QUEST OVERVIEW

[DeletedUser28832]

Oh, I understand it. They apparently aren't happy because the new interface (that they've been asking for) doesn't fit their non-standard game playing as well as they'd like. I love it so far. Turned off the abort confirmation popup, and it works great!

Just for the record, not all of us can perform beta testing while also playing the live game and maintaining a RL. If you can, more power to ya. I'm sure your help along with the other beta folks have made a positive contribution to the game.

I wasn't (am not) on beta and have not been clamoring for any changes to the quest interface. My comments, frustration, is purely from trying to accomplish a seemingly routine task and finding new and improved was slower and more cumbersome.

If using a questing strategy for city building and game play is 'non-standard' then please point me to the 'standard play guide'. i haven't found one....I've looked. Please enlighten.

 

[DeletedUser28970]

Again with the personal jabs. Are you a developer at Inno? Do you take personal offense when a player voices frustration with a change 'seemingly, coming from out of the blue?

Huh?, No, and Really couldn't give a s ... hoot

in that order BECAUSE:

1) I didn't mention ANY names, hard to get personal then,
2) Never claimed be since I'm way too dumb, and
3) I've got a real life and know the difference.

(yeah, now I'm getting an itsy-bitsy, tweeny-tiny, atom-sized bit personal since you brought it up. Eh? )

 

[DeletedUser26965]

Oh, I understand it. They apparently aren't happy because the new interface (that they've been asking for) doesn't fit their non-standard game playing as well as they'd like. I love it so far. Turned off the abort confirmation popup, and it works great!

First, to say "their non-standard game playing" is incorrect in two respects; 1. it's not "theirs" e.g. the players it's Innos and 2. "non-standard" implies there's a standard which there is not.

Second, I do not recall anyone asking for this new quest interface. Before there was even mention of a new quest interface I do recall players who do a lot of recurring quests asking to remove the confirmation box, which only makes fine sense to have that option to remove it. I've also seen other suggestions to improve the other mundane, tedious aspects such as suggestions to the cycle system, setting productions etc.

Now, if it wasn't for players who do a lot of recurring quests the new quest interface would have been much worse than it is now. As a matter of fact the only reason why there was improvement to the speed of the sliding animation and why we got the option to remove the confirmation is because exactly these type players, myself included, spoke up on beta to improve it before it went live.

Many are not happy with the new GB interface because it has caused it to be more tedious to work with in some respect. Good, now those players can feel the pain of the recurring quest player dealing with mundane, tedious aspects just to play. But not good because I don't want the game to be tedious and mundane to play for anyone as you seem to want. And as I recall Inno does not want that either.

btw, they're adding keyboard shortcuts to setting productions. I don't recall anyone asking for that but it should help at least a little bit in alleviating the tedious, mundane aspects to an aspect of the game they created. Inno put three of the same type recurring quests in OF with the ability to use blacksmiths into a game for those quests then you want to claim that as non-standard, it's not, it's the game Inno created, you're just not playing it that way.

 

[DeletedUser26120]

I do not like the new display of Event and Quest icons.

I've moved your post from the changelog thread to this, since you were referring to quests. We appreciate all of your feedback, hopefully the developers will be able to do something.

What on earth are you doing that it's the reverse for you?

I believe majority of complaints are about mobile app, it is indeed different there - and slower. Luckily I mostly play desktop but was out today so used the app to collect.

 

[DeletedUser28832]

I do almost exclusively quest looping/HQS, and I love the new system. I scroll through RQs far faster now than I ever used to. What used to take me half an hour now takes me ten minutes. What on earth are you doing that it's the reverse for you?

That is exactly what I'd like to know. Believe me, I'm ok being wrong. But when I tried to collect for the 2x 24hr production I was constantly moving the story quest out of the way....trying to figure out fnord and snick and whatever other title now indicated the quest I wanted.....

 

[DeletedUser28832]

I've moved your post from the changelog thread to this, since you were referring to quests. We appreciate all of your feedback, hopefully the developers will be able to do something.

I believe majority of complaints are about mobile app, it is indeed different there - and slower. Luckily I mostly play desktop but was out today so used the app to collect.

Absolutely used a mobile app for collecting/questing. I use a tablet. Different/slower is an understatement. Collecting on the mobile app with a tablet was extremely efficient. Now....not so much.

 

[DeletedUser30943]

That is exactly what I'd like to know. Believe me, I'm ok being wrong. But when I tried to collect for the 2x 24hr production I was constantly moving the story quest out of the way....trying to figure out fnord and snick and whatever other title now indicated the quest I wanted.....

I was just starting to clue in, and Dursland seems to have hit the nail on the head: I'm working exclusively in a browser...I don't even own a cell phone. I think that's where the difference lies. It sounds like the new UI is much slower and/or more problematic on the mobile app. Is it possible that this is entirely the reason we're having such a huge disagreement?

For those who find the new system slower, are you on browser or app?

