Quest cycling

[DeletedUser2870]

@CrazyWizard
So I noticed.
Which only proves that the output of the workshops is too low, which is why recycling quests is what people have built their city on. It is also why Im not in favor of changing it from one day to the next but giving time to reorganise AND increase the output of the workshops.
Of course, I must say that personally I feel THAT number of factories is overkill, but thats beside the point. The number of workshops needed is too high, thus the output is too low.
Fix that and a lot more problems are solved at the root instead of trying to solve the result.

 

[SoggyShorts]

My factories (9 marble, 8 crystal, 7 elixer) require 366k = 88 cycles = 17.5 workshops

with some culture bonus, you should be able to get that down to 13 or so. Add in a spell here and there and maybe 12 would do.

Your military needing double the supplies that your already really high number of factories is what is nuts.

with 6-3-2 and 8 workshops i almost never have supply issues, and if i do, a round of PoP spells fixes it no problem.

players paying hugely inflated negotiating costs, and getting first place every tournament by fighting with massive armies are going to need more than "normal" players. I doubt that represents more than 1% of the playerbase, so it is hard for inno to balance for the rest of us if they give you a way to get 10x the supplies an average player needs.

 

[Mykan]

I am a town with 300k+ ranking points without any premium building in sight, I always run for the top spots at all tournaments.
12 workshops with no quest cycling will be just fine if you dont care about any progress on the ranking or any good results at the tournaments running just enouf factories to be able to afford the negotiation costs at the world map.

Many things in the game impact efficiency and costs. I can run 8 workshops and hit the top spots in tournaments when I can afford to sacrifice the sleep/work. I probably couldn't do that every tournament but am looking at a town to increase its tournament effectiveness. As mentioned there will be many factors that allow me to do that with that many workshops.

Something you may find of interest is I did read somewhere they are looking into the quest system. Whether or not they change quest cycling at that time I have no idea but I am certainly expecting a change to quests at some stage. If they do drop cycling there will certainly be a significant fallout from it.

 

[Devman]

Wow, this thread on quest cycling is nowhere near as violent as when I posted on the subject

Anyone brought up the 'quest declining prompt yet ?

 

[SoggyShorts]

@Devman
we meet again.....

 

[Devman]

LOL

 

[DeletedUser3122]

I have no idea why they force us to click endlessly to cycle quests. What kind of programmers don't know how to make quest drop down menus?

 

[Ashrem]

I have no idea why they force us to click endlessly to cycle quests. What kind of programmers don't know how to make quest drop down menus?

that one presumes they want us to be able to pick and choose. Judging by their past comments, the ability to select quests whenever you want would simply make people use them even more, which is not what the developers indicated they want us to do.

 

[DeletedUser3122]

Quests are already effectively limited, based on the fact they are for timed goods or upgrades. A main hall upgrade takes me 40+ hours. The smallest quest is possibly for supplies. It would be more a matter of eliminating quests that are short to complete.

Putting the "fear" of "declining" a quest is not necessarily a strategy that retains customer satisfaction.

I have played many games that have repeatable quests, that allow the customer to select when they choose to repeat it. By them "not intending" us to cycle means they have programming problems, not customer problems.

It is not cheating to be able to do something they programmed (declining quests). If a person feels they're cheating, then Inno should remove the feature.

that one presumes they want us to be able to pick and choose. Judging by their past comments, the ability to select quests whenever you want would simply make people use them even more, which is not what the developers indicated they want us to do.

What is wrong with players using them more? It does not give any one player an advantage over any other player. That's just plain silliness on Inno's part.

If they don't want us to keep our goods, gold and supplies adequately supplied, just by slowing us down by not allowing us to cycle quests, it's one more way to slow us down and play longer but it's definitely not a way to make a customer happy and stick with the game.

 

[Ashrem]

What is wrong with players using them more? It does not give any one player an advantage over any other player. That's just plain silliness on Inno's part.

It doesn't have to give an obvious advantage to give an advantage. quest cycling, in conjunction with city optimization, allows for a huge increase in tools and coin, which is out of balance with the game's design.

 

[DeletedUser3122]

It doesn't have to give an obvious advantage to give an advantage. quest cycling, in conjunction with city optimization, allows for a huge increase in tools and coin, which is out of balance with the game's design.

Says who? It's been working perfectly for me. How can this be balanced, and how is it out of balance?

 

[Ashrem]

Says who? It's been working perfectly for me. How can this be balanced, and how is it out of balance?

The devs have not indicated what it is about quest cycling that is creating an imbalance, only that it is the case and they are trying to correct it. As a single example, a city with a large number of level one workshops can generate more tools than one that has the same space devoted to workshops upgraded to maximum level even if they are both doing quest cycling, because the city with low-level buildings can pack several times as many workshops in (including needing less culture) and run through the cycles more times per day.

 

[DeletedUser3122]

The devs have not indicated what it is about quest cycling that is creating an imbalance, only that it is the case and they are trying to correct it.

I've been hearing this but do you have a source of the devs writing it somewhere? I'd appreciate seeing it.

the city with low-level buildings can pack several times as many workshops in (including needing less culture) and run through the cycles more times per day.

Have you seen anyone do this in their city? (I never have) It seems to me that at some point, even if you can cycle the quests a large number of times, the payoff for tools wouldn't be worth it, because you need huge numbers of goods to do anything, the higher level you get. So I'm not convinced it's unbalanced. That's why I'd appreciate seeing what the devs said and why.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

It doesn't have to give an obvious advantage to give an advantage. quest cycling, in conjunction with city optimization, allows for a huge increase in tools and coin, which is out of balance with the game's design.

