Prepare for the Masquerade!

[Ashrem]

not a great analogy.
Since the choice is to clear a province immediately, or to wait, we can assume you have the goods/troops to do so.
Therefore once you have 8 provinces unlocked you can clear all 8 more or less instantly.
Holding on to 8 might be too many if you have space for some KP, but holding on to a couple especially when you know an event is coming is a solid strategy imo.

We disagree about the fineness of the analogy. If you try to make a long trip in one day, it's hard to see the sights. If you try to clear 8 provinces in an hour or two, it's harder to learn anything from the fights. It also requires more planning to make sure the goods you have to clear the provinces aren't goods you'll need to clear the tech from the 30+kp to prevent running out of places to put it.

To put this back in perspective, we are (or at least, I am) not talking about the most successful and/or typical case, it's about reasons why one person might not be able to complete the event in 5.5 days.

 

[SoggyShorts]

To put this back in perspective, we are (or at least, I am) not talking about the most successful and/or typical case, it's about reasons why one person might not be able to complete the event in 5.5 days.

But I wanted to go off on a tangent!

Ok fine, back on topic. Looking at the relic rewards from tournaments for players who only have a handful of each province type open, "gain 26 relics" totally sucks. In the major (30 day) events this could be compensated by the "scout 2 provinces" which is much easier for small players. If inno doesn't change it, what strategy other than keeping some open provinces and the goods/troops to clear them can small players use?

 

[Ashrem]

What I don't understand is that they can scale everything else to your progress, why can't they scale the relics? something like 3/4xChapter or 2/3/MH level should be easily doable by anyone. At worst, it gives a slight edge to lower level players, which can only help with player retention.

 

[DeletedUser3507]

No one but you has that right @Ashrem

 

[DeletedUser7370]

The strategy I started employing since chapter 4 is to scout and clear provinces rapidly at the beginning of the chapter when it is easy. I only do enough to get a few expansions, about half the chest requirement. I then scout about half the remaining provinces required for the next chest and hold them against any need. If I find I need another expansion during the chapter then I will clear those scouted provinces. As I get closer to the end of the chapter I will scout until I have enough provinces scouted to unlock the next chest but I will not clear any of them; instead I make a list of what military is necessary to clear them. When I complete the end of chapter AW research then I go on a spree and clear all the scouted provinces all at once as that gives me chances of getting runes for the newest wonders and racks many KP that often will come close to completing the next advanced scout tech.

The beginning of chapter scouting and clearing stops right around the completion of the current ring. Combat is fairly easy at that point. Waiting to clear most of the provinces until the end of the chapter ensures that I gain enough squad size techs to reduce my combat casualties.

I think it is a fairly good strategy, but it did leave me province locked for a week at the start of chapter 6 because my military got heavily run down from an event, tournament, and end of chapter clearing all at once.

 

[DeletedUser3602]

Okay...so Masquerade Pt. II has started on the live servers. Where's the Announcement? Not even an in game news message. Inno is really in a hurry or very very busy...

 

[Deleted User - 1580260]

Started in the middle of the night for NA west coast and thus lose 10% of a ridiculously short event time - they should have put it on hold until they were ready to support it properly.

 

[DeletedUser8847]

so they started without publishing any of it here first?
We didn't had any change to say anything about the thing,
so thanks for nothing & I am very displeased actions like
these, it makes some look like one has done something wrong
and he/she knows it yet does it anyway

 

[DeletedUser3122]

I think that they don't change it much since Beta players are enjoying it!

Masquerade Pt 2 never was on the beta server. In fact, it is the first time they have made the event "live" on all servers without testing (not that it ever does much good anyway!). Further, they asked (in the beta forums) for player feedback about the quests. There was 5 pages of feedback, the most common request I noticed was reducing numbers of relics and increasing the time to complete the quest. There's no way to know if they listened because the quest list did not change one iota from the original they published. It's the first time I've seen Inno publish the quest list, rather than beta players. They published the feedback request exactly 3 days ago. How could they change anything when 5 pages of feedback flew out the window? And last, they announced on Sunday that they would start this event next week. I prepared my FS for what was to come, and encouraged them to give Inno feedback. Imagine everyone's surprise when the event started today!

If that isn't outright slipshod programming and planning, I don't know what is! Who could "enjoy" this event? It was pushed at us because their Fellowship Adventure mini game took priority. And the problems I've seen with that game don't look too promising either!

 

[DeletedUser3602]

And the Masquerades Pt. 1 wasn't even finished yet! In another thread ("I just crossed into Woodelves DURING the Masquerade Event") there's a player saying he was waiting to finish the last quest from Masquerades Pt. 1 (gain x relics), because he was very close to finishing Advanced Scouts of his next Chapter and wanted to claim the Grand Prize only when he entered that Chapter. He says he had 2 days left on the timer, but when he logged on this morning the game had finished the quest for him and the building he had "won" was in his inventory. So because of the rush Inno is in, he now has a building that gives him supplies instead of mana...
Not nice!

