Risk/reward ratio

[DeletedUser37274]

Today's daily quest called for solving a complex negotiation and 11 8 hour productions.
Each guess demanded 9, yes nine, modern day goods per box, 6 boxes total, meaning 56 modern age goods per try. I got 2 right first try, 1 more 2nd try, none on 3rd and 4th try. That's 117 modern age goods to not find a solution. Plus 20 diamonds and another 36 goods to actually solve it, or maybe 2 more attempts at over 100 goods each... and the reward? Maybe 5 pieces of a shrine of Awe? Maybe 1 piece (of 15 total to actually complete a shrine)! Where's the equity in that? They might as well say "you're not playing the daily quest today, or we'll make you regret it."

This seems to run through a lot of quests in the game.. often a quest will call for taking 3 campaign map sectors by force, when the sectors youre inare 2 or more ages beyond your actual age. Impossible to accomplish. and the reward? a drummer or a rogue? same thing in the GE; relic rewards that are virtually useless except to fulfill unreasonable requests.

Everyone in my guild has stacks of relics to boost enthusiasm so they can build an sell then when some quest demands you gain 1000 enthusiasm points even though you're already 2000 over 120% and only 4 empty cells in your city. And the reward for the quest? Maybe 1000 supplies!

I love quests. I hate pointless and antiproductive quests and unrewarding quests.

 

[DeletedUser31442]

I wholeheartedly concur with you Wiley. As soon as the daily demands taking any sectors by force (I'm currently 4 ages above my current) or anything above what I can reasonably do in negotiation I say "next day" and proceed to ignore it until then.

As far as event quest happiness demands ehhh, it doesnt take long to put down and then delete those faces and gates that everyone has a multitude of and on to the next quest.

 

[DeletedUser33179]

Choices/consequences

Everyone is aware from the 1st month they begin playing that event quests will ask for obtaining sectors on the map. As does the DC (particularly if you have an open territory with sectors still to obtain).

Knowing this, you chose to go multiple Ages ahead on the map - presumably to obtain advanced Age units. As a consequence, fighting to obtain map sectors becomes progressively more difficult. Something gained but something lost as you play they way you wish. Don't gripe about the quests because of a conscious decision you made.

 

[DeletedUser31882]

Where's the equity in that?

I second what @Clara Osgood said and would like to add: DCs & GE relic rewards are RNG based. That means there is a big swing when it comes to 'equity'.

I'm a firm believer of having a good mix of both systems. RNG means things will not become static/calculated grind to the top with predictable results. That'd be boring if that was all there was. At the same time, it is nice to have perseverance and dedication rewarded. The Challenger quest is an example of this and gives the player something to work towards. I think Inno's Cultural settlements will be another example of game mechanics rewarding the persistent, once they are released to the Live Servers.


Considering the many variables that go into balancing rewards for quests, I think it would be better if you give specifics on what quests you find lacking and delve into why they feel lacking to your and your friends.

 

[Jern2017]

I will only do complex negotiations in the DC if I have a chance of getting Forge Points or a Shrine of Knowledge. If the reward is something else, I simply don't do the DC. The worse that happens, now that you don't lose a day, is my progress to the Challenger's Chest gets postponed for a day. No big deal.

As for the sectors, I agree with Clara Osgood. I'm in the same boat as you, I'm two ages ahead on the continent map. Luckily, most events now offer alternatives to acquiring sectors and provinces.

 

[DeletedUser29726]

To be somewhat more helpful to your situation (while not disagreeing with previous posters) : DC will not give you map tasks if you have no incomplete scouted provinces. Finish all the provinces you have scouted up, don't scout any more until an event comes along that you want to do and need a province for, and you'll not get daily challenges to take sectors.

 

[DeletedUser]

Each guess demanded 9, yes nine, modern day goods per box, 6 boxes total, meaning 56 modern age goods per try. I got 2 right first try, 1 more 2nd try, none on 3rd and 4th try. That's 117 modern age goods to not find a solution.

There are only five boxes, not six, so you only used 108 goods in those four guesses, not 117. Now that the math is out of the way, why did you even attempt this DC? And after being unsuccessful in four guesses, why would you spend Diamonds and more goods to continue? I would understand if you thought the reward would be worth it, but you clearly didn't. Why not just skip it? So no sympathy here on that.

As for the map sectors, others have already pointed out that you put yourself in this situation by getting ahead of yourself on the map. And it's also been stated that you can avoid those quests altogether by not having any open provinces, a fact that has been shared numerous times here on the Forum. So no sympathy for that, either.

For the future you now have advice on everything you came to complain about, so any future problems are on you.

 

[DeletedUser33036]

I do think that negotiations should have never been added to DC's. It is not only extremely costly, but also random

 

[RazorbackPirate]

I do think that negotiations should have never been added to DC's. It is not only extremely costly, but also random

I once made a similar statement that said something like,

I do think that standalone battles should have never been added to DC's. It is not only extremely costly in terms of units, but also random.

