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#52RareQuestsAYear
#52RareQuestsAYear
Over two years now since the original forum thread of this began:
Let’s have one Rare quest every week, regularly, 52 Rares per year.
#52RareQuestsAYear
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Q: Wait, is that it?
Pretty much. (And, I’m talking about the main game here, not the dragon!copypasta.) I would very much prefer that the Rare quest be on the same day every week, or, even better yet, instead of arguing over “which day?”,
(Xisinia X): “A simple solution to which day is let the rare quest run all week.”
#MakeRareQuestDayAllWeek
Q: Didn’t we already have this as a proposal?
Oh, sweet merciless RNG, yes we did. Others have brought this up, and I’ve been pushing this proposal for months and months even before "Rare Quest" Day began back in 2023.
Q: But didn’t we actually get–
NO.
SG’s announced schedule actually decreases the number of Rares compared to the previous year before "Rare Quest" Day began, the “regular” schedule is achieved by tying Rares to Omegas, and isn’t even a regular Rare schedule as there will be four “floating” Rares per year, which now seem to be mostly tied to E&P "birthday week" when they are touted as being "extra" or "bonus" Rares (instead of the floaters to bring the count up to the already-reduced-from-before number of Rares).
Q: But… isn’t this somehow moving the goalposts after SG finally responded?
NO.
SG didn’t give us what we were asking for, has actually been reducing what we get, and… if anything, SG moved the goalposts by admitting that there’s no reason that Rare scheduling needs to be tied to avoiding Challenge events, therefore Rare scheduling needs to be tied to avoiding Omega events instead.
🧐
Q: But why should SG deign to give us any more freely earnable mats?
Because the rate at which heroes are being released has hugely multiplied! let’s look at some extremes:
* In 2019, there were 35 new heroes released, 28 of which were 5* heroes.
* Even “just” the first three months of 2023, there were 41 new heroes released (not counting costumes), 32 of which were 5* heroes.
So actually even doubling the frequency of Rare quests would not be close to keeping up with the change in hero release rate between even these two time periods.
Let’s be clear: 52 Rares a year isn’t a doubling, much less a quadrupling or more of ascension materials. It is a very modest increase that also happens to make a regular Rare quest schedule actually regular. (As opposed to SG’s proposal which actually reduces guaranteed earnable ascension materials!)
[In fact, arguably, I should be making the case for players to be able to earn a lot more than 52 Rares per year. ]
And let’s also be clear about something else: a fully ascended 5* hero is hardly “done.” Once ascended, most heroes need at least some, if not full emblems, plus LB1 or even LB2 depending on how competitively you want to be able to use them.
Presumably, SG has seen some benefit to “giving away” Fated Summon and Soul Exchange heroes (since it drives more demand for materials to develop heroes) – having a few more guaranteed ascension materials each year would presumably incentivize players to keep working on those heroes with emblems and aethers!
Plus?
It would be a minor gesture toward the part of the playerbase that can feel increasingly left behind, while still benefiting everyone. At some point, retaining players has to be worth something to SG as well as to us.
I’ve written an open letter to SG about all their “Rare Quest Day” proposal (a bit of a misnomer when one time out of four, it won’t be a Rare Quest), but it’s time to push this proposal.
Again.
We do, indeed, want more regular Rare quests, but I want to be SUPER EXPLICIT this time to avoid any misunderstandings or misinterpretations of any kind:
52 Rares per year.
Regularly.
One every week.
In the main game. (Not counting the separate dragon minigame.)
#52RareQuestsAYear
How can I help?
Well, this thread has been very long-running, and it's gone up to SG a time or two before... but we never heard back anything more. If you have contacts (staff, moderators, Elites club, anything) with Small Giant and/or Zynga, I would appreciate it if you'd give this little quest a shoutout!
For those of you active on socials (especially official SG media, or even unofficial social chats), you can help build awareness of this long-running campaign simply by use of my ubiquitous hashtag
* #52RareQuestsAYear
(if you want to include a link to this page: https://bobthesnark.org/52rarequestsayear along with the hashtag, that is also highly appreciated!)
