Sorcerers' Homecoming discussion

[Alram]

Diamonds are a resource available to all players for free in the game. Players also have the option to purchase diamonds.
What's wrong with spending them for something they want like badges, or flipping the MA, or spire chests, or artifacts, or event currency, or buildings or anything else that they choose?
Efficient use of resources requires effort, time, and planning. The whole game is based on it.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Diamonds are a resource available to all players for free in the game. Players also have the option to purchase diamonds.

Yep.

What's wrong with spending them for something they want like badges, or flipping the MA, or spire chests, or artifacts, or event currency, or buildings or anything else that they choose?

Yep.

Efficient use of resources requires effort, time, and planning. The whole game is based on it.

Yep.

What's your point? You already said those multiple times and no one has disagreed with you.

 

[Alram]

@SoggyShorts
"We as a community certainly brought this upon ourselves with every complaint made... but I for one feel that the developers went too far in catering to the loudest complaints."

It is kind of amusing.

 

[ajqtrz]

I do wish they wouldn't ask for the same things over and over in the events. They've, essentially, asked me for 40 of the same thing in the last few quests. I crafted relics for about 1/4 of the relics, and managed the tournament and had just enough provinces unlocked for the other 30. But now they are asking for 10 Spire or 10 encounters. I finished the Spire yesterday and that leaves the province encounters. I used up all my provinces getting the relics for the quests that were on Sunday and Monday and now have only one province I can do. Thus, I have to scout another to get to the 10 encounters I need. A scout takes 4 days and 14 hours so, well, a nice forced 4 day vacation from the event, for me.

So here's my suggestion/plan. 1) I'll never do a province until I have a LOT ready to go; 2) Slow down on the Spire and don't complete it until the last moment; and 3) If those don't work, stop doing the events altogether as they require more than I can steadily produce.

Maybe somebody has some other suggestions? I know you sometimes get relics from visiting -- I do all that. And you can craft relics. But when it tells you you have to do some kind of encounter and you don't have enough of the types they want you to do? Then what?

Thanks for listening to my rant. You can now return to the classical music to which you were listening and I'll do the same. Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," to be exact.

AJ

 

[SoggyShorts]

@SoggyShorts
"We as a community certainly brought this upon ourselves with every complaint made... but I for one feel that the developers went too far in catering to the loudest complaints."

It is kind of amusing.

Really? Only if taken completely out of context like that, maybe.

It's pretty simple, some players whinged about tasks not auto-completing through normal play and the devs listened.
Now events are pretty boring and extremely repetitive because so many quests were deemed unacceptable by a handful of players (many of whom don't even play anymore).

 

[Iyapo1]

Now events are pretty boring and extremely repetitive because so many quests were deemed unacceptable by a handful of players

What quests? I complained about the fight and win ones not having an alternative, Inno fixed it. The 48 hour and 1 day productions were nixed because they reduces productivity and had a negative impact on spire and tournament ability. What other quests have been lost?
I just thought the repetition was a result of offering so many alternatives to different quests.

 

[Iyapo1]

@Alram I think your point has been remarkably clear.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The 48 hour and 1 day productions were nixed because they reduces productivity and had a negative impact on spire and tournament ability.

No, these were dumped because people complained about them taking so much time to make and had nothing to do with spire or tournament. The factory ones were also dumped because they were unfair to players in sentient chapters, because their leveled up factories no longer have 24 or 48-hour production slots.

 

[SoggyShorts]

What quests?

Things like "make 50 beverages" and "scout 2x" (with no alternative before timer instants), "Make 20 toolboxes" etc.
Obviously, I prefer something more interesting, but when we ask devs about new quest ideas we get crickets which honestly is fair since when we ask tens of thousands of players for new quest ideas we get nothing either.

 

[ajqtrz]

Now events are pretty boring and extremely repetitive because so many quests were deemed unacceptable by a handful of players (many of whom don't even play anymore).

This is an example of a inductive fallacy. It happens all the time and is easy to miss. Here's how it works. You have a limited experience with responses to a question. From that limited experience you make a general statement about the larger population, though your experience is generally only with the subset. In this case, you have a limited data set of forum users (and perhaps a few personal friends in the game, to be fair). In your limited data set you see a "handful" of players requesting some quests be dropped." You may be quite accurate about the number of forum players who have made the request. However, first, is the measure of "handful" accurate? Second, are forum players representative of the general player base? If the measure of "handful" is inaccurate nothing can be said of the player base at all...they may or may not have desired the quests to be dropped. In addition, if the forum base isn't representative of the actual player base, again, nothing can be said about the general player base as to their desire to change the quests. Thus, to make the claim that a handful of players got the devs to drop some quests we would need to know 1) that the "handful" speaking up was a "handful" (what percentage might that be of the total?); 2) that the forum base is representative of the player base; and 3) that the devs were responding to the requests being made by the handful. If we have those things confirmed with evidence then we can go ahead and dodge the inductive fallacy. However, since it is, in my opinion, highly unlikely we know those things, the claim appears fallacious. Remember "fallacious" does not mean it's wrong, but only that it isn't warranted by proper reasoning and evidence.

Now of course much of what we say here is from our experience. The more influential of us often make statements of fact without having much to go on but our personal experience. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that so long as we recognize and, perhaps even, qualify our statements to represent that case. More statements like "It seems to me..." and even "I could be mistaken..." help to avoid these things because you are, in essence, saying, "this is based upon my perspective and may not be true, or may be."

Just a thought.

