Quest cycling

[Ashrem]

In general*, all opinions are justified. I do not suggest you aren't justified in thinking what you do. I'm only offering information that addresses your opinion.

* With the realistic caveats that everyone understands they are actually opinions, and not couched as facts, and that they are not harmful to other beings or dependent on ignorance of accepted facts. (i.e. racism, flat earth, sacrificing animals to the spirits etc.)

 

[Mykan]

Others have said that they tried to disable quest cycling on beta last year and the player response was overwhelmingly negative so they backed away. Presumably the wholesaler change is trying a different approach at the same thing.

While wholesaler may have had some impact on quest cycling I doubt it was the reason for the change, it doesn't even make it into the list of explanations. That change had a whole other set of problems to address which it has done. It has highlighted a bunch of other ones though.

Quest cycling is frequently done to increase coins/supplies after a large spend and especially for supplies to sustain an amount of factories beyond what a persons workshops and towns could normally support. In the first 2 eras it was also done to generate massive quantities of goods. The change on beta ages ago was 1 decline per day (I think, might have being 3 declines). It never came to the live server, they tried to change the quests by adding 1-day productions. This then saw massive abuse as people figured out how to make tens of thousands of goods a day through quests, which brought another change to the current set of quests.

 

[DeletedUser6572]

Hmm, interesting. So if I wanted to quest cycle, I would take down a couple of my workshops and build manufacturies instead? Making myself dependant on the quests in order to support the extra manufacturing? Oh my. I guess some people are desperate. Could there really be that many people doing this? Dumping into the wholesaler I can kinda understand, as you can do this whenever you want to, but to make your city dependant on it. Yikes!

 

[Ashrem]

There are a limited number of ways to distinguish play styles in the game. For a person who Doesn't mind repetitive tasks, and has lots of time, quest cycling is a way of getting ahead over people who don't enjoy that and/or don't have the time. Less so, now that they can't get as many goods with the excess cash and supplies

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Hmm, interesting. So if I wanted to quest cycle, I would take down a couple of my workshops and build manufacturies instead? Making myself dependant on the quests in order to support the extra manufacturing? Oh my. I guess some people are desperate. Could there really be that many people doing this? Dumping into the wholesaler I can kinda understand, as you can do this whenever you want to, but to make your city dependant on it. Yikes!

Not desperate, it's much easier than it sounds.

I cycle until I hit the quest 120k coins + 2 workshops --> 7k hammers.
klik dismiss twice
Gain 900 crystal --> empty 1 factory --> 1k hammers
Gain 600 elixer --> empty 1 factory --> 2k hammers
Gain 1200 marble --> Empty 1 factory --> 3k hammers
Click a bunch of dismisses until back at the first one.

You go from +-8200 hammers normally to +-21200 hammers and it takes me aprox 1.5 min per cycle.
and I am about to switch to a new set of quests rewarding more hammers per cycle (just waiting on a boring 3 times scout quest)

This allows me to feed those hammers gobbling barracks that devours a mere 428400 hammers a day. (exact number of my barracks producing swords or archers)

I never designed a building that requires that much to keep it running.

So no it's not "just" to run a factory, and it's not as bad as it sound, it's just that now it takes about 10 min every 3 or 9 hours to empty my factories instead of 1 min. not that spectacular.

 

[SoggyShorts]

10 min every 3 or 9 hours to empty my factories instead of 1 min.

To some players, especially those not overly concerned with rank, spending 20-50 minutes a day just clicking on quests is actually quite a lot to ask.
It's unfortunate that this was available from the start because now I imagine the devs feel they can't remove it without hardcore players revolting (as they did on Beta) so instead they jack up the supplies cost of everything resulting in none of the player base actually loving the system.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

To some players, especially those not overly concerned with rank, spending 20-50 minutes a day just clicking on quests is actually quite a lot to ask.
It's unfortunate that this was available from the start because now I imagine the devs feel they can't remove it without hardcore players revolting (as they did on Beta) so instead they jack up the supplies cost of everything resulting in none of the player base actually loving the system.