In particular, any action you can take is greatly appreciated because for the first time in the history of this or related threads, SG has acted to lock down this campaign by closing the Discord thread (the direct descendant of the long-running forum thread). Official word is that this is because the idea has been sent up to SG internal teams for discussion.... but it's not clear why that would necessitate locking the discussion thread (also preventing it from being linked on Discord).
In the best case scenario, wherein SG is actually going to grant this request, the discussion thread could become a long-delayed celebration thread; in lesser cases, what, this discussion is supposed to be tabled indefinitely while SG may or may not consider this request?
I've asked for more information, and for the Discord thread to be re-opened, but no word as of yet.
History! Part I
Perspective on how long this particular thread has been going.
When this particular thread started:
the newly released Hero of the Month was Uthragan
Aramis was just beginning to give way to Darkfeather as the Pre-eminent Purple Paradigm
Mega minions were still brand new
Untold Tales 1 last area wasn’t yet out
Legendary Troops and Master Emblems did not yet exist
Softskin, Insanity, Toon (much less Glass) costumes, S5 costumes, Garrison heroes, the Owl Tower, the entire Astral Plane, the entire Wilderness Portal, and many others following did not yet exist
History! Part II
This #52RareQuestsAYear thread was hardly the beginning - it resulted from
an open letter I wrote to SG (and the forums, and directly to Support) as a result of “Rare Quest” Day, which resulted from
my precursor request thread to #52RareQuestsAYear, which resulted from
the long-running “Is the Rare quest cancelled for this week” MASTER thread (starting Sep 2022) that led to my precursor request above
never mind this is far from the only history — that’s just when I, myself, got directly involved. This isn’t some single one-off issue: this is a long-running player request that got players less as a result of asking for more.
History! Part III
Literal history!
Wayyyyyy back in the days of the Roman Republic, Rome fought a series of wars with Carthage. In particular, during the Second Punic War, Italy was invaded by a Carthaginian army led by Hannibal, who not only crossed the Alps with an army (including elephants), but inflicted such a string of staggering defeats on the Romans (including one, Cannae, that still endures as a watchword in military history for “tactical annihilation of a superior force”) that Rome had to resort to a Fabian strategy of essentially refusing to directly engage Hannibal any more to wear down his forces – and Hannibal operated behind enemy lines, on Italian soil, for around 15 years total before eventually being recalled to defend Carthage (and eventual defeat).
To say that Rome was shaken by this sequence of events would be a massive understatement. Huge indemnities and penalties were levied against Carthage, yet Carthage was actually working them off.
Enter Cato the Elder, Roman Senator. He was so shocked, incensed, and afraid of Carthage being resurgent ever again that he famously took to ending every speech in the Roman Senate with a phrase that essentially meant “Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed” (rendered variously, but most succinctly as Carthago delenda est), no matter what the topic.
Grain shipments? Carthago delenda est.
Dedication of a new temple? Carthago delenda est.
Happy Thank Your Olive Farmer Day? Carthago delenda est.
Cato hammered and hammered and hammered this point without end until Rome had a pretext to actually attack Carthage again, and in the Third Punic War Carthage was utterly annihilated.
So, yeah. I’m being stubborn here. Stubborn enough to invoke Cato the Elder’s stubbornness.
"But won't SG just ignore... or keep ignoring.. this request?"
Given that the corresponding forum thread was already two years old when the forums were razed to make way for Discord, one might argue that this is the case regardless. But… not trying would seem to have an even lower chance of success. And, to be honest, part of this particular push is that SG did actually seem to hear — if willfully not really listen to — player requests before, namely, about fixing up irregularly scheduled Rare quests.
The forum thread that this continues wasn’t and isn’t the start of a request, it’s a response to SG’s response reducing Rare quest frequency.
—In particular, on a personal note, I got my dragon forum emoji badge specifically for being one of the banner carriers for “more regular Rare quests,” sort of a “you got SG to actually listen” prize, only to find out that SG didn’t really listen and.., it felt like I hadn’t earned my badge, not really, unless I kept trying.
