Early Access II Achievement

docsc00ter · August 2013

I've been wanting to complete the Early Access II Achievement (play and review 25 quests that are in beta). However...

• It seems that the quests have to appear on the "Review" tab for them to count, so just doing reviews of new quests listed here on the Forums isn't cutting it.

• VERY few of the quests on the "Review" tab can actually be completed. It seems a lot of them turn out to be exploit maps or quick tests. And many of them don't have chests available at the end (so that reviewers can't complete the quest and post a review until it's finished, perhaps?).

So I've wasted time dinking around in some bare-bones assembly of encounters of various difficulties just to find out that there's no credit for completion that helps toward the Achievement.

I'm now thoroughly annoyed.

All I want is that Achievement. People around here know that I'm pretty quick to play through an adventure and offer a review + tip when requested. But I'm at the point where I just wish there were actual beta quests in the "Review" tab that can actually be finished. Hey, I'm not even picky anymore. It could be a big empty room with an NPC that tells me to open the chest next to him just so I can say I finished another beta quest!

(Yeah, yeah... I'm kidding. Don't go creating exploit quests or anything.)

Am I the only one feeling this frustration?

-- sc00ter

antonkyle · August 2013

Your not alone, I saw some other people saying the same thing.

How do even get your quest's on that list? seems to be random.

ananvilhurtz · August 2013

antonkyle wrote: »

How do even get your quest's on that list? seems to be random.

I've been working on this one for weeks and have only managed to get up to 9/25.

I even tried making a quick quest on a buddies account to see if it would pop up in the Review tab, but it only seems to change what's there after a patch. (Or if by some miracle, things move to the 'New' tab.)

eldarth · August 2013

The lists seem to be really screwed up at the moment -- hopefully when Module1 is released the new search/tabs will help alot.

ALL of mine are currently below 25 plays/reviews and are 99.9% completable.

lolsorhand · August 2013

Enjoy them for what they are

, They are funny! Well some of them

celantra · August 2013

Yeah its very frustrating. I have actually been able to find a few to complete but its about 1 in 5 or even 10 right now. What should be the easiest achievement is probably the hardest to complete right now.

angrysprite · August 2013

docsc00ter wrote: »

I've been wanting to complete the Early Access II Achievement (play and review 25 quests that are in beta). However...

• It seems that the quests have to appear on the "Review" tab for them to count, so just doing reviews of new quests listed here on the Forums isn't cutting it.

• VERY few of the quests on the "Review" tab can actually be completed. It seems a lot of them turn out to be exploit maps or quick tests. And many of them don't have chests available at the end (so that reviewers can't complete the quest and post a review until it's finished, perhaps?).

So I've wasted time dinking around in some bare-bones assembly of encounters of various difficulties just to find out that there's no credit for completion that helps toward the Achievement.

I'm now thoroughly annoyed.

All I want is that Achievement. People around here know that I'm pretty quick to play through an adventure and offer a review + tip when requested. But I'm at the point where I just wish there were actual beta quests in the "Review" tab that can actually be finished. Hey, I'm not even picky anymore. It could be a big empty room with an NPC that tells me to open the chest next to him just so I can say I finished another beta quest!

(Yeah, yeah... I'm kidding. Don't go creating exploit quests or anything.)

Am I the only one feeling this frustration?

-- sc00ter

The *SMART* Foundry Authors will place a wall at the beginning of the quest blocking players from playing it when that quest is still in testing phase. (I set a wall to block with a complex dialog tree to prevent access, effectively creating a combination "lock" allowing me in to play-test).

I feel your pain. Gawd I can't wait for the new tagging system to be implemented.

crok2 · August 2013

I was finishing those up the same time as dzogen and it was quite funny. We would see one that we thought couldn't be completed and then see a dzogen review, and then go back in and spend forever trying to figure it out :P And one was like 100 ogres on a map that we died on over and over just trying to complete it but would have to bail out after many deaths. Then, there it was.... a dzogen review on it saying it was an interesting mechanic! Wha? So we went back in and saw what he was talking about and eventually got a complete. So a few hours and many deaths later we got to say, "ok +1. Next!"

