Discussion Winter Magic 2020

[DeletedUser9850]

The shuffle choice of our is really good.But the other 2 boosts except the shuffle one are too far.We need to consider much when to use them.Only the ones with experience can get over with it.

 

[Twigjam]

The dailies - well there's one nice culture/pop building (Goblin Gift Shop, or something like that) and everything else is fairly underwhelming.

I see that the Goblin Gift Shop is available on the 9th and I'd already picked it out as one to go for, but will it make another appearance laster on or do we just get one shot at it?

 

[Twigjam]

I think this is now better than the misty forest, and possibly even better than the three chest system.

A poke in the eye's better than the misty forest! That doesn't make the shuffle board system good and it's definitely not better than the three chest system. I don't like to gamble, never have and never will. Choosing a box to click on is gambling in my opinion. I really dislike games of chance. With the three chest system there was an element of chance but I had a large element of control also.

Please bring back the three chest system! And make the prizes more reasonable for the amount of work, effort and resources we pour into these events!

 

[Pauly7]

I see that the Goblin Gift Shop is available on the 9th and I'd already picked it out as one to go for, but will it make another appearance laster on or do we just get one shot at it?

It hasn't appeared again yet, but it possibly could.

 

[Pauly7]

A poke in the eye's better than the misty forest! That doesn't make the shuffle board system good and it's definitely not better than the three chest system. I don't like to gamble, never have and never will. Choosing a box to click on is gambling in my opinion. I really dislike games of chance. With the three chest system there was an element of chance but I had a large element of control also.

Three chests is still gambling. You pick a box and you then get a random prize out of about 5. All you're doing is narrowing about 13 possibilities down to 5. That's the strategy element and there exists a strategy element in deciding when to shuffle the board. If you wanted you could look at all the possible prizes and shuffle straight away, if you don't like the look of them. It might be a bit pointless because most are fairly useless and they won't get a lot better if you change them, but again - that comes down to quality of prizes, not game mechanics.

 

[Quiet Plum]

Some event feedback for the devs @Silmaril, if you would be so kind...

It may be that I may just have to accept that I can't play this event in this particular city, but I just wanted to point this out. Quest No. 9 asks me to "fight and win 3 encounters or use 1 pet food". Simple enough for most, but if you have a new city that doesn't have a barracks or troops, because is deciding to play as catering only - then there isn't any practical way to get through this quest.

My only possible solution is to now build the Snowy Owl, craft a pet food and use it - Though if I do this I will only delete the owl again immediately afterwards because I don't have the space that I can give it permanently just at the moment. If I choose this option then perhaps I could use the event just to look for dailies, but do they mean me to lose access to the evolving building?

 

[Quiet Plum]

I am also in the same boat. Fighting is not my thing and I have no pets to feed.
Not everyone likes to fight so the other option should be something all players can achieve

 

[FieryArien]

Three chests is still gambling. You pick a box and you then get a random prize out of about 5. All you're doing is narrowing about 13 possibilities down to 5. That's the strategy element and ...

Exactly.
It seems to me you missed the point. The point is narrowing the possibilities. No one claims chests are without gambling. From the same set of three chests my small city would probably choose a chest with KPs or PPs or even runes when the city is really small and has few provinces. My big city would probably choose coins or supplies instants or time instants if they were still there. My middle city might not care and just choose the best chest for main prize. For example.

... and there exists a strategy element in deciding when to shuffle the board. If you wanted you could look at all the possible prizes and shuffle straight away, if you don't like the look of them. It might be a bit pointless because most are fairly useless and they won't get a lot better if you change them, but again - that comes down to quality of prizes, not game mechanics.

In my eyes, there is absolutely nothing to compare strategy-wise in the chest and shuffle board mechanics.

 

[Pauly7]

It seems to me you missed the point. The point is narrowing the possibilities. No one claims chests are without gambling. From the same set of three chests my small city would probably choose a chest with KPs or PPs or even runes when the city is really small and has few provinces. My big city would probably choose coins or supplies instants or time instants if they were still there. My middle city might not care and just choose the best chest for main prize. For example.

