17 explorers, no eggs since last update...

last day - 6 explorers come back - 2 of em booked -- 8 eggs total... (i have 14 out at a time) i am 420 eg.gs short. and 25 measly points i never have done expeditions - hate pvp ... even so i TRIED to get some troops together and hit a small colony -- but it was wasted effort as i didn't have time to make anywhere near as many as i needed to do this. plus since pvp maps are random i didn't have a hope in heck to figure it out before the event was over. i even spent gems buying 3 more explorers.. but those ones aren't bring ANY eggs in at all... its like a swift kick in the pants... been here nearly 2 years -- cant get the lvl 6 house... would've easily gotten it AND been able to help my lower level guildies had the metrics for explorers not been completely trashed.

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Originally Posted by LordB

I still dont get it

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Maybe we could agree that in any RNG-type of "achievement", some people will get less, and that it does appear some people consistently got bit more than others in this event? You were fortunate to NOT have that problem, but perhaps you could acknowledge the possibility that others may have? Or is it just like Troll-Phu said, you didn't have the problem, therefore it must not exist?

With 11 explorers (3 regs, 2 luckies, 6 fast), constantly on adventures varying from medium to extra long, looks like I will end up about 300 eggs shy of the 3200 "magic" mark (literally have gotten *zero* back from searches sent out today, so I think perhaps my event is already over). I was on track to hit the achievement prior to the nerf, fell off that track after the nerf, but at that point I wasn't about to go buy more explorers and such - trust was broken and who knew what the pattern would be going forward?

I've been tracking the numbers for the past week, I got zero from explorer searches just over 50% of the time, and hardly every got more than the medium number of eggs when eggs were returned. My luckies, in particular, were horrible in their returns post-nerf. IIRC, I had about 1200 eggs from explorers after the first week, so that means I got about 1700 eggs from explorers over the next two weeks, so - for me - a quantifiable decrease, and not one that measures up to the "official" explanation.

So, whatever. I accept that perhaps having the "full set of explorers" (i.e., 20 or so) was the original intention, but disagree with their decision to implement a change mid-event. I also accept that my RNG seed may be worse than yours, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. :)

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Originally Posted by Eriond

Maybe we could agree that in any RNG-type of "achievement", some people will get less, and that it does appear some people consistently got bit more than others in this event? You were fortunate to NOT have that problem, but perhaps you could acknowledge the possibility that others may have? Or is it just like Troll-Phu said, you didn't have the problem, therefore it must not exist?

With 11 explorers (3 regs, 2 luckies, 6 fast), constantly on adventures varying from medium to extra long, looks like I will end up about 300 eggs shy of the 3200 "magic" mark (literally have gotten *zero* back from searches sent out today, so I think perhaps my event is already over). I was on track to hit the achievement prior to the nerf, fell off that track after the nerf, but at that point I wasn't about to go buy more explorers and such - trust was broken and who knew what the pattern would be going forward?

I've been tracking the numbers for the past week, I got zero from explorer searches just over 50% of the time, and hardly every got more than the medium number of eggs when eggs were returned. My luckies, in particular, were horrible in their returns post-nerf. IIRC, I had about 1200 eggs from explorers after the first week, so that means I got about 1700 eggs from explorers over the next two weeks, so - for me - a quantifiable decrease, and not one that measures up to the "official" explanation.

So, whatever. I accept that perhaps having the "full set of explorers" (i.e., 20 or so) was the original intention, but disagree with their decision to implement a change mid-event. I also accept that my RNG seed may be worse than yours, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. :)

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This is EXACTLY how the scenario played out for me as well; same number of explorers, same returns as you pre-"adjustment" and post-"adjustment", same amount of eggs shy of making the achievement. And as you mentioned, the decision to "fix" the explorers mid-event was questionable at best. Combined with not being able to log on for one night last week, it destroyed the ability for a dedicated, daily active level 50 player to complete the achievement without either spending gems or doing expeditions. And nobody should be forced to play those abominations... ;)

I am confused. here is what BB said from the news page link.

Explorers won't find Stripy eggs anymore: Searches that were started before Removal Phase I still have the chance to provide Stripy eggs

This was all lies, not one of my 14 explorers brought back a single egg. I would get at least half of them coming back with eggs during whole event but this morning after event closed at 4 am EST and then explorers came back I got ZERO and apparently by their post I should of had the chance still to get eggs, lies all lies :P

So I got ripped off of about 116 eggs and that's not counting if some would of brought back 32 from the very long search they came in on this morning, which about 2 of them usually did.

