Questing is dead...and items are piling up!

ida92 • 25 July 2024 at 5:39 AM

Hello everyone,

There's something that has been bothering me for quite some time. And it's the fact that basically the only time when items disappear from my shop is when there's a daily that requires questing. And the amout of items that get sold is nowhere near as large as it was about 6 months ago, regardless of the amount of quests the daily calls for. Moreover, we get more "buy x items" dailies than "finish x quests" dailies (at least that's my perception), so my Strongroom just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I find this stagnation overwheming...

I feel that people are not really motivated to do quests anymore, since the creatures that are currently available at the VEND have been there for ages and everyone who wanted to get them, already did. I guess the only exceptions are new or returning players.

I guess the solution could be giving more "quest" dailies than "buy" dailies and perhaps...returning some long gone critters to the VEND?

I'm curious what other users think, please share your thoughts.

@Ian (for visibility)

Adding a few pings (most acrive questers):

@dragiigy
@aldersnap
@lia
@rabidwolfie

dragiigy • 25 July 2024 at 6:11 AM

@ida92 , agree !!!!

Not so long time ago, a player called me a Questing king 😊 My PB is 3000 quests per one month. Now,,, I only questing when selling Vend craetures, Not so often as many monthes ago. So few ideas,

1. return some long gone critters to the VEND, specially creaures from CRW from year 2011
2. add complately new creatures only available at VEND
3. make VEND for retired items, using for instance items from Bean Sack and Trinket Travels

@megamisama90
@cryogenics
@lia

megamisama90 • 25 July 2024 at 6:20 AM

I agree. I only quest now for Dailies. @dragiigy has really good ideas. It would be really cool to have new creatures for VEND only. One a month and then retire for sometime and the next month there would be another new creature or something like that. I don't know but for real questing is kinda dead. I also want the ones that have been in the VEND for a long time, gone.

@eschla
@anzica
@chaotictreat
@silvia

sparklefox • 25 July 2024 at 7:15 AM

Throwing in my support as well.

I don't have any opinion on dailies since I can't do them, but I would like to see slightly more frequent updates to the VEND stock. There are many old creatures I'd wish to see be re-released, and I already own all of the creatures that are or have been in it (have been afraid to say this because I thought "I want more because I own them all" sounded very selfish, tbh). Not just old cave creatures but things like the Easter prizes, Halloween stuff (the Abet is there but the other 2012 seed prizes and the Idola have been MIA for years) and such.

I still try to do frequent quests just to keep stocked up on tokens for the inevitable release of something I'm looking for, but I'll be honest and say that the thought of "do I really need to do this, it probably won't be updated 'til Christmas and I bet it'll just be the Florn again" does occasionally enter my head now.

Feeling neutral on the idea of VEND-only creatures. I suppose it would be kinda neat, but also would defeat the VEND's purpose of redistributing old, retired creatures. We already have multiple other ways of distributing new creatures other than the cave, does the VEND really need to serve this purpose too?

ida92 • 25 July 2024 at 8:56 AM

Thank you all for the positive feedback!

I love the idea of having retired items available at the VEND @dragiigy, but like @sparklefox said I'm not sure about VEND-specific creatures. There are lots of ways to get creatures. I agree that the VEND serves a different purpose.

minnie298a • 25 July 2024 at 9:28 AM

While I mainly only quest for the daily, I usually do more on those days then requested (I don't think I've missed the leaderboard this year and am usually in the top 30). I also have a well stocked strongroom. It was fairly good before questing, and massive now to the point I may buy an item every 15 to 20 quests or so (5747 unique items). It's just easy to go buy several items when I have a spare couple of minutes. While I do try to sell items I have heaps of, the introduction of the amount box has stopped me over buying many items.

Personally, I don't like the idea of an exclusive creature. The idea of the VEND was to rerelease old/retired creatures and I feel it should stay that way. I do feel that a shake up is required as either the creatures in there are not overly desired/selling, or have large stocks to reach their limit. Personally, I'm only missing 3 creatures and I have ideas on when I wish to purchase them, or will do so when they are going to retire (I have the tokens to get all 3 now if I desired to).

I do like the idea of introducing retired items. As long as they are not CC. On the fence about event exclusive (eg Choc event, Egg hunt travels etc).


