Autumn Zodiac

[Jackluyt]

Comments and Suggestions from EPL
Feel free to submit comments and suggestions here https://tinyurl.com/y5o2e9fx!

1, As always, congratulations to the Elvenar team for excellent artwork and technical production.
Well done!!

2. For me, evolving buildings are a great improvement over building sets - so much more power packed into a smaller space!
I like the concept!

3. Despite the teething problems, I really love the new ‘random quest’ format - and see it as a very positive change from the designers. It is no longer possible for strong players to swamp their cities with lots and lots of tiny little level one buildings and finish the event in three days - which was never the intention for Events!

In our Event Note, we have posted a list of what one typical player encountered in her event to give you an idea of what you may expect; everyone will get similar quests, but in a different order. So now one has to play the event one quest at a time, rather than just reading and reacting to a string of known quests from a 'cheat sheet' - which was never the designer’s intention.
(I spoke with one of the event designers a while back - and they do not want 'cheat sheets'. If they wanted all the players to know exactly what is coming next, they would post a list in the Wiki.)

To me this format is infinitely more satisfying and I am enjoying the event a lot. I think many skeptics, as so often happens in the game, will eventually come to see that this is a more satisfying way to play Events!!

4. There is little doubt that this new event format is going to make events easier and more fun for smaller cities - who in the last few had no chance to finish!
I have always felt that Events should not require you to rip up your city and build itty-bitty little buildings that have no place in your city; it is so nice now to be able to use buildings that are there already!

5. I am really enjoying the event! Very relaxing; and one gets 5 - 10 quests done every day on average without any fuss and bother.
I am particularly enjoying the absence of ‘Upgrade x buildings to level y’ - I hope they will never return.

Events should be FUN - they should not require you to rip your city to pieces to build things that you really don’t want or need!

6. For me this event gets 9 out of 10 - the prizes are a bit ordinary; but not complaining; lots of KP and boosters to be made!!

7. There has been a lot of hoo-hah about the quest changes! I for one am very happy with the changes - I think they are constructive and will improve the game for all of us. They will just take a little time to grow on us.
Generally speaking, the people who run into troubles in this game are those who do not follow the common sense recommendations - and one of those is always keep every building maxed - because it is the best use of space.
The designers expect 'the average player' will design their city this way - and they create events that work with this ‘average city’.

I have been warning people for years - the more you deviate from the 'typical' city set-up, the more likely you will run into problems with game changes! It is perhaps less risky to play conservatively, rather than smarty-pantsing your way through to the end.

I might mention that I have only 5 of the required planks workshops and 8 workshops - which are part of my normal city architecture - and I have already done more than 170 quests without spending Diamonds. So really, the new event format is totally do-able.

8. The last-minute change to the questing system really did not work!
Too many Scout-or-Vapors by far.

Next time they are looking for a filler to slow down the game - how about ‘Collect 20 Golden Keys”? That would take 24 hours out of the game, and would be something different, at least!

I strongly feel that event quests should not be random or destructive - they should add to our game knowledge when we first start - and they should be relevant to the Event too!

One gets the feeling that many of the present set of quests are just there to take up time and prevent players from progressing too quickly

Here are some suggestions:

• get people to trade more with place x trades;
• get people to visit more;
• encourage us to do things that we have not discovered yet - particularly the ‘newbies’. Quests like ‘zoom in and zoom out again’; ‘post a message on chat’, ‘post a trade’, ‘use an enchantment’, ‘sell a culture building’, ‘visit x neighbors’.;
• Receive x Neighborly visits would be a great one too - to encourage those who do not play in Fellowships to at least make the effort to meet their Map neighbors;
• Why not include Tournament encounters in the quests? Like ‘solve x Tournament encounters’.
  It would create more interest in Tournaments! So why not use the Events to get people involved in Tournaments? Because this to me is what the Event Quests are ideally suited to!

The Quests could be a wonderful way to educate the newcomers - instead of endless repetition of same-old, same-old; boring and meaningless. That is why I am sad that the second questline was dropped - this is an ideal slot for in-game education.

9. Another suggestion: I know the designers don’t want ‘cheat sheets’ where you know exactly what is coming next - but what about at least telling us the next quest or two?
That would really make things a lot easier - adding a ‘Next Up’ box inside the quest window!

