Event: Decaying rewards for infinite quest events

[Pheryll]

A lot of discussion has taken place for how to keep players involved in quests throughout the event, while maintaining an infinite quest layout, while blocking the high performance of the overachievers. The system I propose is to subdivide the event time into three quest progressions (each one lasting a little over a week to fill the entire event time). Each progression would start offering 200 event currency for the first quest which would decay by 5% (multiplicatively) for each subsequent quest with a minimum reward of 1 currency.

How it plays out:
A player decides to complete 20 quests each cycle. The reward for the quests is shown below:
Quest 1: 200 currency
Quest 2: 190 currency
Quest 3: 180 currency
Quest 4: 171 currency
Quest 5: 162 currency
Quest 6: 154 currency
Quest 7: 147 currency
Quest 8: 139 currency
Quest 9: 132 currency
Quest 10: 126 currency
Quest 11: 119 currency
Quest 12: 113 currency
Quest 13: 108 currency
Quest 14: 102 currency
Quest 15: 97 currency
Quest 16: 92 currency
Quest 17: 88 currency
Quest 18: 83 currency
Quest 19: 79 currency
Quest 20: 75 currency

Total 2557 event currency for each cycle, which amounts to 7671 event currency for the entire event from doing 60 quests, which amounts to about what is needed to maximize one evolving building.

What if they doubled their efforts, doing 40 quests per cycle instead of 20? The rewards for the next 20 are just under 36% of that for the first 20 quests. If they did another 20 (60 total) their rewards are 36% of what they received from the previous 20. The process continues with exponential decay until one reaches 56% more rewards than that gained from doing 20 quests. This means that the maximum currency allocated would be the amount for doing 20 quests each cycle + 56% more towards the next building + the rewards for doing quests at the minimum 1 currency reward + currency collected in the city + currency gained by purchase. This effectively limits those that do not purchase event currency to maxing only one evolving building and being well on their way to a second.

In the end the casual player has a decent chance at leveling up an evolving building to the point that they might want to place it in their city. The more dedicated free player would get only one maximized evolving building, and the player that spends has a means to boost this to get a second one (or more).

 

[DeletedUser23318]

Very interesting concept, and very doable for all.

 

[Ashrem]

I think a majority won't respond well to getting less average return for more effort. Their are already significant complaints about capping the return.

But if you want to stop event currency hoarders, having the event currency decay to coin at the same rate as sentient goods could light a fire or two. Imagine giving increasing amounts of sentient event currency for later quests.

 

[Pheryll]

I think a majority won't respond well to getting less average return for more effort. Their are already significant complaints about capping the return.

Majority of which population? More than half of the participants in the summer mermaid event never even placed the evolving building.

 

[Ashrem]

Majority of which population? More than half of the participants in the summer mermaid event never even placed the evolving building.

Couple of problems with that.

• People are not rational. They get upset when they think they are denied something, even if they would never have used what was denied them.
• You're falsely assuming that placing the mermaid was the only valid goal. Even if all they did was tear the mermaid and artifacts into fragments (as I did in two cities) they are being denied those fragments. They are also being denied some share of the interim dailies and chest contents. For me, the timer instants I got from playing the slots were a more important goal than the mermaid, which is why I played a strategy that optimized timer instants over grand prizes. Even in the cities where I never place a mermaid, I ended up with several hundred hours of timer instants. So every one of those players would be denied something.

 

[Vergazi]

I don't think that players with small cities that can't play everyday would like this idea. It always seems to come down to what is good for one is not good for another, so I think IG is just going for some sort of balance in the middle that makes everyone relatively happy, but no one truly overjoyed. Moreover, players such as myself haven't dealt with sentient goods yet and, honestly, dealing with 6 cities at the same time in Orcs and Goblins is trying my patience bigly.

Example: Say a player can play for 3 days and saves up event currency to use later when they can play again. If the currency decays, then in several days all of their efforts come to naught. These types of players, I'd argue, are more likely to be paying customers, since buying diamonds is a main way to compensate for lack of time to play in certain cases. Why irritate the Whales?

If my thinking on this is faulty, please let me know.

 

[Ashrem]

Actual Decaying-currency was my idea, not Pheryll's (despite the subject). The original is simply reducing rewards rather than decaying them.