It's indeed a pain to play without questing, guess that's why they invented the magical workshops. It's like hitting 2 birds with one stone, they solve your hammer issue, and at the same time they can make some cash

 

[Mykan]

you don't need to cycle quests to have enough supplies but I think if they solve the player movement issue it will be the best thing for the game including quest cycling. with only active neighbours your supplies from visits should be much higher. Although for some that can be as painful as cycling

 

[Yogi Dave]

Hello, my name is Yogi Dave and I'm a quest cycler. Hopefully those days are behind me, but I've have abandoned the game without it. I've only been playing 8 days. Went out finishing provinces before the quest line wanted me to. Then the quests had me finish more. The ones I'd done didn't count in its mind. Before even getting a stack of troops over 9, I had over 10 provinces. I'm now only 4 researches out of 22 in chapter II and have 9 of the 20 required before the second chest, but I think I'm going to be okay. I have a good support fellowship. It was tedious, painful, boring, and my wrist hurt. Overbuilding houses and factories and a ton of select, dismiss, dismiss, select, dismiss, dismiss... ad nauseam was what allowed my to buy and hammer my way out. And, yes, a magic house too so that overcrowded house allowed me to build enough factories in my limited space. And buying a few diamonds helps feed the coders.

That pain caused me to seek this thread. I knew it had to be here. I'm glad to see people mention the drop down list. They help - a lot. (I'm a software developer, mostly in the power industry where a bad interface can have dire consequences. Town go boom!) However, especially at the beginning, too much information to process can be daunting. So, more stuff needed. I like the idea of classes of quest - battle, building, expansion, culture, etc. Again, a new player might be overwhelmed. The guide is the answer to that aspect. To really be useful, it needs to be beefed up and not run away as coming on stage just because I was clicking elsewhere on the screen. It needs to carry a story and steer the player from too much harm. But this is a bit off the topic. Perhaps another thread. In a nutshell, the guide needs a better defined focus. It has a very important role to play and story to tell.

Now my concepts.

1) Separate quest from help that the guide should give. A quest that rewards me 2K for fixing a broken path? Guide's job, not a quest. Shouldn't be given a reward. The user is getting too far ahead on finishing provinces? Guide's job to mention that there will be hell to pay. Like I said, another whole topic. Just saying the guide is very important to a healthy questing system.
2) A drop down menu of quest delineated by category. That might lead to problems later on since I see in chapter II there are multiple parts to a quest. Produce a crystal ball and gain 2000 supplies. Those are not in the same category. But why even link them together? Just to make things harder? It just encourages ignoring the quests when there are too many ducks to lined up at the same time. It weakens the playing experience. Item 4 actually makes this linkage moot.
3) Even with the list, still need to get details about the quest without selecting it. That is in the current system, there are only two items. Just don't want that to be lost. I'm all about giving as much information available without overwhelming the player.
4) Now the biggie. Why only one quest active at a time? Let it be a list of activities. You can still use the term quest, but quest are ususally a sequence of events. Yes, adjustments must be made. Instead of solving three encounters, make it four since there is also the activity of finishing a province. That means when you complete the fourth encounter and it finished a province, you get both rewards. Trying to make the fourth completion not count because you finished a province becomes a nightmare as the number of activities increase or change during game evolution. Yes, a lot of hammering this concept out is needed, such as overflowing the piggy back or hammer storage to just mention one.
5) Don't offer things that can't be done. Right now, a quest I see is to make a crystal ball. What? I guess I need a crystal factory to do that, but I have 7 researches to finish before I can build that factory. Why is it even in the quest cycle for me? There are other things in the cycle. (I had to look to write this. I'm not falling back. My liver couldn't take it.)
6) If the activity idea is used, be sure to keep the main quest concept. Maybe it can develop a story line instead of being just another quest. Gee, did I just hear a guide saying, “Oh, choose me. Oh, pleeease choose me to tell the stories.”?
7) Last, a plea. Please, please, please don't use the ideas of only once through the quest cycle a day or you only have so much time to complete a quest, or anything else that would slow down the user. I'd have quit the game if that was the case. It would have been way too painful to have to wait a day to move a tad bit forward. I understand as the game progresses, some things take more time. Just don't shoot the feet off us noobies. Of course, if cycling had been slowed down before I joined, you wouldn't have had this to read. So, maybe those ideas aren't a bad thing. ;-)

