How to fix Fairy hunting

So, people've commented to me 'It's a pity about the co-op fairy boost, now noone searches for fairy solo.'
I counter that the higher player population makes up for it, in terms of finding the fairy at around the same rate.

And, perhaps it does at times, but other times, like right this very moment, it's a bit less convincing an argument- you've a lot of solo-minded players on waiting on the fairy, and noone actually searching.

But, for all the various things we throw around on the forums, this one has a [presumably] very easy fix:

Give the co-op bonus to the first person to find the fairy in a day, regardless of if they're in a single or co-op party.


There's no bonus to it, no loss to anyone if they don't get it first;
the sole thing it'd do is encourage people to solo for the fairy if they have the option and will to.

Thus theoretically making the fairy hunting even more involving for the player base.

 

Interesting idea, no idea how easy it would be to implement. @Farbs?

 

I personally think the hunt is pretty unnecessary, and would rather the game just show us where the fairy is each day (via highlighting or something). Plus, this assumes that whoever finds it first will report its location, but realistically this is a large online game, and chances are high enough that it will often first be found by a casual player that doesn't realize the significance of it.

 

True, without any indication that the bonus has been collected, someone could get 'screwed over'.

Good catch.

As far as the hunt itself, it's a good community event, most of the new players seem to like it, as do most of my regular PvE partners.
Though, well, we do all pretty much non-stop complain about how the refresh/dipping system works, especially how it relates to often being 'unable' to run any adventures for an entire day, waiting on the fairy to spawn. There's definitely a lot of room for improving the system, but it's fun enough otherwise that removing it seems a negative course.

 

You can hunt on the test server for maximum efficiency, then rip the rewards on prod.

 

How is not getting rewards for non-fairy adventures 'maximum efficiency'?
Nevermind that most players that aren't making an effort to arrange a co-op run really aren't likely going to put the effort in of loading up the test server

 

If you're a dedicated player, have a huge collection anyway, and really only care about finding the fairy as quickly as possible (hence the hunting solo thing), hunting on the test server is extremely efficient and makes a lot of sense.

Otherwise, I do not see a real problem here.

Also, as implied by @Xayrn and given how many people play CH, chances are the "first player to find the fairy" is gonna be somebody who never reads or posts on the forums, or checks the fairy tracker. I.e. even if the suggestion was implemented, you would end up with lots of people hunting solo while thinking they'll get improved chest for finding it first, only to get regular loot in return cause somebody else found it before and did not report it.

That'd be very frustrating, and people would quickly return to hunting in a team, as that ensures you'll get the additional two reares+.

 

What some see as a good community event, others see as an annoyance. However, I think there's actually a way to get the best of both worlds. Here's my ideal system:

• All resets are synchronized to a 23-hour clock (shops, adventures, fairy, bandit)
• The fairy is shown to all players in-game by marking the adventure it's at (if they have it unlocked)
• The bandit is still unique to each player, but all members of a co-op group receive bandit loot if any of their bandits were at the completed adventure (players with exhausted bandits should get their bandit adventure marked so the group can tell whose it was)

With these changes in place, there's no need to hunt for the fairy or avoid playing adventures before it moves (because it moves when the adventures reset), there's an even greater incentive to play co-op (better chance of finding a bandit), and players that enjoy hunting are still able to pair up with friends and hunt for their bandits together each day.

 

-I- don't see it that way.
I've noted my issues with the Fairy since I first started posting on the forums.
I'm saying that for all its annoyances and flaws, it IS a good community event, and you get a lot of players really into it, logging in for it specifically, doing co-op specifically for it, etc.
People also tend to feel useful when they can contribute to finding it, even when it's just passing information along.
I often have 5 or 6 different parties keeping me updated during a fairy hunt, so I can update the tracker for them, and then we've several more posting in general chat or to other people with tracker access. And each one seems very enthusiastic about being able to 'help out'.

Could there be BETTER events, or a better way to run it? Pretty sure, yeah.
Is removing Fairy going to make the game better? Pretty sure, no.
And that's all I was saying

Unless Jon has issue with making the daily reset non-standardized, I don't actually see any issues with most of your points;
Except for the removal of the hunt itself, that's..
Again, regardless of the players that dislike it, there are those that, if not enjoy it, enjoy participating with others on it.

As I said, there's ways to improve things.
Removing a feature without offering a similar replacement doesn't improve things unless that feature is more negative than positive, which Fairy currently is not.

 

I don't think I did that. The only 'feature' I removed was the fairy hunt, and I specifically mentioned bandit hunting as a reasonable alternative for those that are into it. If some people enjoy hunting to help others find extra loot, then they can group up with a couple other players and find their bandits together, but everyone shouldn't be forced to rely on someone stumbling upon the fairy each day before they can collect their daily loot, even if some players get a small amount of satisfaction from helping find it.

