A Modest Proposal -- Overhauling Character's Tasks
Love all of these ideas. I would love to see the tasks updated to take advantage of all the available buildings.
Forum Discussion
- I agree with most of what you say whole-heartedy. Just a few additional thoughts to some of the points:
skollthewolf wrote:
Each character gets 1, 4, 8, 12, and 24 hour tasks. I don't know how all of you play Tapped Out, but I suspect that the majority of you use these tasks the majority of the time. This should be standard for each playable character, and they should contain a good mix of indoor (using a building) and outdoor (visible) tasks.
Personally, I use the 6 hour tasks more often than 4 hour tasks, prefer 10 hour tasks over 12 hour tasks and find myself using 16 hour tasks rather frequently (although the reason for that might be that most 16 hour tasks in the game are outdoors and look great - most of all Kodos & Kang, but also Kirk, LuAnn and the wig tasks for the boys).
Still I agree, there should be some standard times all characters should have, and the ones you mention sound reasonable. (Today I finally gave in and purchased Drederick Tatum, even although the prospect of a character with no 1-hour tasks doesn't look too promising.)skollthewolf wrote:
Joint tasks should be at irregular hours. EA does this a bit -- Agnes Skinner and Comic Book Guy's 2 hour date, Mr. Burns and Smithers' 10 hour Ferris Wheel ride -- but they should do this more. For example, Maude Flanders has a one hour task with Ned and an eight hour task with Homer, but it becomes awkward when I'm trying to maximize the profit I get from each character by having them each do tasks (especially since my Homer has been largely doing tasks in Krustyland in an attempt to get enough tickets to buy the rest of the land). What if we made her task with Homer be a six hour task, and then make her eight hour task one where she haunts the Bad Dream House, a building which has the best animation in the game, but goes used by no one.
Another example is Lisa Simpsons' eight hour "Babysit Rod and Todd" task. Initially it was worthwhile, but when Rod and Todd were introduced, suddenly both were needed to perform the task. Now the task needs three characters available to perform, but pays the same amount it did when it was only Lisa (that's another thing: make the joint tasks profitable). What if we made it a 16 hour task, and made it7 pay triple?
Besides the fact I'm fairly certain that Lisa's 8 hour tasks does pay out for all three characters, I'd rather say every character should have at least one non-joint task for every standard task length (that especially concerns Smithers, who should have a non-joint 1 hour task besides his joint task with Burns).skollthewolf wrote:
Give more characters Krustyland tasks. This is probably something that will come up this summer, but it would be nice. We currently have 79 available characters, but only 18 of them can go to Krustyland. It takes forever to grind enough tickets to buy land and rides. Plus, some added Krustyland duty would make certain expensive characters, such as Jimbo, more appealing to players.
What I find really odd: You can place a Fleet-a-Peeta in Krustyland, but none of the Investorettes can travel there. Also, I can't quite get over the fact that Chief Wiggum will go to Krustyland, but leaves his Ralphie home. Then again, I pretty much abandoned my Krustyland after I put up my last ride there.skollthewolf wrote:
Use the available buildings. As mentioned previously, many of the playable characters have the same tasks at the same length for the same buildings. The game developers should make use of all the available buildings. Why is it that nine characters have regular tasks at the Gilded Truffle, while the Pimento Grove, El Chemistri, Phineas Q. Butterfat's, and Zesty's sit empty? When will Marge abandon the Kwik-E-Mart to shop at Springfield Mall, Sprawl-Mart, or Try-N-Save?
Also: Why won't Bart, Milhouse or Nelson won't enter the Noiseland Arcade? - Big fan of everything said by the OP.
kungpao214 wrote:
I like this too! Perhaps it can be added to the user suggested wish list sticky in case EA reads that thread or this one gets forgotten about?[/quote
Personally I'd make this its own sticky, perhaps named task and building use wish list
I agree with this but I wouldn't want to lose the mapple store task as I like the animation, the only issue you have with this, which can be avoided if you double up is that low level characters won't have many tasks to do if they're all spread to high leel buildings. We all remember bumblebeemans tasks and many weren't doable for many level,- I'm all for everything in the OP, though I'd add in 2 and 3 hour task lengths to squeeze in more uses for each character throughout the towns newer buildings. Let's hope EA has a revamp in the works and can integrate these ideas (or come up with better ones somehow).
- I'm 99% sure joint tasks pay out for all parties. The reason why I don't like Lisa's Joint babysit task and never use it is because there's no animations. Meanwhile, The Flanders/Banner task and the Homer/Maude task I use all the time and I don't care about the payout because I LOVE the animations. Glad we got that Thanksgiving skin for Lisa so now she has another 8 hr task. I just kept sending her to KL for an 8 hour task. And Rod and Todd do have a 4 hour task. It's together.
I'm with you, re the rest of your points. SO MANY buildings now remain unused. If they could at least give us more characters using SP and give Ralphie a 4 hour task, I'd be happy. This is the VERY MINIMUM.
