Declinable quests change coming to beta

[DeletedUser43]

For anyone who may not have heard yet, there is a new change coming to the beta servers and so far every change implemented over there gets brought over here in a week or two. Rather than paraphrase, I will just copy and paste it here. For some players, this is a major change and on beta they gave us less than 24 hours notice about it. Again...this is a change that at the moment only affects those on the beta server, but it could and might come here as every other change has.

Dear Humans and Elves,

For the past few months, we have observed our quest system and we have come to the conclusion that it does not work as intended. We have found that skipping quests leads to massive problems in the game's behavior and its balance. What we found is that a lot of our players skip a lot of quests in order to get a single quest that is either already completed, or very easy to complete, in order to gain coins and supplies as a quick reward. Quests should not be the main way to receive coins and supplies, but they are rather meant to provide guidance through the game, and to teach you how to develop your own economy in the best way possible. This is why we will limit the number of times you can decline quests.

In the current system, it is possible to skip an unlimited number of quests. This will be changed with the update to game version 0.24, which is planned to be released on September 1st. In the new system, there will be the following restrictions on declining quests:

• Every player can skip 1 quest per day
• You can still get new quests just like you can now when you complete a quest, so you are of course not limited to just one quest per day
• The count down until you can decline another quest will always be until midnight (servertime; which for Beta is UTC+2)
• When you have skipped a quest during the day, the decline button will be grey and it will have a tooltip showing you how much time left until you can decline the current quest again:

 

[DeletedUser594]

Fair enough but I think the dev's should leave skipping in place until some new features are added. The game has enough downtime as it is currently. City built- check. Map opened as far as possible-check. 260 hours until I open a resource that is helpful...
I don't mean to be overly critical. I think the dev's have done great job so far. I imagine eventually they will fill out the middle so to speak, so that very active players have a bit more to chew on.

 

[Deleted User - 90]

Meh... I'm not going to jump on the "screw this update" bandwagon just yet. I had a big issue with the declining looping quests and what it was doing to the game. It was a quiet grudge, but significant. I really didn't like how some Fellowships started threatening to kick members who wouldn't do these loops constantly... For that, I am grateful that this was considered to be an exploit and changed. The main issue I have is with the build quests - that is, the quests that require you to upgrade residences and workshops. I try to max out my workshops and residences ASAP to provide me with the most benefit. I fear for the long gap between when you max out your residences and/or workshops to when you reach the next cycle of daily quests - because these are two very unreasonable quests that exist at all stages of the questline otherwise.

On the whole, I am glad that this supply/gold exploit is gone from only doing the Supply or Gold quests respectively... I just think that this will adversely affect the other two quests.

 

[DeletedUser43]

No. They aren't giving us anything in exchange. This is just another take away. You may not know, but early on in the game in beta we used to get 200% culture and you got a lot more culture bonus in general. They took that away too and that really unbalanced a lot of us. At least we had the repeating quests to balance things a bit. No. This is just another thing that is leaving this game.

In fact, we have been told that this change was done to slow the game down.

I don't know where you are in the tech tree....but this game is slow as it is for a lot of us.

Basically, those of us with big cities and level 15 factories won't be able to produce many goods now. Scouting costs a fortune after a while (3,300,000) and I don't know how that can happen. The game has been balanced so far based on these quests...take them away and only let us decline one a day.....I can't imagine. I need those bonuses from the goods to be able to set up the goods for the next production.

Edit: Moloch....any fellowship that treated anyone like that shouldn't have any members. But just because some people were idiots doesn't mean this game had to be destroyed for everyone. I mean....take away that quest they were looping...how hard was that? But, this.....there are a ton of quests that those at the top can't even do....upgrade a residence...ha...all are at level 15....upgrade a workshop...same issue...build an altar of the forefathers...why on earth would you waste time with that?...build 24 hour goods...why? so your factories can be less productive and you won't spend much time in the game??....and all of those will take another day of waiting to get past and that list is not exhaustive of all the waste of time quests.

