Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Sorry its a long one.

After returning for a new round after a number of years away I have really enjoyed aspects of the game and then some parts I can’t see how logically they work. I feel the game is set up completely to help the big alliances and accelerate the quickest starters away from everyone else. This is not good for a game 7 weeks long as all it does is make those in the middle/bottom lose interest. I have been lucky and have enjoyed the game mostly so far.
My biggest two issues are quest rewards and ally def fleet.
I have posted on the def fleet and most seem to be in the same mind that it would be good to lose this, but some also want pre-launch to go as well. I would be happy with this over keeping the def fleet even though I don’t think the PL needs to go necessarily.
However this thread is more concerned with the quest rewards. I thought I would run through them:
Secretary of Education:
Most of these are simple and makes sense for new players. However, I think most of us have this just as a rush to quickly gain bonus’. Not sure if things like join an alliance and post in gal forums is that relevant now. I think this stand in not needed and should be removed.
Secretary of Defense:
I think this is a simple beginner steps and makes sense. I don’t think they add much to the game but I don’t really have any objections to them.
Secretary of the treasury:
I don’t really get what is trying to be achieved here. It is obvious the cores and refineries are god to have but why a bonus for building them? The resource they grant should be enough. Seems to be double awarding.
Secretary of Development:
Building constructions is a base of the game so once again not sure why this is being rewarded? The reward should be the buildings themselves and all this does is punish later starters and give wider gaps between experienced and less experienced players. The same with research cores.

Security or Planetary Security:
Once again the buildings and alert etc have their own bonus so why reward these?
Chariman of the Joint Chiefs:
This one is by far the most unbalanced quest. Why are we rewarding already doing well? If you rush to get roids then you can accelarte massively away from everyone. Likewise xp is already got the bonus of moving up the leaderboard. I can see however that it can be a way to reward smaller planets getting big lands but with how defensive the game is it is very unlikely and more likely the bigger planets will end up with loads of roids and resource to further aceerlate away. Completely remove this.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Same as above. Pointless for balance. And why would you reward having military centres? They are a strategy if someone wants but should not be rewarded.

Director of Clandestine Services
I think this is to encourage more covert ops. However, I think this just means everyone Is blowing up each other roids for the first 100 ticks and then they stop as people build and assign security. I’m not a fan of covert ops but I think that they should not be rewarded.
Director of Planetary intelligence.
This is about the only strand that makes sense to me. I helps bring some balance as those scanners and solo players who need to scan can win back some resource etc to bring them back in line with the rest of the players.
Director of Counter intelligence.
This once again has no place as dist are a strategy and have their own reward. They do not need to be double rewarded.

Running through this list I can’t see any of the logic for almost all of this. I think it takes away from varying strategies as players just rush to complete quests rather than having different plans. I think this needs a big shake up to work as at current it just creates massive imbalance. Let’s get back to the varying strategies of the past. If this means adding some extra starting research points or cons points to make this work, then that would be fine. However, research should not be all completed by tick 300.
I have said this before, but I think the game needs to improve its balancing and reduce the defensive nature of the game. I think defense is fine and good allys and gals can defend enough but def fleets just further punish less experienced and solo players. Simple changes can make a big difference to improving the game and make it more of a challenge.
Does anyone agree with me or have any objections? How do you go about asking for changes anymore as I don’t see any of the dev team on here?

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Just to add..

The game needs to get back to winning by stealing and defending roids. Not building entirely one ships type for an alliance. That doesn't make sense in the overall spirit of the game. Once again this only weakens less experienced and solo players as they won't have a def only fleet to use at their disposal.

Combining these fleets with ally def fleets may as well let players have multiple accounts as in affect you are just doing the same logging in not to play really but to support another planet. Not a luxury for other solo players.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

I agree with a lot of that about quests, particularly the unbalancing effect of the joint chiefs.
I'm not particularly fussed about rp and cp as rewards - I dont think it unbalances things particularly. The encouragement to build 5 of each for rp early can bite you later when you want 100 dists to complete that block but dont have the cons space, so it is not actually as simple as go for all the rp giving quests early.
I think I would either dramatically curtail or remove altogether the resource giving quests.
I would give either simply xp, which is in many respects useless, to have lots of it does ot change the balance of things, but it does help your rank. Alternatively give something else entirely.*
*I quite like the notion of being given small amounts of a special ship (because these could only be gotten by quests their numbers would be very limited so they would have to be useful regardless of planet size, so either something like the notorious cargo ship, or something useful race specifically - this round for ziks to get co pods by a quest would be good for them, similarly etd fi pods; for cats in any round a killer that fits into an attack fleet would always be useful even in very small numbers; xans could have properly cloaked versions of ghosts or phants - though i dont know what in a more usual all cloaked xan round. Stumped on terr!:confused: )

Def planets are a completely different issue to quests; they are not a game mechanics issue really - except that stats are built so that those following a particular ship build strategy automatically have holes they can only fill with def planets.
But even if Ship stats went back to what they once were - far more multi-target and fewer defensive holes you would not eliminate def planets, which are a game play choice for quite a few people.
Removing the number of planets that do not count to alliance score might have an effect - but this is an endlessly debated topic all of its own.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with your comments and the special ship is interesting if it is small amounts.