 

[DeletedUser]

Absolutely used a mobile app for collecting/questing. I use a tablet. Different/slower is an understatement. Collecting on the mobile app with a tablet was extremely efficient. Now....not so much.

I just collected in my main city, and it went at least twice as quickly as before. Of course, I don't have any regular production buildings there, so it was the coin, UBQ and spend FP quests, but it went lightning quick. And in my least advanced city, where I have a few production buildings I quest loop with, it still went at least twice as fast. Now, I play on PC, and maybe that's the difference, but it used to be the opposite, where it was much quicker on mobile. So, the speed advantage just changed platforms, but the game functionality improved, as Dursland pointed out. Still a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

 

[DeletedUser28832]

I was just starting to clue in, and Dursland seems to have hit the nail on the head: I'm working exclusively in a browser...I don't even own a cell phone. I think that's where the difference lies. It sounds like the new UI is much slower and/or more problematic on the mobile app. Is it possible that this is entirely the reason we're having such a huge disagreement?

For those who find the new system slower, are you on browser or app?

As mentioned, I use the mobile (iOS) app on a tablet. Collecting on a PC took too long. On the tablet, the previous UI was extremely efficient touch/click-wise. This update is not just an incremental decrease in efficiency, it's a sea-change.

 

[DeletedUser28970]

That is in fact exactly what happened. They introduced Daily Challenges over at beta, old quest system couldn't fit more than 2 conditions for completing a quest.

So they put out a new quest system to accomodate Daily Challenges, which they did not roll out until the new quest system was in place on beta. Today I had to fight 4 battles, complete 8 8-hour productions, negotiate a sector, and activate 3 tavern boosts to complete my challenge.

Is this going to be a "phased" roll out also? Like the Incidents? Or do you mean it is still in Beta?

 

[DeletedUser28832]

I just collected in my main city, and it went at least twice as quickly as before. Of course, I don't have any regular production buildings there, so it was the coin, UBQ and spend FP quests, but it went lightning quick. And in my least advanced city, where I have a few production buildings I quest loop with, it still went at least twice as fast. Now, I play on PC, and maybe that's the difference, but it used to be the opposite, where it was much quicker on mobile. So, the speed advantage just changed platforms, but the game functionality improved, as Dursland pointed out. Still a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

Ok, at least that's objective info, not insults.

Using those quests, how many discrete quests did you complete? UBQ + coins + FP's (I'm envious if you can do the spend FP quest daily).

 

[DeletedUser]

First, to say "their non-standard game playing" is incorrect in two respects; 1. it's not "theirs" e.g. the players it's Innos and 2. "non-standard" implies there's a standard which there is not.

And yet there are people out there who insist that this is a war game, and that if you're not participating in the fighting, you should just go play farmville, or sim city, or some such "non-violent" game. I'm not going to name any names, but it is interesting, wouldn't you say? Hmmm?

 

[DeletedUser26965]

Is this going to be a "phased" roll out also? Like the Incidents? Or do you mean it is still in Beta?

I doubt it. They seemed overly concerned with Incidents messing the game up and the only reason they did a limited release on live was because the playerbase was too limited on Beta for particular testing data they needed for Incidents. It's also the first time I recall they've ever done that for anything so I imagine they only did so because they had to for this one particular instance and don't imagine they would have to do so for Daily Challenges as all that is is basically mini events involving doing quests.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ok, at least that's objective info, not insults.

Using those quests, how many discrete quests did you complete? UBQ + coins + FP's (I'm envious if you can do the spend FP quest daily).

Not many, by heavy questing standards, I think it was 4 coins, 1 FP (daily, yes) and 6 or so UBQs. I am not a heavy quester by any stretch of the imagination. I've tried extensive quest looping on PC before, and it is too much work. And I don't like playing on mobile, although I do at times. Maybe I'll reopen some of my other cities and see how the quest looping goes with the new interface. If so, I'll let you know what I find. Incidentally, I have done the quest looping on mobile before the change, and it was quicker than PC, but I was more mistake prone on mobile because of the smaller screen and using my finger instead of a mouse. Result was I got done sooner, but I messed up at least one pair of collections every single day.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

And yet there are people out there who insist that this is a war game, and that if you're not participating in the fighting, you should just go play farmville, or sim city, or some such "non-violent" game. I'm not going to name any names, but it is interesting, wouldn't you say? Hmmm?

Shifting the argument won't save you here. It is a war/fighting game, one may play without fighting but whether they like it or not the fight will come to them. A common response is as you said if they don't like that there are alternative games that don't have that aspect. How you draw a parallel to improvement in tedious, mundane aspects of the game to that I'll never know.

 

[DeletedUser30943]

I can't make a video, but just to describe the experience for the old UI vs. the new on a browser...

The old UI, I had to click abort and confirm it. The buttons were small, and I'm not terribly dextrous, so it was probably at least a second, maybe a bit more between abort and confirm. Then, pause while the game fetches the next quest...that's about 1.5-2 seconds. Now, re-find the Abort button. All told, probably just under 4 seconds for me just to abort a single quest. For sake of easy math, let's assume I'm only actually doing a single quest repeatedly, and that I currently have 10 RQs in the cycle: that's about 40 seconds.

