Valentine's event 2020: What advice to tell new players?

Believe it or not, there are still new players finding their way into this game. It used to be a simple thing to advise new players when they asked how to prioritize the items to go after in the event merchant. But with so many different items available now for extraordinary prices that they might not even begin to be able to approach, I barely know what to begin telling a new player when the question comes up. Right now I'm thinking that if a new player could only afford one item during the event, the geologist might be the most useful thing.

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on this question: How would you advise a new player (maybe in the level 20s to 30s) on how to prioritize which items to try to get during the Valentine's event?

I would advise a new player to get any and all Explorers they can, but if they can't get them all to get those that have a speciality skill when it comes to treasure searches. Why? Because Treasure Searches are an easy way to get event resources and the more event resources you can get the better off you are going to be.

Example: This event offers the Lovely Explorer and the Keener Explorer.

The Lovely Explorers specialty skill is "Always brings highest possible resource amount from treasure search tasks" meaning if there is a chance of finding 3 flowers or 6 flowers she will always find 6. With the Sturdy Shovel Skill that would be 7.

The Keener Explorers specialty skill is "Explorer that rolls on the loot table for adventures thrice with every adventure search". While this Explorer has a chance of finding more than 1 adventure at a time, her usefulness during events is not as good as the Lovely Explorer.

Out of 10 searches with a chance of 3 or 6 flowers:
the Lovely Explorer will find 6 each time for a total of 60 (or 70 with Sturdy Shovel Skill). The Keeener will find 3 flowers 7 times and 6 flowers 3 times for a total of 39 flowers (with Sturdy Shovel it would be 42).

Cost: Lovely Explorer = 2,099 flowers. Keener Explorer = 2,899 flowers.

So not only is the Lovely a better choice for gathering event resources, she also is less expensive and easier to get.

Economy advice: make sure you are set up to make recruits - bread production (bread people from prov house), brew production and bronze sword production should be your priority. Try to upgrade pop space a little too heading into event. Keep your barracks running on recruits.

Figure out which co-op (Tomb Raiders or Siege) you can run the most quickly with just recruit losses given your other available troops and gens.

Get your flower farms going for event resources. Talk to a friend or guildmate about a couple either better buffs or longer buffs (like fish steaks so the farms stay buffed for days).

Keep your farms going by running Tomb Raiders or Siege as often as your economy allows for refillers.

Keep your explores out on treasure searches. As soon as you have enough event resources, get the next explorer and send them out on treasure searches. The flowers they bring back effectively lower their cost, so the earlier you get them the better.

Save your valentine card buffs to use three at a time, swap them with a friend to get 3 hours of +200% xp, refillers, resources from adventure loot. So make sure you have the recruits available to run multiple tomb raiders or siege coops when you swap cards. These bursts of activity when you have real life time can probably provide more refillers and loot than trying to play the whole event without the 3x periods.

Open all the event doors. If you don't have time to play one day, still log in and open the door :)

Complete the quest chains.

Ignore decorations, etc. Focus on the explorers early in the event and unique buildings later in the event. If you think you can get enough flowers to buy the 16999 flower package with Anslem, that's a good way to obtain a solid general with in game currency (instead of gems).

I'd tell them not to bother. BB once again is so stingy with event currency a new player won't get crap.

Agreed Spleeter, unfortunately it seems they removed a lot of the venues to get the currency that were available in the similar event during Halloween. No collections, practically no quests, no achievements, and adventures/explorers bring back hardly any even with premium and premium friend buff. The adventures that drop them are too limited as well. I get the "coupling up" theme but at least give more in the few ways you can get them now. There was a collective groan when many found out the best way was co op's as there is always one person who just lollygags and drags the time out limiting the amount you can do at a time. The first couple of days the TO was helpful but as people realized how hard they are to come by and how expensive the items in the market are priced that too has gone bust for the most part. I've observed the even the most savvy and the biggest traders are having their offers going expired. So all in all very disappointing

Tell new players to bring money. Flowers are hard to get

I'd tell them this event isn't a good example of what events are usually like. Most events can be played by people with real lives and event items are within reach even for those like me who are limited in online game time for whatever reasons. This one has been nerfed out of proportion to resources, merchant item prices, and event currency available to ordinary players (those who can't spend 8+ hrs a day playing games almost every day). Valentines is playable only with others, you can't go this one solo unless you are willing to drop a lot of real cash. So don't judge the game by this event. It does get better.

Nice post CoffeeCat!

Does it really get better, though? Much as I'd like to think that, I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop. Granted, Valentine's was a pretty weak event that they breathed some life into, but could have done without all the nerfing. I still find entry level TSO potentially an interesting concept on paper, but the disadvantages are rather pronounced.

