Weekly Quests - Bit of a waste

Hi,

I've just been running the numbers, and taking into account the cost of units used for each adventure and the value of other bits and bobs for each phase @ level 65:

Town Construction 14088gc
Archaeological Excavation 63737gc
Epidemic 23143gc
Kingdom Defence 10699gc

The huge cost is Storm Recovery, as the Grout costs a fortune. I think this should be switched for a different scenario, or something like the Young Woodcutter. In addition, I think having to donate x2 the amount of resources is unreasonable x1 should be the cap.

The tokens are great, the xp isnt worth the cost of the materials used.

Just my own experience at level 65, i'll probably be forced to quit them completely at 66-75 as the costs will increase by around about 25-33%?

CIX

Storm recovery needs fixing rather than replacing, the reward does not fit the cost. I would love to hear a developer response on how the current state of it is justified.

Show me the numbers.

I've never done them, can't see the point

ChapterIX, do the same for 66+ :)

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Originally Posted by ChapterIX

The huge cost is Storm Recovery, as the Grout costs a fortune. I think this should be switched for a different scenario, or something like the Young Woodcutter. In addition, I think having to donate x2 the amount of resources is unreasonable x1 should be the cap.

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You're missing the point, those werent made to make sense economically, they were made to "force" you to spend the excessive resources you should have by now in exchange for something questionably useful.

For the same reason youre forced to spend nonsensical amounts of elite units for no apparent reason other than "the quest says so".

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Originally Posted by sparkz

You're missing the point, those werent made to make sense economically, they were made to "force" you to spend the excessive resources you should have by now in exchange for something questionably useful.

For the same reason youre forced to spend nonsensical amounts of elite units for no apparent reason other than "the quest says so".

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Although it may not make direct economy sense, which in this case is perfectly OK, it still needs to make at least market sense. What's the use of an item if hardly anybody is willing to pay the price required? However exclusive the item is, if it doesn't sell at given price, reduce the price or improve the item sold.

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Originally Posted by Norton_C

However exclusive the item is, if it doesn't sell at given price, reduce the price or improve the item sold.

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Noone is selling anything to you, you either do the quests or you dont, BB is not capitalizing on you doing them.

If its another piece of content noone will use in the long run - big deal, its not the first case and certainly not the last.

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Originally Posted by sparkz

Noone is selling anything to you, you either do the quests or you dont, BB is not capitalizing on you doing them.

If its another piece of content noone will use in the long run - big deal, its not the first case and certainly not the last.

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It is a trade within the game. Weather BB get's real money for it is completely irrelevant in this case. The mechanics are similar to RL trades.

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Originally Posted by sparkz

Noone is selling anything to you, you either do the quests or you dont, BB is not capitalizing on you doing them.

If its another piece of content noone will use in the long run - big deal, its not the first case and certainly not the last.

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They are selling the gems you can complete the quests with.

Dunno about that. If a really low number of people use it it absolutely should be changed. Im not even talking "noone" here, more like under 10% of active players have completed 1 quest in a month. Level ranges should be judged separately as they are unbalanced atm.

Just to balance the views.....

I have no problem with doing Storm Recovery and in fact its the one scenario i have no issue with. Finding players to do 3 whirlwind can take forever and Besieged well its to rare.
I'm over L70 and nothing to spend my grout on so this is fine by me.

Also I have never failed to complete Storm Recovery. So never seen the bug that others talk about.

I don't know why we now have one more tread about the "weekly Nightmares", but well it does not seem like BB bothered to read the other treads.
I don't have a problem with "Storm recovery".
I do however have a problem with do 3 from the following list of one item. As said before a list of one is not a list. It makes me think that the devs think we are really stupid.

Besides that I play a game, I don't want to sit at an assembly line doing the same over and over, expect if it is my choice.
I don't get why they want to make the game more boring by making people do 3 of the same adv or scenario. With SR at least I have plenty. I don't have the option to do 3 wisdom every time that adv is the one on the so called list. I don't want to wast them that way either as I like doing them, I don't want to make it part of an assembly line.
SR is rather expensive and I think the main problem with it is that BB does not get when people reach a level when it is affordable. I am level 72, and for me it is not an issue to pay the grout and the gunpowder.

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Originally Posted by topgearfan

They are selling the gems you can complete the quests with.

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Gems are completely separate to what the previous point is.

Any kind of content that is introduced into the game might indirectly affect the revenue BB gets, but does not directly participate in any kind of trade. Therefore BB does not "lose" anything when the content is not used by players, compared to RL trade where you rely on selling stuff you have because otherwise you dont get any revenue.

