Rise of the Phoenix Cult event discussion thread

[Lelanya]

I started a new account on a different world just to see what the event was like for a brand-new city that entered partway through. Of course my experience is not the same as a truly new player because I've learned a little about the game while I've been here. But I have some immediate feedback about the first few quests.

1. Buy 4 KP. This quest works. A new city has enough coins to buy that initial 4 KP. Might cause some building constraints though.
2. Collect Coins. The coin amount for a new city is 1000. This is not unreasonable, but it might help to have a tip that you can gain coins through visiting neighbors as well as collecting from residences. This would get people into the habit of giving neighborly help and help them progress further.
3. Beverages x 8 Perfect. Making beverages is a natural fit for new players.
4. Spend 4 KP Not bad. At worst the person is going to have to wait 4 hours for more KP.
5a. Use 2 Enchantments This is where you get a major hiccup. A new player doesn't have a Magic Academy for at least the first 2-3 days unless they are using diamonds or being very aggressive about exploring the map, and even when they do they can't make enchantments (although I think the MA comes with some enchantments?). You can get enchantments from doing neighborly visits, so it's not impossible, but it's random. My character was pretty lucky and got an MM and an ensorcelled endowment. Building a factory is pretty easy, but I won't have anything to use an EE on for a while. I suggest that an MM and a PoP should be given as a reward for completing one of the first 4 quests. That would allow a new player to move ahead pretty smoothly through at least quest 12 where they need more enchantments (which they could probably get from neighborly visits). Alternatively, you could make spells like MMs and PoP a lot more common in the event chests, but you might not want other players to get them quite so frequently (as awesome as that would be).

I am not saying that a completely new player should be able to finish the event easily or even get very far, but if you are presenting quests to players in their first several hours of gameplay that they can only accomplish with the right amount of luck, I think that will result in frustration.

The senior CMs will tell you that no event is designed to be completed by a brand new city, they are very well aware of this. A pop up city can use an event to begin collecting instants, spells and such, but some quests will take a couple of days .
Where are you playing now? I'm on Winyandor and Harandar.

 

[Gladiola]

@Lelanya, I'm suggesting that the quests that will take a couple days either be moved further down the list or be made possible to accomplish by a newer player in the interest of retaining players during the event. Providing an MM and a PoP as a prize in the first four prizes would not significantly unbalance the game or make a difference in gameplay for more established players, but it would help keep a new player interested in the event and the game. Maybe there are negatives I'm not seeing?

I started the new account in the Spanish speaking world. I might as well get some language practice too!

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

@Lelanya, I'm suggesting that the quests that will take a couple days either be moved further down the list or be made possible to accomplish by a newer player in the interest of retaining players during the event. Providing an MM and a PoP as a prize in the first four prizes would not significantly unbalance the game or make a difference in gameplay for more established players, but it would help keep a new player interested in the event and the game. Maybe there are negatives I'm not seeing?

I started the new account in the Spanish speaking world. I might as well get some language practice too!

Except there are quests that require you to have the Trader or Magic Academy already built, or to have access to the tournament or Spire, or enough neighbors already discovered to make 5 or 7 visits, and so on. The events were never made for a brand-new city to be able to complete. And a lot of players several chapters ahead of you still do not complete every single quest. Getting further in each event, as they get better at the game, should be a goal for a newer player to want to achieve.

 

[Gladiola]

In my chapter 2 city (which is about to become a chapter 3 city) I am currently working on quest 48, which is probably around the median for people who aren't really rushing through. I started on Thursday of the scrolls tourney, so I've been playing close to 3 weeks. I think it's pretty likely I'll be able to finish the event. No quests require access to the Spire, although access to the tournament is definitely helpful. The first quest that absolutely demands either a Magic Academy or Spire is quest 33, by which time a player is not likely to be in their first day (or even possibly first week) of gameplay.

However, my post is not about finishing the event. It's about having a reasonable number of quests in the beginning of the event possible to be completed by a new player to allow them to get into the game a bit before they hit the frustrating and difficult challenge of gaining spell fragments or Combining Catalysts without having access to the Spire. (It is doable, but requires some thinking.)

Again, what is the downside?

 

[Lelanya]

@Gladiola
We are trying to tell you, they just are not designed in that fashion. The developers want starting cities to be focused on other goals instead of racing through an event. Many players have offered feedback like this over the years, and iirc, spells are given at various points to new cities. You can of course try writing support, but they will tell you something similar.

Back in the day: we used to get a quest auto completed when we seemed stuck; one per event, if the metrics showed many players weren't advancing. They haven't done that in at least 4 years now.

 

[Gladiola]

@Lelanya This is not a game problem that requires support. I'm providing feedback in this thread that the developers may or may not find useful in their design of the next event. It is my understanding that is part of the purpose of this thread.

 

[samidodamage]

I'm providing feedback in this thread that the developers may or may not find useful in their design of the next event.