 

[samidodamage]

The original quest list in the discussion thread on beta had the quest 'solve 26 encounters or gain 26 relics' as the 12th quest. It is now the 4th quest. So, it appears they responded to 1 set of feedback re: placement of this quest blocking players from finishing event. No way to know if they responded to the feedback on the 'gain supplies' amounts but I'd say doubtful. At some point, the moderator posted in that thread that the difficulty of Part 2 was intentional due to how easy Part 1 was. IMO Part 1 was only easy because of overwhelming negative feedback on the original quest design and failure to plan ahead for the time to respond to that feedback. They had to stick a band-aid on it. They seem to use beta only for working out programming bugs. Customer satisfaction does not appear to be on their radar, and that's sad. I understand business models are different in European countries as opposed to the US. In the US, customer retention is much cheaper and easier than gaining new customers; I do not know if that holds true in other countries. In the US, a company that had a dedicated group of current customers participating in reviewing planned offers who ignored those reviews and released the offers despite overwhelming dissatisfaction with the offers would find themselves in an untenable position. And other business leaders would probably question the sanity of the leader of that company.

 

[DeletedUser8847]

Masquerade Pt 2 never was on the beta server. In fact, it is the first time they have made the event "live" on all servers without testing (not that it ever does much good anyway!). Further, they asked (in the beta forums) for player feedback about the quests. There was 5 pages of feedback, the most common request I noticed was reducing numbers of relics and increasing the time to complete the quest. There's no way to know if they listened because the quest list did not change one iota from the original they published. It's the first time I've seen Inno publish the quest list, rather than beta players. They published the feedback request exactly 3 days ago. How could they change anything when 5 pages of feedback flew out the window? And last, they announced on Sunday that they would start this event next week. I prepared my FS for what was to come, and encouraged them to give Inno feedback. Imagine everyone's surprise when the event started today!

If that isn't outright slipshod programming and planning, I don't know what is! Who could "enjoy" this event? It was pushed at us because their Fellowship Adventure mini game took priority. And the problems I've seen with that game don't look too promising either!

grrr....
They made me offended not to ask players opinion first to this part that seems to be one that will never takes it's course to final, no! I am not going around to find relics with those that pay so less interest of players opinions!

 

[DeletedUser3122]

They seem to use beta only for working out programming bugs.

lol one could only hope that's what they use beta for - I'm not so sure that happens at all based on the number of bugs that exist now. My game crashes constantly, if I invite or expel anyone from our FS, notifications stop working altogether, and eventually start working again but the new invites/expels don't show up on notifications at all. Browser freeze is a real problem, constant reloads. That's just to name 2 bugs.

Customer satisfaction does not appear to be on their radar, and that's sad. I understand business models are different in European countries as opposed to the US.

I think that's probably accurate, because I'm American and used to customer service and am now living in Germany. Customer service? Are you kidding? lol I had a sales person, when I complained about a product, tell me, then don't buy our product! I said, but I thought you might like feedback to improve it? Nope. Go away. Grocery stores here? Push your stuff through the line as fast as you possibly can, to get out of the cashier's way, and everyone else's for that matter. And don't bother being friendly, they think Americans talk way too much about their own daily activities. hehe

 

[DeletedUser8847]

I am NOT doing that event

 

[DeletedUser]

It was pushed at us because their Fellowship Adventure mini game took priority

Working out the bugs in the Fellowship Adventure was the priority. They didn't want to hold up Part II of the Masquerade, because we can't test two events at the same time.

They seem to use beta only for working out programming bugs

That's what Beta is for, actually, to work out programming bugs. You don't get extra incentive to play there, except to say 'I saw it first, nyah'. Not every bug gets caught before something goes Live, and some bugs don't emerge until it goes Live. That's just part of the computer world. At least there hasn't been a major crash taking the game off-line for days.

 

[samidodamage]

And it is sad that no other area of their company (ex: marketing; sales; customer service) sees the valuable customer input that could be utilized as well. It's not as scientifically definable, but neither are those portions of a business. It is becoming more so with advances in understanding the relationships between social media and customer behavior. The fact that there are no other incentives to play there (btw, I don't) gives the input more value, not less. I do not expect the technical personnel to see the value in anything other than working out programming bugs. I just find it odd that no one else in the company does either.

 

[samidodamage]

Well, that quote didn't work out the way I planned
Was trying to quote: "That's what Beta is for, actually, to work out programming bugs." and then make my comment...

 

[DeletedUser7370]

because we can't test two events at the same time

To me that sounds like the first bug they should fix.

 

[DeletedUser3122]

That's what Beta is for, actually, to work out programming bugs.

You haven't been around the game very long, have you? Of course, that's what every beta is for, but Inno has ideas about beta that are different than the industry. For one, it seems it's mainly used for very active, high ranked players to know what's coming in advance, to inform their FSs in the live worlds. This saves Inno the time, manpower & effort to bother informing us. That's the way I see it, and I'm stickin' to it. Maybe a bug or 2 gets worked out if something crashes in beta. Not so sure any feedback is given an ounce of credence, only actual programming errors (if even that!).

 

[DeletedUser9815]

I don't see any way I can get 26 encounters done in a timely manner. [In the nether world of just advanced enough to face hard encounters but not equipped with nearly enough capacity for scrolls, crystals, and silks needed.} And that's only quest 4! To any of you who have progressed further, are future tasks also that much more difficult? Would prize be worth the expenditures?