Oh well, game is working as intended, we know

Mine did bring back eggs. So either you got extremely unlucky, or the fact that my explorers did bring back eggs is a bug ;)

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Originally Posted by Edge

Mine did bring back eggs. So either you got extremely unlucky, or the fact that my explorers did bring back eggs is a bug ;)

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Extremely unlucky not a chance that they would of brought back zero, when during whole event always and I mean always half brought back eggs, all the sudden not a single egg. Not a major deal but if they tell us they will still bring back eggs on last search then they should of done it. I just have to assume BB did something wrong or told us that info wrong. If they just would of said no more eggs after event then fine.

I could of used those last 100+ eggs to trade for something, but oh well :)

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Originally Posted by LordB

That means you would need what, 2nd tier of expeditions? That is doable with about 4-5 colonies taken less if you go for larger than small or have premium. 4-5 small colonies would take about 2 days (or less) of training troops without buffs..... people had what 10 days after the change?

15 pts does suck though badtrip333, sorry to hear.

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I only started doing the Pvp stuff during the event after it looked like the explorers wouldn't get the job done. And honestly, I wouldn't have even attempted them if I didn't see people talking about the sturdy shovel fix in the guild chat. I think the dev's messed up on many levels. They went ahead and "fixed the glitch" but left it up to us to figure out what the fix was. I took 5 small colonies and got 105 eggs from that on premium. I buffed the armory the best I could, but there was no way I could get the weapons needed to run the expeditions. I'll just start stockpiling the weapons a year in advance.

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Originally Posted by Trila

I am confused. here is what BB said from the news page link.

Explorers won't find Stripy eggs anymore: Searches that were started before Removal Phase I still have the chance to provide Stripy eggs

This was all lies, not one of my 14 explorers brought back a single egg. I would get at least half of them coming back with eggs during whole event but this morning after event closed at 4 am EST and then explorers came back I got ZERO and apparently by their post I should of had the chance still to get eggs, lies all lies :P

So I got ripped off of about 116 eggs and that's not counting if some would of brought back 32 from the very long search they came in on this morning, which about 2 of them usually did.

Oh well, game is working as intended, we know

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I got basically no eggs at all from explorer searches YESTERDAY, then got a few late last night, and a few this morning that returned after maintenance. So, I think this is all just part of the overall explorer loot nerf and it just hits different people differently with different timing. Welcome to the club!

I got my lvl6 Easter Basket three days ago, without doing the fubar expeditions, but only because my maximum 21 explorers brought back a ton of eggs "pre-nerf". I do not know why BB decided to penalize those who spent gems the past years to buy every "special" explorer ever offered, but I certainly won't do so in the future!Using Premium token for adventures also helped a great deal. I got my Event "wish-list" filled and still have a healthy surplus to buy grout, so for me, this event was great hit!

So now, the next question - did explorer loot just get nerfed for the event? Or will this be an ongoing issue?

Last night I needed 4 eggs to finish the quest chain. 1 regular explorer and 3 lucky explorers were out searching to return around midnight.

I had to buy those eggs from the TO.

My earlier returning guys returned eggs today, but my later returning guys didn't.

I managed to get 2170/3200 :(

I had them out searching the whole time and they sucked at bringing back eggs. Way to go BB for cutting back the eggs to make it fair!

Who again was that to be fair to, may I ask?

well i'm sure if you had more trained explorers you would have finished the 3200 eggs quest in 2 weeks like most players that have that many did. so what did we learn from this event and all the one before, spend some money, get all the specialists, and you'll have no problems. BB put out that all players wouldn't reach those top tiers on the egg house. not trying to be hard on new players but also make it fair to long term players, that have been here years, and put in time and in some cases MONEY. how fair would it have been if one of the event alts could have made the quest easily, not fair at all, so yes this is a free to play game, and you can do a whole lot not paying a dime, but don't whine cause players that have supported the game and bought gems have more than you. that's the way life is "little johnny everyone gets the same and wins all the time" isn't true. get over it, buy gems, and maybe next event "little johnny" can have some toys too!!!!

I did not even have 21 explorers, I have 15, but I made the 3200 a week before the event stopped. I did notice the egg drop too, but the achievement was still doable. I also think that there needs to be a challenge and if you are a new player you can't expect to get all achievements done and all eggs for all goodies. I had a real frantic mad dash the last day to get achievement points from the expedition loot.

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Originally Posted by Artemis69

I did not even have 21 explorers, I have 15, but I made the 3200 a week before the event stopped.

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This is the curious element of it all to me - there are folks with more explorers than you that say they didn't hit the achievement. You hit it in two weeks with 15 explorers, I couldn't hit it in 3 weeks with 11. At your average return rate (3200 eggs in two weeks / 15 explorers / 2 weeks = 106/eggs per explorer per week), you would ALSO have hit the achievement in 3 weeks with only 11 explorers (106 eggs/week * 3 weeks * 11 explorers) = 3,498 (granted, the 4 explorers we "dropped" were fast ones and that would probably have tweaked your average down some to drop them, but even if we said 106 eggs/week * 3 weeks * 10 explorers, you would get 3,180 eggs). Since I was only able to hit 2,950, there's clearly a difference between your account and mine that is of some interest (and all my explorers are fully booked or almost fully booked, so that isn't the difference).

