Party Quests APQ QoL: Bonus Room Spawn

Currently there are 6 spawn points in APQ Amos Vault (bonus stage). It appears people spawn at these points at random. Sometimes 5 out of 6 people will spawn at the same point. Along with the slight delay that people have, it can then be confusing/chaotic to figure out if you are moving, someone else is moving to a different area, etc.

Would it be possible to have 1 of each party member spawn at 1 of each of the 6 points instead. Or if that is not possible, have all 6 spawn at the same center top spawn so that it can be called out ahead of time what area they are moving to. Since it is easier to drop down from top, rather than climb all the way up? (Similar to CWKPQ bonus then since everyone enters the room at the same spot and spreads out). Although the 6 diff spawn points with 1 each point would be preferred.

 

Bumping this since Valentine's Event got extended; there's always drama around stolen apples and fighting over boxes due to server lag. With standard spawns, we'd be able to ensure that everyone gets as fair of a chance to break as many boxes as possible.

 

But dramas are a part of apq.
I like how it is right now. The extreme cases rarely happen anyways.

 

What is there to like about the current implementation? Putting aside APQ drama from contested apples, the current spawn makes it more likely that sections of the map will be completely untouched by the time bonus ends (notably the top left and right 3 sets of double boxes). There are not enough boxes in the bonus map for all 6 members of the party to keep breaking until timer runs out if you exclude the boxes that are normally missed due to poor spawn. The only subset of the community who would be negatively affected by the change @faerieskater is suggesting are those who currently go around the map hogging all the double boxes to themselves and cutting people off from their natural path.

 

I enjoy finding a different path every time. Should it fail or not

 

I definitely agree with this suggestion. I've done a ton of APQ runs before, and bad spawns are the worst thing that can happen. There have been too many times where I spawned at the bottom with 3! more players, which just caused too much chaos and eventually led to all of us not hitting enough boxes. Making the spawns fixed would make it so much easier.

I think the spawns should look like this (Or somewhere around that):

The corners should stay where they are, but the middle two can be fiddled with

 

You aren't far off from the current spawn points @SteveTrabajo.

These are the 6 current spawn points (take from here: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/comprehensive-apq-guide-updated-feb-2021.172942/)


I mean, yes ideally, 1 person each spawn point. But if thats not as easily done, then, even all spawning top mid so people can spread out easier and call out before hand what sections (top left, top mid, top right, mid, bottom left, bottom right) would be helpful compared to the current situation.

 

Your pathing doesn't just affect you though. It affects your entire party. I don't think the mild satisfaction you get from "finding a different path" justifies hindering your party members from breaking as many boxes as they theoretically can.

Take this scenario: you're somewhere where you have 2 options - head one way where no one else is, or head the other way which would be the next set of boxes your party member can get to without walking across the map. Doesn't it strike you as selfish if you decide on the latter? We're all committing the same amount of time to completing the party quest - why not ensure that everyone in the party has a fair chance at a good bon?

 

I try to establish a path which is optimal for me and the party. Brainstorming is fun! Everyone should try it!

 

I feel like having a coordinated party is being rewarded currently by having the random spawns. If everyone knows what to do when spawning, each member still gets an equal chance, even when spawning with 3 people on the same spot.

Removing the random factor on spawns would also remove the party play aspect, which in my opinion would not be a good thing.

 

Even the most coordinated parties can not make up for the random spawn though. You do not know which 3 people are going to be dropped in said random spot. We run with same people quite often, a well oiled machine. We know who will jump from the rope first, who will go to the furthest rope etc in stage 2. In bon, we can then make assumptions that people currently on mages or nls, will move away if they spawn in similar spots. However, what happens then when those 2 mages land together. Due to the server delay, they both move away because they can not see the other person has also started to move away right away. When you are top right/top left, moving away means you then have to climb back up, which takes a good 10 seconds, on top of the time you took to already move, and made sure the other person also didn't start climbing back up.

