The Easter goals proved to be somewhat farcical, with the final goal being very difficult to get through. It required players to accumulate 30 eggs, breaking down as 10 Pretty Eggs, 10 Happy Eggs and 10 Stinky Eggs. An egg was dropped at random every time you served up the Mysterious Eggs.
That seems fine enough, but unfortunately Storm8's probability distribution for the dropping of these eggs was horribly awry. A few players were lucky and found that the first 30 eggs they collected were evenly spread across the three types, allowing the goals to be put to bed. For the rest of us it was a very different story, with one of the types of eggs dropping far more often, leaving a deficit for another.
The outcome of this was that some players had cooked the Mysterious Eggs well over 30 times and were still way off completing the goals. That is of course very unfair, and led to lots of the usual rage on the Storm8 Forum. Caving into the pitchfork wielders, the game's developers proceeded to alter the final goal and require us only to collect five of each type of egg.
This was a sensible change, and meant that although it was now easier for players to finish off, there was still a challenge to be had. I was among those who was looking unlikely to make it to the end before the timer ran out, so was grateful for the alteration. Hopefully the gamemakers will learn from this and weight the collectibles in these goals to favour the drops you've got the least of. At least then we wouldn't be completely at the mercy of lady luck.
After the exhaustion that those Easter goals induced came a new feature that would almost lead to the collapse of lots of folks! The 'Tropical Cruise Catering Event' popped up on Thursday 16th April, with players able to choose when to start the event.
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| Introduction to Tropical Cruise Catering Event |
This straight off made me look favourably upon this new and intriguing event - giving everyone a choice as to when to start meant we could choose our start time to suit our individual lifestyles. Of course - flying in the face of all that - I tapped 'Start Now!' as fast as I could to find out what was what!
Unfortunately I overestimated Storm8's flexibility. It turned out that if players didn't start the event before Monday 20th April then it was automatically started for them. I don't really have a problem with this - after all they can't keep the event waiting around in the background forever - but some small print to say that this would happen would have been wise.
Let's get into the event then. It was a 10 day quest in which we had to deliver orders of recipes and ingredients to the cruise ship to earn rewards and unlock prizes. The culmination of the event was the unlocking of Luana, a girl who promised to bring 'some very valuable tips'. The way the event was set-up was quite clever on Storm8's part as once you completed enough orders each day you couldn't go straight on to the next day's tasks. Instead those would be locked until reset time, so without spending gems to fast-track nobody could get too far ahead.
Another important nugget of information which I found to be lacking with regards to this event was the consequences of not completing a day on time. That is something that happened to me on two occasions, and I was relieved to find that this didn't mean I'd be frozen out - everything just rolled over to the following day, and when I did eventually polish off the previous day's order requirements I still received the day's prize. I had been under the impression (quite understandably in my opinion) that I would miss out on a day's reward if I was late in finishing.
In fact, the game's developers were very lacking with details about how the event would run. I don't know if there have been similar events in other Storm8 titles that I'm not familiar with, but given that this was the first such occasion in RS2 we could have done with more info. In-game details were rather lacking and this meant that players who don't frequent the Forum would surely have been well out of the loop. Even the instructions on the Forum were not exhaustive, leading to dozens of sensible queries.
Anyhow, what about them orders?! Everyone was given three slots, each housing an order that, when delivered, would earn a certain number of 'Cruise Coins', which depended on the difficulty of the order. If we didn't like the look of an order it could be refreshed, with a 30 minute waiting time for a new one. By amassing enough of these Cruise Coins the day's challenge was completed.
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| Main page of Tropical Cruise Catering Event |
To begin with I found the event to be really exciting. Both this game and the original Restaurant Story are flawed in that they essentially allow you to run a buffet - you can cook whatever you like and the customers will choose a dish from those on the counters. Goals obviously break this up, but this felt like the first time that we were actually fulfilling orders to keep everyone happy. Cooking at my place was now done in a business-like manner as opposed to the rather leisurely brewing that can normally be found. Finally I was becoming addicted.
Part of the attraction with the event was the need for strategy. Forward planning was a necessity to be well positioned, and difficult decisions needed to be taken, whether this involved stocking up on long haul ingredients like lobsters and mushrooms, or deciding whether or not to hit the refresh button on an order. And these decisions became more and more crucial as the days went by and the challenge became progressively tougher. The number of Cruise Coins needed to earn a day's prize slowly worked its way up, leading to many players falling well behind.
