Question to all my Spreadsheet- loving Puzzle Questers:
Anyone here document the Follower side quest rewards (ideally per quest) pre-patch?
Why I ask:
I think it could be handy to document the differences in rewards for each side quest pre vs. post-patch so that we can see how the changes in rewards (esp. follower crystals) impact progression and game play moving forward.
Tracking Accomplishments = Prizes!:
The Puzzle Quest team has already developed a great way to track accomplishments. Users can see this when they track story chapter completion, side quest completion by follower, and many other goals through the Tavern.
The PQ3 team was able to use their excellent tracking of game data to supply a rad legendary shield to all players who had previously completed the story. In fact, they were even able to see if the player had completed the story on multiple classes and provided a shield reward for each completion on a novel class. (Yay! And also, thank you!)
Let’s Use a System Already in Place:
Would there be a way to apply this same approach to follower crystals, and send follower crystals to players who had completed the side quests prior to the patch?
The data is already there, just like the chapter/story completion data. It’s even handily broken down by follower (i.e. each follower’ s side quest completion is tracked separately). And the code to send rewards to users for past goals is already there (see: the super rad legendary shields).
What Might This Look Like in Implementation (*note - numbers may not be accurate):
- Pre-patch, players earn 3* Northelm follower crystals by the time they finish his side quests.
- Post-patch, players earn 7* Northelm follower crystals by the time they finishhis side quests.
- This is a total difference of 4* follower crystals as rewards from Northelm’s side quests, once all of his side quests are completed.
- Game data already tracks who has completed Northelm’s side quests.
- Mail these players 4* Northelm follower crystals as a sign of good will and a thanks for being long-term, dedicated players (much like the legendary shield reward for completing the story pre-patch).
So why does this matter? Why even bother?:
Simply put, follower level directly impacts not just quality of life, but ability to move through game content in general.
Followers, especially certain early followers (like Eveline, Brie, Northelm, and Adhakus), really impact game progression by providing resources needed to expand inventory, level gear, followers, minions, etc.
And these early followers had more side-quests to complete, which means more crystals to level/evolve them, especially post-patch.
Pre-patch players got a certain number of follower crystals from completing the side quests, and once those quests were done, the flow of crystals reaaaally dried up (unless you wanted to buy a whole lot of crowns, which is fine, but no one likes feeling coerced to purchase).
That means those sweet sweet side quest crystals mattered - a lot - when it came to leveling up Followers and using them to progress in the game.
PQ3 Team, You Did Good:
I actually deeply appreciate that the PQ3 team made the game more accessible for new players by boosting resource availability, reducing cost of certain key resources, and making it easier to level Followers by increasing the number of crystals available through side quests.
I suspect these changes will increase the retention of new players (yay!) and at least some of those players will spend money (yay for PQ3! - they are a business after all, and businesses generally want to make profit).
But There’s More to Do:
I’m sure you’ve heard your long-term players grumble (maybe loudly) about the Follower Crystal issue. And I know that you do listen (or else you wouldn’t have heard the previous dissatisfaction about the lack of reward at the end of your epic storyline).
I also know you don’t want to alienate your dedicated long-term players by hamstringing them and making them function on an uneven playing field.
And it will be uneven - because just like old players, new players will eventually hit that crystal drought that comes when the side quests end, but new (post-patch) players will hit it with more crystals in their pocket.
We’re like kids in a candy store. We all want to get something tasty, but some of us are heading in with a dollar, while others are walking in with a nice, crisp $20 in hand. And the PQ3 team is the one handing out our allowances.
More crystals = leveling followers more quickly than anyone who completed those side quests pre-patch. This gives those new players faster access to the sweet benefits those higher level followers bring - like better gear and better ability to level that gear. And we know gear score affects -everything- in this game.
As you can imagine, that’s super exciting for these post-patch players! Less exciting for people who missed out. And waaaay less exciting for the people who now need to compete against these crystal-rich players on leader boards.
Leader boards that give premium gems as a reward (directly affecting how and when players will potentially spend money on the game).
This Crystal Discrepancy Honestly Wouldn’t Matter At All, Except:
- Events are Ranked
- PvP is Ranked
- Gear Score and types of gear available directly impact both of these things.
- People with more access to crystals than others now have an advantage that was given to them by the game developers.
- No one likes fighting against a whale. They also don’t like fighting against mini-whales created through in-game inequity accidentally introduced by a well-meaning development team who want their players to have fun.
In summary:
I’ve talked a lot, and hopefully some of it made sense! I would love to see the imbalance addressed, because I dig this game and plan to stick around for a while.