Extra Random Stats:
Feb 2023 to Jan 2024 (AKA the first 12 months)
Quests - 915 individual quests* over 109 days
Restock - 1045 items over 105 days
Consume - 605 items over 99 days.
* Due to the change for Meltdown, I'm not bored enough to work out the minimum number of items, but it would have been a max of 1830. Edit: I found some info. Meltdown quests went from 1 to 2 items 9th May 2023. So 3ish months after the start of dailies and over 4 1/2 years after the introduction of Quests.

June 2024 (last month, I haven't tallied this month yet)
Quests - 38 quests (76 items) over 5 days
Restock - 125 over 12 days
Consume - 41 items over 7 days.

Jan 2024 (about 6 months ago)
Quests - 77 quests (154 items) over 10 days
Restock - 150 items over 11 days
Consume - 65 items over 11 days

spiritrose • 25 July 2024 at 1:15 PM

i agree i really do think there needs to be a certain cycle-out to all the older vend creatures, i would say maybe doing a cycle-out every month alongside the monthlies would be good, it would give players more motivation to quest more and in turn boost the economy more.

heatherm19 • 25 July 2024 at 2:22 PM

While I definitely agree that user shops don't seem to be moving inventory as much as they use to, I do *not* agree with the solution being more quest dailies! Those are by far the hardest dailies to actually get done imo, both in terms of cost (for all the items needed) and time (cooldowns!).
(Just look at the Monthly Challenge feedback thread to see how often quests are an issue for people!)

I would love to see more retired creatures brought to VEND to give us more options and more reason to quest if we choose. And expanding VEND for retired items would be *awesome* regardless. I'm not necessarily against VEND-only creatures but it does feel like a huge departure from the basic VEND function of making older retired creatures available again. Maybe expand the 'buy items' daily to include user shops?

sorrow • 25 July 2024 at 3:26 PM

i honestly don't like quest dailies, and if it's over 10 quests, i'll usually skip it. If I have already gotten my 100cc from completing 25 days, i won't do the quest dailies at all, only the easier ones. The quest ones are normally a waste of ec, to me. I have no use for tokens - I have thought about using them to sell creatures but know that others already do that.
though i think bringing back more retired creatures to the vend would be an easy solution - having some vend-only creatures could be cool! could even be vending machine related lmao, like living snacks. Or just cool creatures. kind of like the SARC, but more interactive.

after reading everyone else's opinions on vend-only creatures, i'm less and less interested in the vend machine since we're rereleasing creatures every month for cc. having two versions of the same thing feels kinda pointless to me, and honestly i'm so lazy that i'd rather flat out buy a creature than have to work so hard and pay so much ec for one creature. but that might just be me, and i understand that the vend is a (real life currency) free and accessible way to get the creatures. however, the cooler/more popular creatures are going to get picked to be rereleased for cc rather than the vend. why not make the runner up's from the monthly voting a new vend creature every month?

minnie298a • 25 July 2024 at 8:46 PM

From memory, the aim of the VEND machine was for rereleasing non CC creatures. As far as I'm aware this is still the case. The ones rereleased for CC are old CC creatures. The only exception for VEND are creatures like CRW where they were available in both.

I've been able to fulfil several wishes because of the VEND (namely my Hallowolf and Tawny). And honestly the couple of CC creatures I've wanted enough to buy were primarily funded with Monthly CC and selling retired VEND creatures. I also have time, so limit the amount of ec I'm willing to spend per token, and have no problems rejecting quests for items I feel are too expensive.


I think one solution would be a "Timed out" sort of thing. Maybe put a 6 or 12 month limit on the creatures before they go "stale" and are removed regardless of how many are left. Some of the creatures have been in there for years, and it has been stated that they can return. Fresh creatures could mean fresh interest.

chaotictreat • 25 July 2024 at 9:34 PM

I only quest for dailies or for fun when I feel like it (which is rarely) despite there being many creatures in VEND that I want and do not yet own. I think this is mostly due to the fact that they have been there for a long time and show no signs of being removed or running out of stock any time soon.
I certainly did not enjoy a lot of creatures being retired at once as I had to madly quest for a week to get even most of the ones I wanted, however I think smaller, more regular refreshes would not be a bad idea at all (whereas at the moment there are no changes at all). This obviously ties in with the idea of adding other old creatures to VEND, as each refresh would ideally remove some currently in there and add some new old creatures to obtain.
I'm not sure I like the idea of VEND-specific creatures as that seems to blur the function of it too much, as a couple have said already.
Item VEND I am all for. Please.
I agree with Heather, more quest dailies is not the answer.
Expanding the buy items to include user shops would be good, but most players would still buy from the default shops as they are almost always cheaper. An alternative would be adding a new daily specifically for buying from user shops, but then that would introduce some of the same problems as the current questing dailies have (e.g. cost).
(Sorry for all the full stops, I am not mad, just in the mood for proper punctuation!)

minnie298a • 25 July 2024 at 11:13 PM

@chaotictreat
That's the problem I couldn't put into words. There is currently no urgency to gain the creatures and so no urgency to quest for tokens. Which in a way is good, as people aren't scrambling and panicking. Then again some will just put it into the "I'll worry about that later" basket, until later is *now* and the panic starts.

