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Julie0176
03-02-16, 11:06 AM
Does anyone else struggle to complete tasks in the required timeframe? I play daily and invest many hours into fulfilling task requirements but it is incredibly frustrating when time and again the task expires before I am able to complete it! Please can consideration be given to extending the timeline on future tasks? I was working hard to complete the recent 'Petting Zoo' but had the rug pulled from under me yet again when time got the better of me. I am incredibly frustrated with this and feel I need to take a break from the game for a while. Anyone else feel we need more time for tasks?

cyndora
03-02-16, 11:52 AM
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, with work and real life stuff, I find the chapters (24 hours each) secretly makes me nuts. I play this game to relax and be part of the community here. But sometimes it gets a little frustrating. I do hope they look into these timed quest a little bit more. Carrots and petting animals seemed to slow people down. That right there makes it seem like your not progressing quickly.

As with any event, timed quest, I ALWAYS look at the drops first. If it drops useful items I am all in, but this zoo did not drop worth while items for me so I stopped at chapter 2 . Went into storage and did not think about it.

have to decide if it is worth it for you, stress, resources, time, life. Thank goodness there are people here that look ahead , gem ahead, and let the rest of us know what's coming. With out them , I wonder how many people could really complete the tasks?

Anyways, some events are fun, some are not, drops are hit or miss, but if you enjoy the game I say keep working at it. If you take a break for a bit, the game will still be here. ( but you might miss something good!)

Your not alone.

Sheeba8188
03-02-16, 01:00 PM
I don't think I have ever completed a timed quest with a counter less than 24 hours on it I wouldn't worry about it your not alone and certainly don't get yourself stressed about it.

The truth of the matter as far as I can tell, is that if you want to complete these timed goals there's a high chance you will have either to buy gems or purchase a value pack which tend to come out during timed event to help you along the way.

But being realistic the drops from these fully upgraded event buildings has been reportedly poor water from petting zoo for example so do you really need another pond :)

rulerofjennyville
03-02-16, 06:01 PM
I wouldn't worry about it - half the prizes will end up in your storage. I'd wait until one with a really great prize comes along to worry about it.

greediron
03-03-16, 12:51 PM
I don't think I have ever completed a timed quest with a counter less than 24 hours on it I wouldn't worry about it your not alone and certainly don't get yourself stressed about it.

The truth of the matter as far as I can tell, is that if you want to complete these timed goals there's a high chance you will have either to buy gems or purchase a value pack which tend to come out during timed event to help you along the way.

But being realistic the drops from these fully upgraded event buildings has been reportedly poor water from petting zoo for example so do you really need another pond :)No need to buy gems. I have never bought them, I have quite a few because I hoard them from adventures, trades and promotions.

And I rarely fail to complete a quest. Occasionally I use gems when it seems prudent. Like buying strands for 20 gems rather than trying for 10 days to get them. Reading the posts here certainly helps, knowing what to expect and prepare for the next step. That is the single most helpful thing, being prepared because people help by posting their knowledge here.

55lee55
03-03-16, 02:45 PM
I wouldn't worry about it - half the prizes will end up in your storage. I'd wait until one with a really great prize comes along to worry about it.


Yeah, I agree.

So far, not one of these storybook quests has had a decent prize, imo. There is usually a bottleneck built in near the end which seems designed to make us spend gems to complete. Then the reward is so lame that it goes into storage anyway.

Add in a bug, which they seem to be denying but my black pigs, and my neighbor's black pigs took many more than 12 feedings to mature during the petting zoo thing, and I have learned my lesson. I am following the lead of those wiser than I am and from now on, I'm stepping out of the timed storybook quests.

The stress isn't worth it and the gems I usually spend are wasted on junk that I will store anyway.

I am sticking to storylines and if I see something interesting I might or might not play a bit, but I am not getting sucked into another one of these again. They aren't needed to play and are optional. I am opting out.

Of course if you need to play every thing that pops up , like I used to, then maybe sitting out isn't an option for you. Likewise if you are are a collector, playing every quest might be a must. I used to collect everything, but my storage got out of hand long ago. With the shift away from the early buildings that were beautiful and animated, where you felt you had something of value when you finally finished a quest, to the static, look alike decor that is substituted for the old quality items, and the flood of even more junk from the Baron's Tent, these rewards have lost value in my book. I have gone from rearranging my schedule around updates and making sure I had plenty of gems banked, and setting alarms to get started as soon as the update came online, to expecting delays, examining dialogue for hidden sales like the Cabbage Hut, and sometimes even forgetting it is an update day, because of the way this game has evolved. It has deteriorated from an exciting, best of it's kind to a sort of tedious game full of gem traps and piles of useless junk I have to store if it even is storable.