Thats why they ask for 700k hammers for a single research, of what 44500 hammers ofr a house upgrade.
With these numbers you can't even keep your 2 workers working.

they obviously took the road of , if people quest we just increase the needed supplies 10fold, now everyone needs to cycle or advances at a snail pace and then played in slow motion.

 

[Ashrem]

I've been hearing this but do you have a source of the devs writing it somewhere? I'd appreciate seeing it.

I don't recall if I saw it personally. It was likely discussed on the Beta forums, where they tried once to stop quest cycling and had a bad reaction that caused them to look for other options.

Have you seen anyone do this in their city? (I never have) It seems to me that at some point, even if you can cycle the quests a large number of times, the payoff for tools wouldn't be worth it, because you need huge numbers of goods to do anything, the higher level you get. So I'm not convinced it's unbalanced. That's why I'd appreciate seeing what the devs said and why.

I have not only seen it, I tested it between the Halloween and Flurry events for a week or two by devoting every unnecessary space to either houses or or level one factories. Using the "collect two advanced tools and 60k coin (which at the time got me 4k supplies each time) I was able to generate around a hundred thousand bonus supplies every day (not including the ones I actually made), keeping my manufactories running full bore and dumping them on hundreds of non-boosted goods. (and I was only in chapter 3 at the time) I also used several level 1 stone factories with the overnight-nine our production runs to get vast (for me at the time) quantities of coin. It was tedius, and boring, but not difficult, very profitable, all that without real optimization like setting my factories to 24 hours so that they could all be used for the quests and over-exploring to generate relics to keep spells running constantly.

 

[DeletedUser3122]

I was able to generate around a hundred thousand bonus supplies every day (not including the ones I actually made), keeping my manufactories running full bore and dumping them on hundreds of non-boosted goods.

You said you were only in chapter 3 at the time, and even though it worked, it was unsustainable - it must have been a cycling nightmare that only in some sweatshop somewhere in the world, would have workers do to sell a high level account - which I doubt happens with this game. Maybe but doubtful, based on the numbers of people that are here and come & go.

How could a player, in only chapter 3, spend hundreds of thousands of tools unless on items in the shop? It was this exploit that probably made them nerf the shop and make everyone pay for it, meaning, it's horrible now and doubtful much of anyone uses it. My own FS has complained about it bitterly.

But in the comment I said above, I was talking about cycling for goods, not tools. Maybe a person could get exorbitant amounts of tools for cycling every 3 hours, but look what it caused Inno to do with the trader. There's no way anyone could get enough goods by keeping tiny factories. Tools are another issue altogether.

 

[Ashrem]

You said you were only in chapter 3 at the time, and even though it worked, it was unsustainable - it must have been a cycling nightmare that only in some sweatshop somewhere in the world, would have workers do to sell a high level account - which I doubt happens with this game. Maybe but doubtful, based on the numbers of people that are here and come & go.

How could a player, in only chapter 3, spend hundreds of thousands of tools unless on items in the shop? It was this exploit that probably made them nerf the shop and make everyone pay for it, meaning, it's horrible now and doubtful much of anyone uses it. My own FS has complained about it bitterly.

But in the comment I said above, I was talking about cycling for goods, not tools. Maybe a person could get exorbitant amounts of tools for cycling every 3 hours, but look what it caused Inno to do with the trader. There's no way anyone could get enough goods by keeping tiny factories. Tools are another issue altogether.

First, I didn't say it was unsustainable. It was a test, and I ended the test. It was sustainable and provided a significant advantage. Secondly, I didn't suggest keeping only tiny factories. A small number of tiny factories set to 24 hour production while the others are as large as possible in the space allows maximization of output while satisfying some quest requirements. Most of my factories were as high a level as I could make them, and during that period, I never had to worry about a shortage of supplies to keep them running on their most productive cycles.

Yes, that kind of activity is almost certainly the reason they nerfed the wholesaler, because the wholesaler was enabling the play-style. I never said or implied that any of that wasn't true. All I said is that quest cycling is a problem. You asked why quest cycling is a problem, and if I'd seen anyone do it, and I answered. As to the assertion that you were only talking about cycling for goods, there are no cyclable quests to receive goods. All of the quests that can be cycled provide coin or supplies as their reward. Those enable extra negotiation in several ways, which enables over-scouting, which provides access to more coin and supplies to continue the process. Quest cycling is a problem. Wholesaler nerfs were implemented as one treatment.
Now quest cycling is less of a problem.

 

[DeletedUser6572]

If they felt like quest cycling was being abused, then why didn't they just set the quests so you could only do say 5 a day. problem solved.

I appreciate that they allow you to decline some of the quests because it truly allows me to not have to fight. (fight = bleck for me) But why allow so many a day? I personally find it exhausting to do more than a quest or two a day, but that's just me. Does anyone else scream "FREEDOM!!!!" when an event is over and the event quests are all done? *giggles*

I wonder if a choice was offered which way the community would vote?

* Keep wholesaler prices inexcusably high to offset quest cycling.
or
* Change the quests, so only 5 (or so) can be completed in one 24 hour period.

 

[Ashrem]

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.

 

[DeletedUser6572]

I feel like my ponderance is still justified, as I don't think the folks fussing "back in the day" were expecting this other rather icky side effect as a replacement.

I still wonder which the players would rather see:

* Keep wholesaler prices inexcusably high to offset quest cycling.
or
* Change the quests, so only 5 (or so) can be completed in one 24 hour period.

Apples or bananas. Hmmm. Is there is a fruit salad option?