Positive feedback time!

I don't know if it was planned or a last-minute decision, but I really appreciate staff switching from item drives to quests for the competition over Esther.

Doing all nine or ten of them can be pretty time-consuming, and I realize not everyone has that much time to dedicate to the site, but quests feel like a far more balanced team effort over a couple of people donating 10k items or more to a drive while a lot more donate maybe 500 or less.

Item drives are a good way to get a lot of items off site, but some people were having trouble affording them and quests are obviously way easier on the site in general. I'm still getting some 502s, but nothing like before.

You might disagree, but I hope the staff keeps them in mind for future events we might have where we pick teams! c:

I quite liked it too. I don't do all these quests on a daily basis so to see what other quest givers offer was interesting for once. I will always prefer questing over donating but that's just me. X3

Also- lovely HA.

I'm going to echo the positive sentiment. While I understand the desire to use the NPC recruitment as an item sink method, it ended up being a lot easier for me to generate items via vending than to individually hunt out, remove, then turn in items from my vault. Quest incentive, on the other hand, inadvertantly netted me a lot of extra sp that I otherwise might have been too lazy to pursue myself (and don't worry, economists, I'm sinking it all right back out via pet training I assure you).

Quests are also nice in that it gets people actively buying from user shops, and while it's not as effective of an item sink as direct donations, it still does the job of removing common items from the site.

I think it's a lot better this way. I'd been aiming to complete all available quests each day before this change, but trying to get them done since the plot started has been maddening. So many 502s and other errors. This way seems to be much easier on the servers. Plus it's far less tedious than trying to turn in a pile of items!

I prefer questing to item drives as well, but I think starting a few hours before reset was kind of a wash -- not because my team isn't doing well, but because it cut anyone who could only check in during the first half of the day or who was sleeping at the time of the news announcement for out of the first day of Esther's event, which imo was kind of rude. I know that we're an American site and the plot is on a pretty strict timeline so this was probably unavoidable, but I think the move was kind of harsh on the international user base regardless -- I'm on the west coast, so the news was lunchtime for me but I saw a few posts from users who'd only caught the news because they checked in at like two in the morning. I mean, I have no suggestions for solving this, I just feel very much like kermit making the face.jpg when I remember the timing problem inherent in site-wide events, and starting this one six hours before reset... didn't really help lmao.

Totally agree. I think the last time I did all the quests was for the Quest-A-Thon because pet slots. This earns me a lot of quest points too, which I usually have a very pitiful stash of.

And thank you. ❤️

I agree on that part. I could have done double the quests but when it was announced I was sadly deeply asleep since I live in Europe. XD

But I did all I could today so I hope I helped a little at least. c:

It's better than item drives, but I feel that at this point - anything would be better than an item drive.

:D

The only thing I would prefer for the quest activities is if they started at midnight and lasted 24 hours.

I feel like doing it mid-day is a bit poorly planned. There are people who can't be online between 5pm-12am Subeta time, while some people (like me) got to do both batches of quests for their team. Midnight would be ideal as far as fairness and availability goes, but I understand that it probably can't be done this time due to plot progression.

Other than that, I prefer questing vs donating items. :'| Then again, there's a cap on how many quests you can do vs. how many items you can donate. So maybe having a donation cap per user (500 items or so?) might help with killing the site less? I dunno.

must bake 100 items at bakery, that should be the next thing

So first off, I do prefer the quests to donation for many reasons listed by others (coughless site killing and sP spendingcough). However, there is a big important difference between them that kind of sucks in general - sharing weight.

Item drives can be conquered by a few who over compensate for those that are not able (or willing) to carry their own weight. Quest counts cannot be. That would be okay if this mini quest-a-thon did not have these drawbacks: 1. It came without warning (kind of expected given the plot, but still); 2. It was not at the start of the day (midnight); and 3. It is in the middle of the week with a short deadline. This really disadvantages people in other time zones and the weekend warriors. Sephora donations at least started on a weekend, so that helped some. I just feel bad for those who WOULD participate more, but cannot due to these three things.

Otherwise, Quests are WAY better than Donations. Last night, the quests were Hell, thanks to lag and errors. This morning when I did my second set, lag was gone (though I still hit errors) so it was much nicer. But now there is nothing more I can do for my team, which is a shame.

that's why i feel bad about timing things like this ; w; questing is something pretty much anyone can do, so it's really disheartening to start an event people actually want during a time loads of people can't get on to participate. sleep is important! no one should have to develop future vision and wake up at one in the morning for fear of missing a six-hour window for anything, imo :c

Sorry to be the party pooper, but questing makes it hard to make up for inactive users / people that join but don't participate in the plot. I would rather see some activity that does not have a limit to how much one person can participate. That way if it is at a bad time or lack of team participation, those that are here can work harder at the activity.

I am not saying go back to donating, just have something that does not have a limit to how much you can help your team.

must bake 100 items at bakery, that should be the next thing

The next NPC could give a team an instant win and I would still nope the hell out of that one.

Made me do more quests again which meant more sP to help my team... the cycle goes on and I am thankful for the change.

I really prefer questing to item drives - I think it's nice knowing you've helped your team as much as you can if you do all your quests. It's a lot less stressful than item drives and requires a lot less time and sP.

Also Subeta seems to have a lot less errors now compared to item drive days xD

Thanks for the change :) [edit]

... I second on the baking idea xD Nope.

This was a nice change it terms of less lag/stress on the servers, but it was very poorly executed.

Starting a questing race with no prior warning and only a six hour window before reset is extremely imbalanced to those who would have loved to help out their team, but could not be around whether it be due to work, sleep, etc. The best thing about team efforts is that you are able to help out those members who maybe can't [or don't] participate in certain parts. With quests, one person can only do so much, and when you limit one person, you limit the team as a whole.

I really hope staff pays more attention to this going forward.

The quest idea could have been awesomely integrated if it was a separate quest from our dailies... make the quest givers Matlal or Kahaetzil depending on team... and have a super small reward on them (say the official shop price of the item returned or maybe a piece of junk that we can turn in on a later part of the plot.) Allow us to do as many as we want/can, etc.

[edit] I also want to say that everyone should join their team's ping groups, I know that both teams have things that they are doing to help out with the burden/cost of these events. ;)

This was definitely a nice change of pace after two donation drives in a row. But like some others have said, the quest limit favors the team with the greater number of active players. That's totally fair, but I hope the next NPC challenge is different. If we have another quest-a-thon, the results are basically going to be the same. That's not very exciting.

The other thing that I personally don't like about the change to quests/limited activities is that it is a "one and done". There is little or no interaction necessary on the teams and once you are done with your stack, it's done. I've quite enjoyed getting to know my other group members and cooperating with them... I felt like I was important to my team even when I was out of money, because I could still do something to help others. And I missed that today.