I was told, quite rightly, that my inability to win any and all Standalone Battles was a symptom of an improperly built city. Tough to hear, but they were right of course. So I fixed the problem and can now complete whatever difficulty randomly appears, Battle or Negotiation.

Chart from my experience, you're own path forward.

 

[Emberguard]

The most difficult of battles/negotiations are debateable as to how much it'd be worth to the player to complete. If you've got a ton of goods you're never going to use then the cost is a non-issue. I know one friend who purely through the Chateau was able to get their guilds Iron Age stocks to over 100k while every other age only has a couple thousand. So for that player goods cost will never be an issue no matter how much the DC asks of them

Being the toughest options they would each cater to the player that has built their city to capitalise in that aspect. You're not going to have a lot of players that have the base lvls maxed out on all their current age fighting GBs, have rogues and perhaps a fighting GB or two above their age. You're also not going to have a lot of high lvl'd Chateaus, or a city with mostly goods buildings and a Inno to clear up more space. But these players do still exist and for them (along with campers) a DC asking for lots of goods or fighting a large army isn't an issue.

However there are easier battles/negotiations so you can just wait for a different chest with a version you can complete. It's doing two things

(1) giving you a taste of what the hardest opponent will have for you, so you know how far away you are for that and what would be required to beat it. If a player is able to complete the hardest option in DC you can bet they can plunder you too

(2) balancing how often the DC pays out. This is a side feature, it's not meant to be your main producer. Everything you get is an extra. I've got an entire Maharajah set completed purely from DC without ever being around for the event that gave the Maharajah. The DC is still worth looking through to decide whether or not to go for the current chest, but that doesn't mean you should expect to receive something from every single chest

 

[RazorbackPirate]

The most difficult of battles/negotiations are debateable as to how much it'd be worth to the player to complete. Being the toughest options they would each cater to the player that has built their city to capitalise in that aspect. You're not going to have a lot of players that have the base lvls maxed out on all their current age fighting GBs, have rogues and perhaps a fighting GB or two above their age. You're also not going to have a lot of high lvl'd Chateaus, or a city with mostly goods buildings and a Inno to clear up more space. But these players do still exist and for them (along with campers) a DC asking for lots of goods or fighting a large army isn't an issue.

However there are easier battles/negotiations so you can just wait for a different chest with a version you can complete. It's doing two things

(1) giving you a taste of what the hardest opponent will have for you, so you know how far away you are for that and what would be required to beat it. If a player is able to complete the hardest option in DC you can bet they can plunder you too

(2) balancing how often the DC pays out. This is a side feature, it's not meant to be your main producer. Everything you get is an extra. I've got an entire Maharajah set completed purely from DC without ever being around for the event that gave the Maharajah. The DC is still worth looking through to decide whether or not to go for the current chest, but that doesn't mean you should expect to receive something from every single chest

I won't argue with any of this. Pretty much everything you describe is where I was at various times in my cities' development. However I would add,

(3) showing you what a well developed, well balanced city should be able to achieve.

I have a city in HMA and one in LMA. I complete the DC every day for no other reason than it get's me one day closer to the 7-day Challenger's Chest which contains an SoK and 50 FPs. I set my goal to be able to complete the DC daily whatever it threw at me and built my city accordingly. It's rare for me to skip a DC, but when I do it's when I get too many 4 or 8 hour productions to bother with. Thankfully, those are rare.

No reason why others can't or shouldn't aspire to the same thing. As we both know, I've done nothing more than take advantage of what the game has to offer. It's just about the choices we make.

 

[Emberguard]

I can agree with that third point

and that's good point in regards to the 7 day chest

 

[DeletedUser32824]

I think a lot of people don't like negotiations because you might not have the strategy to them completely figured out. I negotiate all of GE every week and am able to complete the 10 good negotiations (with 4 attempts) in about 1-3 tries on average. Every once in a while you get bad luck and get 3/5 right on your first 5 guesses which pretty much guarantees you a fail.

So here is my quick strategy to solving these complex negotiations:
1. Choose 5 of the previous era goods as attempts
2. Choose up to 5 of your current era goods as attempts (if you got some correct in 1, you wont be able to guess 5)
3. Choose whatever goods you have not yet checked and whatever goods you have correctly guessed. Put these under a column with a yellow guess and put any yellow guesses (if possible) in a blank spot or under a different column
4. Hopefully at this point you know what 5 goods you need OR you have found what 4 you need and which good is double OR you get lucky and have like 2 columns left and can guarantee guess.

Sometimes you get unlucky and have to make a 50/50 guess. That's just the nature of taking 4 turns with 10 people. Unless you know how to solve the negotiation in 1 more turn (i.e. you guessed your 50/50 wrong) don't spend diamonds if you are even willing to spend them. Diamonds are much harder to come by than goods.

And if your city is not built to dole out a couple hundred goods for a DC, skip it or make your city work for you. I have about 3k of each current and previous era good so I could fail my complex negotiation 8 times and wouldn't even notice.

Hopefully this helps. There are videos on youtube and guides to help with negotiating. Learn up and crush that next daily!

