crying baby's whine
Hello.
I want to give some criticism about the game to you Cat, as you are one of the devs. Not for discussion with other people here or showing myself as a smart ass.
Before going into critics I think i need to mention a little bit about myself, just so you know im not someone whos been playing arcades all his life and now has the guts to judge this masterpiece - The Quest.
I really think it is a masterpiece, its the best mobile rpg ever existed. And because i love it so much i want it to be better, thats why i waste a lot of time to write this useless wall of text.
So. The 1st time i played this game on a "pocket computer" long time ago, before touch screen mobile phones was a meta, it was when nokia phones was still the best. And i was really upset when the devs said “from now on all expansions will be released only for iphone”. I started to play it again only after it was released for android.
Anyway, im already 37 yo. I played almost all rpg's released for PC, from Diablo 2 to BG 3, including PoE. This is my favorite genre.
Now to the complains my weird brain finds annoying or not satisfying:
1) Most annoying thing is when your hp suddenly goes to 15hp or 10hp or whatever, when any hit is the last hit.
Its ok when it happens a few times but when its scripted for a piece of grass which you need to cross a dozen of times because you exploring, or almost on any crack on the wall which you need to tap because there probably hidden something, or something just strikes you over and over when you simply walking…its really annoying and brings 0 fun, only anger to the devs. Its like a punishment for exploring. But if you don’t explore you don’t progress.
2) Pop-up hits must be closed only upon tapping “OK”, they must not disappear when you tap anywhere else on the screen.
Most of the times I cant read it because it disappears and im wondering “was that crucial information to know or not?”. Sometimes I was loading a save file just to know what was there and it really was important.
3) We have to tap every single door because we don’t know if theres someone with a quest or not. So why you need to put a hundred closed doors in most cities? Especially annoying for quests like “go to that city and find someone somewhere there”.
4) Some quests are so confusing that you cant solve them without indepth guide from the site.
5) Things like hidden buttons should be in a logical spot like dead ends, behind a bush, etc.
You have made a big progress towards that since the first expansions, I give you that. Before there were no different color walls or lights , so you have to tap and hit every single wall in every corridor. But still, in latests expansions there was hard times to find switches on the same color walls.
6) I don’t have info how many people bought your expansions but as a rpg player with huge playing history, I think all your expansions should continue the progress of the last one. I mean if the last one was for 80 lvl character, the next one should be for 85 lvl character. Not for lvl 4 or 16. I have already spent so much time playing this char and then you present a new expansion for starting characters.. well I think that’s just a waste of your time creating that, I want to progress with my main. (I just saw a new expansion in playstore released in 2023 for starting characters and really was disappointed)
7) Another thing thats really dissapointing is that i finished all your expansions, except the last one (just because i havent played it yet), one hitting every mob or boss. The only difficulty was in the expansion when you had to use certain spells to kill mobs and anyway it was 3 casts at most, usually 2 casts and its dead. And the problem is huge capacity on the items for enchanting. You need to fix that somehow, increase the mobs hp, their damage or reduce enchant capacity on the items.
The last what I wanna say – you know that since the Russo ukranian war started, people in Russia and probably in Belorussia as well, cant buy anything on playstore. That’s losing possible profit. I wanna buy your new expansion but I cant. So why you don’t upload your games on another platform as well?
You can upload it on Russian “RuStore” or chinese Huawei “AppGallery”. On both Russian people can be able to buy stuff.
Im sure there are Russian people in your team, since a lot of stories in your expansions include Russian or “Slavic” culture and tales. But you haven’t done it yet so probably not gonna happen in the future but anyway, I said it.
P.S. You can delete this post when you read it. Thank you all for all these amazing expansions!
Comments
Thank you for your comments. Some things are beyond my control. For example, the popups being closed only by hitting ok.
Redshift controls the coding of the engine and they have said they will not make any more changes to the Quest engine. They are working on the Quest2 and although apparently they have a ways to go, that is consuming their time right now.
My original partner is Russian: Dr. Vlad which is how the Hero of Lukomorye series came about. But lately I have been working with Elizabeth Arnold who is English because 1) he is very busy with job and family and 2) she's a very good writer.
As far as the other comments are concerned, I appreciate them but to go back and fix them in the expansions would be too time-consuming, both for me and for Elendil and I'm not even sure he can do that right now.
Ragnar's Revenge, our next expansion, has been done for months but he doesn't have the time to upload it.
