⭐️💰 Monthly Challenge & Dailies Feedback Megathread

heatherm19 • 21 December 2023 at 2:11 AM

@minnie298a Yeah, that's why I'm wondering if anything can be done to space things out a bit more evenly. Overall the numbers might seem balanced, but short-term things seem to bunch up, and getting the same task multiple days in a row or more than half a week's days just becomes frustrating (and, honestly, boring).

minnie298a • 21 December 2023 at 2:37 AM

@heatherm19
I will agree those 2 tasks do seem to be bunched more this month, but they often have 3 day streaks. Without recounting, i think it's something like 7 of the last 8 days have been profile, while the majority of the forums have been 2 or so then a profile.

heatherm19 • 22 December 2023 at 12:04 AM

... Another profile comment day. Three in a row. This is feeling less and less like 'true' rng. Sigh.

minnie298a • 23 December 2023 at 1:53 AM

7th profile in a row.
12 out of the last 14 days.
15 for the month.

So the ring is definitely a little wonky.

heatherm19 • 23 December 2023 at 3:56 AM

*ahem* @Ian? Could you look into this? Is this really working as intended?
(Happy holidays to anyone who sees this!)

mindwhiper • 7 January 2024 at 11:13 AM

So.

It's been a whole week since the new year, plus before that it was also a problem, quest days are repeated too often, with a break of a day or two. @Ian if I send a ticket through tech support, will the problem of a crazy random generator (which has long ceased to be random) be considered or not? Should we expect any action in this direction? Should I expect to be banned for pointing out this obvious mistake over and over again?

UPD

So! I watched and waited for a 5 days for an answer here, in a special topic on the forum about the broken RNG, I did not wait for anything, I will issue a ticket to technical support. I will keep you informed and quote the answer here and in my profile so that everyone can see the answer. Wish me luck!

dragongirl02 • 18 January 2024 at 12:17 AM

Are there any updates on the above stuff? Lately, I have noticed I have been having a lot of forced skip days this month. I know I tend to do it too close to the rollover time, but that is sometimes the ONLY time I can do it. I either get cave time forced to skip the cave cooldown over the rollover time limit, or I've been joking about a ravenous lag monster on here as I keep getting too many feed errors when I race against the clock. It keeps getting in the way, resulting in forced skips due to the error; I jokingly say a lag monster is eating too many of my feeds.

I know I click fast. It's a side effect from another site where you sometimes have to click that fast, or I'm racing against the clock like I was on Wednesday since there were only about ten minutes left. If it were not for those errors, I would have made it.

heatherm19 • 18 January 2024 at 12:36 AM

I'd really really prefer if none of the tasks were repeated two or more days in a row. I know forum/profile comments are probably seen as 'low-effort', but for some of us those things *are* high-effort. And honestly it gets annoying having the exact same task so often. (Today is the 2nd day in a row of profile commenting. Again.)

Also! I was looking back at blog posts, an on the blog post March 13, 2023 "Monthly Challenge Updates: March Edition", it says
"Beginning tomorrow, we're ensuring that the same level of difficulty of the selected site-wide dailies is never chosen two days in a row."
And it says this is "enforced for all daily types and difficulty tiers." (It was bolded in the post!)

And yet we are stilling getting profile comments multiple days in a row, and it doesn't seem like that task *has* different difficulty levels, it's *always* "Post 3 Profile Comments". So... Is it possible the whole 'same level of difficulty' 'fix' can be applied to *all* types, as the blog post actually said? Please? @Ian?

mindwhiper • 18 January 2024 at 4:51 PM

@dragongirl02 haha, no! That's all they told me - to clarify my question:

"We don't know of any broken RNG on the site. What are you referring to? Are you referring to quests asking for items that aren't obtainable? Or are you referring to the rotation of dailies that occur on a daily basis as part of the Monthly Challenge?

Let me know and I can look into it."

By Ian. I asked, described the problem with "the quests drops out in a day or two or three", pointed out the problem with the constant tasks of the profile posts and... that's it. Nothing. The ticket is still open. I've been waiting for a response for the third day.

