What If... We changed the way we do Seasonal Egg Hunts?
I think all users on Res really look forward to seasonal egg hunts. It's a great way to celebrate a certain time of the year and it's fun to get the chance to hatch Creatu whose eggs you can't find during the rest of the year. It feels special.
I think we can also all agree that the switch from just having to refresh the page to being able to just hit "explore onward" is also a great improvement on the seasonal egg hunt experience.
Thank you so much to the staff for putting effort into making this activity accessible and fun for all Res users. :)
That said, I have noticed some things after participating in the Halloween egg hunt as well as the winter seasonal egg hunts.
For one, if you don't have more than an hour each day you're willing to spend on egg hunting, you probably are going to find less than twenty eggs per seasonal Creatu. Users who get around or over that number generally spend a significantly longer amount of time on the egg hunt, passing dead time spent just clicking by watching TV shows or movies or other methods of entertainment.
Also, some users have voiced having schedules that make the seasonal egg hunt not really worth it for them to participate in, even if they would enjoy doing so.
There is nothing wrong about this model particularly. I am just wondering if there is a way to make that "dead time" more enjoyable and make the egg hunting itself somewhat entertaining in and of itself? It can take and often does take a while to stumble upon merely one egg. That's not a bad thing - but it does get very monotonous to do the same thing for an hour or more:
crtl a + click
ctrl a + click
ctrl a + click
over and over again until you find an egg.
Some people complain that it's the rarity or the dreaded RNG that makes egg hunting so frustrating for people. But I also wonder if it's just the amount of time you spend doing nothing but ctrl a + click.
It's fairly telling that people look to non-Res means of entertainment such as watching shows or movies while they egg hunt to make that time less boring.
Also perhaps there is a way to make the egg hunt easier on peoples' schedules. I think that Res in general has quite a few adults who play actively and it does cater, I think, to a more mature crowd. Peoples' schedules are definitely something to take into consideration.
Ideas:
What if we made the egg hunt time shorter?
Something that could be implemented is to make the egg hunt last less than 48 hours. Make it last 12. Or 5. Or 2. And maybe that way the "rarity" could be tweaked to something less than what it is currently at because now it's much more of a race against time than an exercise in patience. That way you can still kind of control the amount of seasonal eggs in circulation, but people feel less frustrated about how long they wait to stumble upon just one egg.
What if it was more of a seasonal quest where we trade in items for eggs?
I know we already do this to some extent. But we could do it more than we are doing now. I found giving snowballs and gears to Rosa and Blake was genuinely fun. You randomly stumbled upon the items as you were going about your normal day in Res (so every user, even newer users, had an opportunity) or you could buy them from other users.
Wouldn't it be fun to trade in points you get from those for eggs? It gives people a more measured idea of how many points it's going to take them to earn an egg - which is definitely less frustrating and more fun than hitting ctrl a + click for hours on end and feeling frustrated when you don't find an egg in what feels like forever, and it's not a guarantee you're going to stumble upon one anytime soon. It also feels very rewarding. You really feel like you earned it, but the whole process itself was fairly entertaining. The excitement of inching closer towards your goal is pushing you forwards. I think that is very motivating for users.
That's what makes things like earning Blessings at the shrine and Kir's quest so addicting and fun for people, even when you throw a bunch of resources into them.
What if it only counted down the hours you spent on the actual page?
Thank you, Voidbringer, for suggesting this idea! Instead of giving people 48 hours which count the time not on the computer where they could be at work or involved in taking care of their family or doing school or what have you, the amount of time given to each user could be tweaked and the timer could only count down when you're actually actively egg hunting. This would indeed make the seasonal egg hunt more accessible to users whose schedules make egg hunting difficult.
Any other ideas? Please comment.
Anyways, another big thank you to the staff. This is not a complaint but just a way to explore how to continue making Res an enjoyable place for everybody. :)
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