Poor game design for how easy it is to advance and lose the questline

[Risen Malchiah]

@Juliandra Ari I agree that the quests are flawed and need to be fixed, but you keep going on about the "real $$" as if the game unfairly punishes you for not buying diamonds.

I'm now at the end of orcs largely without spending diamonds. If you play solo, yes you will have issues. And if you lack trading partners, you will have issues. But overall, the game is surprisingly generous to free players.

Compare the best culture buildings currently available to me:

Ponds of Recreation, 3700 culture, 123/square (free to build)
Temple of Seeds, 4700 culture, 223/square (2400 diamonds)
The Great Auction, 5700 culture, 228/square (event building)

You get out of the game what you put into it. So maybe it requires logging in regularly, making tough decisions about what not to build, and making sure you have the right balance of goods versus the space available to you. I've seen players in the Dwarven chapter with more AWs than granite mines and they wonder why it takes 6 months to finish. Often these same people will have non-boosted factories and complain there's not enough room unless they spend "real $$" on the game. I hope this isn't the case for you.

But yeah, I totally agree about the quests. The completion requirements should take into account actions already taken and the quests should reward something other than coins/supplies to keep players interested.

 

[DeletedUser7421]

I have 1 AW, 13 granite and 6 copper. This game requires a lot of effort to grow, without spending real $$ - to the point that it creates such a significant amount of pressure to buy diamonds or quit - that sadly, too many quit.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

Certainly, diamonds will make some things easier, but by and large, you can play this entire game all the way from chapter 1 to halflings in less than a year without spending diamonds. I honestly don't know how long it would/should take, but I'm guessing based on my 7 months to get to woodelves and I didn't do dwarves as fast as I could have due to the learning curve with guest races.

I too went with around 13 mines, but ultimately ended up with 22 mines and 10 copper by the end of the chapter since I wasn't producing the settlement goods fast enough to keep up with my tournament KP and the tons of KP I got from the Phoenix event.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Certainly, diamonds will make some things easier, but by and large, you can play this entire game all the way from chapter 1 to halflings in less than a year without spending diamonds. I honestly don't know how long it would/should take, but I'm guessing based on my 7 months to get to woodelves

Under a year is very fast imo. The mana chapters take way longer than previous ones.
As a player that never bought any diamonds it took me about 13 months to get into chapter 11, and I got loads of extra KP from events, tournaments, and buying them (1 KP costs 600K coins now). I didn't get techlocked until chapter 9(where I underestimated mana requirements).
I probably could have shaved off a month or so if I had scouted 24/7 and went way outside the GZ instead of clearing the minimum provinces to open chapters.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

Ok, so I wasn't too far off and you've now set a challenge for me to get to halflings by December. So far I've only been tech-locked for about a week at the end of Dwarves because I didn't upgrade my mines enough earlier in the chapter, but not too bad, and again in orcs because the merciful gods of Elvenar saw fit to give me a ton of 25 KP chests in the Herds event right as I started needing Shrooms of Wisdom.

Come to think of it, both times I got locked were due to KP from events. Hmm...

 

[DeletedUser8382]

Yes. I have two of my cities stuck....way far back in the quest line, and I'm forced to find room and building time to re-complete trivial tasks that I've already completed many times. Not a real good design, unless it's only $$ the developers care about.

I don't even see how that gets people to spend more money. It just seems like it's a good way to annoy people into quitting.

 

[DeletedUser7421]

I now have 16 granite and 7 copper - and it's slow going - but since this thread is about the poor game design for quests - I've had a few more issues.

1. It absolutely sucks use up 12hrs+ and 1 out of ONLY 2 builders, a lot of coins and supplies, land space, and a sense of forward movement - only to get the stupid ancient grounds culture building built (which I didn't want to begin with... but since it's on the quest list.......I HAVE to build the stupid thing)..........So I built it in advance to avoid temptation NOT to build it.........AND THEN!!! the storyline quests DIDN"T acknowledge it!!! - I had to tear it down and rebuild it again! Not cool game design - and severely lacking in intuitiveness.

--> Build SHOULD equate to HAVE ALREADY BUILT AND IS CURRENTLY OCCUPYING LAND SPACE at the very minimum - games hoping to generate real money income NEED to be MUCH MORE INTUITIVE and NEED to carry a MEMORY of items required to be built and HAVE been built.