I am working on Dracon's Nest and will not have the annoying drops in hp in that. But I have no idea when Dracon's Nest will be uploaded as Elendil again is very busy. Everything is up in the air right now.
As far as confusing quests, some people like more complexity and others don't but again, I can't go back and change those. It would just be too much work.
I'll try to remember that in Dracon's Nest. Of course, that is what a forum is for, to help with complexity..
As far as one expansion leading to another in difficulty, I've had different co-authors for different expansions and when Dr. Vlad and I first started, we had others we worked with who had stories different from the storyline of the Hero of Lukomorye series. So we started those at low level.
The Celtic and Asteroids and others are similar. Working on different story lines with Liz, we decided some of them should be low level.
Oddly, the most popular expansions are those that are low level.
Anyway, I'm glad you have enjoyed the games. I'm sorry you have been frustrated by some of the aspects. They are probably toward the end of their life cycle judging by how difficult it is for me to get Ragnar's Revenge uploaded and how tight Elendil's work load is. I just can't go back and change things as it would be too much work for both of us.
Basically, it is what it is and I hope people enjoy what's out there. Some philosopher once said, everything in life is not complete without a flaw, or something like that.
Again, thank you for your comments. I'm sorry the expansions can't be purchased in Russia. As far as the mobile versions are concerned, only Redshift has any control over where they are uploaded. Not me. I'm far more sorry there is such a thing as war. I hope things change.
Dear Cat
I know that the post from CommonFolk is not for general discussion but I could not resist a few comments.
My wife and I have been playing RPGs for at least 40yrs, starting with games on the ZX Spectrum (an ancient British home computer).
I can to some degree agree with comments 1-5 and add that our main irritation is all the new diseases that are included in each release.
However I would make the following points .
1 The games are exceptional value for money.
2 Unlike most recent games which require the latest super computer to run it is NOT a case of "nice graphics shame about the plot". The expansions have obviously been crafted by some one who has put a lot of thought, time and effort into them
3.They are replayable it is never a case of "I will finish this game but I never want to play it again". We have played all of your expansions many times, This is the sign of a very good game . As I have said to you before they were a life saver during the Covid lock -down period.
4.They are an improvement on the original source game.
Please feel free to ignore this post as the previous one was not for general discussion. I hope that the series is not at the end of its life cycle and that you are able to release one or two more.
DMB
Thanks, DMB. I hope so too. :) It all depends on Redshift's work cycle though. I am patiently hopeful.
I will put one disease in Dracon's Curse. Just one. :) I don't remember how many there are in Ragnar's. Hopefully just a few.
Cat
Thanks for your reply.
One last question:-Will Ragnars Revenge be available on Steam for ancient PC users like me?
DMB
Yes. I do the uploading to Steam but Elendil likes to release on all platforms at once. If he can't upload Ragnars to mobie by Christmas, I will talk to him about just letting me upload it to Steam,
After reading carefully through this (don’t whine!) and as one of players from long ago who replayed the games many times too, I can agree only with 1, 2 and in few cases 5.
My view is that
As for 6, you’re not right, CommonFolk, and I highly appreciate Redshift for letting all the games be available in Russia.
If you use iOS, you can buy games using MTS or Beeline.
You can also buy on Steam by adding money to Steam using certain ATMs.
As for Google Play only… Yes, it’s a shame. I mean piracy is a shame. We should complain (not whine) to Redshift about it, I really hope they can do something about it.
Now, as for 2 it happens because there’s something in front of you (an object, an enemy, a wall) when you step on a tile with a message. It wasn’t an issue in the classic version because you had to tap “ok” to close popup messages. But in HD it so happens it’s too easy to close them.
As for 5 - I remember I couldn’t find any switches by myself in Strah Mountains in HD version of HoLII.
1 - it’s not THAT bad, I only got instantly killed once by a tiger in Castle of Oborot. So, one more oborot was necessary, you understand haha)
Dear Cat
At the risk of becoming a pest I would like to ask you one last question. (NB this is not a complaint)
We are happily playing through the expansions whilst waiting for Ragnar's Revenge and I wondered is there anyone in any of the games who has a higher level of enchantment than the Silver Bay Druid in Celtic Queen?
If so this would avoid having lots of enchantment capacity left unused on some of the higher level items of equipment.
DMB
I just don't remember. The higher your Environment Magic, the higher you can enchant.
Thanks Cat