Chinese New Year 2018 goals content report

The magic themed goals are now in full flow, but that doesn't mean we can't step back and have a review of the previous quest. The Chinese New Year goals concluded on Tuesday, with a number of items unlocked exclusively via the numerous steps.

Introduction to Chinese New Year 2018 goals

The structure of the various tasks was as per usual, and that meant the torturous opening step which calls for requests to be sent out to neighbours for an item. This obstacle has been ever-present in the 15 day goal sets since the Christmas batch, so we best get used to it!

And it seems that with every quest there are players who complain that this particular task appears to stick and I'm joining that band. It can take the best part of a day to see those requests accepted and considering the calibre of neighbours I tend to send them to I'm fairly sure there's something awry at Storm8's end.

Once your Lucky Oranges came in it was on to the small matter of buying and building the Lunisolar Stove. At 42,000 coins it was yet another massively overpriced appliance which surely alienated many a low-level player. To construct it 6 Screws, 6 Red Gears and 10 Lunar Knobs were needed. Interestingly the Lunar Knob (the new part) was initially called the 'Moon Knob' only for this to be amended fairly swiftly after it was noted that that title was already taken by a part used in the Halloween goals last year. Meanwhile it was nice to see the Red Gear back in demand - it was pretty common in yesteryear but this was its first outing since the Workshop Stove in December 2016.

On to the three recipes aboard the Lunisolar Stove:

Lunisolar Stove recipes

The Nian Gao is a traditional cake consumed at Chinese New Year celebrations, although if truth be told the depiction of it here is a bit grim, even with the red bow. The Lucky Dumplings and Wealthy Spring Rolls are more familiar Chinese cuisine, and both benefit from being served on non-circular plates. It's amazing how much something like that can freshen up a dish!

Let's see some ratings:

Nian Gao
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	5	2	5	5	3.4

Lucky Dumplings
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	6	1	5	5	3.5

Wealthy Spring Rolls
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	3	1	10	5	3.1

I've made a bold decision - from now on you're getting minimal recipe analysis from me unless we get some foods which are actually interesting to discuss and not the same old numbers. In this case the Nian Gao has nine identical fellows, the dumplings 10 and the spring rolls six.

So we move straight on to the Festival Oven which at 45,000 coins will burn an even larger hole in your wallet than the Lunisolar Stove. This time it's 8 Gold Springs, 8 Metal Sheets and 12 Festival Lanterns which are needed, with the latter a new part.

The trio of recipes on the Festival Oven see a rather large gap in duration between each:

Festival Oven recipes

The steps up from 1 hour to 5 and then 5 hours to 11 may provide a shock to the system, but certainly shouldn't deter from progress in the goals.

The ratings are in:

Family Rice Balls
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
5	3	2	7	5	4.0

Longevity Noodles
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
1	7	1	4	5	3.3

Again duplication is at the centre of things, with both the Family Rice Balls and Longevity Noodles one of seven entries in their respective duration with the same numbers. You'll notice that the Prosperous Fish is absent from the scoring, and that's because it is only the second ever dish of 11 hour length to appear in the game. Consequently there is insufficient data to apply the ratings.

However we can compare it with the other 11 hour candidate, that being the Budget Salmon (Resolution Stove) which was released last month (strange that we have that fish connection between these two recipes!) In terms of profit and portions the Prosperous Fish yields 16% less, but on the XP front it gives 17% more. So which you rank as superior depends wholly upon which factor is most integral to you personally. However it is worth noting that when we look at that XP gain on a per hour basis the fish is actually better than anything in the 10 or 12 hour category, with its 16.5 XP per hour of cooking narrowly topping the 16.4 offered by the Haddock (Fish Stand).

You see Storm8 - a recipe which is actually unique and interesting gets dissected!

Now for the decorations which were opened up in the goals, starting with the Red Envelope Girl. This is an original character not seen previously in Restaurant Story which immediately scores it lots of points. She's got a hand up in the air which is great for the possibility of interaction with other decor. I've already seen a stroke of genius on this front, with Glines Gourmet lining her up perfectly with the Mini Golf to make it appear that she is making a putt.

The next item unlocked was the Lucky Dog Statue which is a nod to the Year of the Dog. The bucket of coins beneath the immortalised pooch (I'm assuming that's what it is?!) may well be some cultural nugget that I'm not knowledgeable enough to have in my brain, but it does lead to a decoration which doesn't look that exciting in my opinion. However taking into account that we have plenty of dog related content in the game there may be some scope for doing some form of set-up that brings it all together in a dog based theme.

 Chinese New Year 2018

 08/02/18 Goals
 08/02/18 Update

The final prize up for grabs was the New Year Family Meal. A 4x4 sized piece, it doesn't actually fill the space and could be squeezed into a 3x3 space. This sort of issue may seem immaterial, but to perfectionists such as myself this can be detrimental to achieving that optimal design - I don't like leaving empty space without good reason, and unfortunately this item forces that. That said it is a cheery decoration with lots of food on the table and content faces sat around. It also benefits from the table being circular - I feel like we have quite a few of these formats of item where the table is rectangular so the circular form is refreshing.

All that remains are the bonus goals which became available midway through the main chain of the quest. Sadly some of the standard bonus goal recipes did put in an appearance, including the classic Basic Grill threesome of BBQ Wings, Grilled Ham Musubi and Cheeseburgers. As discussed previously, some variation would be appreciated, but alas the gamemakers like their musubi!

Once the conclusion of the bonus chain was reached the Dragon Dance was the reward. It's now more than four years (crazy how time flies!) since this decoration was the final prize in another Chinese New Year themed quest, so it was about time that everyone was given another shot at it. It is a really cool item, but having picked one up back in 2014 I opted against utilising my resources to complete these particular bonus goals.

All in all, this was a pretty good set of goals. Not perfect by any means (since when was that ever the case!) but it was a good choice of theme given that it was a long time since we last had an update dedicated to Chinese New Year. Now back to the magical themed goals!