So lets now look at what happens if we were so coordinated that we all picked an area before we even spawned in. Then the warrior with no movement speed in your party says they will do top right. They get dropped bottom left. That's a 15-20 second walk up. Stopping to type to see if someone can switch spots with them, would cause more confusion. The people with mobility cant even see who is who on the mini map or even the whole mini map at once to know that maybe they should switch spots with them, etc.

Groups that run well together have ways to help currently, either quickly shouting out when they see an open area, or using discord to chat and say what area they are moving too, once spawned in and with other people. But it doesn't work all that wonderfully even then.

I am not understanding the second part where you say "Removing the random factor on spawns would also remove the party play aspect". We would still be running apq with a party of 6. It would help people who don't have mobility classes maybe want to apq more. I know quite a few people who do not apq on their heroes (heck its even usually my last choice and I love my hero) because they hate bonning on it. Would they still hate bonning on it if they knew they didn't have to fight for boxes, and not worry about mobility cause they can just hit the boxes that are in their area they end up spawning in with no one else.

On that note, I know that when I join a smega R> for apq, I am going to be opening way less boxes than if I join my friends group on my hero. I still do occasionally, but how many would still bother then? If the spawns points were not randomized to where the same people could all drop the same spot, then it might help increase the number of people who join smegas, thus increasing community play.

 

Some times the line between quality of life and completely removing a challenge can be difficult to draw. In this specific case I believe we are dealing with a quality of life issue.

Well, I disagree. Given that which spawn point you land in is random and that there are 6 spawn points, the probability that multiple people will share a spawn point is significant enough to be an issue, and I would not characterize it as even close to "rare" (and scribbling a bit with pen, paper, and probability you can prove this to yourself, even for the case of 3 people sharing a spawn point.)

I think this is a great suggestion. Randomized spawn points, in my opinion, are quite unfair, especially in such a large map. The "brainstorming" or hard work has all ready been done in the previous stages. Furthermore, I do not find joy in optimizing my route in every bonus (it gets old quickly). I suppose that's a matter of taste, although I would bet others share that taste.

Great coordination and preparation is already rewarded by having fast runs. As for your other points, I refer to faerieskater.

At first I was for the proposed 1 person per spawn point idea given by others (in fact I would've made this same thread had it not already been posted), however now I see the compromise here would be to drop the whole party at the same place. This would preserve the challenge, and still require coordination between high and low mobility classes, staying consistent with other bonus stages such as CWKPQ and GPQ.

 

fighting over who wails on which box doesn't really seem like "party play"

 

there will be allways fights if you see like that
just find the group of players that you enjoy with is the best way to go

if they fight about box now instead of share-work as team to get most onyx (help eachother) they will fight for "best" position later on aswell when this gets implemented and nothing can change that ¯\_(-_-)_/¯
true partyplayers help eachother as team and improve the teamwork not as individual self benefits
for example i allways try to teleport away from teamates that dosn't have TP or FJ and break those box

and is not just about bonus stage and box same goes for stage 4 and 5
not evryone can farm 10etc quickly and at same rate as other,leader can help too or takeing more then 10 etc won't hurt (especially if you have TP or FJ )
or help all run and break the portals fast at stage 5

but yea i support the idea if is only to improve the partyplay coordination and not path to bring mules to break more box like in CWK

 

:3

 

give this some staff feedback COME ON@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Add a poll so we can show our support!

 

While I agree with this thought. It won't be like this all the time. Not everybody is a "true partyplayer", not everybody will help you, and you can't always depend on other party members to help you, sometimes they want to maximize their potential apple count instead of helping others, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I'm wondering what this has to do with CWK mules. We are talking about APQ, at least 5/6 party members must be active, ideally ALL of them to complete the runs quickly as possible. Bringing mules to APQ to leave them afk like in CWK is not only a bad idea, is stupid.

What this has to do with the current issue on APQ Bonus? You're drifting away from the problem talking nonsense.