I also agree that a mass retirement of multiple current creatures at once isn't a good plan. Maybe doing one at a time so that when creature A retires, then the warning goes out for creature B. Or give it a week between each retirement, so countdown, then a weeks break, then a countdown (so 2 retirements a month). Could maybe introduce a new creature in that week off to refresh the creatures.

ida92 • 26 July 2024 at 2:20 AM

@chaotictreat @minnie298a I agree with what both of you said. A timeout for VEND creatures would be a good idea, but set in a way that not all of them would retire at once.

I belive the last time a new creature was introduced to the VEND was in December last year and that was the Florn. And all the creatures that currently in stock have been so for years...

cryogenics • 26 July 2024 at 2:34 AM

ive never done quests before, but with the dailies i try to do them - and then i realised i dont have a shocking amount of creatures from that list. now i'm trying to play catchup. but at times its frustrating when i hit that odd item that is either not found, or prices way too expensive for my liking.

anyways - grind away.

dragiigy • 26 July 2024 at 2:41 AM

@ida92
...and Treelar 😊 Still available

fainne_24 • 26 July 2024 at 3:56 AM

Hi 😊 I think that's a good point.
But I personally have been slowly doing quests for months now and still working to get all the creatures I want as they were so many available at the same time, and questing takes time! I'm personally grateful that the creatures are still available after all this time so I still have the chance to get them all 😊

minnie298a • 26 July 2024 at 4:12 AM

OK. So I have no life, I'm bored and had a thought that was bugging me, so I've gone digging.

Beta testing for Quests was announced 7th Sept 2018, with it going public a month later on 7th Oct 2018 ( https://eggcave.com/blog/egg-cave-quests-public-release?page=1 ). So the feature is coming up to it's 6th anniversary.

For those who weren't around, creatures used to be released in pools of 2 or 3 themed creatures. You'd put your tokens in and get a random egg from that pool. For example on 6th March 2021 the Amarra and Quinnit, both March 2014 monthlies became available in a pool. You had no choice on which of the 2 you got for your tokens, so if you got a Quinnit, but wanted an Amarra, then you needed another set of tokens and some luck (I have vague memories of not getting what I wanted on a pool of 2 until creature 4 once). The Amarra is still available over 3 years later. Interestingly the same Blog post ( https://eggcave.com/blog/the-amarra-and-quinnit-are-back?page=1 ) announces the Lovart and Ott prize pool (Valentines 2013) will be retiring, but both are currently available.

21st Sept 2022 ( https://eggcave.com/blog/you-asked-we-listened-vend-machine-update?page=1 ) the random pools were removed and you could pick your desired creature. It stated there where 94 creatures available including the 17 "Newcomers" that were introduced in that blog for the occasion. Of the 72 creatures currently available, all 17 are still there almost 2 years later. From memory a lot of the others were also unbundled at that time. There is a comment on the "Going Public" blog linked above about a pool of 2018 CRW creatures being 80 tokens (20 each of GG, SR, GQ and TQ). The Horrorse, Unusith, and Froplet, all currently available for between 80 and 100 tokens, are 2018 CRW. Can't be 100% sure without further digging I'm not feeling like doing right now, but it seems they've been available since, well, the dawn of VENDing.


Which basically boils down to a refresh on creatures would be lovely. It would spark a renewed interest in the feature. A feature that at it's core is a great idea, a fun and exciting way to get retired creatures. A feature that is just a little stale at the moment but could easily be rejuvenated.

silvia • 26 July 2024 at 5:17 AM

ida92 • 27 July 2024 at 2:41 AM

I just had another idea, but I'm not sure if it's a good one. How about adding the possibility to exchange tokens for CC? For example, every now and then a 50 or 100 CC voucher would be available in the VEND for a short period of time. This would require carefull planning so that the site's economy wouldn't suffer. What do you think?

