New quests and quest pools update!

[Ladadoos 1079]

Hello everyone!

An update that has long been overdue: new quests. We are happy to finally be adding many more of them to the game. In total there will be 31 quests, which will hopefully offer a solid variety for the upcoming future. These quests were designed to be not too specific, as to not force people into doing things they wouldn't like. This update also contains the quest pool selection feature where players are able to select from what pool they want to receive daily quests. As of now there are three pools: PvE, PvP and PvE/PvP. You will only receive quests from the chosen pool, so this way PvE players can choose to receive only PvE quests and PvP players only PvP quests. Choosing PvE/PvP means you receive quests that are both PvE and PvP oriented.

We have also been thinking about adding a fourth pool: "Specific PvE". The idea for this pool is that it would contain more specific (a.k.a less generic) PvE quests for those players who want to be more guided/pushed towards certain playstyles/actions. For example, instead of having generic quests like "Win PvE campaign matches" the pool would have quests like "Win Convoy on Advanced difficulty without using T4 units". Let us know via the poll in this thread if this is a pool you would enjoy having and whether or not you would choose it.

In a future update we will be adding new achievements, which will likely take less time to add compared to the quests, so keep an eye out for that update!

Anyways, here is a full list of all the quests in the game:
PvE quests:
- Nyn Won't Save Itself => Win 2 PvE Campaign games
- Conquer Uncharted Lands => Win 2 Random PvE games
- Treasure Hunter => Collect 7 gold chests
- Skylords Unite => Win 2 Random or Campaign PvE games
- Explore the Unknown => Play 3 Random or Campaign PvE games
- A Quest for Booty => Collect all gold chests of a Campaign map
- Rush for Random Riches => Collect all gold chests of a Random PvE map
- Protect The Realm => Win 1 Campaign and 1 Random PvE game
- A Lone Skywolf => Win single-player map X on difficulty Y or higher
- A Dynamic Duo => Win duo map X on difficulty Y or higher
- A Tough Tetrad => Win four player map X on difficulty Y or higher
- The Spice of Life => Play 40 distinct cards in Random or Campaign PvE games
- The Enchanter's Finest => Play 50 spells in Random or Campaign PvE games
- We Are Many => Play 75 units in Random or Campaign PvE games
- Unlimited Power! => Spend 18000 power from cards in Random or Campaign PvE games
- Shady Business => Play 100 cards with shadow orbs in Random or Campaign PvE games
- Back To Your Roots => Play 100 cards with nature orbs in Random or Campaign PvE games
- Spicy Shenanigans => Play 100 cards with fire orbs in Random or Campaign PvE games
- Just Chillin' => Play 100 cards with frost orbs in Random or Campaign PvE games

PvP quests:
- An Answer For Everything => Play 40 distinct cards in PvP games
- The Heart of the Cards => Play 150 cards in PvP games
- We Are Legion => Play 75 units in PvP games
- And Now, For My Next Trick... => Play 50 spells in PvP games
- That's Overpowered => Spend 12000 power from cards in PvP games
- Climbing the Ranks => Win 2 Ranked PvP games
- Remember Your Training => Win 3 Sparring PvP games
- Battle Tourism => Win 2 Sparring PvP games on map X
- Now It's Serious => Player 3 Ranked PvP games
- Jousting Party => Play 4 Sparring PvP games
- Double Trouble => Play 2 2vs2 PvP games

PvE/PvP quests:
This pool contains all the quests from PvP pool and PvE pool plus:
- I'm a Skylord and I'm Okay => Play 3 matches in any game mode

Some extra notes about the quests:
-> The difficulty variable for quests like `A lone Skywolf` are chosen dependent on the players current PvE Rank. Starting from Commander rank the difficulty is Advanced and starting from Highlord the difficulty is Expert (click here for more details about what each rank is).
-> All quests have universally applied requirements to them. These can be seen by hovering with your mouse over the "?" (alongside the new quest pool selectin dropdown). Please see the attached image.

[HalloBob 6]

I think having PvP quests that have "win" in it are not good. When nobody on my skill level is around I have no chance to get my quests done. 

[Lovely 1]

11 minutes ago, HalloBob said:

I think having PvP quests that have "win" in it are not good. When nobody on my skill level is around I have no chance to get my quests done. 

It says you can pick PVE or PvP quests though so that wont be an issue

[Eirias 378]

16 minutes ago, HalloBob said:

I think having PvP quests that have "win" in it are not good. When nobody on my skill level is around I have no chance to get my quests done. 

I agree with this one. If ranked, better just to play 2. Hard enough to find ranked matches in the first place.