The 14 adventures I did averaged 7 or fewer flowers each. BB just doesn't give a crap, at all, about what makes a game fun. Done with adventures, tore my flower farms down, and once again renewing my plan to never give BB a dime as long as this is how they plan to do things. My money goes to companies that don't crap on their customers.

I'd tell them to not bother. The refill capabilities are almost nonexistent.
This is the first event in the 8 years I've been playing this game that I have been actively disengaged. I'm sending out my 32 explorers and taking what they get, but the costs of big ticket items, and the horribly abysmal refill drops on advs makes the whole event pointless.
It's almost like BB is trying to piss people off in hopes that they'll move to the new pay to play Settlers Alliance.

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Originally Posted by KingHomer

Economy advice: make sure you are set up to make recruits - bread production (bread people from prov house), brew production and bronze sword production should be your priority. Try to upgrade pop space a little too heading into event. Keep your barracks running on recruits.

Figure out which co-op (Tomb Raiders or Siege) you can run the most quickly with just recruit losses given your other available troops and gens.

Get your flower farms going for event resources. Talk to a friend or guildmate about a couple either better buffs or longer buffs (like fish steaks so the farms stay buffed for days).

Keep your farms going by running Tomb Raiders or Siege as often as your economy allows for refillers.

Keep your explores out on treasure searches. As soon as you have enough event resources, get the next explorer and send them out on treasure searches. The flowers they bring back effectively lower their cost, so the earlier you get them the better.

Save your valentine card buffs to use three at a time, swap them with a friend to get 3 hours of +200% xp, refillers, resources from adventure loot. So make sure you have the recruits available to run multiple tomb raiders or siege coops when you swap cards. These bursts of activity when you have real life time can probably provide more refillers and loot than trying to play the whole event without the 3x periods.

Open all the event doors. If you don't have time to play one day, still log in and open the door :)

Complete the quest chains.

Ignore decorations, etc. Focus on the explorers early in the event and unique buildings later in the event. If you think you can get enough flowers to buy the 16999 flower package with Anslem, that's a good way to obtain a solid general with in game currency (instead of gems).

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I applaud you for your attempt to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

I'd tell them not to worry about the event item purchases this time and instead to sell what ever flowers they can get in trade to other players. On Ares server buyers are offering 500+ coins per flower, so even if you ran the three farms to empty with only the smallest buffs and no refills that would be 600 flowers which could sell for 300,000 coin which to a new player could set you up pretty well for a little while when the non-event time kicks back in.

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Originally Posted by Trialgame

I'd tell them not to worry about the event item purchases this time and instead to sell what ever flowers they can get in trade to other players. On Ares server buyers are offering 500+ coins per flower, so even if you ran the three farms to empty with only the smallest buffs and no refills that would be 600 flowers which could sell for 300,000 coin which to a new player could set you up pretty well for a little while when the non-event time kicks back in.

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That sounds like good advice. You're probably not going to get anything at these event resource prices. I guess if you can manage to scrape enough together to get an explorer, I'd go for it, but it's not newbie friendly. It's not like my first full event where I got everything, which was not much, but an RPH, deerstalkers, gold tower, and recyclers, that's a pretty nice kick in the right direction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trialgame

I'd tell them not to worry about the event item purchases this time and instead to sell what ever flowers they can get in trade to other players. On Ares server buyers are offering 500+ coins per flower, so even if you ran the three farms to empty with only the smallest buffs and no refills that would be 600 flowers which could sell for 300,000 coin which to a new player could set you up pretty well for a little while when the non-event time kicks back in.

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You definitely have a point. They shouldn't sell for coin, though. With players using the love tree, they can basically print up as much coin as they want. It will be worthless soon. I've seen a lot of nice population houses come up for cheap-cheap, and myself have been tempted just to quit trying for the official event items, and reap the harvest of all the other desperate souls. A new player could definitely make a decent show for himself just offering a hen-scratching worth of flowers for some really nice buildings they might need. (The economy is going to be moving around like crazy; the value of coin is unreliable, and any they get will eventually disappear. Plus it's easy to trade for at any time. But getting some good production or population buildings… That would be something solid on their island they would have to show for their effort.)

I also think there's absolutely nothing wrong with simply buying up all the decorations they can. Once they get into more involved play down the line, they might feel like they can't "waste" resources on trivial things. So they'll be even more attached to the few decorations they picked up as a naïve noob. And it is nice to have a few decorations on your island. I have never regretted my screaming rabbit statue. Plus on the practical side, if they picked up some nice decorations, and saved them for a few months down the road, they might be able to make some other decent trades throughout the year.