Dear Settlers,
The Dev Notes for the Weekly Challenges was just published and we can't wait to hear your initial impressions and overall feedback.
Thank you,
BB_Odhran
Dear Settlers,
The Dev Notes for the Weekly Challenges was just published and we can't wait to hear your initial impressions and overall feedback.
Thank you,
BB_Odhran
I think you hit the mark on the weekly challenges- those goals should cost something to achieve.
the only problem i see with these is the lack of flexibility in the adventures - I think there should be a choice of which adventures a person is able to do and some adventures really need the rewards to be increased, i.e. storm recovery. Having woodcutter available for map fragments is a good change
You want some specifics.
I have been running ali babas for the last 3 or so months. I probably averaged about 5 wc per week over that period of time. This is what I currently have in my inventory for adventures.
https://imgur.com/a/VdaNUWB
Out of all those WCs, I have received only 3 1st thiefs which I will use up in the one challenge I am currently on. I have never done a 1st thief at all in that time. I seem to be getting a fair number of 2nd thiefs though - and although I have never done one of those either, I have traded a few for WC and 3rd thiefs which I do.
The last 5 or so woodcutters (WC) I have done, I haven't received any adventures at all. And all my explorer seems to be bringing back lately is map fragments and whirlwind.
Oh, I forgot to mention - I hope the tokens you put into these building upgrades are refundable if you have to return one of these buildings to the star.
wc for maps is bad move, this doesn't solve the problem at all. not to say people will not do the very long adventure search anymore.
3 tows or 1 bessieged are possible to get in a week only if you are the luckiest person in the world. otherwise it's impossible. you can't make enough troops to play so many wc to get follow up's, to get the tows or besieged. I quit these tasks, new notes doesn't solve a thing.
The overall idea for Weekly Challenges was to create content, which would provide a similar challenge to a crisis quest, but on a more frequent basis. Those challenges should not be something you would click through in a couple of minutes, but should rather create a time challenge, where you have to think about how to approach it carefully to a degree where you maybe have to make a decision to not participate in other parts of the game, but to focus on one challenge for now and than switch back to other tasks. To create a time challenge I decided to focus on tasks, which consume a certain amount of time. Produce resources and buffs, complete specialist tasks, play certain adventures, those kind of tasks. The time challenge itself was set to 4,5 days, while giving you 7 days to complete it. This shows how time consuming such a challenge would be. Weekly Challenges aren't something for everyone, but rather challenging content for people, who are investing quite some time into this game and are looking for more things to do. Such a high time consumption also means, that this content should remain completely optional and never reward something, which is mandatory for the progress in the game, so I decided to go with the increase of the population limit, which would provide additional benefits in the long term.
Move the quests to the ship and make them all visible so we can learn what's next. Like pathfinder's quests. If we don't like them and we want to ignore them then that will make things easier. Since they were launched into the game I got more popups with 'New Quest' and 'Quest completed' then I got in my entire time I've played tso/
Ok, not for everyone, I got that, but why force me/us to keep clicking them if i choose do not complete the lot?
You created a unique item that everyone wants: tokens
Then you created Challenges as the only way to get that unique item.
Then you offer these Challenges every week.
But the Challenges were specifically designed so that they "aren't something for everyone."
The expectation is now EVERYONE should be able to get SOME tokens each WEEK.
Otherwise people will feel cheated by the game.
If the tokens were not unique, it would work.
If the challenge were quarterly or monthly, it would work.
If everyone could get some tokens each week, it would work.
It doesn't work to offer a unique item everyone wants, every week, and then say it's not for everyone.
This creates frustration and resentment.
The measure of success should be: Everyone gets some tokens each week, with some effort.
There are a whole range of possibilities between the current implementation of Weekly Challenges, and something "you would click through in a couple of minutes."
Design the Challenges in stages with increasingly difficult tasks.
Tokens are awarded for each stage.
As the tasks get more difficult, you get more tokens.
But if you only partially complete the Challenge, you at least get some tokens.
The obvious solution is make the final tasks and stages the rare adventures, and time consuming resource and troop production.
Thank you for your consideration.
Would it be possible to increase the drop rate a bit for the rare ventures and adventures? Ones like heart of wood and grain conflict are nowhere to be found. We are willing to put in the work...sending out explorers and running adventures. But we can't do what's simply not in the game.
My honest opinion would be to provide Ali baba adventures in the purchase store through map fragments. like what was done about a month (ish) ago. I am OK with the resource sink and, I have the option of doing the weekly or not depending on the resources, I have. However the adventures/scenarios/ventures/co-op requirements are bad. Co-op requirements especially but for the scenario of Storm Recovery.....That is just a massive waste. Grout is already absurdly expensive (over 2,000 gold per 100) and while, I ALWAYS stock up during events, I also go through it rather quickly. Dumping 2,200-3,300 grout a month just for tokens that may or may not be enough to upgrade a residence...is absurdly expensive. For the Co-OP, it should NOT be required. Please do not make these dependent on other people. they are supposedly weekly quest for individuals.... As to the Alibaba Adventures. make them available for purchase with map frags and the problem will be solved. It will cause inflation for the associated science items and actual map frags (for lower players) but at least give players the opportunity (without a random factor) to be able to do them. Again, I can suffer through resource sinks a week or three per month, but the adventure requirements are just too much to ask.
Overall, I like the weekly challenge and its new reward token. It becomes a fun decision process to determine the optimal place to spend the tokens.
I like this idea...but I think they would need to do something to preserve the time requirement...an order of operations so you cannot be building troops for the 2nd quest while still working on the 1st quest. I do like the idea of seeing everything together as sometimes it will not be possible to complete for one reason or another, so one would want to look at the XP rewarded for the various stages that could be completed and see if those are worth it if the final reward is out of reach. For now, I have been relying heavily on this wiki's post: http://settlersonlinewiki.eu/en/ques...ly-challenges/
Respectfully, I disagree. This is a game of strategy. Choices must be made and those choices must have consequences. Why would there be an expectation for "EVERYONE should be able to get SOME tokens each WEEK" - not everything in this game (or life, for that matter) is a participation trophy; sometimes there are Challenges.
That said, maybe it wouldn't break the underlying premise of the challenge if it borrowed a behavior from the daily quests, where if the weekly is not completed in the week, then the next weekly spawns into a holding area and is locked until the prior weekly is completed. Premium can have 2 weeklies in holding. If you give up on the current weekly and 'X' it out, the next weekly becomes available. I realize part of the Weekly Challenge concept is to have the Crisis time crunch, so this suggestion might not be feasible if the consequence of not getting the next weekly is an insufficient motivator...but it would be a middle ground that would allow more players to achieve tokens while still requiring effort. Maybe the token reward could be reduced by a third of the original for each extra week: 9 tokens if completed in week 1, 6 tokens if in week 2, 3 tokens if in week 3. At the end of the 3rd week, the quest line fails and a new weekly spawns. The diminishing returns would preserve the value of the tokens and still reward those putting in the effort (and resources) to complete the challenge in the first week. Or maybe a reduction by half each extra week: 9, 4, 2.