I don't think I missed the point. Yes it's good to narrow down the options from 13 to 5, but it doesn't even mean you would have the things you want in the 5. I think the problem is, as I've said, people are comparing different times, rather than different systems. People are remembering the time with the 3 chest system where you could be deciding whether you wanted the one with the 33% supplies instant and the 5 x MM spell, or the one with the 20KP AW instant, the 50% coin rain and the 3 x 5 hr time instant (I don't know if any of those are exactly right). If they bring back the 3 chests now, it wouldn't be like that.

What if you were faced with this?:

Chest 1:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x relic
1 x relic
2KP

Chest 2:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x nothing
1 x Winter Shrine (2 square rubbish culture)
1 x relic

Chest 3:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x nothing
1KP
1 x Frozen Unicorn

Would you be thinking - ah well it's great that I can strategise about which one of these chests to choose and whether I've got a better chance of winning either a relic or 2KP?

With the shuffleboard you have 16 possible outcomes. You know in advance that you could win any one of them equally. If you are looking for the daily prize then on average you will pick it up within 8 squares. At such point you get it you then have a certain number left and you can decide how much you want to win any of them. Either shuffle again, or use reveal 2 to narrow down those options. If it comes to the crunch use a x 2 boost and get two of something.

Do you think that people would be this despondent about the new shuffle system if the board was laden with 20KP instants, 14 hr time boosts, 5 x spells, 33% supplies instants, 50% coin rains (or whatever we used to get all the time)? No, I think they would be getting invested in the strategy of whether it's possible to double up that 20KP to 40KP, or whether shuffling the board would allow them to get that prize over and over.

 

[FatehpurSikri]

I have a complaint about events in general. There always seems to be a quest at some point that is unfulfillable. This time it's fight and win 3 encounters or use 1 pet food. I have no interest in fighting, ever. I have no troops, so I cannot ever win anything. I don't have "pets" in every single city I play in, so even if I had pet food, I couldn't use it. Plus, pet food doesn't always come up in my MA menu. So I'm effectively locked out of the game now in every single one of my seven cities. And it's fairly early on, so it's doubly disappointing.

Quests should be designed so that every player can fulfill them, not just some. Alternatively, there should be an option to decline so that one can move on and finish playing the game.

 

[Silmaril]

It is possible to disenchant a Pet Food to complete the quest that you mention @FatehpurSikri.

 

[FatehpurSikri]

Thanks, @Silmaril , that's a helpful tip.

But I have no pet food. It's not currently on my MA recipes, and it hasn't come up in my MA recipes in a very long time. That's part of the problem and what makes this quest impossible for me.

 

[DeletedUser9898]

I’ve noticed that the postal keys appearing around the city is a bit haphazard. I got 6 keys this morning after 12hours overnight (even after reloading).The Halloween event had them each hour, events before had 2 per hour. Has anyone else noticed this? I’m playing on an iPhone11.

 

[FieryArien]

What if you were faced with this?:

Chest 1:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x relic
1 x relic
2KP

Chest 2:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x nothing
1 x Winter Shrine (2 square rubbish culture)
1 x relic

Chest 3:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x nothing
1KP
1 x Frozen Unicorn

Would you be thinking - ah well it's great that I can strategise about which one of these chests to choose and whether I've got a better chance of winning either a relic or 2KP?

Not applicable. The content of chests wasn’t almost the same as you pictured it here. That was the point - they were themed and we could choose.

Do you think that people would be this despondent about the new shuffle system if the board was laden with 20KP instants, 14 hr time boosts, 5 x spells, 33% supplies instants, 50% coin rains (or whatever we used to get all the time)? No, I think they would be getting invested in the strategy of whether it's possible to double up that 20KP to 40KP, or whether shuffling the board would allow them to get that prize over and over.

Nope, actually people would cry about the price of opening one box in such a shuffle board. Remember the cost of the rotating chests - some were pretty expensive!