[Pritstift 145]

I heard after reset the main community of pvp players will comeback - so this should fix your problems to find an opponent 

[Eirias 378]

8 hours ago, Pritstift said:

I heard after reset the main community of pvp players will comeback - so this should fix your problems to find an opponent 

Eh....still unlikely that you'll find a game in the US timezone. Even if there's 3 of us (which is 2 more than I usually find atm, lol), odds are that all 3 will be pretty different skill level and the bottom 2 wouldn't queue ranked even if they had a quest, because they know they wouldn't win vs their opponent.

[shroomion 30]

there are many user generated missions which are quite playable. make the pve quest include those to give some incentive to play them. maybe make a pool of some of them which are refined enough and such. <- would be my suggestion.

[Cocofang 329]

Are quest rewards final or what's the plan there?

In regards to the "specific PvE" quests, I can see some people using it because they like getting arbitrary challenges. But overall I see it as a small niche. Guess it's up to you if you think the additional development workload for a feature that will be used by very few people is justifiable.

If it's easy to build, I don't see a reason why not. But keep in mind people will optimize their quests. So if you offer more options (different pools), some people will go for the optimal one. If it turns out some specific PvE quests are notably faster than generic PvE quests, people will feel penalized for picking generic PvE. Similarly if it's the other way around.

Same goes for PvP quests, by the way. If it turns out you can churn through your quest log much faster in one quest-mode over the other, people will be incentivized to pick it even if they don't necessarily enjoy it. The crux of game design is trying to make the most optimal approach also the most enjoyable one. Because otherwise you will end up in a situation where people that optimize their gameplay end up hating it while people that don't end up feeling left behind.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Cocofang

[Ladadoos 1079]

3 hours ago, Cocofang said:

Are quest rewards final or what's the plan there?

There are no (concrete) plans to change quest rewards.
 

3 hours ago, Cocofang said:

In regards to the "specific PvE" quests, I can see some people using it because they like getting arbitrary challenges. But overall I see it as a small niche. Guess it's up to you if you think the additional development workload for a feature that will be used by very few people is justifiable.

From the poll so far, seems that about twice as many people want it than people who don't. Not that this says anything yet, but you might be jumping to conclusions too quickly by claiming this is a feature that "will be used by very few people".

[Vysnia 7]

Quote

"Win Convoy on Advanced difficulty without T4 units"

This is great idea to make people play all maps, not only the ones that they like to play.
The question is: is there a way to restrict having T4 cards in a deck for a game? Would T4 spells be allowed? If there is no way to restrict having T4 cards in a deck, what if someone on 4 player map spawns T4 unit?

[Ladadoos 1079]

8 minutes ago, Vysnia said:

The question is: is there a way to restrict having T4 cards in a deck for a game? Would T4 spells be allowed? If there is no way to restrict having T4 cards in a deck, what if someone on 4 player map spawns T4 unit?

There would be no nice way to prevent players from starting a match with T4. How it would work, is that if you finish a match that matches the requirements of a quest, then you finish the quest. Just like all other quests currently work.

[Cocofang 329]

14 hours ago, Ladadoos said:

From the poll so far, seems that about twice as many people want it than people who don't. Not that this says anything yet, but you might be jumping to conclusions too quickly by claiming this is a feature that "will be used by very few people".

Well, like I said it will also depend heavily on what these specific quests will be. At least it seems you can justify the dev time but the tricky part will be the balance because if one pool is significantly worse or better than the others people will get dissatisfied for the reasons I stated.

[VolvoxGlobator 13]

On 11/16/2020 at 10:11 AM, HalloBob said:

I think having PvP quests that have "win" in it are not good. When nobody on my skill level is around I have no chance to get my quests done. 

I fully agree. I think there is already a limit for how long a match has to last (is it 5 min?) So this would prevent a cheesing (plus the difficulty of getting matched with you cheese-buddy).

What might be the issue is for sparing matches, as people then might just quite match after 5 min, ruining whole 2v2 or even 3v3. Not cool. For ranked the winner gets the points, so this is counter value for dick move. For sparring no such thing.
So easy solution is to remove win condition for ranked only.
Is it possible to detect disconnects? But even then it is probably impossible to distinguish "game is already lost, gg, lets rematch, - and quit", vs "cheese-quit"

[Timirbarran 0]

Ok!!!

 

worse update i saw!..... can't do my quests today ! ive renew one to hopefully get better quest !

 

one is to do "Blight" in expert !!!

ive waiting more than one hour to found players! and when founds we've lost it... i can't wait the day until founding good partners with good level and experience just for a quest....

have others things to do than waiting n' waiting !

Its already sometime really long to founds partners 4 simple maps! no pleasure at all!

i wanna see what goin' on some days more! if i have difficulties 4 my daily quest ! i wanna say bye bye!!!

 

 

 

 

 

[RuneSeeker 32]

1 hour ago, Timirbarran said:

Ok!!!