AJ

 

[Iyapo1]

Things like "make 50 beverages" and "scout 2x" (with no alternative before timer instants), "Make 20 toolboxes" etc.

Oh, ick...I really dont want FA style quests in the events. I get my fill of those nasty things during the FA. Just imho

The scout 2, I am fine with but I am in chapter 7 my scout time is not 4+ days. 8 days for 1 quest seems punitive.

Any good quests get dropped?

 

[Gladiola]

I liked the make 50 beverages quests. I make so many beverages I had to get a bartenders license.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Any good quests get dropped?

That's the problem. Some players only wanted "Good" quests.
But, how is that defined? The ones to whom the devs listened defined a good quest as one that doesn't interfere with non-event play and can basically be completed by accident.

For me, a good quest is one that takes me a little ways outside of my comfort zone.
I should need to be online more, or re-arrange my city, or spend more resources (those quests existed too, you should have seen the outrage!), or fight more provinces, something more.
A good quest to me is one that wouldn't be completed by accident.

BTW, I'm working on writing the list for the next event and I'm literally copy&pasting the quests from this event and/or moving them up or down a few rows. 40 quests in and I haven't had to type one from scratch yet.

 

[Iyapo1]

The ones to whom the devs listened defined a good quest as one that doesn't interfere with non-event play

So, devs listened to the vast majority who have no interest in tearing up their cities for a 22 day event followed often by more city demolition in the form of an FA?

Good call!

 

[SoggyShorts]

devs listened to the vast majority

I'm not convinced of that.
"Vast majority" is probably an exaggeration. "Vocal Minority" is often more powerful here.
The devs also introduced the FA after they removed most "50 beverages" quests too so there's that.

Even if it was a vast majority, they almost certainly didn't realize that nerfing quests meant nerfing rewards too.

Good call!

Maybe for some.
When I'm on a mission in a game to go from This city to That one, getting a side quest to explore Those Caves is interesting to me.
For others, they just want to add a quest that says Ride a Horse and Wear a Hat which they were already doing on the way from This city to That one.

Different strokes I guess.
Perhaps it'd be best if we had a choice either for each event or even for each quest. "Do this get that or ALSO do These and get Those as well."

Maybe it's just me losing interest again, feeling like there's not enough challenge and nothing more to strive for.

 

[Iyapo1]

Maybe it's just me losing interest again, feeling like there's not enough challenge and nothing more to strive for.

Maybe you should take your spreadsheets after chapter 17? Last time I looked you had a pretty compact sweet little city? You know you could make it work!

 

[SoggyShorts]

Maybe you should take your spreadsheets after chapter 17?

What spreadsheets?

You know you could make it work!

Make what work?

 

[Iyapo1]

@SoggyShorts You paused forward progress for reasons. If you are feeling unchallenged...can you throw math at it and work around or find a wiggle through the reasons you paused? Advancement through the tech tree is punative beyond 16 no getting around it...can you wiggle under or go sideways or...balance on a rail across the Abyss?

 

[ajqtrz]

Maybe it's just me losing interest again, feeling like there's not enough challenge and nothing more to strive for.

I get this, but is part of anything we do. When I start a new job it's interesting for at least a few days, but then it becomes routine with few to no surprises. On the other hand, that routine is what makes for efficiency and usually raises productivity.

I'm at a point where the challenges of the game are what I decide they are, not what the game gives me. What the game gives is a structure within which you can create your own challenges. Maybe 1,000 unicorns? Or placing first in a tournament? Or, as in my case, trying to get my tournament average up to 30 provinces each week times all the runs. I do between 25 and 30 now and am trying 31 this week.

In the end the challenges are, as your post implies, personal. The game provides a bunch of ways to create your own and that, in the long run, is the only way, I think, to make it challenging to you. Relying on the game to do so means the devs have to constantly add new and interesting things, which is probably impossible. Relying on your own goals and setting them so they are difficult for you, is how you keep interest, I think.

AJ

P.S. I really want to see the city with 1,000 unicorns! Anybody?

 

[BrinDarby]

What we have is a catch-22 situation ..... and it boils down to 1 thing.
the constant tugg-pull of : players using creative ways to improve thier
play and/or the buildup of "helpers" and simple progression .... vs :
the dev teams reactions and changes, trying to combat what the players
are doing and rebalance out the game.

if you make an event challanging to a CH16 player, the CH2 player is screwed.
if you make it so a CH2 player can complete, the CH16 player is beyond bored.

Inno recently seems to be swinging around to cater to the newer players, due
to the fact if you aren't replacing and retaining new players to replace the
players that quit or stop paying , your revenue stream dries up... In the process
Inno is pissing off many of the older players, while not adequately addressing
problems newer players face. On top of that, rather than offering what players
are willing to pay for, they offer anything but that... further dry'n up revenue.

Take for example, DA, UUU, ELR, MMM .... rather than limiting it each week to
(1) da and (2) of the other 3 , basically no more than that @ any given time....
Inno would rather assume that some ppl will unlim stack those and adversely
imbalance the game, so they rebalance to take that into account....
What then for those who don't have any of those, well they get left high/dry
and are screwed 10 ways to sunday.....

The same goes for 1 player having every evolve under the sun to S10, and
every AW evolved , vs those with none..... the game gets rebalanced enuff
so the 2nd player is also screwed 10 ways to sunday.

Hell they took Moonestone outta the Spire, but didn't fix it, so it still
imbalances the game adversely....

Is there a solution, well yes.... but Inno won't like it ....
Brin