Magical goals content report

Before we get into this goals content report I have to apologise for the lack of a post thus far on the St Patrick's Day themed goals which were issued late on Thursday. Life has been busy this past week and I'm not around this weekend (this post has been published automatically!) so the goal post will have to wait until Sunday at the earliest.

Anyway, this week saw the conclusion of the magical themed goals, where the fairies were out in force.

Introduction to magical themed goals

It was a typical 15 day goal set, with the usual arrangement of steps and challenges. That meant a tough start due to the item request task, but after that it was straight on with the first new appliance. That was the Enchanted Stove, which required 10 Magic Moss, 6 Metal Sheets and 6 Ye Olde Knobs to build, the first of these being a new part introduced with the update.

The Metal Sheet is featuring in a second successive quest having also been a requirement for the Festival Oven in the Chinese New Year goals. In contrast the Ye Olde Knob was making its first appearance since debuting with a medieval based update in August 2015. Nice to have it back in play!

Here are the three recipes located on the Enchanted Stove:

Enchanted Stove recipes

There's nothing particularly exciting about these dishes aesthetically, although the Mana Tree Truffles certainly look more impressive piled up.

As for the numbers, look away now...

Rock Candy Bites
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	6	1	5	5	3.5

Fruit Wizard Wands
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	5	1	5	5	3.2

Mana Tree Truffles
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	5	2	5	5	3.4

It's the age old issue of recycled recipe statistics. I won't provide any further analysis, except to say that the figures for these three are identical to those of the three entries on the Glowing Oven which was added only a few weeks ago.

So we move swiftly on to the Faerie Fountain which calls for 8 Pocket Watches, 8 Screws and 12 Fey Extract to put together. Rather expectedly the last of these is the new part, with the Screw returning just as the Metal Sheet did after featuring in the last goal set too. The Pocket Watch has had a rather longer wait to return, having last been utilised with the Resolute Stove at the beginning of 2016.

A brief word on costs at this point - the Faerie Fountain will set you back 32,000 coins for each one bought, and the Enchanted Stove was 27,000 coins a time. These may be hefty prices, but they do represent a fall from what we have been enduring of late. The three 15 day quests in 2018 prior to this one had all broken the 40,000 coin mark for both cookers, whereas here we are well below those astronomical amounts. Hopefully we continue to see a downward trend in the coming weeks and months!

Here are the Faerie Fountain's trio of recipes:

Faerie Fountain recipes

Storm8 do seem to be very good at designing drinks, with plenty of detail thrown in to give a really complete rendering. These three are no exception, although I'm not sure how I feel about an actual Faerie paddling in my glass of Faerie Kiss!

Here are the ratings...

Vivid Water
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	6	1	5	5	3.5

Moon Blush
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
1	8	1	4	5	3.6

Faerie Kiss
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
1	10	1	10	5	4.8

It's the same old story, with the statistical make-up of these dishes mirroring those of many a candidate from the past, including the recent Glowing Oven and Glowing Drink Maker. The game's developers are so lazy that they even repeated some numbers within these goals - the Vivid Water mirrors the Rock Candy Bites blow for blow (not that we haven't seen this kind of thing before!)

Let's carry on with the floor decor which was unlocked at numerous points in the quest, starting with the Faerie Helpers. A 3x3 effort, this is a pretty large item for an intermediate goal prize. It features fairies working their magic on various kitchen equipment including a self pouring cauldron and self piping icing bag. It's a busy and detailed piece with much to feast your eyes on. However I can't help but feel that it's missing a character to oversee proceedings - although that would obviously defeat the purpose of it somewhat!

Next is the Wishing Well which may only be 1x1 but is a beautiful prize. The inclusion of ivy taking over is a good one and gives the well a little more credibility as a long standing structure. I imagine this will be a popular item around the community since it can fit into a plethora of outdoor designs.

And then there is the Enchated Forest. Yes, Storm8 managed to misspell it, and I'm not aware that they have changed it. Indeed I don't even think it's been reported. As for the content of the decoration, we have a smartly dressed couple holding hands in enchanted surroundings. The gamemakers have been able to make liberal and legitimate use of the sparkles they so often enjoy showering upon us, although in truth I don't feel that a lot of effort has gone into giving the surrounding stuff much depth and definition. In particular the mushrooms just look large and cumbersome. Nevertheless that light beaming down from the sky is wonderfully rendered.

 Magical theme

 22/02/18 Goals
 22/02/18 Update

It's at this point I have to admit that I failed to complete the goals. It's the second time in three quests that this has happened after I didn't finish the glow party goals. As alluded to at the start of this post, this was mostly a consequence of being preoccupied with real life rather than the goals being too tricky. Still frustrating though!

Thankfully I was able to complete the bonus goals that came with the update. The target for everyone was the Bear Porridge which was originally a limited time offer in April 2014. I don't believe it had been available to purchase again since, and I certainly didn't have one, so this was a bonus goal set which appealed. The item depicts a family of three bears making porridge, paying homage to the classic fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

As far as the process to obtaining this prize was concerned, I noted a comment on the Storm8 Forum suggesting that the coins per plate for the recipes called for in the three steps were lower. Naturally I gave this a check and right enough only three of the nine dishes requested yielded the standard 4 coins per plate. The rest all provide fewer which is a problem for any players out there who have lots of food on their counters and so are already selling the maximum number of plates per day. If you drop the coins per plate then that means less profit made per day.

This of course comes back to the issue of using recipes accessible to lower level players. I've already discussed this before in terms of how monotonous it makes the bonus goals when the same dishes appear over and over, but now we have evidence that it's also detrimental from a statistical perspective.

Well that does it - I'll try and get analysis of the St Patrick's Day update out to you when I can!