 

[DeletedUser1874]

3. Despite the teething problems, I really love the new ‘random quest’ format - and see it as a very positive change from the designers. It is no longer possible for strong players to swamp their cities with lots and lots of tiny little level one buildings and finish the event in three days - which was never the intention for Events!

If that was the case, how come FAs still require us to swamp cities with level one buildings? Do you expect FAs to change as well?

4. There is little doubt that this new event format is going to make events easier and more fun for smaller cities - who in the last few had no chance to finish!

On the contrary, it was very easy for little cities, even those filled with WWs (taking up space for manufactories and workshops), to "complete" an event without spending a dime. The Phoenix, Stonehenge and Mermaid events were proof of this - I had no issues at all in completing those with small cities gimped by WWs, whereas now it's much more difficult for me.

5. I am really enjoying the event! Very relaxing; and one gets 5 - 10 quests done every day on average without any fuss and bother.
I am particularly enjoying the absence of ‘Upgrade x buildings to level y’ - I hope they will never return.

Events should be FUN - they should not require you to rip your city to pieces to build things that you really don’t want or need!

To each his own I guess, I for one find getting the same blocking quests over and over again, in a row, far from relaxing, and far from doable at the pace you described without investing heavily in time boosters and/or diamonds. Seriously, who's able to get 5-10 quests done in a day without making use of boosts in the current situation? Such a person would be so lucky he'd be better playing the lottery instead of Elvenar.

Generally speaking, the people who run into troubles in this game are those who do not follow the common sense recommendations - and one of those is always keep every building maxed - because it is the best use of space.

No, people who run into trouble are endgame players who have no alternative but dump a huge amount of time boosts in order to get the "Scout/Research/VV" ever-present quest done. Also, seeing as how previous events had "Upgrade X building(s) to level Y", it was very much common sense to prepare at least a few buildings to get upgraded.

Next time they are looking for a filler to slow down the game - how about ‘Collect 20 Golden Keys”? That would take 24 hours out of the game, and would be something different, at least!

Wait a second - first you express happiness at being able to complete 5-10 quests a day without any fuss and bother (which, again, I doubt was actually possible), and then you suggest implementing a quest that'd take 24 hours and provide yet one more way of blocking our progress and leave us twirling our fingers?

• Why not include Tournament encounters in the quests? Like ‘solve x Tournament encounters’.
  It would create more interest in Tournaments! So why not use the Events to get people involved in Tournaments? Because this to me is what the Event Quests are ideally suited to!

Those are already in game. "Solve 9 encounter or participate in 45 tournament encounters" (how is 45 tournament encounters doable for little cities, by the way?). Also, endgame player are forced to use the tournament to complete the quests that require relics as well. No need to add more tournament quests.

 

[Pauly7]

Despite the teething problems, I really love the new ‘random quest’ format - and see it as a very positive change from the designers. It is no longer possible for strong players to swamp their cities with lots and lots of tiny little level one buildings and finish the event in three days

I actually agree, in principle, with what you are saying. I prefer to not know quests and to just play through them casually at my own pace. However, I am still generally negative about the whole process for one reason, and one reason only, and that is needing workshops and manufactories which are upgraded to maximum level before they are of any use. For me this entirely undoes any other work which would otherwise be good.

Events should be FUN - they should not require you to rip your city to pieces to build things that you really don’t want or need!

In light of what I said above this comment completely contradicts the reality for some people. Many people, myself included, do not wish to (and won't have) lots of max upgraded buildings. My feeling is that the problem will only get worse in subsequent events when they remove the -1 or -3 chapter options.

Generally speaking, the people who run into troubles in this game are those who do not follow the common sense recommendations - and one of those is always keep every building maxed - because it is the best use of space.

This is not common sense in my mind. It is just one opinion.

I have been warning people for years - the more you deviate from the 'typical' city set-up, the more likely you will run into problems with game changes! It is perhaps less risky to play conservatively, rather than smarty-pantsing your way through to the end.

I would much rather "smarty-pants" my way through a game than make a city exactly the same as everyone else's. For me the main point of Elvenar is city design.

 

[Killiak]

Apparently Jack is fully on-board with punishing people for playing smart, which they did by using buildings provided by Inno themselves in the first place.

Stay classy Jack.

 

[Errandil]

Generally speaking, the people who run into troubles in this game are those who do not follow the common sense recommendations - and one of those is always keep every building maxed - because it is the best use of space.

