Island Quest rebalancing

Island quests are available on islands with farming villages. These quests allow you to tackle challenges that scale with your progress in the game, rewarding you with valuable items and enabling you to obtain coins of war and wisdom, which can be used to level up heroes.

From March to May 2017 this system was reworked in order to keep these quests attractive for players in all game stages.

Summary of changes

The main goal of the island quest rework was to scale island quests better with player progression, to make quests more challenging and rewards more valuable. Additional focus was put on removing some inconveniences and blockers, as well as improving the overall layout of the feature to make it more understandable and convenient.

Iterations

The changes were implemented in several iterations, to allow for testing and changes after player feedback. Some iterations were only available for beta testing while others were also implemented on live worlds.

First iteration

With the first iteration, the use of mythical units for quests asking to dispatch troops was enabled, calculation for coins of war and wisdom were changed to take world speed into consideration and unit reinforcement effects were adjusted to allow for better scaling.

Additional adjustments were made to the way the difficulty of each quest is determined. Only the biggest city on an island is taken into account so that newly founded cities won't result in easy quests and hence less valuable rewards.

Second iteration

For the second iteration, island quest difficulty calculations were changed to be determined by game progression. The goal was to achieve a better scaling of quests and rewards. From 250,000 points onward, new challenges and better rewards are offered.

Furthermore several in-game rewards were adjusted to allow for better balancing, e.g. with resource bonuses regaining value in later game phases. A special focus was put on island quest rewards to ensure that their value remains similar across all reward types, to not push players to only finish certain quests and drop others.

Third iteration

In the third iteration, the algorithm that defines when and how often island quests appear was adjusted to enable everyone who was absent for longer periods of time to start working on island quests soon after their return to the game.

Fourth iteration

In the fourth iteration, feedback was considered and several bonus effects became non-stackable after these effects became too powerful when activating several at the same time.

Fifth iteration

With the fifth iteration, quests will be moved to appear inside the regular quest log. This change enables everyone to see all island quests at a glance, instead of being required to check the city overview for new available quests.

Comparison Chart

The list of individual changes to items, calculations and effects is exhaustive. The following list should give you an overview about the most important changes.

Feature	Old System	New System
Quest objective: Rally Troops	No mythical units can be sent. Objective asks for a certain amount of troops to be dispatched.	Mythical units can be sent. Objective asks for troops equivalent to population amount to be dispatched.
Difficulty calculation for Island Quests	Average points accumulated with all cities on an island are used to determine difficulty.	Points accumulated with farthest progressed city on an island is used to determine difficulty.
Possible difficulty levels for quests	18	24
Game progression levels	3	4
Quest appearance intervals	2, 4 or 8 hours Dependent on game progression level.	2, 4, 8 or 12 hours Dependent on game progression level.
Quests after more than 24 hours of absence	Appeared only after set interval.	At least one quest available after login.
Maximum amount of quests present at the same time	10	6
Maximum amount of quests accepted at the same time	4	3
Areas to determine available island quests	City overview & island	City overview, island & quest log

General changes

Some item changes affect rewards that are available in several areas of the game, not only within the island quest system.

Items

The following items had their values adjusted when given through in-game events and island quests. This does not affect items obtained via promotions or shop offers. Furthermore there are different calculations for coin rewars earned through island quests.

Item	Old System	New System
	Multiplier: Item level	Multipliers: Item level, game progression
	Duration: 30 minutes per item level	Duration: 60 minutes per item level
	Multiplier: Item level	Multipliers: Item level, world speed
	Multipliers: Item level, world speed	Multipliers: Item level, world speed, game progression
	50% per effect	250% per item level

Unit Reinforcement Calculations

Base values of some Unit Reinforcement effects were increased in order to keep them balanced throughout all progression levels and gained unit amounts close to previously known numbers.

Item	Base value (old)	Base value (new)
	4	6
	4	5
	4	6
	4	6

The values of Unit Reinforcement effects are determined as follows: base value*world speed*game progression factor.

Difficulty Levels and Rewards

The main focus of the island quest rebalancing was to make sure that quests remain equally challenging and rewarding throughout all levels. Therefore a big portion of changes was made in regards to difficulty levels and rewards.

Quest difficulty

Quest difficulty is determined by game progression level and progression of the biggest city on an island.

Game progression level	Points acquired (old)	Points acquired (new)
1	<10,000	<10,000
2	10,000-49,999	10,000-49,999
3	>50,000	50,000-249,999
4	not available	>250,000

Previously there were only 3 progression levels in place. This amount has now been increased to 4. Additionally a 10th challenge factor was added that is used to better determine the rewards for each quest.