My point is, with the expected amount of effort and money it should be needed to create this type of content in this type of game (which, based on my professional experience, should be very little) BB will get enough money from Happy Hours gem sales to make up for the costs, which means they really wouldnt care if anyone does any particular quest they introduced.

I would argue the content they put in is worth alot more from the marketing perspective than people actually think long as BB creates an illusion the game is being worked on and not dying.

Another thing that people usually ignore is that there is a difference in complexity of throwing in a couple of ideas into a static quest and rebalancing existing ones. The latter requires actual thinking and considering multiple factors, requires time, efford and most importantly does not result in new content being created (that goes back to what I said before about having something to show that the game is alive and in development), which I think is the main reason noone in that company gives a care about reworking old stuff.


Please watch the language on the forums (even masked)

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Originally Posted by sparkz

Gems are completely separate to what the previous point is.

Any kind of content that is introduced into the game might indirectly affect the revenue BB gets, but does not directly participate in any kind of trade. Therefore BB does not "lose" anything when the content is not used by players, compared to RL trade where you rely on selling stuff you have because otherwise you dont get any revenue.

My point is, with the expected amount of effort and money it should be needed to create this type of content in this type of game (which, based on my professional experience, should be very little) BB will get enough money from Happy Hours gem sales to make up for the costs, which means they really wouldnt care if anyone does any particular quest they introduced.

I would argue the content they put in is worth alot more from the marketing perspective than people actually think long as BB creates an illusion the game is being worked on and not dying.

Another thing that people usually ignore is that there is a difference in complexity of throwing in a couple of ideas into a static quest and rebalancing existing ones. The latter requires actual thinking and considering multiple factors, requires time, efford and most importantly does not result in new content being created (that goes back to what I said before about having something to show that the game is alive and in development), which I think is the main reason noone in that company gives a care about reworking old stuff.


Please watch the language on the forums (even masked)

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It makes sense that things work as you say. But I think their equation is flawed. For them to keep making an income they need players.
They need new coming in, and that seemed to nearly halted. They need players to stay in the game, and for that to happen, they do need to keep the players happy at some level. Many have left during the last 6 month or so, some in anger after thinking that the weekly would give them new stuff to do, and then be greatly disappointed. Well for me the only reason I am still here, is old habit, have not found something better to do yet. But I am very bored with the game and would love new game content that does not include giving away expensive troops and doing the same adventure or scenario over and over.

It's funny that someone acts like BB spokesmen to give us their expert opinion why BB won't do anything. Yet BB already changed the WC, just not enough to make it really attractive. The concept of tokens and upgrades of special residential buildings is great, just stumbles on original "exclusive for hardcore players" idea. They made it too "exclusive" even for hardcores, not to mention others. So unless we hear negative report from real BB representative it's worth giving them reasons to rebalance I think. :)

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Originally Posted by Norton_C

It's funny that someone acts like BB spokesmen to give us their expert opinion why BB won't do anything. Yet BB already changed the WC, just not enough to make it really attractive. The concept of tokens and upgrades of special residential buildings is great, just stumbles on original "exclusive for hardcore players" idea. They made it too "exclusive" even for hardcores, not to mention others. So unless we hear negative report from real BB representative it's worth giving them reasons to rebalance I think. :)

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I would so hope you are right - but don't think so. This is not the only negative feedback they have totally ignored. Well they totally ignore mostly any feedback, so for me "sparkz" input make sense, and I don´t think he tried to say he represented BB in any way. And the problem is that the "hardcore" players don't really need to upp the special buildings - extra pop is not that important an issue at high levels, so why give away expensive resources and be bored at the same time ?

The problems with the tweaks BB have made to the WC's (apt acronym) is that they have read what they want to read and ignored the rest. On the original thread of many many pages (Odd they haven't been merged) the main focus from players was not the difficulty of doing the challenges but the idea of killing large numbers of elite troops without them going to an adventure, the lack of availability of the quest adventures and the weird idea of a list having just one sort of adventure.

If they truly want to be seen to listen then change the adventure requirements to ones that are generally available, make a list which is meaningful and I am even happy to do an adventure killing 450 besiegers instead of just 'donating' them.

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Originally Posted by Norton_C

It's funny that someone acts like BB spokesmen to give us their expert opinion why BB won't do anything. Yet BB already changed the WC, just not enough to make it really attractive.