And more recently there have been staff who have said the general request for more mats has been passed up to devs, and it’s possible there have been indirect effects like Dragon Shipments (random occasional mats as inducement to keep at least regularly if nominally checking in on dragon!copypasta) or Ascension Mimics (making otherwise nigh-unfarmable mats more farmable, for those lucky or spendy enough to land Mimics through Secret Summons).
SG’s communication being what it is, we don’t know—certainly I don’t recall SG ever trumpeting “we heard you and now we are offering you more!”—but if we can sustain “more mats would make the crazy power-rush pace of the game more playable for more players,” maybe even indirect effects are still a win.
Which isn’t to say I don’t still want actual weekly Rare quests for all. Not so much because I personally need more, say, tabards (I really don’t), but more of “can we have reasonable player requests sans Monkey’s Paw twist” plus “I think this would actually improve the game overall for players, and yes even for SG, by a small but appreciated amount.”
And heck, given that SG locked the Discord thread, purportedly because the idea has been passed up for internal discussion -- again -- clearly someone has noticed. It might be important to keep sending the message that players support this idea.
What is SG Customer unAppreciation Day?
In short, it's every single day that a Rare Quest has been (needlessly) pre-empted by an Omega Quest. It's a regular reminder that we didn't really get what we asked for. And every single time, from the first day to the most recent, I have posted and refreshed this thread (which was on the forums, a separate sibling thread to #52RareQuestsAYear) as a reminder that this could so easily be better.
(Dates thus far:
15 Nov 2023
13 Dec 2023
10 Jan 2024
7 Feb 2024
6 Mar 2024
3 Apr 2024
1 May 2024
29 May 2024
26 Jun 2024
24 Jul 2024
21 Aug 2024
18 Sep 2024
16 Oct 2024
13 Nov 2024
10 Dec 2024
8 Jan 2025
4 Feb 2025
4 Mar 2025
2 Apr 2025
30 Apr 2025
28 May 2025
25 Jun 2025
23 Jul 2025
20 Aug 2025
17 Sep 2025
15 Oct 2025
12 Nov 2025)
Players asked -- in this thread, in its forum precursor thread, in forum threads before that, and for years beforehand -- for more and more regular Rare quests — instead, we got a “Rare Quest Day” that... doesn’t necessarily give a Rare Quest.
As with, say, today.
When SG announced the change, they acknowledged that having a Challenge event in the same week was no excuse to put off a Rare quest for the week — then immediately came back with the claim that having an Omega quest in the same week was instead an excuse (and a more regular one!) to put off a Rare instead.
(Despite that demonstrably, having an Omega and a Rare the same week had not been actually a problem, nor should it be!)
For over two years now since then we have asked for slightly more Rare quests on a truly regular, once-a-week schedule, and have been “rewarded” with an excuse to give us less.
Specifically?
The number of Rare quests before "Rare Quest" Day may have *averaged* ~43 per year over several years, but as documented by the community even at time, it wasn’t exactly “steady.”
Heck, there’s a reason that this version of this request grew out of the old “[MASTER] Is the rare Quest cancelled for this week” forum thread — Rare quests had been increasingly approaching very nearly weekly, leaving confusion about just how much drift in Rare quest timing there was, and how much overlap or proximity there would have to be to trigger the increasingly outdated “no overlap between Rare and Challenge” rule of thumb.
Rare quests had already been on a trajectory to be very nearly weekly. (Plus, to be clear, the increase in rate of hero release was already significantly outpacing the increase in Rare quest rate, even before the change.)
The new “Rare Quest” Day actually clawed that back — and it did so by
* acknowledging that the “no Rare overlap with Challenge” rule of thumb (sporadically enforced) was outmoded, but
* instead instituting a “no Rare overlap with Omega” rule (not of thumb, but locked in), and more regularly.
And this is why I dub this SG Customer unAppreciation Day — when our requests aren’t merely ignored, but seemingly punished.
We will not forget.
Nor will we give up. (As quixotic as this has become: we have been heard before. We can be heard again.)
After all, there is an eminently simple win-win solution: #52RareQuestsAYear
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