Newbie thought, questions, suggestions

[chaz01]

Relatively new, I've only been playing HA for about 30 days now, currently at Level 17, trying to earn enough cash to open the first site in Scotland. Random thoughts/questions I have (my apologies in advance if I don't use the right terminology)..

• In the newsroom, what determines the relative payout received for each trade? The only pattern I see is the payouts seem to gradually increase over time, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason regarding the specific amount. Some payouts are considerably more than others, even when the require the same clues. For example, most of my payouts for cash trades are between 3-5K, occasionally, I'll find trades worth 5-7K, but then I still get some for 1-3K. Only once did I get a trade greater for over 7K that I was able to complete. Does the reward value continue to increase over time, or is it dependent on unlocking premium sites or fully upgrading other chapters? Most of my other sites are fully upgraded to the five star clues, but Chapt 8 is still at 1-2 stars and Chapt 7 are at 4 stars. Given the large amounts of cash to unlock Scotland, it will take me at least several days to get enough cash to unlock each Scotlant site, and I'm thinking I should save the cash. But given the repetitive nature of searching the same sites over and over again, I'm quickly getting bored. I don't mind being challenged with more difficult sites, but it seems like Scotland is unattainable unless I can get payouts to grow.
• I don't get the AP trades at all, the ones that require you to unlock clues in order to attain them. Given that they are timed at 6 hrs, but unlocking the clue typically takes several hours to complete, this part of the game doesn't make much sense to me. Even if I were to unlock/upgrade sites to get the AP clues, by the time I've unlocked the clue, the trade has normally expired. The only times when I've actually had an opportunity to cash in an AP trade is when by chance I'm already in process upgraded the clue. This seems rarely, but most of the time 3 of the 4 newsroom offers are of this AP type. On the rare occasion when I have several non-AP fires to choose from, I find the game more rewarding as I have an opportunity which trades offer the best value per clue. But when you only have one realistic trade to ponder, there is not much to analyze.
• On a similar note, I've managed to unlock a few of the bonus and premium sites, but very, very rarely do I ever get trade offer involving clues from these sites. So they are pretty to look at, and offer a nice change in pace, but if I never get to use the clues found in these sites, there isn't much motivation for me to upgrade these.

Thanks for any help, suggestions. I feel like I am about ready to delete the game, as it's getting too monotonous, but I would like to see the Scotland sites - if there's something I can do to speed this up, please let me know.

[RosemaryL]

Welcome chaz!

1. I think the payouts must be random, but generally later chapter clues give a higher payout than earlier ones.
2. It takes 1 hour to upgrade to level 2, 2 hours to level 3, 4 hours to level 4 - timed trades stay for 6 hours, so you should be able to do them if there is just one AT in the trade. I didn't list level 5 upgrade time because I don't have enough sites at 5* to know for sure.
3. I had to get quite a few diamond sites open before I got any diamond trades. I'm now sitting in Chapter 7, upgrading the diamond sites I have open and gathering enough shovels to open Haunted Heist and then finish the Chapter 7 DR - before I move on to Chapter 8. I earn 200-400 diamonds a day. Having played Secret Passages for quite a while, I'm expecting that my game will flow better after I get all my diamond sites to 5*. And that is when I will move on to Chapter 8.

[Topmom52]

Welcome chaz. Premium sites to level 5 that I have completed are also 4 hours. I have all regular sites open and 5* and the payouts are much better farther along. Still working on darkrooms. I only have through Chapter 4 open but all premium darkrooms open and 4 or 5*.

[chaz01]

(Minor spoilers)

In Chapter 8, I upgraded the Train Station to 2*, and it does seem like trades with that clue do bring in a little extra, normally around 5-7K. So then I attempted an AT trade requiring a 3* clue from another site in Chapter 8, but that requires an 8 hour delay, and the AT trade is only good for 6 hours. That just reiterates my original point -- the AT trades seem completely useless to me, the game would be much more interesting if I had more non-AT trades to choose from (timed or untimed).

But I think your point is valid, I'm hoping upgrading my clues will generally bring in higher trade value, and help keep the game going. Although the two upgrades mentioned above cost $125K, a big chunk of my wallet that I will have to recoup and then some to get into Scotland.