 

[DeletedUser33036]

I once made a similar statement that said something like,

I was told, quite rightly, that my inability to win any and all Standalone Battles was a symptom of an improperly built city. Tough to hear, but they were right of course. So I fixed the problem and can now complete whatever difficulty randomly appears, Battle or Negotiation.

Chart from my experience, you're own path forward.

The battles are not really random, as you see what you are up aganist before you attack. You can always increase your attack/defense, but no matter how many goods you produce, there is no guarantee that you can complete the negotiation in 3-4 chances. You could theorectically never win without paying for an extra turn. The very least they could do is set up an either/or like in guild expedition where you choose between battle/negotiation.

 

[DeletedUser33179]

The battles are not really random, as you see what you are up aganist before you attack. You can always increase your attack/defense, but no matter how many goods you produce, there is no guarantee that you can complete the negotiation in 3-4 chances. You could theorectically never win without paying for an extra turn. The very least they could do is set up an either/or like in guild expedition where you choose between battle/negotiation.

But produce enough goods & you can complete that one negotiation without any significant dent in your goods inventory. FoE is not designed to be a simple city building game. We're not supposed to get every option we want every time. It's done deliberately to challenge the player base.

I can understand (but don't agree) those that complain about the cost of negotiations or those that complain about opposing army strength in DC quests. But those that want Inno to never require them to negotiate or never require them to fight armies? Really??? What type of game do those folks honestly think Inno has been building all this time?

 

[DeletedUser33036]

But produce enough goods & you can complete that one negotiation without any significant dent in your goods inventory. FoE is not designed to be a simple city building game. We're not supposed to get every option we want every time. It's done deliberately to challenge the player base.

I can understand (but don't agree) those that complain about the cost of negotiations or those that complain about opposing army strength in DC quests. But those that want Inno to never require them to negotiate or never require them to fight armies? Really??? What type of game do those folks honestly think Inno has been building all this time?

I believe the solution for the negotiation changes each time you fail it. That means you can fail the harder ones indefinitely. They really is not much you can do about guessing wrong. The ones where you just pay/donate a set about of goods are better, because they are non variable.

 

[Emberguard]

But those that want Inno to never require them to negotiate or never require them to fight armies? Really??? What type of game do those folks honestly think Inno has been building all this time?

Yeah, once it gets to that point I've got to question why they don't just avoid those aspects that would require that part of the game? After all you don't expect payment for services unrendered, and you don't normally expect the requirements to completely vanish just because it doesn't fit your job description. It would be one thing if not completing the task would render the game unplayable and it was of a exceptionally hard difficulty. But neither is the case. A little bit of time working on the city would allow you to beat the challenge and it's only an optional extra - you could stay in bronze age and have a perfectly playable game if you wanted (just don't expect it to be smooth sailing in events if you're camping too long).

I believe the solution for the negotiation changes each time you fail it. That means you can fail the harder ones indefinitely. They really is not much you can do about guessing wrong. The ones where you just pay/donate a set about of goods are better, because they are non variable.

That's something I've never found out, I just use the diamonds to get another turn. GE is enough that I don't need to worry about losing diamonds on it

 

[RazorbackPirate]

I believe the solution for the negotiation changes each time you fail it. That means you can fail the harder ones indefinitely. They really is not much you can do about guessing wrong. The ones where you just pay/donate a set about of goods are better, because they are non variable.

Yes, the solution is different for each negotiation. No, you cannot fail the harder one's indefinitely. I have never failed more than 3 times in a row. I almost always solve them on the first or second attempt. My HMA city makes on average 650 goods per day. I can negotiate all 4 levels of GE weekly, solve all the DC negotiations, pay goods to the treasury, etc. and I still increase my goods inventory by a minimum of 1,200 goods per week.

Bottom line is, there's nothing wrong with the negotiations, either difficulty, or frequency. If you up your goods production, all of that is a non issue.

 

[DeletedUser33036]

Yes, the solution is different for each negotiation. No, you cannot fail the harder one's indefinitely. I have never failed more than 3 times in a row. I almost always solve them on the first or second attempt. My HMA city makes on average 650 goods per day. I can negotiate all 4 levels of GE weekly, solve all the DC negotiations, pay goods to the treasury, etc. and I still increase my goods inventory by a minimum of 1,200 goods per week.

Bottom line is, there's nothing wrong with the negotiations, either difficulty, or frequency. If you up your goods production, all of that is a non issue.

You could lose a negotiation every single time. It gets more and more unlikly with a larger sample size, but you are never garaunteed to win even one very complex negotiation if you played even 100 times. There is no real skill or pre planning, you just roll the dice. We were better without it.

 

[RazorbackPirate]

You could lose a negotiation every single time. It gets more and more unlikely with a larger sample size, but you are never guaranteed to win even one very complex negotiation if you played even 100 times. There is no real skill or pre-planning, you just roll the dice. We were better without it.

You were better without it. Many of us weren't phased a bit. As for the rest... whatever. Thanks for sharing.