For a short time I was one of them, with day five proving too much. I had to carry over to day six, but managed to rescue the situation and make up for the lost ground by the end of the following day. Fortunes could fluctuate for a number of reasons, chief among which was the Cruise Coin returns on offer. This wouldn't have been a problem it it weren't for two issues. First up, the distribution of Cruise Coins to 'progress' was not direct. Here were the number of gems knocked off the total required to finish a day for each number of Cruise Coins:
| Cruise Coins | Gems |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 35 |
| 4 | 60 |
What this is really saying is that delivering one order worth 4 Cruise Coins is equivalent to delivering 12 orders worth 1 Cruise Coin. This disproportion really put a lot of emphasis on 3 and 4 Cruise Coin orders, and added an element of chance to proceedings. After all the orders you got were random so it was possible to get only low earning orders. That was something I was plagued with at times.
And the second Cruise Coin issue was with regards to the difficulty of orders. Take a recipe like the Stuffed Mushrooms on the Chateau Stove. To cook it requires three mushrooms, an ingredient which has a 16 hour waiting time. And yet only 2 Cruise Coins were awarded for serving up two batches of it! That's pretty scandalous really, especially compared to some of the much less time consuming dishes which yielded more Cruise Coins. And this wasn't a single anomaly either.
Another serious problem folks were having came with locked and unlearned content. Storm8 sensibly programmed the event to avoid handing out orders to players which involved recipes and ingredients not yet unlocked at their level, but didn't go far enough. If you had reached the necessary level to access a certain recipe or ingredient then it could appear in one of your precious slots, regardless of whether you had actually paid to unlocked or learn it. I lost count of the number of times I had to refresh Apple Ginger Chicken!
RS2 News
11/04/15 April 2015
But despite the flaws there were ways to apply strategic nous to try and get ahead of the game. Principally, finishing a day on time couldn't mean putting your feet up and admiring your handiwork. Instead it was very useful to try and set up the blocked out orders which would become active once the next day's play commenced. Then you could get that bar moving immediately upon starting the next day. And if you had the manoeuvrability to ensure that those blocked out orders were 3 or 4 Cruise Coin deliveries then that made things even better.
Another important tool in the catering arsenal (at least for me) turned out to be the Street Market. I discussed at length the negative changes made to the Street Market last month, but for the purposes of this event it proved a lifeline. There were numerous times that I was one short of an ingredient and was reliant on it popping up in the Street Market. And when it did I didn't hesitate to pay the premium price!
The last key component in my experience to winning out was closing down all else. For the first few days I tried to continue my regular cooking exploits as normal, but this proved a thankless task, as I used up valuable ingredients and clogged up appliances in need. By the final few days I had made a conscious decision to stop all other cooking and focus solely on the event. That probably lost me a fair amount of income, but by that point I was determined to get hold of Luana!
In the end I was successful, managing to unlock our Hawaiian friend with around 8 hours to go. It was looking dodgy at times on the final day, but a 3 Cruise Coin Chicken Broccoli Casserole proved decisive as it got me over the finish line!
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| Unlocking of Luana the Hula Dancer |
Unfortunately Luana's visits have been somewhat underwhelming thus far. For one thing she doesn't stop by for a bite to eat as often as I'd like, and when she does the 'valuable tips' can vary massively in quality. My first few drops were all for coins, albeit some decent hauls of up to 2,000 coins. Quick serves have also been given, and once (just once!) Luana was kind enough to leave behind a gem.
There have been reports of players getting drops of 10 gems at a time which is obviously the kind of reward we're looking for after all that hard work. I can only hope that Luana is that generous in the future when she pops in! And talking of the future I have to wonder if she is going to be appearing for the rest of time. There's been nothing to suggest otherwise so I'm hopeful that Luana is going to be a permanent visitor to my restaurant. If we get similar events on a regular basis then we might be able to build up an entire crew of special visitors!
So all in all the very first catering event was exciting, although a little exhausting too. Something I'd quite like is to be able to pause an event at the end of a day and return to it at a later date, rather than having to monitor closely for 10 straight days. But obviously the gamemakers would rather force you to stay glued and hopefully pay gems to finish, so that ain't changing any time soon!
Before I sign off I should mention that just yesterday there was another new set of goals commenced which may be of interest. This one involves helping out Bob the Butcher in return for some parts. It's nice to get some additional parts via goals, although I'm hoping there is more down the pipeline than the solitary Nail for completing the opening step!
I did not make it and I was very upset about it! I played constantly and could not keep up!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that mexispice. It was a difficult challenge, and there are many many players who are in the same boat as yourself! :)
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