">Given that we were recently given a heads-up that any loopholes for Sarah's quests will be closed up (including trading sP to friends and making a private group for sP storage), it might be a good idea to permanently remove her from the quest-a-thon questgiver pool.

Most of Subeta's users are already well over the 500k limit for Sarah's quests, so it would literally be impossible to do her quests and help reach the quest-a-thon goal without using exploits in some way or another. It's unreasonable to have her as a quest-a-thon questgiver if only a small percentage of users can do her quests. Especially because that small percentage of users would then have to spend nearly all of the sP they've earned from other quests in order to keep doing Sarah's quests for the duration of the quest-a-thon. Lowering the end requirement for quest-a-thons to make up for removing Sarah's quests would also be nice, but I'm not sure on the statistics of it. How much of a percentage of completed quest-a-thon quests were Sarah's quests in the total of completed quests? It might not be necessary to lower the requirement if the percentage was low enough to begin with.

Second of all, Sarah's payout is... impressive, to say the least. It's very easy to go over her 500k limit by completing her quests alone. I remember easily hitting up to 700k profit from her with a GA during quest-a-thons. Unless you're doing only her quests for 15 days straight (without a GA) and regularly spending almost all of your sP, it's not possible to get the achievements without using exploits. Especially if you're already a long-term user with a stash of sP you're saving for gifting, or personal goals. Consider retiring the achievements for her quests, but giving the users a heads-up about it.

Unrestrict her quests, lower her payout. Having quests "for newbies" makes little sense - they all aren't difficult and most aren't expensive. Newbies should start with wiz quests. If they want a "newbie quest", limit it based on account age and not sP. That gives you more information on if the user is really a newbie and would probably be easier to restrict.

Supporting what's been said here.

I understand wanting to have a way to introduce new users to quests since they're a big part of the site. But there are definitely some issues with the current setup that need to be worked out if the rules regarding loopholes are going to change or be more strictly enforced in the future.

I think the only reason they kept the whole "quest for newbies" idea is because of Amy (RIP :'(). She originally ran the newbie quests and Sarah picked them up after she died. I agree that there's not much of a reason for Sarah's quests to be around because all quests give out sP by the spadeful, but I didn't want to be too drastic and suggest removing her from the site altogether because they would be closing up the loopholes.

Restricting it by account age could work, but again - no reason for her to be in the quest-a-thon and the achievements would be impossible for older or returning users to get.

I'm not entirely sure about retiring the achievement - I'm certainly not against it, since it's weird in concept to make yourself poor to get it, but then that's a challenge in itself. They're also not as numerous as the other quest-giver tiers. I went on a shopping spree to make myself poor enough, getting a bunch of retired SBQ stuff for those achievements and buying things from my WL, so at least staying under the limit was actually productive for me.

I do agree about bumping her off of the quest-a-thon list though. It's a lot easier for people to just not worry about her.

that's just me being a pedant, tho, all of the complaints are valid regardless. if you're closing the loopholes she's not really an option for quest-a-thons, since it's too much of a pain to keep under 500k to finish her quests; i would advocate for her either being dropped from questing events or her restriction removed.

if her quests are left restricted, they should be opened during quest-a-thons as an incentive/to encourage people to work on her achievement.

That's why I said unrestrict her, make a new quest for newbies if that's absolutely necessary. That way, questathon can stay as-is and achievements can stay unretired. Imo we don't even need a newbie quest.

Or this could work. She already runs the "how to get more sP" page, so she's still helping people for the sake of lore. But I'm also the kind of person who doesn't need lore as a motivation for characters being there.

And maybe we could add more tiers?

Wizard Quests do make more sense as a sort of newbie quest anyway, since it also introduces people to Wizard tokens which are used for lots of various things on site.

But yeah, most of the quests are pretty easy to do anyway so having specific quests for newbies seems a bit unnecessary now.