You might have hit something there, though. Inflation of rewards. It’s the same principle as with the number of events. More events a year (more boxes an event) mean less valuable prizes in each event (in each box).

 

[Gargon667]

You can strategise and customise up to a point. First you look at the board before it shuffles and make a mental note (or an actual note) of what any of the little prizes worth winning are, i.e. troop instants, KP, KP instants. Then you start opening doors. Let's assume you are actually looking for the daily prize and you get it halfway through opening them all. You can then consider how much concentration of stuff is left that you still want to win and then decide whether to shuffle or not. If it gets down to the last 4 or 5 squares and there are items you still want, that's when you can bring in your reveal booster, or x 2, or phone a friend, etc.

I know that you are not choosing one item over another, like with the three chest system, but it's not completely devoid of strategy either. Also, with the three chests it was still a lottery because there was still any of about five things you might win and you normally ended up with some relics or rune shards or something.

that is why I said basically non-existant instead of utterly non-existant. I still stick to that opinion. The strategy options are no more than that. Btw this was already possible in previous shuffleboard events using the daily reshuffle.

And btw, extremely boring and insanely time consuming: i have to remember or write down 16 items of which 13(+/-) are garbage (which I really don´t want to have) on every single shuffleboard? Even if you tried, could you design something more boring? More time consuming? And with less strategy? for an outcome of what?
I wish they had an autoclick function. Spend all my currency on a single day and give me random (non)prizes. The time saved would already make me choose that option over this so called strategy...

Nobody said the 3 chests was the best thing ever designed, but at least I had a chance to go for something and to a noticable degree shift what i get from completely random to something I actually like. I don´t need 100% awesome stuff, but I would like the chance to get "better than random" Now you get exactly random, and with insane amounts of work you can shift the ratio between daily and other prizes a tiny little bit (which btw is not really important because daily prizes suck anyway). if you really really want to you can go for a bit of extra currency, too, but what for if all I get for the currency is more random junk??? You have no influence other than that.

 

[FieryArien]

Thanks, @Silmaril , that's a helpful tip.

But I have no pet food. It's not currently on my MA recipes, and it hasn't come up in my MA recipes in a very long time. That's part of the problem and what makes this quest impossible for me.

Do you by any chance craft relics? The thing is they share the slot with pet foot. So if you craft relics during recipe re-roll, you won’t get pet foot recipe, because the slot is already taken.

Anyway, fingers crossed for a pet food recipe to show up in your academy!

 

[Gargon667]

I have a complaint about events in general. There always seems to be a quest at some point that is unfulfillable. This time it's fight and win 3 encounters or use 1 pet food. I have no interest in fighting, ever. I have no troops, so I cannot ever win anything. I don't have "pets" in every single city I play in, so even if I had pet food, I couldn't use it. Plus, pet food doesn't always come up in my MA menu. So I'm effectively locked out of the game now in every single one of my seven cities. And it's fairly early on, so it's doubly disappointing.

Quests should be designed so that every player can fulfill them, not just some. Alternatively, there should be an option to decline so that one can move on and finish playing the game.

Barracks are an "obligatory" building in this game, if you choose not to build them that is your problem, not the games problem. Btw there are about 5 different ways around that problem, if you actually wanted to solve the problem rather than complain. May take a while, but so what you chose not to build barracks, deal with it.
Next time someone chooses not to build WS and then complains they can´t make 3 brewers.
For every quest in every event I can construct a city that cannot do it. So we cancel all quests then? Because 1 out of 10000 players can´t do it because of the choices they made? This is ridiculous.

 

[Silmaril]

Thanks, @Silmaril , that's a helpful tip.

But I have no pet food. It's not currently on my MA recipes, and it hasn't come up in my MA recipes in a very long time. That's part of the problem and what makes this quest impossible for me.

Let us hope that changes regarding the crafting aspect for you. Unfortunately as battle is an integral part of the game, there is no work around or that.