In my opinion it's not a common sense to have a lot of max level workshops and manufactories if you want to have an efficient city. Mermaid paradise for example is strictly better than the manufactory at higher chapters. Why should I keep my manufactories if I won 6 MP last event and was fine with goods after placing 3 of them? If not for this event, I would be better placing more of them if I start running low on t1. The same applies to workshops. I've been running my city without WSs for over a year and it was definitely more efficient than having them using space and population. Despite the fact that I'm doing relatively well and already have two maxed bears, I would definitely prefer devs not telling me how i should build my city if I want to get something from the event.

 

[Eryn Galen]

There is little doubt that this new event format is going to make events easier and more fun for smaller cities

I have three new small cities in addition to my Beta city. My city here, and two on other servers, are all Chapter 1 and I can tell you that this event is NOT easier than any event I have participated before. All three cities got hit with obtaining spell fragments and vision vapor before I even got close to unlocking the Magic Academy. And since there is no second questline, in a situation like this, there's no way to make any progress in the event without buying diamonds. That's not fun at all.

 

[FieryArien]

There is little doubt that this new event format is going to make events easier and more fun for smaller cities - who in the last few had no chance to finish!

Do you consider chapter 5 city still small? In that case I don’t agree with your claim. From my three cities (the others are in Amuni and Halflings), the small city is clearly behind in the number of quests I was able to complete there. And that’s despite the fact that I kept my provinces for events, I haven’t even qualified for next chapter’s Advanced Scouts research yet and my scouts are just about 5 hours! Oh and my Magic Academy is at level 5. And I built several additional temp level 5 workshops. Still behind the progress of my bigger cities.

 

[Timneh]

5. I am really enjoying the event! Very relaxing; and one gets 5 - 10 quests done every day on average without any fuss and bother.

Please explain how a person can do 5 - 10 quests every day when they get produce toolbox or scout a provence/research 1 tech/gain 15 VV several times in a row. Toolboxes take 24 hours, some people have scouting times in multiple days, some people can be tech locked so can't complete a tech and sometimes there is nothing worth crafting to get the VV.

 

[DeletedUser1874]

Please explain how a person can do 5 - 10 quests every day when they get produce toolbox or scout a provence/research 1 tech/gain 15 VV several times in a row. Toolboxes take 24 hours, some people have scouting times in multiple days, some people can be tech locked so can't complete a tech and sometimes there is nothing worth crafting to get the VV.

Not to mention that even if one were to craft stuff just to get VVs, it wouldn't be nearly enough to pull 5-10 quests "without any fuss an bother" (sic!) simply due to the MA's cooldown times and CC production times. It's basic math. Clearly, he's in a state of denial.

 

[Hekata]

It is no longer possible for strong players to swamp their cities with lots and lots of tiny little level one buildings and finish the event in three days - which was never the intention for Events!

What do you mean by strong players? Those at the end of the tech tree? I'm not there and I always used to fill my city with LV1 WS and T1. If I wasn't between chapters I just sold some guest race buildings. I don't see a problem with that other than the fact we had too many events lately. And the strong players as you call them will still get a lot of prizes. They will just have less fun in doing so.

To me this format is infinitely more satisfying and I am enjoying the event a lot. I think many skeptics, as so often happens in the game, will eventually come to see that this is a more satisfying way to play Events!!

I don't think so. Most players here enjoyed the planing aspect of the game, and that's the part that is disappearing fast from this game. Everything is random now. And it's a bit funny to hear you say that you like the random aspect since your pages were one of the 2 sources of quest lines for events IIRC.

There is little doubt that this new event format is going to make events easier and more fun for smaller cities - who in the last few had no chance to finish!
I have always felt that Events should not require you to rip up your city and build itty-bitty little buildings that have no place in your city; it is so nice now to be able to use buildings that are there already!

I think you are wrong about that too. I could always finish events with my cities and that was thanks to the sequential system and the "cheat sheets" that allowed planing. And, as it was pointed out here so many times, with that system we would all get the amount of prizes we were intended to get except those who were willing to spend diamonds. Now I have as much difficulty doing this event with my smaller city as I have with my bigger one. The only advantage my smaller city had was that I could build additional WS faster there. Most of the smaller players in my FS are struggling with this event and some have decided to stop playing it. Also in previous events you could always just use your existing WS/T1 if you wanted, no one forced you to build lv1 buildings and if you did build additional ones it was because you wanted to complete the event faster.