Do you think it is likely the dev team would make any changes? I think these are simple changes that would improve things a lot.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Generally speaking changes rarely get done; however I do think that quests are still considered a work in progress, so some changes in this area seems possible - if, that is there is any sort of consensus, which is always hard to get and a good excuse to do nothing.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

I personally think you have a number of good points, to many to point out and comment on if I'm honest, as said above the quests are a work in progress (as far as we know)I hope the PA team read this thread and consider some if the options

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Its a shame I don’t think this will be acted upon as dev don’t seem to weigh in on discussions. I think they are simple changes that would improve the game hugely.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Sorry, I've been very distracted with real life. We are tweaking quests further, but I understand you do seem to be suggesting removing a lot of quests. Can you propose what you would do in terms of structuring quests rather than the approach currently taken?

Alliance defence fleet is covered elsewhere and prefer to keep threads separate in terms of topics.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Thanks for the reply.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with the quests it’s more the rewards for each.

My suggestion is to remove resource and roid rewards for any quest which relates to already gaining roids. For example gain resource for having 800 roids or gaining more roids for already stealing roids.

I would also remove the quests for military centres and distorters as these are a strategy in themselves and should not be rewarded.

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

The quests were originally designed as a quick start guide for new players.

Since the quests were reworked, they offer alot of basic information for new players and a build path to help them learn the game faster. They even explain the choices of for example going either dists or amps.

As a by product the quests do reward players for taking the time to do them. But at the same time since the new roid cost formula was introduced the universe has had many rounds with to few roids. Lowering the cost again wasn't an option because of farms abusing this. So the quests were also used as a way to boost the universal roidcount artificially as the game progresses.

I think it's about 150 quests atm which are impossible to all complete. This actually forces a player to also make tactical choices, which is a new aspect which creates even more strategie choices. At the same time introducing so many new quests & balancing them isn't an easy task and has been going on for a while and still take a while.

In the beginning there were alot of changes between rounds which players found annoying cause they had to redo their startup guides completely. Since than the rate at which the quests are being properly balanced has dropped quite a bit.

For this upcomming round the main change seems to be a serious nerf to resource rewards, rewarding high roid counts with more resources & further balancing of the covop quests

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Feedback on the proposed changes:

Secretary of Education: leave all as it is. Just because wades209 doesn't need them, doesnt mean they should be removed. Some people will be encouraged to lookout for the gal / ally forum in order to get the quest.

Secretary of the treasury: leading new players to build refs is a good thing. I also feel like the rewards stop at the correct amount of refs. keep it. Rewarding cores is questionable though.

Security or Planetary Security: rewarding new player to learn how to work out alert is important. Most new player get covert opped to death because of missing nub protection for covert ops. it's a shame!

Chariman of the Joint Chiefs & Secretary of Veterans Affairs.:
quests for landing big (xp or roid amount) are good. I am with wades209 that the quests for "doing well in general" like "have 1k roids" should be removed. They only increase the gap between good and less good players. People dont need quests to be motivated to do good.

Director of Clandestine Services:
Most quests that needed a change from xmas round to this one are done. Transferring resources got reduced to 1/3. Hotwire 750 ships is still a bit less if you target a planet with fi/co only. Instead of fixing subverting gov, they just changed the description to be in inline with the buggy coding :D
Blowing up roids shouldn't be the first covert op, yes! Bribing guards should be.

Director of Planetary intelligence:
I dont share the arguments to reward scanners. They get free xp for scans paid by their alliances. Doing 500 scans was reduced to 3k RP now. It was pretty standard for all players to do this in first few ticks. I like that they made it less rewarding.

Director of Counter intelligence:
I am with wades209 here. Why do dists need a section on their own? dists are also an egoistic approach to the game and shouldnt be rewarded at all.


I would like to see a quest for changing fleet names and gal name / pic, but the gal name / pic is hard to realise as only the GC can do it. We need more art in pa!

Re: Quest rewards and Def fleet.
 

Cores still do outvalue the early attacking and ROIDS. IT MUST FINALLY BE CHANGED!. Cores should be safe income to help noobs survive if they get roided, it should NOT be main source of income! Talking about pure value and income, not score u gain from attacking.

Fix it finally, its ridiculous setup!