There is still plenty to love about Castle Story, and I do love it. But in my opinion these timed storybook quests join the gem traps, sales disguised as dialogue, and the Baron's Tent, as unfortunate displays of greediness that detract from the underlying game which is still my favorite despite its tumble from greatness.

We have seen from experience that asking the game's developers to give us a break is a waste of time and energy on our part. It isn't in their interest to make us happy because we are spending money hand over fist on this game so they don't need to please us. The best we can do, just my personal opinion here, is to take from it what we each personally enjoy, be it the storyline and awesome community for me, to the whole ball of wax with all the bells and whistles, stress and gem traps for others.

I have had to lower my expectations because that is what we were given when the original quality of the game fell off even before TeamLava left. I played my last storybook with the petting zoo. I still plan to play and enjoy this game, but now I don't have to stress over it and my pocketbook will be fuller for it. If something catches my fancy I can always go for it. I am just giving up on expecting it to maintain the high standards that it started with.

Don't worry, be happy.

jbb4ever
03-07-16, 12:24 PM
Does anyone else struggle to complete tasks in the required timeframe? I play daily and invest many hours into fulfilling task requirements but it is incredibly frustrating when time and again the task expires before I am able to complete it! Please can consideration be given to extending the timeline on future tasks? I was working hard to complete the recent 'Petting Zoo' but had the rug pulled from under me yet again when time got the better of me. I am incredibly frustrated with this and feel I need to take a break from the game for a while. Anyone else feel we need more time for tasks?
I completely agree with you on this! I hardly ever complete tasks with the time that is given unless I spend a lot of gems to help me through, and that is rare because I can only purchase a decent amount of gems every now and then! It seems like if you don't have gems to help you complete the events and tasks, then you are out of luck! I am a daily player as well, and I get on my game multiple times a day, but it is hard to stay on the game all day when you have everyday life to deal with. I play a few storm8 games and I keep up with all of them, and I have this problem on the other games as well. They should definitely give us more time to complete each task!

Anaboe
03-09-16, 05:37 AM
I don't think I have ever completed a timed quest with a counter less than 24 hours on it I wouldn't worry about it your not alone and certainly don't get yourself stressed about it.

The truth of the matter as far as I can tell, is that if you want to complete these timed goals there's a high chance you will have either to buy gems or purchase a value pack which tend to come out during timed event to help you along the way.

But being realistic the drops from these fully upgraded event buildings has been reportedly poor water from petting zoo for example so do you really need another pond :)

I'm a long time player and I've never bought gems, nor a valuepack. Even so, I have always reached any (important) goal with atleast 10, but more often 20-40% of the time left.

Yes, there has been subgoals that I didn't make, but they didn't cost me the last goal. So I have a storage filled with max lvl event-buildings.

It is possible, not even that hard or time consuming. You just need to play very tactical, and sometimes set an alarm.

And yes, I have over 800 gems, all collected in the game. And all the gem-animals, plants, ponds and buildings I want. All gotten in the game, none bought.

55lee55
03-10-16, 12:01 PM
I'm a long time player and I've never bought gems, nor a valuepack. Even so, I have always reached any (important) goal with atleast 10, but more often 20-40% of the time left.

Yes, there has been subgoals that I didn't make, but they didn't cost me the last goal. So I have a storage filled with max lvl event-buildings.

It is possible, not even that hard or time consuming. You just need to play very tactical, and sometimes set an alarm.

And yes, I have over 800 gems, all collected in the game. And all the gem-animals, plants, ponds and buildings I want. All gotten in the game, none bought.


Good for you! Congratulations! That is quite an accomplishment, Anaboe.

But the question remains for the rest of us who don't have your special magic touch. Is there a stressful time element built into some if not all of these timed quests, specifically the Storybook quests?

I believe there is. I believe that stressors are being built in to encourage us to spend gems in order to finish in time. It seems to me that, yes it is theoretically possible to finish most Storybook type quests in time, but at a cost in gems or stress or both. I have finished all I started, but I have on occasion had to spend gems and even when I completed a quest without using gems, the Storybook quest intruded substantially into my life.