The "randomness" of this all is questionable, and it isn't just "new players" that were impacted.

This event was definitely more of a challenge than some previous ones, but buying more explorers isn't really a "challenge", and doesn't necessarily appear to be the full answer if RNG seeds differ from player to player. People report their stats, and some people clearly do better more consistently than others, so while the mid-event "nerfing" calculations might have worked "as intended" to slow down those with good seeds (such as yourself), they had a far more negative effect on those with bad seeds. If we don't all start from the same baseline, we are obviously not going to be able to compare our experiences fairly.

Buying more explorers isn't exactly the challenge. The challenge is really for those who play the game without buying gems or spending too much gem. Such as leveling up. Do all quests they can that gives them gem rewards. Getting star coins and buying gems with star coins.. The challenge is in getting the explorers from past events with event resources. Basically the challenge is how many explorers can you get without spending real money.


BUT- all the above challenge can't be done during the event in a timely manner to complete the event achievements. Thus this favors the veteran players more.

Which is fine, since it Is the reward for those have been playing or a while. A lot of people earned some explorers without spending gems over the years.

Now- the event is time based and that prompts people to spend gems to 'speed up the process'. Isn't all free 2 play based browser games designed with this intent? Spend gems to speed up your tasks because you don't want to wait or have time for?

The problem with the RNG nature of this game is that its not consistent. And its RNG. it has no fail safe for people with bad luck. And that is a design flaw. Those who have good luck should finish early in the event. Those with bad luck SHOULD finish near the end of the event (if they keep trying). In this case, there is no fail safe for the people with bad luck.


The nerf to the drop rate certainly didn't help. I'd be pissed if I spent all my gems to buy explorers and they didn't return anything. (Remember though, it's possible to spend gems to make the explorers go faster too! You can complete your exploring faster by spending gem to half their time.) AND it's possible to spend gems to complete a subquest to by-pass the search for eggs quest. Or to by-pass the Gather eggs quest. Any of the quest can be completed by spending the gems. You can pay to win! The option is there.

You just can't pay for good luck. The designers need to stop designing things that heavily rely on luck. (specifically the 'earn X" eggs from exploration and adventures achievement)

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Originally Posted by RonEmpire

You can pay to win! The option is there.

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Well, you can't necessarily pay to win - you can pay more for the CHANCE to win IF you have good luck/a good RNG seed. More explorers/halving the time/etc. doesn't guarantee results, just raises the chances somewhat. I considered buying more explorers as I am sitting on a decent pile of gems currently, but ... I didn't need to based on the first week's results, and wasn't going to based on the second week's horrible returns and the fact that ANY nerf during an event implies more could be coming.

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Originally Posted by RonEmpire

You just can't pay for good luck.

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Maybe they should offer that for gems?

The only thing you can pay to win is completing the quests.

The only thing you CAN NOT pay to win is the achievement that depends on luck.

I have 15 explorers and didn't get any eggs back today and all of them were out on very long treasure hunts.

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Originally Posted by Lineah

I have 15 explorers and didn't get any eggs back today and all of them were out on very long treasure hunts.

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explorers cant get eggs anymore after removal phase1

This is why I bought 10 savage scouts right before Christmas. I knew a large part of their value was going to be in event treasure searches. Of course, at that time I didn't actually need to buy anything and so ended up with 46k grout.

Regardless, assuming that the explorers remain nerfed next year, I could see the potential for the randomness to make it so that even people with a lot of explorers get the shaft.

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Originally Posted by RonEmpire

The only thing you CAN NOT pay to win is the achievement that depends on luck.

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Right ... that's what I am talking about here, the "achievement" to get 3200 eggs from explorers, and the curiosities of how "luck" has been implemented.

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Originally Posted by Gwalben

so that even people with a lot of explorers get the shaft.

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Why would this be a goal? Do you work for BB? ;)

meh nvm

3200 eggs was never in reach for 3/4 of the players how is that fair

I got about 2800 eggs from explorers the first week, and it took me another week to get the last 400 after the nerf.

Didn't matter, I didn't like enough aspects of this game to play them to get the last level of the house. I'm happy with the settlers I received. Would have liked to hit level 6 but not at the cost of my enjoyment. I got level 5 very early on and had no desire to "work" for level 6.

I did enjoy this Easter even, even though it was the most poorly run of any I have experienced.