The Pits are the pits

[Ashrem]

Other flaws aside, the "Fourth Stage" (Whirlpool) of cycling through the same three groups of three quests endlessly strikes me as monotonous, frustrating, and unrewarding. The feature is uninspired, and fails to deliver value for effort. If the whirlpool is to remain, it needs a reason to be there. It should either be a goal in and of itself, or cathartic for those who struggled to reach it.

Some possibilities: (mostly on the presumption that it remains competitive between fellowships, which is a different complaint)

• Escalating value of the whirlpool towards the quest points, so that reaching the whirlpool is an actual goal, vs only getting there when you've run out of other stuff to do.
• Possibly above accompanied by escalating difficulty of the quests. Three x three badges for the first round, three x four for the next, three x five, etc.
• A random element to the quest. have it completely unpredictable as to which badges are needed for the next pass.
• Recycle the three stages, with different quest points. Tougher and longer.
• Separate the Fourth Stage from the others, so that it is an entirely separate competition from the three-stage passes, with it's own point-count. As part of the that, the first three stages could be divided into multiple win paths. 1) first to each stage's mountain top 2) first to reach most points in each stage. The the final stage could have most points, if modified to accept any badges instead of quest cycles, most of each kind of badge.
• Award points based on inverse fellowship size and score, so that a fellowship of lower ranked players has a small advantage over one of higher ranked players.

 

[DeletedUser8946]

I think it serves its purpose fine. Sure it doesn't provide a lot, but at least you don't have a day or two of FS Adventures, doing nothing but watching other Fellowships passing you.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I'd like to see the pit become a real badge dump.
Each badge type is worth xx points(edit different badge=different points), and you can put any badge in at any time. Every xxx total points you get an instant, and those instants get bigger and better. To be clear, you get all of the instants, not just the top level one.

 

[DeletedUser8946]

Each badge type is worth xx points, and you can put any badge in at any time.

Like the idea. But the badges should probably be worth different amounts. Unless you use Diamonds/Instants, someone with 25 Workshops can make a Brewery in 10 minutes but it'd STILL take a day to make (two) Blacksmith Guilds.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Like the idea. But the badges should probably be worth different amounts. Unless you use Diamonds/Instants, someone with 25 Workshops can make a Brewery in 10 minutes but it'd STILL take a day to make (two) Blacksmith Guilds.

Right, that's what I meant. Some fairly simple "workshop hours" formula could do it.
Using your example of 25 WS
Dwarf badge takes 10m, so theoretical 144 badges per day
Blacksmith x5 takes 24h

So to start we have
144 Dwarf = 5 blacksmith
then we factor in that 144 dwarfs is insane effort and activity-wise and come up with something like
14 dwarf = 5 blacksmith
if that sounds fair, then everything else falls somewhere in the middle.

The exact numbers would need to be worked out for each badge type, but as long as the 2 main factors are considered, (time and effort) a system could be made.
*note this isn't really my idea, I saw something similar sometime in the last month, but I'm not even sure if it was live or beta.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

I like all these ideas, but my favorite is the badges=points system with a pit that accepts an endless amount of any badge/item.

After the last FA, I still had badges I couldn't use even after a few cycles of the pit. If they don't stick around for the next FA, I'd rather throw everything in there and have each badge be worth something.

 

[DeletedUser8946]

@Risen Malchiah Right. That's what we're saying. It's just the badges are worth different AMOUNTS of points. A Blacksmith Guild would NOT give you the same amount as a Brewery might.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@ThunderingJeff
Dwarf 5
Treant 5
baker 5
carp 5
farm 8
black 15
Lux 4
Gold 6
Neck 10

Something like that?

 

[Risen Malchiah]

Don't forget the not-so-elegant-if-it-takes-2-days-to-build statue. If you have one of those, it's worthless in the pit.

 

[Ashrem]

Don't forget the not-so-elegant-if-it-takes-2-days-to-build statue. If you have one of those, it's worthless in the pit.

Yep. I'd made 11 of them before I realized we weren't going to use any because we didn't take the path that needs them.

 

[DeletedUser8946]

@SoggyShorts Something like that. I think they should be worth a bit more each, but the proportions look about right.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@SoggyShorts Something like that. I think they should be worth a bit more each, but the proportions look about right.

At first I had them double, but the current system gives 50 points for 9 badges, and the list above is 45,84,60