@heatherm19 I also pointed out the same tasks in a row, I am waiting now for an answer or some kind of intelligible explanation. Besides, the posts here seem to be ignored.

dragongirl02 • 20 January 2024 at 1:45 AM

I'm more annoyed when it's a forced skip either due to the too many feed errors forcing me to slow down too much, ravenous lang monster, as I call it, or the cave just giving too high cooldown. We are also coming up to the one-year mark, and February is the most challenging month, as it only usually has three skip days instead of at least 5. As of this month, I ended up needing all 6. Some were forced to skip because of the above issues.

Right now, I am not in the mood to deal with a ravenous lang monster eating up my feeds, but I might try to comprise and get 100 feeds to take, which will likely be over 100+ since the ravenous lang monster likes eating my feeds.

minnie298a • 20 January 2024 at 4:03 AM

Looking over my notes (I haven't typed the last couple of months up yet) there seems to be at least 4 clear "types" of dailies:
1 - Feed - 100, 200 or 300
2 - Games - Alkub, Sandrodon, Trivia, Asteroid
3 - Social - 3 Wall, 3 Forum
4 - Other - Clicks (100, 200, 300), XC Clicks (100, 200, 300), Use (3, 5, 10), Restock(5, 10, 15), Cave (10, 12, 15), Quests (5, 7, 12) and Donate (3, 5, 10),

There is always a feed task and I'm sure this was announced in one of the early blogs.

There is also always one from the "Games" group.

And one from the Social Group, which explains why these double up so often as there is only two in that group (personally, I prefer the wall task as I can just post on my own wall and then immediately delete it, while the forum task requires thought).

Then there are 2 tasks from the "Other" group to round out the 5 dailies. A clear pattern for these tasks hasn't jumped out at me yet, which is why I've lumped them together.

Personally it's the 15 Cave attempts that I find the worst. This is only because of the cool down timer, and my tendency to forget it's a task and to collect my prizes despite completing it.

@dragongirl02
The feed lag thing has been around for years. It's something that affects me at least once a day, using the Click/Ctrl-W method. and as far as I know is only rectifiable by slowing down a fraction. I can understand why it's in place though, but that doesn't ease my frustration.

dragongirl02 • 20 January 2024 at 2:29 PM

It is more frustrating when it forces you to skip a day when otherwise you would make it. I like to save them for true emergencies, like someone close to me ending up in the ER. Most of them were forced to skip this month due to work getting too close to rollover. So I would be racing against the clock and either getting fed errored out or cave giving bad cooldown. Usually, the feed errors are the ones that result in a forced skip. Had it behaved, I would have made it.
Edit Jan 24:
Now I am mad at the lag monster. It lagged me out today. I would have made it if not for the lag monster. Yes, I have to click fast to make the rollover clock, but the feed error happens too often; hence, I call it a lag monster, too, resulting in a punishment for working more. Yes, I just lost out on the bonus for this month to the lag monster, and to add to the brokenheartedness, as I was so mad, I accidentally sent stuff I meant to send to my storage to the donation center. I've screen-recorded the last few attempts. Maybe I can figure out what's going on and how to keep that pace without getting lag errors.
ETA: yes it is HST so if I get out at 6 pm have dinner at about 6:15ish and then have to deal with dishes it leaves me about 10-20 minutes 10 usually. Hence the fast pace I needed to do but errors.

mindwhiper • 25 January 2024 at 10:25 AM

@dragongirl02 gaah, I understand you. I'm living on different side of the planet, and stuff don't give a yeep for making situation better with different time zones or feeding lag (because what? because IF YOU CLICK FASTER PAGE VIEWING DOESN'T COUNT. I bet you anything - if it wasn't for the views, they would have fixed this bug a long time ago, and not only this one by the way).

minnie298a • 25 January 2024 at 7:52 PM

The feed "lag" isn't really a bug or fault. It's the way it was designed. Same with the cave timer. Both were implemented long before the tasks and dailies and they still seem to be working the way they are were this time last year. If anything I feel the feed lag has lessened a fraction.

So while I can see why you'd be frustrated, I don't think there is anything that should be changed on EggCaves end. Everyone has 24hrs to do the tasks. It's more how your life fits into those hours. Right now it is nearly 8 pm, 25th Jan EggcaveTime. My real time is nearly 11am, 26th Jan. But as we don't do daylight savings in my state, part the year that would be 10am. Regardless, I still have 24 hours from 3 pm to 2.59 pm to do my dailies.

@dragongirl02 - As it seems your main time for eggcave is around change over, could you start your dailies "early"? So instead of trying to rush them in before midnight, start them just after.

