Event: The Matchmaker
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Posted 2023-03-12 13:49:11
A lot of rework is desired and I'm not talking about bugs (except for Lovebugs) as I believe devs The event has provided us two minigames glued in: matching and dating. Matching feels like lost potential to make our wolves fall in love with other wolves for rewards. There are generated wolves that don't belong to any player which we date between each other according to banner color set. Trying to boost points for slightly better rewards, we aim to give them liked gifts and pick a biome that would give the greatest bonus. We generate more wolves by activity and daily quest which is somewhat cool but alternate ideas of how we'd get the wolves would be better, for example directly from exploring befriendable wolves (currently we can do it only via daily quest) or sacrificing random wolves (good for wolf market). Dating sounded cool at first with revealing traits, likes and dislikes but then we do the same things with the same NPCs until min/max then we date solely for event currency. The affection pointing system seems to strongly favor gifting over anything else (-/+11 daily in which 6 are from gifts) put together to the point that we can get min or max any NPC on a whim within 5-10 days assuming we know what the NPC likes/dislikes. I wish it was more challenging to have our lead's looks and personalities be more important than just gifts. It'd give greater variety of affection allocation between NPCs and it might feel like the NPCs have somehow more control over whether they like us or not. Also, constant affection change is boring, give more components to this that would make every next day different. Some ideas regarding these issues:
Also, not this big issue but I sometimes wished NPC likes and dislikes were randomized between players. I liked the concept of finding NPC traits through dating but meanwhile I read chat and sometimes caught spoilers regarding which gifts were liked before I learnt from the NPC. I know it might be inconsistent with the NPC's lore so it'd be great if only some traits were randomized, different for each NPC, while some of them would be the same to match the lore. It might give an incentive to implement NPC trait exchange, which means we might trade the NPC likes/dislikes with another player's NPC which would be a great solution for those who look for -8/+8 date achievement and don't want to change their lead's appearances. And one more thing, there's an inconsistency regarding emotions: NPCs with affection below -24 have scowling emotions but given disliked gift express disgust which look less angry. I don't think such expression suits there. Lore items - flowers and gems - would be better if they didn't exist. Gifting would be fine with only 4 types (food, amusement, herbs, decoration). I feel happy with these items given a bit more value for this event and that could be all. Look at the prices for flowers and gems. These new items are simply junk which is an insult for what is supposed to be a synonym of pretty and precious, respectively. Lovebug gain is very disproportional between activities. While actively exploring, I could gain around 100 LB daily. If I was devoted into matching wolves this actively, I could get around 15 new wolves (5 from daily quests, 10 from hourly clicking). A pair of wolves with 3 dates can yield 9 LB (3 good dates * 2 LB + 3 LB for matching) of reward but after a single good dating it's 4-5 LB. I can assume it's around 2.5 LB per wolf. It means 15 wolves is 37.5 LB of gain if they don't end up trashed. 37.5 LB gain from matching compared to 100 LB from exploring sounds discouraging to match wolves at all. Now, we go with dates: every NPC will yield 13 LB daily as long as we don't keep their affection below -20. We don't have to care about gifts, likes or dislikes - just click to date every 15 minutes, send random junk for a gift and there's pure profit. 24 NPCs yield 312 LB daily. That's huge but it's just for this year - next year we'll get at least 18 for each gender (based on current NPCs with male preference) which would be 234 LB daily - still too much. I suggest to remove explore encounters giving LB since matching and dating will be enough while exploring would support these games by giving wolves for matching and a chance to find a dateable wolf. It'd make this event a bit more unique since all event currency is available through exploring during this far implemented events. Regarding matching-dating proportion - I suggest adjust dating LB reward according to affection so player may aim to min/max. Example idea: after date, depending on the NPCs final affection, we gain 1 LB for each 5 affection or -3 affection - the further from 0, the more affection we get. Also, make 2 LB gain for each unique gift and 1 LB (or none) for each repeating gift. This event leaves much to be desired regarding game mechanics. However, there's been plenty of things I liked: artists deserve approbation for well done work for this event with unique design of different NPCs with different emotions. But I believe it's not the artist fault. I also adore brave NPC speech prompting either extremely good or extremely bad reactions. The achievements were really well thought, encouraging players to use eye changers or base changers to achieve goals. I hope for the next year you'll also add some extreme matching thresholds to achieve, such as +19 match or -19 match, which is technically possible but needs a great amount of luck and attention. |
 Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 13:56:32
So first, I just want to agree with you on one thing. Matching has lost its potential. I dread it now. But also, about what you said on dating, while it being more challenging would be nice, it's also easy for newer players to get what they want out of the event. If it's too challenging, it would be difficult to get LB and it would be dreadful. Also, when you stated gifts, I think lore gifts are amazing, since it doesn't drain my food, amusement, deco, and herbs. I dread giving dateable npcs my decor. Hopefully I got your wording right, and I'm not trying to pick a fight. Just trying to find things to even the argument out. |
WolfFox 🐺 🦊 #66302 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 14:11:33
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Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 14:19:36
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WolfFox 🐺 🦊 #66302 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 14:21:51
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Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 14:36:23 (edited)
Biggest thing I wish is that we would have been warned ahead of time that the chosen gender might affect our dating prospects (and hopefully by next year they will even that up properly), and that the randomly generated wolves for matching were... a bit better configured. At one point I had all 10 slots filled and not one of my wolves could date each other because nobody's preferences aligned. Also I would suggest going in the other direction with gifts - the lore gifts I have an excess of but few wolves like them, most of them seeming to prefer the items I am less willing to part with (and as a new player I would not have wanted to part with them at all). Decor especially seems a bit unbalanced so at the very least I might remove that from the running. But it did seem odd to have lore gifts be easily findable and then have so little use for them. I would like to see lore gifts remain but be the primary items favored by dateable wolves. Otherwise I feel like I'm going to be feeding a lot of gems to the raccoon. Also maybe a bit more transparency as to what determines "a lot in common" versus "a little in common" when matching, because I'm struggling to understand that mechanic. Every so often a wolf will LOVE instead of simply like a gift, too, and I never figured out what makes that happen. I actually kind of liked how easy lovebugs are to earn, but I also don't fuss much about in-game markets. I just sort of like to play more idly and casually enjoy features, but I realize that isn't everybody's cup of tea and that a lot of folks prefer more of a challenge. |
 Lyrak #18619 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 14:38:11 (edited)
And in terms of earning LB, dating should be changed rather than encounters. Gifting should give 2 instead of 3, and the dates should give 5 instead of 10. If one has 18 NPCs, that's 126 LB a day. (Or if gifting stays the same but dating is lowered to 5, it would be 144 daily.) On top of the daily quest, matchmaking, and encounters, I'd think that should provide players with plenty of LB to get whatever they want by the end while not completely oversaturating them with it. 234 daily feels like way too much when you consider that finishing the questline (both branches) only gives 200. Though this should be taken with a grain of salt, as I've been very active this event and have gotten an insane amount of LB as a result. New/casual players could very well have a different perspective. |
 Whirligig #11137 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 15:25:10
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 Food? #20022 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 15:33:25
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WolfFox 🐺 🦊 #66302 |
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Posted 2023-03-12 15:33:59
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Dżanek #24018 |