 

worse update i saw!..... can't do my quests today ! ive renew one to hopefully get better quest !

 

one is to do "Blight" in expert !!!

ive waiting more than one hour to found players! and when founds we've lost it... i can't wait the day until founding good partners with good level and experience just for a quest....

have others things to do than waiting n' waiting !

Its already sometime really long to founds partners 4 simple maps! no pleasure at all!

i wanna see what goin' on some days more! if i have difficulties 4 my daily quest ! i wanna say bye bye!!!

 

 

 

 

 

You'll see a lot less players in the game until the reset happens on December 18th. You'll have an easier time finding people to play after Dec 18. 

[Ladadoos 1079]

1 hour ago, Timirbarran said:

Ok!!!

worse update i saw!..... can't do my quests today ! ive renew one to hopefully get better quest !

one is to do "Blight" in expert !!!

ive waiting more than one hour to found players! and when founds we've lost it... i can't wait the day until founding good partners with good level and experience just for a quest....

have others things to do than waiting n' waiting !

Its already sometime really long to founds partners 4 simple maps! no pleasure at all!

i wanna see what goin' on some days more! if i have difficulties 4 my daily quest ! i wanna say bye bye!!!

 

23 minutes ago, RuneSeeker said:

You'll see a lot less players in the game until the reset happens on December 18th. You'll have an easier time finding people to play after Dec 18. 

What RuneSeeker said. Another option that we have is to make the random chosen map as equal as possible for all players for a a given quest, instead of choosing it random per player. So during a certain week, if someone gets the quest "Play map X on difficulty Y", we can make everyone have the same map for that quest (as much as possible, because not everyone has all the maps unlocked). This map would then change every week or few days.

[Volin 403]

50 minutes ago, Ladadoos said:

So during a certain week, if someone gets the quest "Play map X on difficulty Y", we can make everyone have the same map for that quest (as much as possible, because not everyone has all the maps unlocked). This map would then change every week or few days.

With a look on the playerbase perhaps the ideal solution - I like the idea on the first view!

[chickennoodler 20]

I've gotten 3 Expert campaign quests already.... 2 single Player and one for 4 player Blight Expert, hardest map in the game. . . .

 

Oh, and card grind quests, very funny guys. 1st, pve or campaign required. T4 cards have very low charges, i need 100-50 card charges to finish these. I can smash the average advance difficulty campaign pve map with 30 cards in 1 color. . . . Tedious.

Take a good guess about how I actually clear this quest efficiently and you will probably see the flaw in card charge quests. That's right, think of all those poor dead sun striders I got the banzai lord to kill and apologize!!

 

[Mynoduesp 179]

Idk if forcing player into a specific expert mode is ever a good idea.

Forcing players to play certain difficulty (depending on their PvE rank) is okay. You still leave the player the choice where he*she wants to complete the quest. 

Forcing players to play certain maps I can get behind. Going back to an earlier map in the story (which I normaly don't play) is always fun and forcing a bit of story progress isn't hurting. 

The problem lies in the combination. It's quite restrictive, especially to newer players. This will be even more apparent after the reset. 

[LEBOVIN 264]

It does feel more like achievement kind of thing

[Volin 403]

I personally don't like the fact that each quest can only be re-rolled once. This has led to a PVP quest in my log, which I can't get rid of - but also can't and don't want to complete.

I think it's ok that you can only re-roll one quest per day - that should probably be the case. But if you remove the limit that each quest can only be re-rolled once, this would probably lead to less "dead" quests in peoples logs

 

[Ghostrider 2]

On 11/16/2020 at 4:23 AM, Lovely said:

It says you can pick PVE or PvP quests though so that wont be an issue

I was not given the option to select pvp or pve it came up pvp i rerolled and still got win 2 pvp matches, I dont play nor do I like pvp in general. I personally feel that I am not alone in this category. New maps would be awesome and new cards like shadow nature mix , or shadow fire mix, this would be fun to play with new cards. or maybe after expert the maps become PRO :)

[Ladadoos 1079]

You can select your quest pool using the dropdown and quests you reroll should reroll into quests of your current pool.

[Ghostrider 2]

3 minutes ago, Ghostrider said:

I was not given the option to select pvp or pve it came up pvp i rerolled and still got win 2 pvp matches, I dont play nor do I like pvp in general. I personally feel that I am not alone in this category. New maps would be awesome and new cards like shadow nature mix , or shadow fire mix, this would be fun to play with new cards. or maybe after expert the maps become PRO :) I strongly believe the pvp quest is lopsided Players who awesome at it easily overpower and outplay those who are still building, trying to learn or like me dont play it, maybe place players in same rank ability or experience so it makes more fair for all playing.

 

[Zyna 467]

@Ghostrider