This is a month I won't be getting the CC. With the way my life unfolded, I decided it wasn't worth the stress to try to fit the tasks in to my schedule. I've missed other events on other games for similar reasons over the years. Several years ago, I would be missing more days than I hit as well due to work or caring schedules. My real life won out.

dragongirl02 • 27 January 2024 at 12:05 AM

Yes, but there are days I am just exhausted and forget. I will be forced to either do it at night or do that dreaded under-the-table method at work once the timezone thing comes into play again in March, as once that happens, work will step all over the rollover time. February is going to be hard, too.



I'm incredibly irritated this time, as the lag monster stole too many feeds. I would have had enough days otherwise had it not lagged me out.

It would help if something could be done to tame the lag monster eating the feeds slightly since I still go fast even when I do it at night, and those errors frustrate me. Blame the other site for my fast clicking. It seems the cooldown is not a few seconds. I consider that 1-3 seconds, as it claims, but 5-10 seconds. That's what cost me this month CC bounous. Had it been 1-3, there would have been a higher chance of making it.

I am trying to figure it out using what I have left with the dailies. For now, it seems a combo of the dreaded under-the-table method, cell, and the computer has to be used to beat the lag monster with the timezone I'm in. I am a fast clicker with the tab trick and window trick. There is the overnighter method, which it may come down to, but on a work day, I don't want to do that unless I know there will be a massive schedule conflict.

mindwhiper • 27 January 2024 at 1:31 AM

@dragongirl02 you can use a tiny trick to reduce the time for clicks, just assign the "close tab" command in the browser settings (if possible) with one key, and then you can close the tab immediately after the feed. it saves me a bit of time because I hate feeding creatures under the compulsion of the new quest system.

dragongirl02 • 27 January 2024 at 4:31 PM

The issue is the feed error when I race through the feeds, and it errors me out of the daily count, resulting in one too many forced skipped days like this month. HST to Eastern timezone offset just makes the problem worse. I would like to save the skip day for genuine emergencies like someone close to me ending up in the ER or an unexcepted dinner night out getting sprung on me.
The feed error lags me out of the bonus, which seems to be a punishment for working more hours and being in one of the farther timezones.

kataclysm • 30 January 2024 at 8:13 AM

I feel like the ability to reroll a daily quest for x amount of EC would be such a nice feature. Especially when we're on day 3 (?) of profile comments.

Some other thoughts I've been chewing on recently but don't have time to trawl through 20+ pages of conversation to see if we've already brought them up:
An 'end of year' reward - if you complete all 12 months of quests without missing a day, can we get like... An extra reward? Something to recognise the effort that it takes to be that consistent on one site for so long? (':
Regular prizes should be increased (again) - Why am I being rewarded 1000 EC for feeding 300 creatures? (': Can it not be more proportionate? Or just increased? EC only really makes a difference in bigger quantities on EggCave, so, give us bigger quantities pls.
Why are we all doing the same quests every day? >: Was there no way to make them different per account?

heatherm19 • 30 January 2024 at 1:57 PM

@kataclysm A 'reroll' option would be *so* helpful, even if it was expensive or limited to only a certain number a month or something. I don't usually have issues getting dailies done in terms of time needed, but yeah those multi-day streaks of profile commenting can get frustrating. Also the 'restock' task, I've actually been cutting down on my npc-shop spending simply because at this point I *have* most of the stuff generally shown in the shops. Having to buy 10 items that I really don't need (or trying to find 10 items that I *do* need) can be difficult at times.

I've kept a personal contest going with myself to see how long I can go without missing a day on these dailies, so far I haven't missed a single day (came close a few times!). So yeah, a little bonus for long streaks would be cool.

kataclysm • 30 January 2024 at 2:12 PM

Ah, yes!! Excellently worded. Streak rewards would be great - maybe the EC rewards could just increase in time with the streak rewards to really make them more appealing!!

minnie298a • 31 January 2024 at 2:15 AM

I have no problems with everyone doing the same tasks each day. I feel there is more of a sense of community as everyone is in the same boat when the "bad" days hit. I also find this handy for when I decide to bulk buy in npc shops to restock for quests and my shop. However, when I know that there is a restock task (and often quests as well) I don't restock past the task amount. If things were random, then there is more a chance that someone may fail their task. I've also stated above I prefer the profile task over the forum task as I can just post on my own page, and I'm not force to interact with others.