 

[Deleted User - 90]

I did not mean to say that these fellowships deserved their members or overemphasize the prevalence of fellowships with that requirement - I just took an issue with the looping quest thing as a whole. And the exploit was only on the "gain gold coins" and "gain supplies" quest - which players could do 8 or 9 times simply with the production ready when they log in after sleeping... also the "gain non-boosted good #1" and "gain non-boosted good #2" which could be exploited in the mid-game phase and give you tens of thousands of gold, supplies, and goods overall.

EDIT: I suppose an amicable compromise between the two systems would be a 4-6 hour decline window (I do agree that 24h is excessive) And 4-6 hours would mean it isn't worth while to decline the "gain goods" quest, which is also good...

 

[DeletedUser43]

No compromises. This change isn't up for discussion. This change is a like it or lump it change. Other changes at least they discussed with us. Not this. This is an announcement.

I was just doing some math....
So now it will take all my workshops to produce the supplies for only one of my level 15 goods. I need an expansion....something that takes 8 provinces or more now to get. My scout takes more than 24 hours to scout the province. It will now take all of my goods from a day to negotiate one of the fights. It takes 8 fights to complete a province. That means it will take me roughly a week or more to get through one province. Multiply that times 8 and it will take me 2 MONTHS before I get another expansion. Until then.....I can't do anything. Everything is maxed out.

Now...maybe if I tear down all my factories and create a little more space so I can build workshops and more houses so I can have population....because yeah....that will be great. Tear down everything that is giving me points to put up things that give me fewer points or no points.

The problems with this just keep magnifying.

What you may not have realized is that you need those repeating gain coins and gain supplies quests in order to set your goods again. Without them....you can't produce anything. It takes 5250 supplies to set one tier 3 level 15 factory for only 3 hours. Just one.

 

[DeletedUser61]

City Builders are notorious for creating extreme cities, as a means of exploring what's actually possible regardless of what the developers had in mind. So I have no objection, whatsoever, when somebody decides to see how far they can run up their score. There are a LOT of ways to play the game.

But neither do I see any particular need to get all upset because the developers are taking steps to block activities that are likely to trivialize future content, because folks will have tons of resources sloshing around.

Just as a point of reference, on Beta I've maxed out my Tech Tree, all of my Residences, Workshops, and Manufacturing buildings are at max level 15, and I have more than 10,000 units of each type of goods, and every few days I buy more goods from the wholesaler to clear the the level 15 caps from my Main Hall.

I have somewhere around 1000 troops with 473 relics, so I've discovered around 60 sectors, mostly on autocomplete, and I've lost maybe 2 battles in that past two months.

My score is 34437 and I'm ranked 470th. The highest ranked player, in Beta, has TWICE my score.

I still have two expansions that I could use, and the only quests that I decline are the one's that would require me to upgrade a type of building where I'm already maxed out, and don't want any more of that type of building nor do I want to tear down a building just to satisfy a declinable quests.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Guest Races, and I'll certainly be eager to develop the related structures, but I've never seen any need to chase declinable quests, just to run up my score.

I've actually had a LOT more fun experimenting with minimum score cities. It's interesting to see how far you can get, on one of the regional servers, WITHOUT running up your score. So far my best effort has been a Elven City with an Armory and a Trader, and a score of ONLY 293 points.

 

[DeletedUser]

I totally agree with Bobby Kitty! Who wants to spend their precious time waiting and waiting and waiting for goods to be produced? Everyone wants to play the game, not sign on just to produce a good or do an upgrade that takes forever, and then sign off because there's nothing else to do! Where's the fun in that??? Who wants to wait countless hours scouting? This is NOT efficient. By taking away the act of declining quests, they are causing more irritation to the players! I feel like I'm spending more time playing the game when I'm able to "flip" through the quests to repeat the "Gain Goods" quest because I get more accomplished in less time!