There appears to be a time sensitive bottleneck built in by design, and in at least the petting zoo quest, a subtle and convenient (for S8, not us) bug (?) that exists which is designed to induce us to panic and to spend gems to finish in time. Realistically, S8 is in the business of making money from this game and the way they do this with the Storybook quests is to induce players to panic and spend gems to finish.

That said, I haven't seen any of the prizes from Storybook quests that, to me anyway, are worth spending gems on. I have decided that I don't enjoy this kind of pressure, especially in the context of this particular game. S8 uses this same framework in some of their other games, and it obviously makes them money, but remember, playing these Storybook quests is optional. Each of us can decide if we want to participate. It is a given that this type of quest will be stressful, by its underlying design. Some players do enjoy this type of challenge, so it will continue to show up in Castle Story even if some of us choose to sit it out.

For me, the thing I love most about this game is the low stress/highly artistic qualitiy that the original game comprised. These high stress Storybook type quests that offer few or no useful prizes (and doubling a useless prize in the case of the petting zoo doesn't double the fun for me, sorry S8) are simply not fun for me.

So, I am not going to waste my time and effort playing the optional Storybook quests in the future. I don't see a method to play them without encountering the stress they are designed to cause, and I don't want or need extra stress in a game I play to escape stress. Everyone can make their own decision about if they choose to play Storybook quests or not, but for me the decision is not to play them. I believe the game will be much more enjoyable for me now that I will be sitting out the Storybooks.

We each have the choice to play Storybook quests or not. It is a given that S8 is not going to ease up on the very thing that is making them money with these quests, which is the time pressure. So it is up to each of us to play Castle Story using our own strategies. If we all were able and willing to play like Anaboe, as amazing as that accomplishment is, Castle Story would have folded long ago because S8 wouldn't have made a profit on it. So the rest of us folks will need to play it our way.

Good luck no matter how you choose to play Castle Story, Storybooks or no, gems or no. It takes all of us to keep this game going, and no single method of play is more correct than others.

Anaboe
03-10-16, 02:26 PM
I fully agree with you that it takes a lot of time, strategy, patience, carefull play and planning to fulfill some of these goals.

This type of play isn't for the casual gamer, to be honest. I've made so many schemes and excel-sheets on how to get some goal done, you don't want to know. I spent hours and hours, planning and puzzeling on how to achieve something. Months of carefully collecting stuff, tactical desisions on what to do next.

I do understand that if you wanna play only 2-3 times a day, for a couple of minutes, the goals are impossible.

Myself, during these events, I log on to the game atleast every 3 hours, setting the alarm 6 times a day, and logging on even more to collect from ponds. I understand not everybody is capable to do so, but to me, it's a distraction from being ill.

There are a lot of things I can't do because of my illness, and you won't hear me moaning that I can't ski, or sport, or work, do housework or anything a healthy person can do. Bur one of the upsides is that I can fully enjoy these games.

To all complaining about a lack of time because of real life reasons: be happy you do have little time, it means you can do all the things I can't. But making these events far more easy than they are now, also means: far less interesting, nothing to work for, no achievements to be made.

So yes, it is all doable, without spending gems. But as with all things in life: it either costs time or money. If you don't have either, you won't get what you want. Be it a goal in this game, or be it a beautiful home, you either got to build it yourself or buy it. Either way, it costs time or money.

limabeansarerad
03-12-16, 08:49 AM
I've only been playing Castle Story for about a week. But if the timed quests are like those in other S8 "Story" games, these quests are more fun/doable as you reach mid-high levels (and respective resources).

Along with selling gems, it probably helps advanced players from growing bored.

In Bakery Story many of the quests (timed or otherwise) will absolutely cripple a low level bakery. For example, if a quest requires at least 4 appliances (sole crafting/resource) working on one thing for 12 hours each...

At level 50? No problem - you have 9 other appliances to keep doing other things with.

At level 10? Uhg. That's ALL your appliances. You'll not only be bored, but your bakery will likely run out of food and stop making you money, and your customers will be unhappy, meaning it will take longer to get back to making money once you do have food again. It's not fun, it's frustrating.

This might not be the case with Castle Story at all - this might be the Story game that broke the mold! It's just an observation I've made from other Story games.