Events should be FUN - they should not require you to rip your city to pieces to build things that you really don’t want or need!

For me that was FUN, planing, trying to fit as many WS and T1 a I could, selling some things, building new ones after that. Sitting here and praying that I won't get another produce toolboxes 5 times quest, after I have just completed that one, is not. Neither is getting 4 times gain 11 relics when there is no tourney. Nor is running out of supplies/goods bc I am not picking up production, in case I get the 9h production quests.

Generally speaking, the people who run into troubles in this game are those who do not follow the common sense recommendations - and one of those is always keep every building maxed - because it is the best use of space.
The designers expect 'the average player' will design their city this way - and they create events that work with this ‘average city’.

I have been warning people for years - the more you deviate from the 'typical' city set-up, the more likely you will run into problems with game changes! It is perhaps less risky to play conservatively, rather than smarty-pantsing your way through to the end.

Wow, so you actually think we should all have the exact same city? What's the point then of events and event buildings that give us options to choose what kind of city we want to have? This is supposed to be a game that lets you build the city the way you want to. You can put emphasis on production, on troops, on efficiency in general or on aesthetics... That is the beauty of this game for me.

Why not include Tournament encounters in the quests? Like ‘solve x Tournament encounters’.
It would create more interest in Tournaments! So why not use the Events to get people involved in Tournaments? Because this to me is what the Event Quests are ideally suited to!

Are you saying you got to do 170 quests without getting to solve tournament encounters? Well lucky you, I keep getting them (and just got twice in a row solve 45 tourney encounter or 9 encounters) and even for my city in elemental it's a big problem to do so many. Especially since I also keep getting gain 11 relics. So more tourney provinces to solve.

Also, as far as I understood, the random quests system that allows us to get the same quest 10 times in a row is here to stay, so it's not a technical problem as you said.

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

We have this implemented in this event already. Admittedly it's only on a few quests that don't appear to often, but maybe that's a trial.

Yeah, we have "Produce X amount of T1" quest. I don't know about everyone else, but I am getting a lot of these quests, and this is one is the longest quests for me. Mermaid Paradise has 24 hour cooldown, and even with some 9h prebuilt and MM enchantments it takes a while (I have 3x L24 T1s). And if you start from scratch (i.e. recently had T1 quest), then this quest is a bummer without quite a few of time boosts. Other T1 quests are noticeable faster.

So be careful what you wish for.

 

[m4rt1n]

How anyone can enjoy getting back to back and up to 5 times in a row scout/research/15vv quests is beyond me.

No tech, 84 hour scouts and a crafting recipe pool including 1kp and 5 relics and the highest item worth 3vv time after time, so how do I progress and do 5-10 quests a day please.

Used a lot of time boosters already and now not enough to do another scout, so I just sit around twiddling my fingers. How is that enjoying the event.

 

[Timneh]

Events should be FUN - they should not require you to rip your city to pieces to build things that you really don’t want or need!

Events should be fun, you are right there. For some players part of the fun was making a plan on how to do the event and see what they could remove from their city to make room for other things to do the quests, that fun for those players has now been removed.
No one was forced to rip their city to pieces, if that is what they did they did it because they chose to.

So now one has to play the event one quest at a time, rather than just reading and reacting to a string of known quests from a 'cheat sheet' - which was never the designer’s intention.
(I spoke with one of the event designers a while back - and they do not want 'cheat sheets'. If they wanted all the players to know exactly what is coming next, they would post a list in the Wiki.)

Be serious. Right from the very first event the devs MUST have known that players would share information about quests, even if it was just within fellowships. If they did not know that was going to happen then there was something wrong with them as it was so obvious that even a blind person could see it.
The long and the short of it (in my opinion) is the devs are upset that some players are smarter than they are and came up with ways to make events easier than the devs like so the devs have spat their dummies out and thrown their teddies out of the pram and as punishment have taken the fun out of events and made them boring and more like work.

 

[DeletedUser3671]

Well, just a thought.

If they added the possibility to let each city have 10 workshops level 1 and 10 manufactories level 1. Then, the game they themselves designed, where we can design our city as we like, fill them with event buildings and then end up without having workshops or residences, could actually play the game.