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My intention, if anything, was to give you my take on why you shouldnt expect too much, given on how little changed in the last few years in that regard. You dont have to have an expert view on whats happening inside the company to notice certain symptoms :)

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The concept of tokens and upgrades of special residential buildings is great, just stumbles on original "exclusive for hardcore players" idea. They made it too "exclusive" even for hardcores, not to mention others. So unless we hear negative report from real BB representative it's worth giving them reasons to rebalance I think. :)

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Whether its great is at least debatable, considering the population after the certain point is not the primary issue that needs solving, and small increments in maximum population are barely noticeable (imagine if you were able to spend tokens on upgrading your barracks to level 7, and how much more difference would it make comparing to getting 20 extra population on one building when youre already at 20-40k)

The idea of providing an unique resource to push the upgrades little higher is literally so simple, that its astonishing it was so poorly executed.

I wasnt doing the weeklies as i could never finish them due to the besieged and wisdom issue but since the change i have done them up to the point i cant and it might only be a few tokens here and there for resources that are easily obtained but they will soon build up and each residence i can upgrade fully will be one less building i have to have on my island or a better population count..

the recent adv event really really helped not only was i able to get and buy from others enough besieged to last me several months or it made me do alot more 2nd theives and in so doing managed to actually get a few wisdoms

as for players leaving grow up if you truely enjoy a game then you adapt and if you dont like what they added ignore it and carry on as if they never added it like many do with pvp..ppl come and go in games its there nature but to slap your toys down and stamp your feet saying i am leaving cause i dont like this or that is childish just leave come back in 6 months ..you cant please everyone and i have been disappointed a few times yet still here adapting

Whilst I agree with much of what hades8840 says, and I have `adapted ' to ignoring this content, unlike pvp the irritation of this content lacking a little more thought is thrown in my face once a week with that `quest failed' notice, so as much as I would like too....I can't :(.
Why can a list not be an actual list? Why can a choice not be an actual choice? And why oh why can an obvious resource sink actually have a bit of gaming fun attached to make it have a little more worth to throwing un-economical amount of resources at it in what is essentially an economic `balancing' game ?
BB have only rarely tweaked ( badly constructed ) content once on live severs to put it anywhere near what players have suggested should be done, and they have never tweaked that same content twice, so I'm left with the satisfaction of verbally reminding my screen once a week that I did not actually fail any quest, Alex and his team managed it all on their own ;)

I think it would be much better if it said complete 3 x of type. IE 3 Ali Baba or 3 x FT . But I wish they would drop co - op . its hard enough to do one let alone find time for 3 of them.

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Originally Posted by Kriegor

I think it would be much better if it said complete 3 x of type. IE 3 Ali Baba or 3 x FT . But I wish they would drop co - op . its hard enough to do one let alone find time for 3 of them.

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Ok so I see these kind of suggestions constantly so probably again a time to explain how BB_Alex came to this system of list of 1. Install extra palms and faces and prepare to connect them.

So on Test people suggested same as you and BB_Alex said that this kind of list would be too different in difficulty and cant be implemented. Then people suggested narrower criteria for lists. BB_Alex said that those kind of lists would be too different in difficulty and cant be implemented. Then i suggested to only use adventures of the same difficulty. BB_Alex said that adventures of the same difficulty are too different in difficulty and so that cant be implemented. So basically only the current variant is possible and thats it.
How did he determine the difficulty of adventures? Made a formula that took the average time of completion of an adventure over some time. Which obviously includes stuff like some people leaving for a week etc. How this kind of formula can deliver any kind of reliable and that precise results is beyond me. For example how it delivers results that in some level ranges all adventures have to be played twice and in the next three times. All the while remember even same difficulty level adventures are too different to interchange! It doesnt take into account availability of adventures. It doesnt take into account number of players in adventure. It doesnt take into account troop losses. Possible use of buffs. ETC.
I support BB_Alex and this is probably his only big mistake but the fact that he still refuses to see that other factors are 10 times bigger than any differences inside a difficulty level can ever be is just mind-boggling.
So there. Thats why we cant have a list of more than 1. Because once upon a time we took on average 3 days 8 hours 23 minutes and 12 seconds to complete a second thief and 3 days 8 hours 46 minutes 56 seconds to complete a first thief.

Disclaimer: Im writing this from memory and since at the time when it happened it felt like banging my head against the wall and that hurt my brain I tried to forget it ever happened so things might not be 100% accurate.

Oh and leaving the best for last: we also suggested that the difficulty be set to "the difficulty of the one and only possible adventure" or higher. Obviously that cannot work either.

u dont have to do these weekly challenges to complete the game. i have never done 1 and have no issue with them.

If bb want to waste their time developing content that a few lower players will use and then give up at higher level, then why not? They have to justify their wages somehow.