2. My other city is absolutely stuck way back in the storylines NONE DECLINABLE quests.... I need to gain one more scrolls relic. The ISSUE is - I have scouted and finished every province available and now I have to add ORCS to my negotiations.............. NOT cool again, because I'm JUST researching dwarvian residences.. So now I have to wait 5 more weeks for a scrolls tournament to gain 1 stupid scrolls relic, so I can progress in the story line quests past what, chapter 3.... to try to catch up to chapter 6? ... MEANWHILE, I'm NOT building a dwarvian portal until I catch up to the stupid and non-intuitive story line quests.

3. Several declinable quests don't register decline - and force you to press it more than once.

I think this particular thread should be closed, because it's obvious that the NON-DECLINABLE story line quests are NOT well designed, and ARE creating problems that cause players to leave - BOTH by NOT completing the tasks on schedule AND by COMPLETING the tasks TOO EARLY.

I too went with around 13 mines, but ultimately ended up with 22 mines and 10 copper by the end of the chapter since I wasn't producing the settlement goods fast enough to keep up with my tournament KP and the tons of KP I got from the Phoenix event.

I just want to point out that a normal player does NOT have room for 13 granite mines, never mind 22 granite mines. Again, a nice push and shove for normal players to spend real $$. I don't like it one bit.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

I just want to point out that a normal player does NOT have room for 13 granite mines, never mind 22 granite mines. Again, a nice push and shove for normal players to spend real $$. I don't like it one bit.

I did this without spending diamonds. I deleted some culture and was surprised to see that I still occasionally had sunny skies when my fellowship visited. (And at the time, my fellowship was only partially active.)

The "Build Ancient Grounds" is precisely the quest that irked me enough to come on the forum and complain about it. I ended up building 2 and then deleting the 2nd one. All "Build" quests should be changed to "Have" which would eliminate most of the problems.

Looking ahead in the Dwarves chapter, I only see 2 other "Build" quests. One is "Build a Dwarven street" (easy enough) and the other is "Build Wayfarers Tavern" which is immediately after the quest to research it. The other quests are less problematic other than a few that require you to have at least 1 residence and workshop at level 16. In Fairies, most of the quests use the "Have" requirement as far as I remember.

If you stick with the quests, you'll now get free diamonds at the end of every guest race chapter. It won't be enough to buy buildings, but that's ok because you're better off using those diamonds on a builder or expansion anyway.

 

[DeletedUser1094]

These type of Browser games EVOLVE over time this game is not the same game when I join up couple years ago it was more simpler of a game. Today, the game has evolved into a more suffocated like game with giving us less for more.

 

[Ashrem]

Again, a nice push and shove for normal players to spend real $$.

It may help to remember that Inno is a business and Elvenar is being built by paying people. The fact that we are able to play for free at all is simply to entice people in to buy diamonds. Selling diamonds is Inno's primary goal. It is how they feed their families.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I just want to point out that a normal player does NOT have room for 13 granite mines, never mind 22 granite mines. Again, a nice push and shove for normal players to spend real $$. I don't like it one bit.

http://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/b0556014b83c458e9b802433102e93fe/
It's not perfect, but I thought I'd try to whip up a dwarf using zero event buildings and the absolute minimum expansions you'd have with zero premium, and zero extra world map.

 

[DeletedUser7370]

@Juliandra Ari
I took what @SoggyShorts had then got rid of the nice neat districts, added the roads and portal tracks, and finally rearranged until nearly all the empty space was in one area. There would be room to add a few more mines and foundries.
http://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/feeb3543b97c4d76bbca49dea8c0fd64/

 

[DeletedUser10851]

Yes. I have two of my cities stuck....way far back in the quest line, and I'm forced to find room and building time to re-complete trivial tasks that I've already completed many times. Not a real good design, unless it's only $$ the developers care about.

AGREED
I'm ready to walk away and tell everyone I can find that this is a terrible waste of time.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@TedGrau 77 empty after putting in the roads, nice. Mine was an adjustment from what I actually had in Beta, but I took out my 15 winter stars and had to add what felt like a bajillion residences. I miss winter rewards

 

[Mykan]

I find the mainline quests useful if you keep up with them and the rewards add up. However i do agree a mechanism to skip quests for a chapter when advancing to the next could be useful. Something like a prompt "do you wish to proceed to the next chapters quests?", If they choose yes just update them to the first quest of the new chapter, if no they stay where they are and progress or skip at the next chapter.

When I first caught up my quest line (was stuck at the time the MA came in ages ago) I had 3 guest races side by side in the same free to play town. While annoying to catch-up it is certainly achievable without diamonds.