EDIT: And manufactories too ;-)

For me the manufactories are not a problem, because i'm a cater/negotiator, so i have more than a handful of each T's. But that puts me in the need of far less supplies than the fighters, and i therefor have not that many workshops. I kept 5 of them, which also mainly is because i didn't upgrade them much. It was just not needed. Then the birds came and i cut one. I had 6. I could cut one more, but i see to many quests of doing 5 of this or that. That's why i have kept 5. Of course i could also upgrade and cut one more, ending up with only 3.

Well, back to my point. If we were let to have a small amount, 10 workshops and 10 manufactories at level 1, every player would have a chance to participate in the event

 

[DeletedUser1874]

The long and the short of it (in my opinion) is the devs are upset that some players are smarter than they are and came up with ways to make events easier than the devs like so the devs have spat their dummies out and thrown their teddies out of the pram and as punishment have taken the fun out of events and made them boring and more like work.

Nah, it's about the money. It's always about the money. Getting us to burn time-boosts in a vicious circle thus ending up in buying diamonds. To think that the devs hold a personal grudge would be straying from Ockham's razor a tad too much in my humble opinion.

 

[Duru Beibella]

There are players within my FS who are having trouble with the size of buildings needed now. These are players who cannot give as much time as some of us so they don't have the population or the room to place extra buildings or upgrade them to a particular level.

To quote one member "This is taking all the fun out of playing, I have no room, I do not have enough buildings that they want and I feel like I don't want to play anymore"

Now I appreciate to some that may be a matter of "suck it up and get on with it" but when you have limited time to play, limited time on an Event, what are players supposed to do? I would respectfully ask the developers to rethink SOME of the quests or at least have different ones for smaller players who may be in the right chapter, just not have the right size of city - otherwise folks may just quit in droves and that would be an absolute shame

 

[Deleted User - 1634960]

A few comments.
It does not seem that any of those who responded to @JackLuyt 's post had worked out that he was posting a variety of comments from his Facebook group.

The developers are quite aware that the repetition of quests was excessive in a few cases, and are working on ways to alleviate that.

We did receive a few tickets from players who 'could not possibly' upgrade their production buildings. One of them, in Woodelves, was still producing Granite and Copper, and appeared to be trying for a 170% Culture Bonus on streets alone.

 

[Eryn Galen]

It does not seem that any of those who responded to @JackLuyt 's post had worked out that he was posting a variety of comments from his Facebook group.

Oh, I got that. What irritates me is that the conclusion I quoted was made as though it were a fact, or at least an assumption that what was true for a few must be true for all. It isn't. If it were, I'd have no reason to complain.

The developers are quite aware that the repetition of quests was excessive in a few cases, and are working on ways to alleviate that.

I'm glad for that, because I don't want to go through this again with another event.

We did receive a few tickets from players who 'could not possibly' upgrade their production buildings. One of them, in Woodelves, was still producing Granite and Copper, and appeared to be trying for a 170% Culture Bonus on streets alone.

Um...

Spoiler

 

[Hekata]

A few comments.
It does not seem that any of those who responded to @JackLuyt 's post had worked out that he was posting a variety of comments from his Facebook group.

Ok, I missed the title, so I did think it was from him. And I did think it was a bit weird he was writing this since I remember him having different comments on the beta forum. I apologise @JackLuyt
My comments still stand though, they are then just responses to the people who gave that feedback and not @JackLuyt

 

[DeletedUser6046]

Comments and Suggestions from EPL
Feel free to submit comments and suggestions here https://tinyurl.com/y5o2e9fx!

1, As always, congratulations to the Elvenar team for excellent artwork and technical production.
Well done!!
...

Totally agree with you on all points! Couldn't have put it better in words. It always felt unnatural to fill my city with level 1 buildings for events. I hope the same change comes to FAs.

I enjoy the random sequence of quests. Being able to see the upcoming next quest would be a great addition. I play with a big city but it does seem that this format of the quest will specifically benefit even very small cities which no longer need to spend days producing, say, 20 toolboxes.

I did buy the +1 building but even without it I would be able to get 1 bear at level 10 and evolve a second bear to a reasonably high level. And that's more than enough for this event.

• Why not include Tournament encounters in the quests? Like ‘solve x Tournament encounters’.

Am I missing something? I get these solve 45 tournament encounters quests.