Well we didn't have the luxury of knowing what the full riddle was until the last one was released 9 months after the first one was released. So the final scroll could have said "take us" for all we know.

I wouldn't object to not including riddles on the item(s) themselves, but could we at the very least not have them exist in the descriptions of other items? Make us go somewhere so an NPC can give us a riddle or something (like a random event, if you refresh a few times at Merana she'll give you a riddle, for instance, but her usual text wouldn't need to be changed). Just don't put it in an item's description when we won't even need the item in the end.

I would have been fine with it taking both the sphinxes and the riddles, but not just the sphinxes, not when you didnt even need the riddles to ever have been on your account.

Eh, I've got a big battle pet, and even I agree that we don't necessarily need big challengers linked to non-battle items. The cash shop challenger items are clearly for challengers(or wearables), for example, whereas the riddle trinket prizes were wearables and not weapons, so I figured the scrolls would probably lead to at least some sort of item prize, maybe one that could be used to unlock a challenger if you wanted to. Most of the people buying the scrolls weren't people interested in battling, and while I think encouraging people to get into battling is nice, some people just aren't interested. I mean, for example, on other games I've played PVP/raid activities are popular, but I was never interested at all and it was very annoying when other things required those unnecessarily, so I can see how it would be annoying here.

Also, while I can still use the scrolls to read to my pet at least, I agree that it's ridiculous they weren't required to solve the riddle. The trinkets were needed, so it logically followed that we should need the scrolls. A precedent was set, and it only made sense to follow it. I don't agree with having riddles on items not required for them. At the very least, if you don't want to attach a riddle to the item needed, put it somewhere else.

[edit] because I'm an idiot.

The "can you read my mind" Trivia Questions that killed that feature, and the scavenger hunts that nobody could guess the next step even when more (broad?) hints were dropped were not very fun. Staff here makes a very cryptic puzzle-setter, and I just don't enjoy any game like that here. I was fully expecting the final solution to be something completely unguessable by internal logic or consistency and saved out extra tons of sP to make up for it.

Thank you for the answer wolf_spirit.

...Bean literally has/had nothing to do with the Trivia or the scavenger hunts, aside from drawing some prizes for them.

I don't even know why people are so upset over buying books. Read them to your pets, stick them in a TC, or sell them. It's not hard. You could not have picked a better item out of these sets to accidentally buy.

I pinged you here? I can't find it lol

I'm glad I somehow had forgotten about the riddle. Though I did end up with an extra of the spring tablets. I'm hoping that was because I wanted something else it transforms into and not because of the riddle.

Mainly glad because the battle opponent doesn't interest me nor do the loot drops.

This does annoy me, I won't lie. Because I bought (almost) two sets of those assholes (one to read and one to keep for this, because the trinkets in mind, led me to believe the scrolls would be related to this) so I really have no use for the other 3 extras-- because no I can't just resell them. Two are already at 4m so the chances of me selling them for even 3.5m is slim.

I haven't been active on subeta much at all so I don't feel particularly inclined to buy the minions but assuming the site magically wows me (spoiler alert: this didn't help) idk.. maybe eventually I'll worry about getting this challenger.

I stupidly thought I'd have to solve all the trinket riddles in order to get the big riddle at the end, so I got all the trinkets...not really interested in those prizes though :(

Just putting in my two cents- I also thought the point of this whole thing would be to have all of the scrolls in your inventory or something. I mean, otherwise, what is even the point? Four 5mil sp books? Gee, thanks. It just seems like we were led on to believe we'd need the riddle items, when in reality, we needed something else entirely.

Disclaimer: While I purchased all the reliefs myself, I never opened them. My reasoning was that I'd get different items if I didn't like the riddle prize. I do plan to go and get the minions, as I have a battle pet, but the people who were less cautious than I shouldn't be penalized. (Penalized to pay an extra 15mil+ sp for minions.)