 

[DeletedUser3024]

Frankly, I've reached the point that required quests (quests that cannot be declined) are a pain in the butt. I got all the way through Woodland Elves, had built my first structure in Sorcerers, when I suddenly got a non-declinable quest for having so many marble grafting, plank grafting and steel grafting sites. Why didn't these quests come up while I was in Woodland Elves????. Serious game design flaw here. I started to go back to rebuild things....big waste of time and resources I finally realized. If I skip it, worse case scenario is that quest stays with me forever as unfulfilled and I never get another new quest. Big deal. I know people who have played the game and NEVER filled or responded to ANY quests. Quests are not necessary to play the game.
To me, once you've passed a particular chapter, quests relating to that chapter should be wiped from the books.
.

 

[SoggyShorts]

To me, once you've passed a particular chapter, quests relating to that chapter should be wiped from the books.

While this is suggestion I've seen a few times, there is a problem with it. Some quests don't really help you out at all, and can even slow your progress for no real benefit. That's the reason why players fall behind in the main questline. Other quests, especially in chapter 10 give a pretty significant mana reward and can really help. If you were to skip the hard/tedious/bad reward parts, and still get to do the good ones, then perhaps the challenge:reward ratio would be changed too much.

The best example I can think of is the "build 50 greenery streets" quest at the end of chapter 9. That one is very expensive, and the reward is nothing special.... except it gets you into the chapter 10 quests where many give you 10s of thousands of mana.

 

[Beireis]

Frankly, I've reached the point that required quests (quests that cannot be declined) are a pain in the butt. I got all the way through Woodland Elves, had built my first structure in Sorcerers, when I suddenly got a non-declinable quest for having so many marble grafting, plank grafting and steel grafting sites. Why didn't these quests come up while I was in Woodland Elves????. Serious game design flaw here. I started to go back to rebuild things....big waste of time and resources I finally realized. If I skip it, worse case scenario is that quest stays with me forever as unfulfilled and I never get another new quest. Big deal. I know people who have played the game and NEVER filled or responded to ANY quests. Quests are not necessary to play the game.
To me, once you've passed a particular chapter, quests relating to that chapter should be wiped from the books.
.

Actually I kinda like the Story quests that can't be denied. They no only tell the story of Elvenar, but when I am trying to decide which path to take in the research, what ever the quests ask for lets me know the best path to take. I am in S&D and the quests go right along with me. All the thousands of items the quests asked me to produce for from the Arcane, Necromancy and Alchemy the start made it so I never had to make more thru the whole chapter so far. I didn't like making them, I didn't see the use for all those items, but I am glad I don't have to slow my progress down and make more.

 

[DeletedUser8187]

Maybe the quests in the cycle you decline disappear for 48HRs.

They could keep the rotatable quests, just don't post the rewards. Once the quest is complete a random reward is announced. Completing the same quest (8 Bread) could give you very different rewards each time. It wouldn't always have to be coins and supplies, could get manufacturing goods, a few individual troop members, a few culture points, pop, mana. Don't make the rewards to high and people will taper off them.

I think people need them for the first 3 chapters, being able to use the supplies/coins to negotiate on the map is a huge deal. By chapter 4 we usually have enough upgrades that restocking isn't a week long process. It just speeds up the process.

However they change it, people will complain.