I also have no problems with the current task rewards. I still see these as a bonus, and was fine with the original system. With out actually looking it up, I think we currently get between 500 and 2000 ec per task, the average being about 1200. When it first started it was more like an average of 560 ec. In saying that, I wouldn't say no to a bump. More is more.

I kind of like the idea of the streak rewards, only because it's something I would most likely benefit from. Not at the moment though as I missed to many days this month to even get the CC. I still visited everyday, but as I was relegated to my tablet, just couldn't work up the motivation to rush through the tasks. In saying that, I also think the CC fits this category. It's a participation reward. I can also see it upsetting those who can't get on or complete the tasks due to circumstances out of their control. Maybe if it was cumulative, not consecutive, so you get it when you complete the right number regardless of how long it took you.


Also as a side note: I plan to collate all my notes from the last year. Not only what was asked (eg XXXX feeds, over YYY days) but what my rewards where. Kind of a rough guide although rewards are randomized.

Couple of questions though.
- Would anyone actually be interested in these stats?
- And if so would you prefer Feb to Jan, which would include the first 19 teething days before the reward change (minus the first and second days as I didn't take notes then)? Or March to February, so all 12 months are after the change?

heatherm19 • 31 January 2024 at 4:36 AM

@minnie298a I'm always interested in seeing your stats! I think it'll be especially interesting to see how the randomness fluctuates over the months.

minnie298a • 1 February 2024 at 9:06 PM

Okie Dokie. I have compiled all the stats I've taken over the last year.

Totals This is the total amounts for 363 days from 3rd Feb 2023 to 31st January 2024. I didn't take notes the first 2 days, but after seeing a bunch of "Is it worth it?" comments I started. Didn't intend to take so many, but it was interesting. Or at least I think so.

Individual Months - February March April May June July August September October November December
January

Bits I found interesting:
1 - We have had to comment on the Forums on 22 more days than on Profile/Walls. That's 66 more forum comments.
2 - We were asked to do 915 quests over 109 days (March being teh most in a month at 122 over 12 days). That's at least 6 Vend creatures (a quick glance leads me to believe the most expensive VEND creature at the moment is the Treelar at 150 tokens. Many recently retired ones were only 100).
3 - The restock tasks for January were wild. 150 items over 11 days (8 were restock 15)
4 - The blog post about the prize pool changes states a 33% chance of getting an item. I collected 1 item every 3.02 tasks. I feel this is close enough.
5 - I won 8 monthlies for my 349 spins. So a creature ever 43 of so days.
6 - The amount of ec I was rewarded with. Over 2 mil from tasks. Yes, I spent a bit on quest, restock and use tasks, but they were things I would have done anyway. Plus there was approximately 7mil more for just the feed tasks.

If there are any questions or queries, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'll try to clarify anything that doesn't make sense to others. My notes are written in a way I couldn't easily work out how to present on a profile page.

@heatherm19
I'll ping you because you expressed interest.

jlya • 1 February 2024 at 9:24 PM

@minnie298a
Thank you for keeping stats so diligently! It's nice to know how many forum posts vs. profile posts, quests, restock, etc. the dailies have required ❤️

minnie298a • 2 February 2024 at 5:32 AM

@jlya
Looking at several of the numbers I'm amazed at what was accomplished. And how it evened out over the year.


I know it influenced the way I interact with the site, and it probably did many others as well.

We were tasked with doing 19k XC clicks each. Something some wouldn't have contemplated doing 100 of. Many of the 600 odd Use tasks, inspired me to finally put travels on my creatures. The donation tasks help me clear out a bunch of old event prizes I was hoarding because it seemed daunting to sort through. The dailies tasks were inspiration to chip away at such things. I ventured more into the forums (never gone into games boards before and competed in a couple of contests).

Back in the beginning I said a couple of times that the dailies was more a marathon than a sprint. How many where complaining about the individual tasks and rewards (and there were a couple of big asks for small rewards in the first 3 week, like the 357 ec I got the first time we had 20 Cave approaches) without acknowledging that they were small parts of a bigger picture. I feel that the year long data supports that.