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll see if I can open and upgrade more premium sites to see if that triggers more trades. By diamond sides, do you mean the Dark Room sites, or the bonus sites opened up through Voyager Clubhouse, or both? Currently, I very rarely see any trade offers on any of these, so just wondering where to best focus any diamond upgrades?

[chaz01]

Here's another games suggestion to anyone listening that I think would help keep things more interesting. When searching sites for clues, you are rewarded with 2x, 3x, or 4x (I don't believe I ever received more than 4x) of that clue for trading purposes. But the exact amount seems to be completely random -- I've done an entire site in 10-15 seconds and got the 2x amount, and other times, I've been distracted and taken close to the whole 2 minutes and got 4x. Even though you get a "score" for that particular search, I've never seen an actual purpose for that score. Wouldn't it be neat if you tied your actual reward given out to the score? The better you do, the better the reward, rather than being just random? And as you search the same site over and over again, maybe even you can keep raising the bar by increasing the points required over time to get the 4x amount? To me, that would go a long way from having the game becoming too monotonous.

[LIMom]

Welcome, Chaz!

Since you mentioned not being sure of correct terminology, there's a wonderful post that Kate had made and shared with me when I was unsure about what everything meant. In case you haven't seen it and want to check it out: Abbreviations, Facts & Terms

For the others, I have a question regarding strategy.
Are you suggesting that the best way to go with the premium sites is to focus on upgrading one at a time, bringing it to 5* before doing upgrades for the next?
I've been gradually upgrading them when needed for an AT, but since most AT's require two different sites, that's not working out too well. (Frequently, one of the needed trades is for a bonus site or darkroom that I haven't completed yet, which isn't helping matters)
As of now, I have all of the coin sites open, all of the Voyager's Club sites, darkrooms through San Francisco (ch. 6), plus Versailles, Curse of the Mummy and Wild West.

[Kate]

Chaz, welcome, the payout is random and it doesn't depent on your level, higher chapters have a higher payout, but that's it.

LIMom, I'm not sure if opening another book is helpful, but here's what I would do (others might have additional advices):

As the game works like SP, the total amount of diamond trades depends on a ratio: unlocked clues (chapters, bonus sites included) and premium content. I don't think that a 5* clue has a special meaning, so I would do the cheapest upgrade (books) first. You can also test dunes and new regions which might have a priority.

Another strategy is saving diamonds and completing a region right after its release if you notice that it is "hot" (other players will report if it is).

[FabSab]

Hi Chaz,
Before you started playing the game there were daily quests, which made it much more fun to play. But there were some problems with the quests and so Pocket Gems stopped issuing them in mid December. I believe we are all hoping they come back soon, as yes, it does get very monotonous without them. Plus, it gives you chances to earn extra film rolls and diamonds. We have asked PG employees several times when they expect the quests to come back, but no one has answered. Hopefully soon!

[grave digger]

Chaz, Rosemary and Topmom were correct in what they said, but they were talking about diamond ATs and I believe you are talking about coin ATs. To eliminate them you need to upgrade all your earlier coin sites to 5*. Start with the earliest and work forwards. When there is (I think) just Chapter 9 left to do then you shouldn't get any more. Unfortunately you will still get loads of diamond ones...

[ElleJ]

• In the newsroom, what determines the relative payout received for each trade? The only pattern I see is the payouts seem to gradually increase over time, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason regarding the specific amount.

.

Random, but within a game specified range. Each clue has a payout range at each level. And it's a fairly wide range.

Here's another games suggestion to anyone listening that I think would help keep things more interesting. When searching sites for clues, you are rewarded with 2x, 3x, or 4x (I don't believe I ever received more than 4x) of that clue for trading purposes. But the exact amount seems to be completely random -- Even though you get a "score" for that particular search, I've never seen an actual purpose for that score.

Again, random. And as far as the oodles of things I have tried and tested, it remains random. This is pretty much a ditto of SP (Secret Passages) and we(I) asked for something to address this: a gem that would guarantee is the higher count of fragments (clues).

As far as the score goes, for now it means nothing. Depending on how much this game mimics SP, it will definitely mean something going forward. Oh, wait. they do still mean something. In order to level up, you need to have a specific score. That was harder to do in SP, and isn't even an issue here, at least for me.