We also found that if you report a quest for a TOS violation, it wouldn't count as a review. Although, as you know, many don't seem to count at random so hard to say if that is fact or not.

edit: I think we were working on early access 3 though. The one that requires 100 or w/e.

sourcreamking · August 2013

We should have a sandbox where we could publish quests for testing without clogging up the "for review"-tab.
That would be nice.

izatar · August 2013

Yeah, try going for the 100 reviews. Easily the most difficult/unpleasant task required for Moonstar Agent achievement.
Many of the quests in the for review tab can't even be finished, and some are very difficult to complete.
So the only way new quests get into the the list is for an old one to get 5 reviews, and then pray the one that replaces it can be finished.

zovya · August 2013

Yes, WORSE ACHIEVEMENT IN THE GAME. Painful.

ambisinisterr · August 2013

Hmmm...

Just to point out the other side of the coin, how could they reward you if you don't get the the review screen?
I get the frustration and I agree! But at the same time if you don't get to the review screen I can't think of a way that they can validate that you at least attempted to complete the quest?

If rewards were given based on a minimum time spent within the quest players could, in theory, AFK for a period of time and then claim unbeatable in order to check off a Beta Quest Review.
If they started requiring partial completion of new quests then I guarantee many players would only do part of quests in order to gain ranks sooner and faster.

Whenever I think of a content in any game I don't like I consider alternatives and possible solutions to my dilemma even if I don't share it with the developers and then consider how such suggestions could be broken by exploitative players. In this case I agree it's a horrid mess but I honestly can't think of a better way to do it with without promoting players exploiting the system.
So do you or anybody else have any ideas?

Side Note: If you complete the quest and report it as an exploit quest it should count regardless. To not reward players the same rewards/notoriety for completing quests which they were kind enough to report as an exploit quest seems counter-productive.

P.S. - Upon rereading it sounds like you're saying exploit maps are putting the reward chests out of reach of the players? That's a whole other problem altogether...

thalazar1 · August 2013

I'm not sure how this achiev even works. i have reviewed and rated quests in open beta and live that had zero reviews, 2, 4 reviews and i still have not recieved credit for a single one (i still have the achiev: rate one beta quest, unfinished)

crok2 · August 2013

At some point I *think* it changed to the fact that it HAS to be on the FOR REVIEW tab. I recall in the past being able to complete anything under 5 reviews and getting credit, but now I am not 100% sure that was the case. I remember telling a friend that who tried it and had no luck. ANYWAY, when I tried it again later, a few more times, I would ONLY get credit for quests completed on the FOR REVIEW tab, but even then I would say your chances of getting credit was like 75%. Playing with another person would not increase or decrease those odds. IE: One person might get credit or both or neither and it wouldn't be dependent on how many runs it has. (I had wondered if the last person who ran it who pushed it to 6 wouldn't get credit but that was not the case)

In summary: You have to do every quest on the for review tab that pops up for a *chance* to get credit. Always note the publish date and how many reviews/runs it has. If it has been sitting there since June/July (SOMETIMES EARLIER) with 0 reviews... you can bet it cannot be completed. There are STILL many on the For Review list that were there when I was going for that achievement, and believe me, I tried them all.... more than once.

At the very least I would hope that quests that are on that tab that do not move for 1-2 weeks get booted off that list.

docsc00ter · August 2013

ambisinisterr wrote: »

Just to point out the other side of the coin, how could they reward you if you don't get the the review screen? I get the frustration and I agree! But at the same time if you don't get to the review screen I can't think of a way that they can validate that you at least attempted to complete the quest?

Oh, I don't think anyone is suggesting this. Of course we have to actually complete a quest in order to review it.

It's just frustrating that the "Review" tab is clogged up with adventures that cannot be completed... and often there's no way to know until you've played through the whole thing only to discover that the author has buried the reward chest behind a wall or something so that nobody will post reviews until it's finished. Or, as you suggest, you find yourself in yet another "knock 100 Ogres off a platform" or "run this XP grind gauntlet of 100 Ogres" quest (and even then the reward chest may be unavailable, as I discovered once; any idea of how time consuming it is for a Cleric to take out 100 Ogres? Grrr).

I've wasted a lot of time playing through adventures in the "Review" tab only to find out that they could not be completed. Now, if the Achievement would be offered for playing through any adventure that has under 20 plays whether they appear on the "Review" tab or not, that would be terrific. Authors could post their need for reviews and plays here in the forum, and we could get an Achievement for helping those new quests get enough plays.

jintortle · August 2013

Yup Yup and Yup!!

My main beef also is trying to do the review for 14 days straight. No matter how much I try one day off it never counts and I am back to day 1 again.

Early Access II Achievement

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