 

[Gargon667]

I don't think I missed the point. Yes it's good to narrow down the options from 13 to 5, but it doesn't even mean you would have the things you want in the 5. I think the problem is, as I've said, people are comparing different times, rather than different systems. People are remembering the time with the 3 chest system where you could be deciding whether you wanted the one with the 33% supplies instant and the 5 x MM spell, or the one with the 20KP AW instant, the 50% coin rain and the 3 x 5 hr time instant (I don't know if any of those are exactly right). If they bring back the 3 chests now, it wouldn't be like that.

What if you were faced with this?:

Chest 1:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x relic
1 x relic
2KP

Chest 2:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x nothing
1 x Winter Shrine (2 square rubbish culture)
1 x relic

Chest 3:
Daily prize
1 x relic
1 x nothing
1KP
1 x Frozen Unicorn

Would you be thinking - ah well it's great that I can strategise about which one of these chests to choose and whether I've got a better chance of winning either a relic or 2KP?

With the shuffleboard you have 16 possible outcomes. You know in advance that you could win any one of them equally. If you are looking for the daily prize then on average you will pick it up within 8 squares. At such point you get it you then have a certain number left and you can decide how much you want to win any of them. Either shuffle again, or use reveal 2 to narrow down those options. If it comes to the crunch use a x 2 boost and get two of something.

Do you think that people would be this despondent about the new shuffle system if the board was laden with 20KP instants, 14 hr time boosts, 5 x spells, 33% supplies instants, 50% coin rains (or whatever we used to get all the time)? No, I think they would be getting invested in the strategy of whether it's possible to double up that 20KP to 40KP, or whether shuffling the board would allow them to get that prize over and over.

This is purely hypothetical, we had 3 chests not too long ago, while prizes were already garbage, but the chests were still far better than what you propose. And they were still customizable, so yes maybe they would lower the 33% Coin Rain to a 10% coin rain but I could still choose the coin rain chest over the supply rain chest or vice versa.
If the chests you propose would become real, people would stop playing events altogether. Nobody would spend 100 currency on nothing.

 

[Pauly7]

Not applicable. The content of chests wasn’t almost the same as you pictured it here. That was the point - they were themed and we could choose.

This is purely hypothetical, we had 3 chests not too long ago, while prizes were already garbage, but the chests were still far better than what you propose. And they were still customizable, so yes maybe they would lower the 33% Coin Rain to a 10% coin rain but I could still choose the coin rain chest over the supply rain chest or vice versa.
If the chests you propose would become real, people would stop playing events altogether. Nobody would spend 100 currency on nothing.

This isn't hypothetical and it is applicable. These chests that I outlined (and it's not a proposal) is what the line up may appear like now if they brought that system back. We didn't like the prizes then, but they were 10 times better than they are now. Inno does not want to give us anything at all that we would like to win so there would be no possibility to "theme" a chest or give you something that you could strategise over wanting to win.

I'm not saying the shuffleboard is amazing. I would like there to be more choice, of course, but there would be no point in giving us more choice when they aren't going to give us anything that we want to choose. Within the parameters of what is on offer, then we might as well have the shuffleboard.

Yes, the strategy is limited, but it is a whole lot better than it was in its last iteration. We are at a point now where the only thing that we may want to win is the daily prize. In this scenario we are now guaranteed of winning that prize within a certain amount of event currency. There wasn't that guarantee in the last version of the shuffleboard, there wasn't that guarantee in the 3 chest system, and there definitely wasn't that guarantee in the Misty Forest.

So 375 is the maximum amount of event currency that you can ever spend in seeking out the daily prize. On average it will cost about 220 when factoring in the cost of shuffling (I haven't done exact maths). In the last 3 chest event, the very best average chance you could give yourself of getting that daily was 362 currency - and that was only if you picked the very best chest every time, which wasn't possible - plus there was absolutely no guarantee.

If we accept that they aren't going to give us anything else that we want except that daily, then logically how is this now worse?

If the problem is that it is just mindless clicking with no perceived options, which is just boring @Gargon667, then I agree 100%, but that's a whole other matter.