If decaying rewards that's what you're addressing, I should have been clearer. Each of the first xx (40? 60? 80) quests would give standard event currency, while starting at that point they would increase by a separate type of currency that is decaying. So quest 100 might give 40 normal event currency and 60 "sentient" (decaying) currency. It's really only a throw-away, rather than a serious suggestion. The complexity makes it impractical and it wouldn't really reduce the available currency appreciably, people would jut spend it faster.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

while blocking the high performance of the overachievers

I don't want, and have never wanted, to block the high performance of overachievers. Effort, money, and time should be rewarded accordingly. I wanted for the quests to stop being tailored to slow down those that made gratuitous use of outside (beta) foresight of quest orders, and to get rid of the shanty town exploit (blame is definitely on Inno there; it was their horrible lack of foresight over creating a design flaw that was exploitable that was at fault, not the players for figuring it out and using it to their advantage).

 

[Ashrem]

I wanted ... to get rid of the shanty town exploit

Why? What does it hurt you when another player decides to devote a chunk of their city to finishing events more quickly that doesn't also hurt you if they decide to spen $25,000 on the event?

"shanty towns" were one of the few ways that players who didn't spend lots of money had to equal the affect that wealthy players have. What was so offensive to your sensibilities about that?

 

[DeletedUser20951]

What does it hurt you when another player decides to devote a chunk of their city to finishing events more quickly

being tailored to slow down

Out of disgust, I stopped using quest lists towards the endtime of predetermined quests for events, and even though I have a fairly hefty layout that is good for using my regularly leveled shops and factories to meet the requirements for quest completion, without that precognition, it was nearly impossible to finish all of the quests before the event came to a close. It did hurt those with no access, for whatever the reason, to this third-party information.

"shanty towns"

If you don't intuitively understand the ridiculousness of the method, I don't think it can be adequately explained to sway a body, but I do and my personal preference was for it to be removed for gameplay.

 

[Ashrem]

I think that if people weren't complaining about other people finishing the event so quickly, there'd be no reason for the devs to care. Personally, all the changes so far have done is make me focus on one city instead of devoting a week to one, then a week to another, then a week to another. So now my other three cities are languishing enough that I no longer care to play them, and I'm getting more goodies than ever in my primary city. I no longer feel even a little tempted to spend money on the other three.

 

[Pheryll]

Actual Decaying-currency was my idea, not Pheryll's (despite the subject). The original is simply reducing rewards rather than decaying them.

Mathematically an exponential declination is called decay. The amount each quest offers decays from one to the next. This is unlike a total decaying each day. My example should have been clear enough, even if one was confused by the use of the word decay.

 

[Pheryll]

• You're falsely assuming that placing the mermaid was the only valid goal. Even if all they did was tear the mermaid and artifacts into fragments (as I did in two cities) they are being denied those fragments.

If they receive more event currency how are they being denied fragments? My reward system is much more front-loaded and accessible to many casual players.

 

[Pheryll]

I don't want, and have never wanted, to block the high performance of overachievers.

The Elvenar team has already demonstrated that they are willing to obstruct the progress of the majority to achieve this goal.

 

[DeletedUser]

If i as a player cant be extra rewarded for putting in extra work, then i wont be very much motivated for playing. i get that the idea comes from your frustration of the current event style, but taking out the possibility to perform much better or much worse than average is imo gonna take away the motivation for playing. And if the issue is evolving buildings, then id much rather suggest having only 5 evolving stages and then 4 needed relics. because however cool the buildings are, i never look forward to an event because of the evolving building, i look forward to all the daily prizes i hope to score alot of.

 

[DeletedUser16929]

the only lonely answer is to get diamonds
i have done 9 billion calculations because money is not worth what it used to be
all answers point to diamonds
in the future we will be separated by those who got diamonds and every other little city wine and cheese party
diamonds is like really good vodka... can you really get enough?
i will do more calculations with vodka to see if the answer will be different
i will be drinking Diamond Vodka made with cool glacial water, never heated
successful cities drink Diamond Vodka and lots of it!

 

[Ashrem]

If they receive more event currency how are they being denied fragments? My reward system is much more front-loaded and accessible to many casual players.

Front loaded for casual players who are rarely the ones complaining. It might conceivably even be better for the average player, but it takes away from the most active and vociferous players.

Mathematically an exponential declination is called decay.

And if we were all mathematicians, I probably wouldn't have said anything, but we aren't, and decay has a clear mening for non-mathemtician-elvenar-players.