Quests have always been a touchy subject. If done right a player would have had the tokens for the Hallowolf, Roo, Tawny, Florn and others as they retired.

jlya • 2 February 2024 at 3:27 PM

@minnie298a
I am definitely fully in support of the dailies after the last year of experience. If you're a fairly active player it's really not difficult to complete the tasks and be more than compensated for the time spent. It's made the site so much more enjoyable to me, every day is a new day with new tasks as well as the normal rounds I'm used to. The staff has implemented many little changes to make the dailies more fun and less stressful, while also providing a challenge.
The click exchange and forums are so much more active, and I have lots of quest tokens I 100% would not have gained without the motivation of the dailies. It's been a huge benefit to the site in my opinion. 😊

hikanu • 2 February 2024 at 4:21 PM

I'll admit I probably haven't done the quests for at least 6 months. As I would be going on vacation in both July and August I didn't bother with those two months and I never picked it back up. Although as I do have a pressing need for CC at the moment, I am slowly getting back into it here in February.

While I still don't think it'll motivate me to collect tokens for creatures I don't feel like I need, we'll see how it goes. 😃
I've currently got 124 tokens and have never used any of them.

heatherm19 • 2 February 2024 at 6:39 PM

@minnie298a Wow, this is all so interesting! I agree with what you said about the XC, before this started I didn't really use it much (if at all?) and would never have thought of making it a part of my feeding routine. And woah, the restock tasks for January! Brutal, lol.

I gripe about the frequency of some tasks, but overall I *love* the dailies. I do a lot of things around the site that I wouldn't have otherwise, and it really does help me travel-ify my creatures (before dailies, I was always putting it off because it was just so overwhelming, the need to match the perfect travel and the sheer number of travels available).

minnie298a • 2 February 2024 at 8:55 PM

I feel the dailies are definitely worth my time and effort. As I've said most of the activities are stuff I either would normally be doing daily or things that I had been putting off for one reason or another. It's easy ec and CC in that regard.

I mean there is an average of about 5600ec daily from tasks. Add that to at least 10k from feeds (I've done math on this as well, and it averages out to about 100ec per feed times the minimum request of 100). Then add in the daily return prize and trivia prize, and that's close to 29k before collecting bank interest.

Then there is the increased engagement in the XC and Forums. Added bonuses that help make this site feel like a community.

@hikanu
While I have a small list of creatures I want from the VEND machine, the majority of my tokens have been spent on creatures to sell as they retire.


@heatherm19
In my opinion the increased traffic through the XC is one of the best things about the dailies. It's been my primary place for feeding since it began, and I can definitely tell the days it's a task.

In collating the data, I wrote it out (old school with a pencil and paper) in a grid, making the big picture clearer that having it scattered over the 12 profiles. While I went in with the belief that the numbers would be vastly different in some areas due to streaks, a lot of them are similar and balanced. Well similar enough that things like the 8 restocks in January jumped out in a block that is mostly 3's and the total for the month is about 50 above the others. Or how the 7 for 200 XC clicks in April and 7 for 300 "normal" clicks in August stand out in fields of 2, 3, and 4's. Or that twice we've had to do 10 wall posts V 20 Forum posts (Sept and Nov) when the other months have a difference of no more than 5. A small increase here is often countered with a decrease there.



As I theorized near the top of this page there seem to be 4 types of dailies. The most requested tasks for each type where:
1 - Feed - 100 feeds - requested 130 days (pool of 3)
2- Games - Alkub Racing - requested 94 days (pool of 4)
3 - Social - Forum - requested 192 days (pool of 2)
4 - Everything else (2 tasks chosen daily from a pool of 21)
Total - Quests with 109 days
Individual Highest - Donate 5 - 44 days.
Individual Lowest - Donate 3 - 29 days
But we were still required to donate items on 105 days which is the same amount of days that Cave Approaches and Restocks showed up, and only once more than Clicks.

hikanu • 2 February 2024 at 9:38 PM

@minnie298a Yes, I can understand that. But I have no idea what other people want from the vend, what they're worth, and I really don't want to be stuck with them because nobody else wants them either.

It just feels like too many steps to make extra EC to me, because who in their right mind would pay anything else? It's much simpler to just feed, because I do enjoy that, the quests... I don't enjoy and they'll always feel like a chore, or an annoyance at best. So I would really love to be able to skip them entirely.

It's the monthly challenge's fault I even have tokens in the first place or I wouldn't have bothered. Any vend creature that I have, I have bought from other people and I'm honestly fine with that.