@silvia
@minnie298a
@megamisama90
@dragiigy
@heatherm19

minnie298a • 27 July 2024 at 6:37 AM

@ida92
With the current stock, maybe. The no part of me is bigger and is thinking along the lines of how the Monthlies give out CC, and most people only Quest for the dailies. It seems like double dipping on free real life money, that EC is trying to sell to make real life money to run this joint.

If implemented it would have to be handled very carefully though. Plus it would come down to the tokens required vs the voucher value vs the time available. For example (sorry, math time again) a 50CC voucher is worth about 500k. So having it cost 100 tokens mean each token is worth about 5k, or each item needed averages out at 2500. I would also only expect a 24 to 48 hour sort of availability. Maybe give a day or two heads up (eg on Thursday put out a blog that they will be available all day 12.01 am Sat to 11.59pm Sun), or have a set day (eg the 4th Monday in a month or every 28th of the month). However part of me also think that 100 isn't enough, 120 (20 for each shop) works out at about 4167 ec per token.

I feel this would create the urgency that is currently missing. However so would a stock refresh. Which would probably be easier and cause fewer tantrums complaints about how people have lives and can't spend all day questing for the tokens, totally forgetting that the tokens can be stockpiled at any time and do not expire and they just didn't want to quest because there was nothing good currently available (I may have had this discussion before, it may be a sore point).

Personally, I'd like to cash in some of my excess XC credits over Questing tokens.

megamisama90 • 27 July 2024 at 6:47 AM

@ida92 Interesting idea and really why not? Maybe like you could do it once in so and so months? It doesn't entirely go against it's purpose. I'm personally up for anything as now my interests are very slim. What minnie298a pointed out, as some creatures have been there for an eternity. We need change!!

I see now that the VEND only creature doesn't really fit VEND. I'd really like more new creatures to come. I need more creatures. *sigh* Conflicting feelings. We used to have those mid month 200CC creatures but now we don't have those. I haven't really kept up how many mid month creatures we now have. I'm not saying bring back the 200CC creatures more like just more creatures. Like the Leep has been here since when. I want that to retire and something else to come instead. I'd like to see more TS creatures and Mysterious Asteroid. Wishful thinking. :/ I feel like I'm just whining. Sorry.

Edit: just read minnie298a's post above me and "I'd like to cash in some of my excess XC credits over Questing tokens." is something I'd actually like way more!

minnie298a • 27 July 2024 at 8:08 AM

@megamisama90
I don't mind seasonal creatures. Ones like the Leep, Elge, and those for things like Dragolds. They are only available for a short time, aren't given out en masse, made available for new players and can be ignored by older players that have no interest in collecting or selling them.

Reintroducing retired Event creatures would be nice. There are currently 3 2018 CRW critters in the VEND. I know the Tine was available again in the Choc event in 2020, and that sort of release for Choc and Halloween creatures is a good concept, even if they are restricted to one per user like the Fangtharp, Muckle and Luskrull at Halloween (and just swapping one of them out would be enough). But maybe put old Egg Hunt and Gobbler* creatures in. Again, account restrictions could be put in place and higher token prices.

*Before anyone says anything, I have worked hard to win these creatures during the events. I probably wouldn't get them for myself, but it's an option for newer players and those wanting trading fodder.

megamisama90 • 27 July 2024 at 8:39 AM

@minnie298a well, true. But then again why have them from year to year. In't boring. Either way I'd still like to get something new xD

sorrow • 27 July 2024 at 1:03 PM

@minnie298a
(point one : i never even noticed that the vend was old non-cc creatures before, sorry for my oversight)
Trading in XC credit is an interesting idea, but it reminds me of how the overhaul for the click exchange happened a while ago, when we were given a bunch of choices on how it should work. I have 9k XC credits right now. I feel like that kind of lends itself to the issue of having too many tokens and not enough interesting creatures, but it might bring more traffic to the click exchange since you could earn EC by feeding and get tokens at the same time! It could be a good choice for people who don't want to spend EC or have reliable clicking sites that work well enough that they don't need the click exchange.
I also don't hate the idea of having current seasonal event creatures in the VEND! I probably wouldn't buy them from the VEND myself, unless something happened and I couldn't be on much, but for newer users or less active ones it would probably be helpful. Maybe like, a week at the VEND before going to the Cash Shop, as those kinds of creatures normally do after they leave the cave?
I also like that @megamisama90 reminded me of those mid-month creatures. Having a new creature guaranteed every month would be nice, alongside an overhaul of the creatures that are in there now. There are so many creature suggestions and good ideas out there on the forums. I've only had one creature put on the site but I'd be totally okay with a creature I thought up going into the VEND. I get that there isn't that nostalgic draw, but if maybe only one or two brand new creatures were in there at a time, I think there would be enough interest to get me to spend some tokens. But I'm also not qualified to be talking about creature suggestions haha