Having it sP restricted just doesn't make sense because there's always the loophole - send all your sP to your friend via a trade and hope your friend gives you the sP back when you're done. The achievements and Quest-a-thon incentivize exploiting these loopholes and it's not fair to older users who never exploited the loopholes in the past to retire the achievements or to patch these loopholes up now so they'll never be able to get the achievements - since some people joined before the achievements and had well over 500k when these achievements were added. I'm less concerned about the Quest-a-thon. Number of quests/days that lasts can always be manipulated to account for the change.

Sorry, I misread your first post. :'D That makes more sense. And I agree that we don't really need a newbie quest, but then again it's been bloody ages since I've been a newbie on Subeta. Back in my day, we didn't even have quests.

Though now that I think about it, unrestricted, she'd just be another sP influx even if the payout was lowered. The restriction currently puts a bit of a cap on how many users can do her quests for sP. I'm not sure how big of a difference it would make for the site if her quests were removed/retired altogether? I wonder how many people even do her quests to begin with, besides quest-a-thons?

that's an entirely different issue though. maybe just make her quests not pay out sP and leave them there for achievements only. or only have her quests opened for everyone during whatever holiday commemorates Amy's death (survival? idk) so people can get the achievements then

I mean, quests are a little bit out of control as they currently are right now, with or without her. The only problem between me and most of my WL is just how much time I feel like dedicating to quests but I think that's a different thread for a different day.

She could just give out items, which is probably better for the economy anyway?

I think we used to have a something akin to a memorial for Amy with some child NPCs giving out a different free gift every couple of days or something? I don't think we really have a proper holiday for commemorating her death, so Survival would probably be the best site holiday for that idea. Survival lasts for about 2 weeks if I remember right, which would give everyone an option to get the current achievements for her quests done. Plus, she could give out memorial flowers, maaaaaybe a chance at some old v-day items as well as the standard questpoints.

Yup, but I'd be hesitant to add another unrestrained influx of sP to the quest list, y'know? And yeah, I wouldn't mind her giving out items occasionally, but I kind of dig Kbbob's idea with having her open her quests up for everyone during Survival and have her manage the newbie guide/tutorial year-round.

I think holidays are kind of busy enough, to be honest. I can't be the only one to skip out quests in favour of joining contests and earning candy hearts, and collecting flowers for the site, etc. I was thinking of items only, in that she wouldn't give out sP at all (or kbbob's idea of just leaving her there for achievements only).

This might be a agree to disagree thing here.

Eh, the way I see it, there's no harm in brainstorming about it! That's why I made the topic. c: I'm not die-hard clung to the suggestion of her being strictly tied to Survival, I just thought it was a neat idea to keep the whole "memorial to Amy" thing going.

Personally, gathering candy hearts is kind of an easy-going thing for me because I stick with friends and I'm not that into wearables, so a pile of them built up over the years. :'D I do understand that some people need all the things once for the wardribe, and then some for TCs and gourmand (I did that for the food trucks). It's just... when you've been here for nearly 13 years, the holidays get a little bit repetitive even with shiny new things in the shops every year.

maybe when we have a holiday that gives event items, just make her the quest that gives those out. not relating to a certain holiday, just any holiday that gives out items. I kind of don't think this would happen though because sometimes multiple different holiday items are given out during quests and say morostide only goes to quentin and keelhauliday goes to carl or whatever, and this way wouldn't allow for that. but it's an idea.

That's another good idea, but I'm torn on it because I kind of like the thematic thing we have going on for old holiday items (Quentin for Morostide, Carl for Keelhauliday, etc., like you've said). x) Perhaps she could give out guaranteed holiday items while the other quests have a chance to give them out? Or would that be too much old stuff going out?

idk, limit her quests to 3 (5 for GAs) and that could balance it better than 10(15) and make the achievement a bit tougher

When you've been here for three years, you've gotta catch up with every event, especially when staff keep adding achievements for things in the shops (which are fine, I would rather those shops). For me, something new on top what is already there is just inherently stressful. I was so upset with those bouquets came out during Vensali.