 

The whole point of Loot Fairy is to offer an exciting hunt. Without the hunt there is no Loot Fairy. It's not meant as some free loot for everyone with no effort involved.

The Hunt for the Loot Fairy is one of the most indigenous, grass roots phenomena the game has spawned. It is an important part of Card Hunter PLAYER culture. It is not an annoyance to be improved away. It is a wonderful, spontaneous thing. It is beautiful.

Love the Hunt and the Hunt loves you back.

 

But that's already what it is for the vast majority of players that take advantage of it, and no amount of colorful language will change that. For them there is no exciting hunt, only a tracker page to continuously refresh. I think you're seriously overstating the event's significance. In fact, if the fairy's location was made known to players through the game itself, more players would realize it exists and feel compelled to login each day and reap its rewards, which is good for the game's overall health.

Again, if players want an exciting hunt each day, I think a more co-op friendly bandit would be much better suited for the task.

 

I've already promoted Daily Login Challenges, and I still think that's the best way to handle 'compelling people to login daily'. And that gives something to really make PvE more invigorating.


And if fairy was flat out known, people'd just log in early on, run it once, and log off.
It's not like your idea is in any way better or more compelling or less annoying than the current system.

And since it removes community participation for those that actually participate, it's a negative effect on the vibrancy of the community.

Doesn't really matter if people are annoyed with the fairy, it's not designed to be a login event, but to be a timed event. The fact that the timer starts when one person finds and announces it is just a cool little bit of flavor.

Despite the issues in structure the event may have..

And how is randomized adventure boosts exciting? Compelling in a way, certainly, but extremely bland in its randomness. There's none of the draw that the fairy has, meaning it's an inadequate substitute. Could work well as an additional change, however; and honestly, that's a better approach than co-op bonuses for the Fairy is, in terms of compelling regular PvE co-op play.

 

I think you're missing the main draw of the hunt, Xayrn. It's the collective effort, it's the pulling together for the benefit of all. Not just searching for the bandit of a specific player but the legendary Loot Fairy which rewards ALL players.

A big part of the thrill of the hunt is knowing that what you're doing is helping everybody. It feels good to be part of a shared effort. People like working together for the common good.

Sure, it's only a small part of the total players who participate in the actual hunt but that does not mean that the point of the hunt is today's Looty location. That's just a byproduct.

The hunt is exciting also for the onlookers. Has it been found yet? Where is it today? Why is it so slow today? It's like following a sport. Where's the thrill in just announcing daily that the Cranes won 3 - 2 against the Storks because the computer said so, no need to play the match.

A vast majority of people only watch Game of Thrones. They have no use for acting, cinematography or set building. I think the Game of Thrones production crew should all be downsized because nearly no-one who watches Game of Thrones participates during the production. The episodes should just be dowloaded into a torrent site. There's no need to make everyone painfully wait while the production crew dither around in their trailers.

 

Oh, and having the hunt in its current form does not preclude advertising it prominently to all players to lure them in daily. That could still be done without changing the whole system and losing the hunt.

 

You're missing the reason for the Loot Fairy's existence. If Blue Manchu had wanted to add a random, announced-to-everybody, better-loot-giving daily adventure to the game, they would have done exactly that. Instead, they added the hunt. The Loot Fairy is in the game because of the hunt. Without the hunt there is no Loot Fairy.

You could always ask Blue Manchu for a new, random, announced-to-everybody, better-loot-giving daily adventure. Maybe they would like to add one, maybe not. But it would not be Loot Fairy. It would be Daily Enhanced Adventure or something.

 

In fact... Loot Fairy Hunt would be even better if I took down my tracker... =)

(@Xayrn: the only reason it's on a 25-hour clock was that the tracker I made was so efficient when it was on a 24-hour clock that it was found within 15-30 minutes every single day. So BM decided to make the fairy harder to hunt in order to preserve the hunt. Jarmo's spot on about the intention behind the feature and removing the hunt would, indeed, be removing the feature.)

 

But there's a lot of frustrating features here: not being able to do any adventures between reset and move and the extra loot you can only get if you can log in near the reset. I really like that idea of having everything reset on a 23 hour cycle.

And I'm not sure if the community building is enough to balance that. A couple times this past week it's taken me more than an hour to find someone willing to join me in doing the LF. And that's when it's already been found; I've only once managed to find someone to help me hunt.

 

I sure wish the Steam client didn't disconnect all the time for no reason, so I could get double Loot Fairy like the cool kids.

It's very interesting/surprising to read that the loot fairy timer got changed in an attempt to slow down people from finding the loot fairy, rather than in an attempt to balance access to double loot fairies for players in different parts of the world. I would have assumed that the speed the fairy is found at would be just be a function of player volume (i.e. it would be found faster when there are more players online), regardless of when it happens to reset.