The new UI, there's no more confirming, and they made the time between aborting one quest and getting the next one much shorter. While the Abort button does move up and down a bit, it's now bigger, so it's easier to hit the right spot, even when it moves. I'm already starting to know when it's going to move and when it's not. So, when it doesn't move, it's maybe 1 second to abort a quest; 1.5 seconds if it does. About the only one that's slightly problematic is the UBQ, where one button becomes two, both at the same height as the abort button of the previous quest. I'll often accidentally hit Pay or Abort just based on where my mouse happens to be sitting...still trying to train myself to watch out for that one. That's now down to about 10-15 seconds per cycle.

I haven't actually timed a single cycle, so these are ballpark figures, but that'll give you an idea why I'm loving the new system so much.

 

[DeletedUser28832]

That is in fact exactly what happened. They introduced Daily Challenges over at beta, old quest system couldn't fit more than 2 conditions for completing a quest.

So they put out a new quest system to accomodate Daily Challenges, which they did not roll out until the new quest system was in place on beta. Today I had to fight 4 battles, complete 8 8-hour productions, negotiate a sector, and activate 3 tavern boosts to complete my challenge.

That is 4 conditions which could not have been displayed all at once with the old quest screen.

My comment was not about what's occurring on beta. It's about the changed UI on the live servers AND the news message that explained their 'reason' for implementing it. Based on those two things...Inno was not candid about WHY they did this.

 

[DeletedUser28832]

Not many, by heavy questing standards, I think it was 4 coins, 1 FP (daily, yes) and 6 or so UBQs. I am not a heavy quester by any stretch of the imagination. I've tried extensive quest looping on PC before, and it is too much work. And I don't like playing on mobile, although I do at times. Maybe I'll reopen some of my other cities and see how the quest looping goes with the new interface. If so, I'll let you know what I find. Incidentally, I have done the quest looping on mobile before the change, and it was quicker than PC, but I was more mistake prone on mobile because of the smaller screen and using my finger instead of a mouse. Result was I got done sooner, but I messed up at least one pair of collections every single day.

Fair enough. I collected ' till now' only on a tablet. But, I did have to add a couple buildings etc to compensate for fat-finger mistakes. Time difference over 10-15 quests is a lot different than that difference over 50-70+ quests. That's a good bit of time, on mobile, each day. Which means I either; dump other cities and focus on one; dump the strategy and just wander through the game; or trudge through trying to collect getting bogged down. All my choices, absolutely right. Doesnt make it any less frustrating.

 

[DeletedUser26120]

Or do you mean it is still in Beta?

It's still in beta. See post #115.

Based on those two things...Inno was not candid about WHY they did this.

From the announcement:

They lead players through the game and often determine their progress. The current system that we were using for the past five years has been great and worked well, but it had several restrictions that were always very limiting when it comes to what we could do with quests.
We sat down and thought about possible improvements to the way we show them and present them to you.
We came up with a new Quest Overview which should be able to display all of the needed information in an efficient way and provide the possibility for future expansion

They didn't refer to daily challenges directly but they were very clear about why they did this and why it was needed.

I understand the frustration of mobile users, hopefully Inno will see the feedback and make it function same as desktop does.

 

[DeletedUser28832]

I can't make a video, but just to describe the experience for the old UI vs. the new on a browser...

The old UI, I had to click abort and confirm it. The buttons were small, and I'm not terribly dextrous, so it was probably at least a second, maybe a bit more between abort and confirm. Then, pause while the game fetches the next quest...that's about 1.5-2 seconds. Now, re-find the Abort button. All told, probably just under 4 seconds for me just to abort a single quest. For sake of easy math, let's assume I'm only actually doing a single quest repeatedly, and that I currently have 10 RQs in the cycle: that's about 40 seconds.

The new UI, there's no more confirming, and they made the time between aborting one quest and getting the next one much shorter. While the Abort button does move up and down a bit, it's now bigger, so it's easier to hit the right spot, even when it moves. I'm already starting to know when it's going to move and when it's not. So, when it doesn't move, it's maybe 1 second to abort a quest; 1.5 seconds if it does. About the only one that's slightly problematic is the UBQ, where one button becomes two, both at the same height as the abort button of the previous quest. I'll often accidentally hit Pay or Abort just based on where my mouse happens to be sitting...still trying to train myself to watch out for that one. That's now down to about 10-15 seconds per cycle.

I haven't actually timed a single cycle, so these are ballpark figures, but that'll give you an idea why I'm loving the new system so much.

Honestly I don't have a good comparison benchmark for collecting in the browser, because it was so tedious before. I would exit the browser, pull up my tablet to collect /abort-cycle, then return to the browser for everything else. Based on all this feedback, I will go back to the browser and see if I can't find some efficiency. From my vantage point, this UI fixed a problem that didn't exist. Or at least didn't exist for me. That's why I came to the forum to see if the problem was me.