 

[DeletedUser43]

I can certainly appreciate that you aren't interested in score Kat, but some are. This game has a ton of ways to play it, and each players is different.

What I can say is this: Players are furious about this change. Half the players on both my fellowships are talking about quitting.

The major point is that this a DRASTIC change to game play without any forethought as to making anything else better. They could have tweaked things, but they didn't do that. On the beta forums there is comment after comment saying I Quit. Players have deleted their cities and replaced them with roads that say I Quit This Game is Boring. (Bandit) Players have been screaming all night about this (because they only gave us 24 hours notice of this!) and it has fallen on deaf ears. The change went forward this morning on beta. If the game devs want to ignore that kind of feedback, then why oh why would anyone want to trust them with their money?

 

[DeletedUser723]

And I bought $90 diamonds in beta 24 hours before the announcement! Sigh. I already have three cities because I tired of waiting for things to happen. I was going to try the declining quests in Beta town, my youngest. There needs to be an achievable quest at least once a day at every level. I now visit people who maxed out awhile ago and don't bother visiting anymore. Wait times are boring. I've now spent $270 for diamonds (in one month!). I expect to enjoy the game.

 

[DeletedUser61]

The major point is that this a DRASTIC change to game play without any forethought as to making anything else better.

"Everybody" saw this coming. The question was not IF, but rather when and how.

I have a sneaking suspicion that repeatable quests are going to get nerfed in a future update...

Blocking the cycle quests is NOT any sort of surprise. The above post is from more than a month ago.
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/greed.503/page-2#post-4496

 

[DeletedUser43]

I am so grateful you speak for everybody Kat. That will save us all so much time!!

 

[DeletedUser775]

I can certainly appreciate that you aren't interested in score Kat, but some are. This game has a ton of ways to play it, and each players is different.

What I can say is this: Players are furious about this change. Half the players on both my fellowships are talking about quitting.

The major point is that this a DRASTIC change to game play without any forethought as to making anything else better. They could have tweaked things, but they didn't do that. On the beta forums there is comment after comment saying I Quit. Players have deleted their cities and replaced them with roads that say I Quit This Game is Boring. (Bandit) Players have been screaming all night about this (because they only gave us 24 hours notice of this!) and it has fallen on deaf ears. The change went forward this morning on beta. If the game devs want to ignore that kind of feedback, then why oh why would anyone want to trust them with their money?

No. They aren't giving us anything in exchange. This is just another take away. You may not know, but early on in the game in beta we used to get 200% culture and you got a lot more culture bonus in general. They took that away too and that really unbalanced a lot of us. At least we had the repeating quests to balance things a bit. No. This is just another thing that is leaving this game.

In fact, we have been told that this change was done to slow the game down.

I don't know where you are in the tech tree....but this game is slow as it is for a lot of us.

Basically, those of us with big cities and level 15 factories won't be able to produce many goods now. Scouting costs a fortune after a while (3,300,000) and I don't know how that can happen. The game has been balanced so far based on these quests...take them away and only let us decline one a day.....I can't imagine. I need those bonuses from the goods to be able to set up the goods for the next production.

Edit: Moloch....any fellowship that treated anyone like that shouldn't have any members. But just because some people were idiots doesn't mean this game had to be destroyed for everyone. I mean....take away that quest they were looping...how hard was that? But, this.....there are a ton of quests that those at the top can't even do....upgrade a residence...ha...all are at level 15....upgrade a workshop...same issue...build an altar of the forefathers...why on earth would you waste time with that?...build 24 hour goods...why? so your factories can be less productive and you won't spend much time in the game??....and all of those will take another day of waiting to get past and that list is not exhaustive of all the waste of time quests.

