Ashrem
Oh Wise One
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)
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.