Well, at this point, what has been said previously is pretty much what I wanted to say, just 4 pages late to the party.

I almost kind of disliked that there were actually TWO riddle-like puzzles going on at the same time. I got confused when opening the Winter relief and couldn't figure out which one was needed to get the challenger (note: did not buy the others cause I was waiting for the final one to see if it was worth getting at all), so I bought the trinket instead of the scroll.

To me, this just adds to the dilemma of "scrolls weren't needed" established problem.

However, I'd say at this point staff now knows how to improve this in the future. I was confused about about this series since Day 1, and I'm a little miffed that the prize is in fact a challenger. Not because it's difficult or out of reach for Elfric (:p), but because it almost encourages a gamble to participate as soon as it starts, instead of waiting to see what the ultimate prize is and whether it was worth it in the end or not. And it sounds like people have a right to feel disappointed in the end prize here, because battling is its own niche.

But, i don't agree with the complaints and jabs about the prize being for "super statted, battle pets". The prize could have been a wearable, or a food item, and some other group would probably have complained. BCers generally don't care enough to complain except for battle loot not containing a weapon, scroll or stat booster. The fact that the prize was actually a challenger surprised me. So, don't discredit our passion just because a prize or something new doesn't cater to yours.

I don't have problems with paying extra at the MC, and I'm definitely grateful I waited as long as I did (cause i'd have done the same as everyone else and bought the scrolls). I'm grateful that the BC has been very spoiled this year, and I hope it continues! (wow this got lengthy)

Wow, I just collected the minions because I'm addicted to them - who knew they would be so detrimental to the riddle? XD

I've only read about half the comments, but this is my problem with the whole thing. One of the minions was NOT part of the Sphinx Relief and is now at "off season" pricing. I didn't assume that the scrolls would be needed, but bought extra Sphinx Reliefs, each season, to have for whatever MIGHT be needed. Now one of the items has nothing to do with the Reliefs and to me that was just misleading and wrong. All in all I had fun with the riddles, but if we have to buy the Autumn Spinx, it should at least be included in the current MC items. Actually I don't see why it couldn't have been added to the Autumn Sphinx Relief itself.

Was there any warning that visiting the wizard with the sphinxes in your inventory would consume all of them? I didn't see any. It's disappointing that I ended up throwing 17,000,000+ SP away on a challenger I'll never be strong enough to beat.

There was no warning, but most of us assumed it would be the case since the same happened with the trinkets.

You bring up an interesting point though. Since you don't have to explicitly opt-in to the riddle or anything, it's entirely possible that someone could trigger it by accident. I suppose the same could be said about the trinkets, too, even though they require a bit more effort than just visiting a page.

Maybe in the future, riddles and activities like this should trigger a dialogue with an NPC or something, like a random event? So you would have to follow a link and confirm that you want to trade the sphinxes/trinkets/whatever for the prize.

- Do you know if something like that would be possible?

is bringing a good point, if for example someone who didn't solve the riddle yet, leaves the minions in the inventory for some reason (example: just bought them and didn't move the minions to the gallery) and goes to do the wizard quests, poof the minions are gone for this user, without any warning.

I am so glad I waited until the Winter Sphinx was released before even trying solving the main riddle, especially since I am way to weak to fight in the battle coliseum. Now I can wait and buy them all at normal price next year and I didn't waste money on the book/scrolls etc. I wish all battlers weren't just fro top tier pets however, it really sucks.

There are many lower tier challengers. This challenger isn't just for top tier pets. it's probably ~t10, which is far from top tier. It makes sense that challengers people pay for are for higher tier pets, because those are the people who have spent time and sP on battling already. if someone who has a low tier pet wants more things to battle, they should put more effort into training and work towards the challengers that are out.

I train every day, but at the moment with my tier 5 and weapons I am sorta stuck and cant really battle a lot, I have done everything I can in the coliseum for now and every challenger I unlock is just out of reach, frustrating to say none the less, the battle quest do however keep me busy.