 

[DeletedUser775]

I agree with Bobbykitty. The further you get into the game the slower it is. I don't want to waste days waiting to build 24 hour goods or having to destroy a top level building because my quest wants a building upgraded to level 6 or higher and all of my buildings in that category are maxed out just because I can't decline a quest that makes no sense for where I am in the game. Now it is a blend of quests that can be refused and ones that cannot be refused. Why play a game that you only log into once a day just to collect money and supplies, reset everything and then log out again. About as interesting as watching paint dry.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think reducing the decline to once per day is an overreaction. It's going to drastically change gameplay for a lot of players. It'd make more sense to limit to 20 declines or something, at least until people can get their cities changed over to compensate for the massive drop in this income-source.

I have yet to use the unlimited decline option like this myself, but when I do decline a quest that doesn't fit into my vision for my city (at least, for now) I usually have to decline the one after that for the same reason. Once per day is unreasonable.

 

[DeletedUser701]

Why play a game that you only log into once a day just to collect money and supplies, reset everything and then log out again. About as interesting as watching paint dry.

Agreed! And thanks for doing that math Bobbykitty... Gives me something to think about. I am at a point in the game where things are becoming too slow for me, including battles, and I just don't see the point in having a game where everything moves so slowly. I don't understand how a developer can think "slow play" is good. People lose interest. Unless of course, they can keep spending $.

 

[DeletedUser]

Spending money is probably what they're thinking about. Problem is, they've exceeded the point of diminishing returns with this change. If a game gets too costly to be interesting, people quit and find a new one.

It's like reducing the nicotine in cigarettes. If people find something is more trouble than it's worth, they'll quit.

 

[Deleted User - 90]

Well, I'm still in favor of this system change - just with a shorter duration. I'm not placing an expectation on a browser game to occupy all of my freetime - I think that's where my difference lies.

 

[DeletedUser43]

I am sure that is true about our difference Moloch. Very well expressed. However, I would think game designers would want a game that CAN be played a lot, so that way the heavy duty gamers are customers too. I would imagine if you don't care much about a game, you would rarely spend any money because you simply don't care to buy things that keep you playing. But, I am guessing here. I mean, isn't that the point of micro payments? You get stuck and you pay to go on. But as @Wildcard999 said, if the game is too expensive, then people won't buy it. I also know from experience that if the game is too impossible for the free players, there aren't enough people around to keep things going: forums turn into ghost towns, chats remain empty, it just isn't fun.

And worse...if people don't trust you to keep the game rules the same, then no one pays you. Why would you? You don't know what you're buying. All they sell is trust. These are simply disappearing pixels after all. And I trust them when many paying players say they feel betrayed.

 

[Deleted User - 90]

And worse...if people don't trust you to keep the game rules the same, then no one pays you. Why would you? You don't know what you're buying. All they sell is trust. These are simply disappearing pixels after all. And I trust them when many paying players say they feel betrayed.

For the record, my spending is pretty high compared to the amount of time I play - maybe ≈ 500-ish USD between here and Beta since launch in January [not by any means a record spender, but that's still a lot of money to me and many other people]. I just do other things than play this game. I believe in the project and the concept, which is why I feel comfortable spending money on it. I also believe that based on the early development of other games by Inno that this concept will expand in a direction I am satisfied with. As of yet, I am not disappointed - I am also not blown away, but I can't fault the devs or Inno for that. Since this is such a new game, I think it is unfair to the developers to expect the features you want to stay when they run counter to what the developers are trying to achieve in the long term... and I can very easily understand that in the long-term, this is a good idea.

There's just a question about that duration for me

In all fairness, I don't understand why people are jumping all over this impending update with the ferocity they are showing. Did these same people not think it was cheap that cycling their quests four or five times gave them more resources than their city produced in a day? Are they unaware that with this system in place, the devs can get an accurate read on resource use across the board and potentially use that to rebalance the base production of residences and workshops? (Edit: Accurate meaning not skewed by loop-farming the quest rewards) I just don't understand the outrage, it seems a bit out-of-place here and more suited at the comments section of a YouTube video...