Furthermore the required city points for each level have been adjusted to no longer take the average amount of points across all cities on an island into consideration. Just the biggest city on each island is used to determine the challenge factor for quests on that island.

Quest challenge factor	Average points (old)	Biggest city points (new)
1	<300	<750
2	300-500	750-1499
3	501-800	1500-2499
4	801-1500	2500-3999
5	1501-2750	4000-5499
6	2751-5000	5500-7499
7	5001-7500	7500-9499
8	7501-11000	9500-11999
9	>11000	12000-14999
10	not available	>14999

Quest difficulty is calculated with the following formula: game progression level * quest challenge factor.

Island Quest Reward Changes

All rewards should be equally valuable across all game stages to prevent cherry-picking of quests.

The following table shows old and new reward types and their effects for comparison.

Reward Type		Reward (old)	Reward (new)
Coins of Wisdom/War	Item	Coins of Wisdom/War	Coins of Wisdom/War
	Effect	Amount does not scale with world speed.	Amount scales with world speed. (Maximum multiplier: 4)
Improved Resource Production	Item	Improved Resource Production	Improved Resource Production
	Effect	Production increased by 50% per effect.	Production increased by 250% per item level.
Reduced Construction Time	Item	Accelerated Construction	Efficient Architects (rare, epic)
	Effect	30% reduction in construction time. Affects construction processes started after activation.	25%/50% reduction for construction time. Affects construction processes currently running or initiated during effect duration.
Reduced Recruitment Time	Item	Accelerated Recruitment	Reduced Recruitment Times (rare, epic)
	Effect	30% reduction in recruitment time. Affects recruitment processes started after activation.	25%/50% reduction for recruitment time. Affects recruitment processes currently running or initiated during effect duration.
Improved Attack	Item	Improved Attack	Improved Attack (rare, epic)
	Effect	10% bonus on attack power.	10/20% bonus on attack power.
Improved Defense	Item	Improved Defense	Improved Defense (rare, epic)
	Effect	5% bonus on defensive power.	5%/10% bonus on defensive power.
Forced Loyalty	Item	Forced Loyalty	n/a
	Effect	available	No longer exist (no use with Battle point villages)

Any of the shown effects with rare or epic versions can no longer be stacked with their regular counterparts. Upon activation of a more powerful effect (normal < rare < epic) players are prompted to confirm that the existing effect will be overridden with a more powerful one.

Apart from the effects shown, this also applies to select other effects that cannot be obtained through island quests: Heightened Senses and Divine senses, Improved resource production (rare, epic) and Improved favor production (rare, epic).

Other Adjustments

Along with the aforementioned changes to difficulty levels and rewards, additional adjustments have been made to the user interface, some of the quest objectives and specifically the negative effects that can be activated as quest objectives.

Quest Objectives

The following objectives for agressive and peaceful paths have been adjusted:

Objective	Area of change	Old	New
Rally Troops	Unit types to dispatch	Regular units	Regular units, mythical units
	Number of required units	Fixed number of units	Fixed population number
Attacking units	Number of units to defeat	Fixed value (by difficulty)	Depending on world speed (Speed^0.8)
	Loot distribution	First player to attack receives most loot	Same loot distribution for all players
Defending against units	Number of units to defend against	Fixed value (by difficulty)	Depending on world speed (Speed^0.8)
Wait	Time to pass	5 minutes - 9 hours	4-16 hours

Tasks asking players to bear a negative effect have been adjusted to have more of an impact for resource productions and less of an impact on attack and defenses.

Negative effect	Old values	New values
	-30%	-50%
	-30%	-50%
	-30%	-50%
	-30%	-20%
‎	-30%	-10%
‎	-10% per hour	No longer available (irrelevant with Battle point villages)

Furthermore it is no longer possible to have the following quest objectives appear within the same quest: Attack and Rally Troops. This is to ensure that cities focused on the recruitment of ships always have at least one option to choose for an island quests. Attack and defense objectives are still possible at the same time as defense can be mastered by sending supporting units from other islands.

Quest Appearance & Limits

The cooldown times of island quests have been adjusted. Depending on your progression in the game, a new island quest may appear every 2, 4, 8 or 12 hours. Furthermore mechanics have been adjusted so that there is always at least 1 quest available if you have been absent for more than 24 hours.

The maximum amount of available island quests has been reduced from 10 to 6. Additionally only 3 island quests can be accepted at a time, instead of 4.

User Interface

Island quests are going to be displayed in the quest log, making them available at a glance.

Consequently, open quests will no longer displayed at the right hand side of the screen.