Just so you know, the devs won't look at any of this discussion. This is a primarily player driven forum with volunteer moderators.
A little over a year ago we finally got a path to get ideas/suggestions to the devs in the ideas/suggestions section of this forum. They have strict rules outlined in the Forum Guide there for when the volunteer mods are allowed to send them the first post of a thread in that section; they still won't look at any of the discussion even there. It's a one way path; if the mods hear anything back, they'll let us know (usually a 'not what you wanted to hear but...' response). It's less than we'd like, but most of us are grateful we have a place where we're not just talking amongst ourselves anymore.
The only path for an individual player to get an idea sent to the devs is to send it to support. They'll respond by either telling you they are sending it to the devs or by saying the idea has been rejected by the devs already. It's worth a shot to send it even if it's been rejected in the past. Game direction and staffing changes over time might mean it would be forwarded. Recently they've made changes to the early part of the game, making some of us think they're putting some effort into new player retention, so maybe they'd look at it. You never know unless you try.

 

[Gladiola]

@samidodamage Thank you for explaining. I didn't realize that is how player feedback in this game works. I'll have my little tiny city complain to support, not because it's a huge issue for that city but in case it might be useful for other new players in the future.

 

[InnoGames]

Just so you know, the devs won't look at any of this discussion. This is a primarily player driven forum with volunteer moderators.

While it's true that the forum ist mostly driven by our community (of which we are very proud!), and all of your feedback gets forwarded by our CM team (of which we also are very proud!), I can assure you that the dev team is also looking at the forums as well, and we are aware of current discussions, be it criticism or positive impressions.

We are not participating in discussions, because this part is handled extraordinarily well by our Forum team Please don't expect the devs to join discussions or directly commenting - that's literally the job of our CM team.

 

[Moho]

We are not participating in discussions

I think this is understandable.

But what about hanging out in the Lounge?

 

[Henroo]

Well it is day 11 of the event. And the daily prize is Eggshell Shrine. I would love to drop a Lava Egg on this crappy Shrine! Then I would like to have my troops sack the ruins. After that is done, the Cerberus units can have it for a kennel. In case you have not figured it out yet, I was hoping that Lava Egg would appear on day 11 here like it did in Beta...

 

[ElfGunn]

Well it is day 11 of the event. And the daily prize is Eggshell Shrine. I would love to drop a Lava Egg on this crappy Shrine! Then I would like to have my troops sack the ruins. After that is done, the Cerberus units can have it for a kennel. In case you have not figured it out yet, I was hoping that Lava Egg would appear on day 11 here like it did in Beta...

You and me both brother. Hoping it will show up later. I've been saving currency for a few days to take advantage.

 

[Torcuato]

Is there a correct list for the daily prizes? Elven gems says today would be Lava egg, but I see Eggshell Shrine. : /
Thanks

 

[Iyapo1]

Is there a correct list for the daily prizes? Elven gems says today would be Lava egg, but I see Eggshell Shrine. : /
Thanks

Unfortunately no. All the lists available get their info from beta, Inno sometimes decides we like surprises. We don't. But hey...

Surprise!

 

[SoggyShorts]

Is there a correct list for the daily prizes?

Nope, impossible, sorry. All anyone can do is tellyou what happened on Beta, and since that is different it's anyone's guess.

 

[ElfGunn]

Unfortunately no. All the lists available get their info from beta, Inno sometimes decides we like surprises. We don't. But hey...

Surprise!

Well, today IS April Fool's Day...

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Is there a correct list for the daily prizes? Elven gems says today would be Lava egg, but I see Eggshell Shrine. : /
Thanks

I expect day 12 to day 23 to match the Beta list, but it is not a guarantee. They moved the Lava Egg from day 11 to day 1 and screwed up day 2 to day 11 by doing it.

 

[Lelanya]

Is there a correct list for the daily prizes? Elven gems says today would be Lava egg, but I see Eggshell Shrine. : /
Thanks

Well.
You can record your own, like I am doing. This is not overly surprising really, not after the first few prizes were not the same as Beta. Gems ' list is as per Beta, as has been mentioned. There is a limit to how much the editors can do sorry to say.

 

[Aritra]

Unfortunately no. All the lists available get their info from beta, Inno sometimes decides we like surprises. We don't. But hey...
Surprise!

We really have gotten spoiled by the spoilers, haven't we?

So used to the info that is appropriately disclaimered, yet somewhat ignored, because it is nearly never wrong. I don't know what happened, but I feel like "they" thought we were getting not enough unknowns on Live (less challenging than intended) and so decided to throw a wrench in our too-well-made plans. At least it was the prize list and not the quest list, right? I don't know anything about how coding works for any of this stuff, but either it was simpler (less likely to have bug problems) to switch up the prize list than the quest list, or they were messing with us but going easy on us when doing so. *shrug*

 

[Darielle]

I pulled this over from the report a bug thread. I agree with Lelanya that this is the way the event is designed to work. I’m curious what everyone thinks of this method of receiving troops. Personally, I don’t like it. I prefer to get troop instants that go into my inventory. Especially for new players, with very few squad size researches done, they would benefit greatly from the troops instants that they could open after their squad size is substantially larger.

I hate it. They probably changed it so that people couldn't save them for later. Another nerfing.

And while I'm at it ... waaahhhhhh .... I really wanted day 11 to be another lava egg. That stupid eggshell in its place is ridiculous, and yes, I know they gave it on day 1. They switched to day one to nerf THAT, too. Nerf here, nerf there, nerf everywhere. GRRRR.