Medal quest exploit

[Surge]

EDIT: As this has been confirmed as NOT A Bug, the ensuing discussion has been moved to Game Discussions.
Jampots
Forum Moderator

• World: Jaims
• Browser and Version: Latest Chrome. It's not like it matters here.
• Overview of the bug: A good bunch of players on Jaims, still in Bronze Age, have at least 10 slinger ranges built. Now it's fine 'n dandy if you want to use them for PvP or self-defense (even though they're inefficient), but the eye-catcher are the medal rankings. Those who have built slinger ranges en masse are at the top of the medal boards. TO make matters worse, none of the tournaments even ended to award any medals, let alone 155 of them! This makes PvP towers pretty pointless. The connection here are loop quests: Grivus gives them a quest to make sligners and spearmen, and the random rewards include medals. They can time everything so well they can complete Grivus loopers every 2 minutes or less! Why else would they build so many ranges and not even use them for PvP? One of these guys are in my neighborhood as well!
• Screenshots: Large screenshots. Spoiler'd.
  
  Here, we see a city with a lot of slinger ranges. This guy is #1 on medal rankings.
  
  Spoiler

  
  
  Actually we have multiple perps. They all have the slinger range mass.
  
  Spoiler

  
  
  PvP tournaments didn't even end and medals are given out. A lot. The guy in the first screenshot is in my neighborhood, and he didn't even fight.
  
  Spoiler

  
• How often this occurs: Always.
• Urgency: Pretty high.
• Preventative Actions: I don't know. Nukes?
• Summary: Players abuse slinger ranges to complete Grivus loop quests for medals.
• I have performed a quicksearch of the forums using a select few keywords relating to my bug to see if it has already been reported: Yes. This is new.
• Have you tried fixing it by using methods listed in the thread pinned to the top of this forum: How do I end the server?

 

[DeletedUser99588]

Players have been repeating loop quests for longer than I have been in the game. If they decide to sit there completing them rather than rushing through the research tree that should be their choice.

 

[Surge]

It was also our choice to build two Archery Ranges and finish all LMA provinces using 8 Archers two years ago.

 

[DeletedUser]

This is a bit more than that because they are mass building Ranges to increase the quest rewards abusing this exploit. Further, there's one guild in particular that is organizing to do this exploit in mass.

3 days into the new world, before any tournaments have ended, the organizer has 155 medals with several others in his guild having 100+. Effectively nullifying tournaments, a major function of the game. That's an exploit.

 

[DeletedUser]

+1 May not be against the rules, neither were HQ hopping and Ghost Guilds initially, but an exploit nevertheless. Peace out.

 

[DeletedUser99588]

HQ hopping and ghost guilds still aren't against the rules

 

[DeletedUser6065]

Color me confused here. I thought looping quests happened at the end of the Tech Tree (now PME). Can you actually make these things loop? . . . mk

 

[Surge]

It's not a PME exclusive. If you manage to finish all side quests of your current age before you bulb the next age, you get looping quests. I somehow managed to end up with IA loopers even though I only had Militia researched and absolutely nothing else.

 

[DeletedUser7719]

Or abort them all

 

[DeletedUser99588]

Is this something new or is it the same as all looping quests? If it is the same then I don't understand the problem.

 

[Surge]

It's the same with all looping quests, except it scales with ages as you go. The problem is that slingers take only 1 hour to produce and slinger ranges are the most compact military building in BA, and they only take 34 people (18 chalets can power 17 ranges). If you set them up properly, you can make a production delay between every slinger range currently producing a slinger and end up doing quests asking you to make spearmen and slingers every 2 minutes. After you finish the quest, just delete your spearmen and slingers and you can get the quest again. Cost isn't a problem because coins and supplies are part of the random reward.

Theoretically IA archers are worse because you can fit more of them, but you need more people to run it than a Cottage can hold, and it would take 2 hours, so it must less doable.

 

[DeletedUser99588]

I'm sorry but I'm failing to see the problem, bug or rule breaking. Is it it against the rules to keep doing loop quests?

 

[mrbeef]

But you are limited ultimately by cost. Deleting two Slingers and two Spearmen and then retraining them costs 170 Coins and 80 Supplies. Even with the 100 or 300 coins rewards it wouldn't be sustainable indefinitely.

And if someone chooses to build so many camps (and pay the retraining costs) instead of advancing on the tech tree then that's their choice.

 

[Surge]

I guess you have a point that it's the players' decision not to advance to the next age, but I didn't even get that many side quests for IA. I only have Militias researched and I got loopers. You can skip all BA quests because they give dirt (except for the 40 diamond Rinbin series, but that's relatively cheap to finish) and then start doing Grivus loops. Now you got an entire age to play (usually for 4-5 days). In the mean time, why not farm medals? You can even get diamonds, but the odds are pathetically low. Why not add a quest requirement to build that barracks and recruit units?

The thing is that people play tournaments to reach #1 and get medals. This is essentially pointless now, since within a time span of 2 days players got 100+ medals, rather than just 10 medals from 7 days. A big part of my guild is complaining for that very reason, and they are very big on PvP and GvG.

 

[DeletedUser99588]

Well I understand what your saying and yes they will get more medals at the moment but I suspect your players that are fighting are earning higher ranking points. It's early days yet and best to wait several weeks and see who is benefiting the most. Remember the medal rewards from winning the towers increase with age so if your players are progressing quicker they will reap the rewards later on.

 

[DeletedUser]

Tournaments allow players to compete for medals to earn expansions. Players in the bronze age must compete of a Week, and win, to earn *10* medals.

This exploit allows bronze age players to earn Hundreds of medals, without competing, or putting in anywhere near the effort that bronze age tournament players put in. They need only delay themselves hours or a day to gain these and then progress as normal. It totally nullifies early tournaments.

 

[DeletedUser96901]

lol 155 medals
those quests give medals for a long time now and that is not a bug

but players played 2 years and in the soccer event people bought bought more than that in a few minutes: 300.000 and more

where was the medal exploit thread for that :confused:

 

[DeletedUser7719]

I think you will find that in another place

 

[DeletedUser96867]

@ test Ament: There was lots of concern over the medal packages from the soccer event, so much so that the medal packages were reduced by about 60% from what was originally introduced on beta.

 

[Rosletyne]

I don't see any exploit or bug here. The repeatable quests exist to be repeated, there is nothing wrong about farming them. You have always gained more medals from quests than from PVP too, but that is just poor game balance, not an exploit.