So far I've done GPQ and CWKPQ with my Guild Mates a few times and due to the nature of the spawn points in a single place, we just simple pick a number and we ALWAYS break the same number of boxes, no matter what number we pick or what position on the map we choose. This doesn't happen with APQ because you can't simply coordinate your pathway optimally due to the random spawns. Even on discord voicechat we try to "coordinate" our distribution of boxes, only to ridiculously fail because we eventually end up trying to break the same boxes due to server delay. Worst case scenario, a few broken boxes and lots of boxes left untouched, whole party gets either 0 or 1 apple due to bad spawn distribution and poor boxing layout. Best case scenario, whole party end in quite different points and they manage to break most boxes, while the members that spawned on the same place coincidentally chose different paths that could led tell to optimal box layout/breaking, ultimately this best case scenario isn't always applicable because of how luck play a factor in getting either good or bad spawn points and theorically this best case scenario is farther from reality as it is more likely that everyone spawns cluttered in the same places altogether figuring out their paths.

It's not a matter of enjoying the APQ. We already do that when we complete the challenges and such, it's a matter of distributing the rewards in a fair and balanced manner like its done on CWKPQ and GPQ. Luck and randomness doesn't leave chance for that, even luck can be unforgiving if you break 14 boxes you could even get 0 apples on your worst day, so why not let the party members have equal access to the most number of boxes because luck is already playing a factor on how many apples you can get per run?

Just to remind you, there is no "best" position in CWK and GPQ bonus, all players get the same number of boxes to break regardless of their option of choice.

It is true that certain sections of the APQ bonus map has more boxes than others (i.e top left can break 14 boxes while top right can break 13), the same applies to the other sections of the map as there is an uneven number of boxes distributed across the spawn points. This can be EASILY FIXED by changing the position of certain lone boxes and placing them where are the bigger grouped ones and make the box layout a lot more symmetrical, if not perfectly symetrically possible. Still doesn't make sense from a gameplay standpoint putting a single box in a far unreachable corner where 1) you lose time reaching it, 2) you could be potentially breaking a pair or trio of boxes, which is always the optimal thing to do, so why even bother with those single boxes? Pair those boxes instead with other lone boxes in more accessible areas so the symmetry of the boxes is distributed evenly across the entire map.

Considering the above stated, if the fixed spawn point where implemented in APQ, it is still a million times better than the actual random spawns with the current boxing layout. No matter that I end breaking 1 box less than the other party members. I could potentially consistently break 50+ boxes per APQ which would be a solid number to get plenty of apples, instead of: "you spawn here with your other 5 homies, now guess what boxes your party members will break so you don't attempt to break the same as them".

 

Unless my math is wrong, there are 720 possible permutations of spawn points for your party under the current implementation. (6 party members spawning in any of the 6 possible spawn locations)

Imagine the scenario where you are in a premade team of 6, all on voice coms coordinating possible spawn locations; in the event that that 4 players spawn in spawn point 'A', 1 player spawns in 'B' and 1 player spawns in 'E' you are all expected to know that "permutation 69" has occurred. While entirely possible to memorize 720 different combinations, this is not realistic at all. Now imagine you aren't on voice coms, or if you have randoms on your team, or if you have newer players. This is the exact scenario that happens on the live client. Why should there be a party quest that would actively disincentivize group play outside of premade comps?

You can argue that in the spirit of "party play" you should be willing to help out your team whenever possible and expect the same kindness in return. If one truly believes that, then they should graciously divide up the total apples accumulated during bonus and split evenly among the 6 members. I'm sure many players would be fine with that gesture of kindness, and an equal amount opposing it.

I firmly believe all members should be spawned in the middle of the map, with designated players branching out to areas respective of their class's mobility similar to CWKPQ bonus. I recognize that such an implementation can be seen as boring or stale, but a middle-ground can be reached by having no more than 1 player spawning in a single, pre-determined spawn location. For you 5000 IQ players- you can "think on your feet" and determine how efficiently your character can clear your area of boxes despite spawning in a zone that was not as optimal as another area. Then for the party players, they can quickly call out "XXX swap with me" if you want to maximize box breaking efficiency and cultivate wholesomeness.