser651

Guest
5. Research advanced scouts (not declinable)

That would be awful for me. That line of quests would shut down for half the year. It takes me 4- 6 months to get to the next advanced scouts now.

Sorry still hadn't made that clear, have added the line that they will repeat. currently weekly, I have debated daily.

Then all that really happens is that we have a lot fewer quests and thus a lot fewer supplies and coins. Instead of unlimited quests we have a finite number and if you don't do the quests in the right order you are screwed each day. This would limit your choices each day rather. You would be forced into a certain pattern each and every day. I don't like that at all.

I still don't get what you are trying to accomplish here. You are making the quest system incredibly complicated and yet it just backs us all into the same rote corner. Whole lines of quests are shut down if you don't stay in your accepted line of play. What if you don't give a flip about the goldilocks zone? What if you are a negotiator? Too bad for you now. You have lost all those quests because you dared choose the wrong path? And for what? To end a boring loop of quests? Now we will just have the boring loop of quests except we can't use them as we need them, we can only use them as someone else has deemed.

Just look at what you have patterned out here. Only fighters can advance the quests. Your daily output or worse, weekly, has been stopped cold, you are stuck doing things in a specific order or you lose all those quests and all those supplies and coins, you are going to do things you don't want to do because you need the supplies and coins anyway, you may be forced into building that dreadful magic academy or lose yet another line of quests. You have lost all flexibly as a player. You tell me the list of quests and I will tell you the actions that we will all take like robots each day. In fact, I am sure there will be a guide written very quickly on the most productive robotic actions.
 
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SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
@Bobbykitty
It seems like you are intentionally missing the point of separating the quests.
Right now, what are you doing with the "Fight and win 3 encounters" quest? I'm guessing maybe nothing?
So Mykan want's to move it to the Miltary Advisor. I don't see how that would "force you down a certain path".
And after you have surpassed the number of provinces needed to unlock the next chest, then the "fight 3 quest" would change to "Research advanced scouts."
How would that impact you in any way?
You say you are months from getting the next advanced scouts tech, but aren't you also months from being able to fight an win anyways? Don't these two line up pretty perfectly?
There are (or should be) many ways to play the game, and by taking the different paths and splitting them up among different advisors players will be able to focus on or ignore whichever ones they wish. Just like declining 17 out of 20 now.
 
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