The other thing I'd like is, if you're going to make a premium character, they should have more animated tasks. From what I've read Jimbo has only 2. No voice and only 2 animations? For 120 donuts? LuAnn has 3 (awesome) animations AND a building for 150. (And the fleet a Pita s/l. More grub pts for KL! and gluttony pts for SF!) Perhaps I've been spoiled by Kang, who has all visible awesome tasks.
They don't even have to change tasks for the existing characters. I'm a fan of 2,3,6,10 and 16 hour task lengths.
@MrWhiplash, I find I don't mind so much that Tatum doesn't have a 1 hr task. He does have a 2 hour task which is much less annoying when you've sent burnsy to exercise without Smithers. - Well, the bullies should actually have the Skip School task as well, as they're just as likely to play truant as Bart is.
- That was very well thought out. Even though there were a few mistakes, as far as how certain tasks pay off, the majority of it was excellent. I am really hoping someone from EA sees this thread and does something about what you said. I've been thinking the same thing since before there was even a level 21.
Maybe you could send that to them somehow... Who knows maybe over the year they'll implement this into the game since clearly they take ideas from the forum. I for one would be very happy about that! :D - I feel like bumping this thread up for more people to read it and possibly add their comments. It somehow got lost yesterday...
- All good ideas, and might I say, well expressed. I don't mind the multi character tasks, but they do need to pay as for both characters separately (most do, but not all). But I also don't mind them being "regular" times as long as there are solo tasks that can be chosen for the same times.
One thing I don't like is tasks that are extremely long durations for things that would never take that long in real life (8 hour Bufferfat's tasks last Valentine's day, for example). - The response to my post yesterday was overwhelming. Thank you for your comments and ideas. Reading over the posts today I feel I should respond to some of the comments, as well as amend some of the comments I made:
skollthewolf wrote:
I usually like to run my characters on four hour tasks, and then use eight hour tasks when I'm either sleeping or working. That works great for most characters, save for Rich Texan, Rod, Todd, and Ralph Wiggum, who have no four hour task. At times it gets difficult trying to sync them up with the rest of the town.
Okay, I made a mistake here. Rod and Todd each have a four hour "Play on the See Saw" task -- both of which require the other brother -- but since it only pays $175, the same rate for a solo four hour task, I generally ignore it and put them on their eight hour tasks. By doing this, Rod and Todd pay out a robust $550 rather than a measly $350.
By the way, I know that Shauna fits in the "doesn't have a four hour task" club, but since I currently don't have her I left her out of the original post. Hopefully I'll remedy that in a few weeks.MrWhiplash82 wrote:
Besides the fact I'm fairly certain that Lisa's 8 hour tasks does pay out for all three characters, I'd rather say every character should have at least one non-joint task for every standard task length (that especially concerns Smithers, who should have a non-joint 1 hour task besides his joint task with Burns).
Lisa's eight hour "Babysit Rod and Todd" task pays out at $275, the same as Bart's solo eight hour "Skip School" task.MrWhiplash82 wrote:
Also: Why won't Bart, Milhouse or Nelson won't enter the Noiseland Arcade?
That was one of my original examples, but I forgot to mention it in the post. Thanks for bringing it up!L_B_123XD wrote:
Personally I'd make this its own sticky, perhaps named task and building use wish list
I agree with this but I wouldn't want to lose the mapple store task as I like the animation, the only issue you have with this, which can be avoided if you double up is that low level characters won't have many tasks to do if they're all spread to high leel buildings. We all remember bumblebeemans tasks and many weren't doable for many level,
I see what you're saying, but I'm sure it could happen and not put anybody out. For example, if the overhaul happens and, say, Bart gets a 10 hour "Go to Noiseland Arcade" task, lower level players wouldn't be able to do it. However, he'd have his other tasks, and eventually players would get to level 36 and have it unlock.Adamcayce wrote:
Smithers needs a 1 hour task. How is 4 hours the lowest one?!
Smithers has a one hour task: his "Exercise for Mr. Burns" task. Problem is that Burns has his one hour "Brisk Constitutional" task, and if you're rotating through the character locator Burns comes up way sooner than Smithers. Oftentimes I'll forget to wait on Burns when assigning one hour tasks (like if I'm killing time waiting to assign everyone an eight hour task), which means that Smithers and Tatum will have to wander around for an hour alone while everyone else earns me money.silencead956 wrote:
Premium buildings that have a character task would be more desirable to purchase. I'm talking about you Museum of Natural History.
I actually purchased the museum when it first came out -- I was rebuilding my downtown and I needed a building to fill a space. Had I known what I know now I might have waited and got Sprawl-Mart instead.
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I had another idea since yesterday: what if more of the pets had tasks? EA floated this idea when they tested out Jub-Jub, but I think that more of them should have some sort of task. Especially Santa's Little Helper, who costs 150 donuts and does nothing, and the K9 Officer, who's listed in the "Civil Servants" category but is little more than a walking decoration.
