balancing feedback: sidequests are not worth the effort

[Therlun]

Hiho, after liking the demo I'm now enjoying the game.

I have a number of balancing opinions but one that sticks out for me are the side quests.
I played a bunch of runs with and without going fore them and I feel they are not worth it at all. They require you to reserve a bunch of bench space (especially burdensome and basically unsustainable if you go for two or more quests) and star points for very poor rewards.

The XP reward is fine but lots of events offer a straight up XP option without conditions.
The second reward items for quests are mostly bad. Lucky clover is just terrible, getting a random unit -you don't have- that -maybe- shares a trait you have is just awful. Basically always this comes down to nothing more than a star or two (and the quest costs you three).
The horn is better but still most of the time only really means a couple of stars in the end.
The hardest quest reward can occasionally be good but is also useless a lot of the time.

Overall a lot of resources and wasted opportunity for likely a couple stars doesn't feel worth it.

As a suggestion giving all quest rewards at least one item component would still leave them weak IMO, but might make it worth taking one.

[Jay Ren]

Side Quests might not be too bad if they were like, an additional event on the map, but they almost always require you to pass up much more useful traits/units.

If it was just the cost of making the unit, they'd be OK I think.

[Expat Simulator]

I concur, I find myself taking literally any other event instead.

[Zedja]

Every last sidequest I've seen tells you to sacrifice a Tier II unit. Which means you have to buy 3 of the same unit (sometimes a specific one) to get a bonus. I agree, it's not worth it.

[Lily-an]

支线任务可以改成“获得指定的单位”，而非“获得指定单位后用失去它来换东西”。

[joshygoodboy]

100% agree

[Swampus]

Agreed

[Jay Ren]

I tried to make a sidequest work in recent runs. I think they could also work with /much/ better rewards.

A perk choice without a level up rather then the exp for the final tier might work?
With the lower tiers giving a bit more exp?

Or at least swap the clover out for a duplicator?

Or maybe give the clover when you accept the quest to help make it happon, and give a different reward instead?

Main thing is, even the exp isn't great, because you often end up with leftover exp as is. It essentially moves your level up forwards.... two fights.

[Vorpal]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Therlun:

Hiho, after liking the demo I'm now enjoying the game.

I have a number of balancing opinions but one that sticks out for me are the side quests.
I played a bunch of runs with and without going fore them and I feel they are not worth it at all.

Agreed. I am going to start turning them off.

[scambammer]

I like sidequests

[First_Mesmer]

I actually think the horn is incredibly useful. There are a few options you might get that could be weak early in a run, so I like taking the bounty quest that gives the horn as a reward if that happens. When you're first trying to build up an army the horn can be really powerful for getting you an extra star for two of your common units, or pop it right after unlocking uncommon units. Either way, it has the potential to save you a lot of rerolling early on so you can bank more stars or invest in the vault.

That said, I don't think I've really used the bounty quests beyond that unless I was desperately fishing for EXP to try and get to the Abandon Ship achievement (the final one)! It would be nice if completing higher tier bounties gave you a special shop with units in your army comp, or if there were special choices available later in a run based on how many bounties you completed?

I do agree on the clover though. Pretty much only use it to fish for uncommon/rare units right after unlocking them, but it usually ends up with me just getting ~2 stars from selling something. It would be nice if it was an equipment that made units more common in the shop or something, rather than a one-off consumable? Or maybe combining it with the rainbow potion could make the unit that gets upgraded keep one of it's traits? However it changes, it does feel like it could use a slight buff or rework.

[Unregistered Cargo]

The sidequests for the entire run stay the same. What this means is after taking the first sidequest option allows you to see what the other two are. You can complete those other side quests before even taking them, meaning the reward will be instant if you're planning ahead. I think if they wanted to buff them slightly, the chosen unit should also refund the star points used on the unit (currently you lose the value in star points for the quest unit). This would benefit sidequests as they allow you to remove a unwanted unit potentially pivoting your team-comp as well as gaining a small reward. I think clover is fine, it always gives you a unowned-unit with the shared trait(s) of the unit it is played on, the more units you have, the more you can specify the random unit that clover produces.

[AncientSpark]

I'll usually pick up one sidequest towards the beginning of the game because it's common to do a rolldown at around the point of the first rarity upgrade (either slightly before or after), so it's not a huge burden to pick up one sidequest for that specific point of the game.

But yeah, any sidequests beyond that are usually not worth picking up. And even the first sidequest can be skipped if you see a good event competing against it (like the Library event if you have Incenses).

[Vacaespacial]

I think they are worse than just being bad. They take the spot of a possible good event. They are costly (you spent star points) and you need to actually find a unit to finish the quest. It's too much trouble for little reward compared to the trouble.

[Hemmels]

+1 found this also. Not only are some of the choices mostly irrelevant "Tier 3 *some unit you've never seen*, +5 xp for killing off one of my strongest units doesn't seem the play when store stars are hard enough to come by. Dropping that investment is rarely a good play.

[LanceEteryu]

It just doesn't feel worth the investment. I thought they'd be like... "Win a battle with X active traits" or "Activate X traits on a unit", and stuff like that... Not sacrificing a unit that you had to invest time and stars into.