minnie298a • 27 July 2024 at 10:36 PM

@sorrow
The XC has been my go to for feeding pretty much since it started. I've banked 10k in credits since the the double feed day this month. I have .... a lot of credits, more than I can feasibly use under the current system. The XC issue is separate though and there have been boards on XC ideas. Getting Quest tokens for XC credits would be nice (particularly when a desired creature like the Florn or Roo pop up), but there would have to be limits, especially about keeping a credit balance to keep the XC running.

Really just a refresh of creatures for the VEND will help. Just starting to retire some so there is less variety would do something. I don't think brand new or exclusive creatures would be necessary as there are plenty of fabulous old retired creatures. Creatures like the Florn and Hallowolf have previously created interest and engagement while selling out in weeks.

As long as the creature wasn't a CC only one to begin with (those can stay for the CC shop rereleases), I'd be fine with it being rereleased into the VEND. Old monthlies, CRW, LE's (think Birthday, Earth Day etc) and retired creatures from events like Dragolds. "One off" creatures from events like the Egg and Gobbler hunts could even go for more tokens especially if they were from mixed quests. Account limits could be put in place. An example would be "From Monday 8th to Sunday 14th you can buy a Beweg for 600 tokens (100 of each)!! One per person". Retired Event creatures like the Tine and Idola could be VENDed or put back into their respective event pools as a one off (I kind of feel this was the intent with the Fangtharp, Muckle and Luskrull at Halloween, but they just haven't rotated to other creatures).

As I said above, I have a lot of the creatures I've mentioned. A fair chunk of them I "earned" during their initial release. I don't feel the need to hold them as an exclusivity symbol because I'm old and have been on this site for nearly 15 years. I'm guessing a lot of said creatures will be on abandoned accounts. For me the statis will remain with the date, not just the species.

ida92 • 28 July 2024 at 3:25 PM

I'm personally not a fan of having the possibility to exchange XC for Tokens, but I understand the points that have been brought up here. I can see why some might prefer this over buying items.

dragiigy • 28 July 2024 at 3:29 PM

Tokens for EC is not good idea. Then all shops can be closed 😄

ida92 • 29 July 2024 at 1:48 AM

@dragiigy It's also what I thought of... People would siply stop buying from Site and User Shops, which would make the situation ever worse than it is now. Hardly any items are being bought now and implementing an XC to Token exchange would decrease the shop activity even more.

minnie298a • 29 July 2024 at 5:18 AM

Oh, don't get me wrong. While the idea of trading XC for tokens (pr anything) would be great, I wouldn't want it to be cheap by any means. And by not cheap I mean at least 1k credits per token and you need to have remaining balance of over 1k (so 2000 credits) with a limit of maybe 1 a week while maintaining at least 5 creatures constantly in the XC . So with that expectation, to outright buy a Drem you would need to spend 100k credits, while never dropping below 1k over 100 weeks (the creature still being there in 2 years is currently believable). So in theory I would like it to be more a "I only need two more tokens, but people are asking over 100k ec for the items" sort of support thing.

A VEND Drem is valued at about 200CC and costs 100 Speed Reading tokens. Taking conversion rates into effect it means that you could spend up to 10k ec on each book requested and still come out ahead, and probably still take the 2 years. (200CC = 2mil ec divided by 100 for the tokens divided by 2 for the items per token = 10k). From memory there are few books available in the NPC Library over that price point.



However none of this would work in any way with out first "fixing" the VEND machine. If no one wants the VEND creatures, they are not going to grind for credits to trade in any more than they are currently striving to hoard tokens. And besides, if more people trying to bank credits it would become harder to do so. The main reason I have as many XC credits is because it's not as widely utilized as it could be, the same with Quests and tokens at the moment. The introduction of the Monthly Challenge and daily tasks did help revitalized both for a while, but it seems the novelty has worn off.

dragiigy • 29 July 2024 at 5:27 AM

Up to present VEND is superb. Just rotate more creatures. Thats all by my opinion .

We players talk and philosophise too much. Most players agree with idea of rotaiting creatures more often. It is time, staff and @Ian say something 😊