The Void Within Discussion [Split 2]

[Siniri]

Voidworks: 10:58pm Superpower Drink
Finally had a tea quest under 4k, but I won a worthless plushie and 152 NP, so that was a waste of NP. Are there even any decent prizes?

I'm not setting an alarm for tomorrow. I'll get my Neopets stuff done when I feel like it. And may not even do all the plot stuff.

I'm so over it.

[Blue]

I have not clicked on the Teatime With Tavi since I completed the achievement. So done with that.

Void Collection "weekly" bonus: Dark Faerie Doll & 20 plot points.

[Siniri]

Voidworks 11:33 pm

Will need to roll over to morning soon. If I can remember to do it.

Not much of a point without the possibility of the achievement.

[Blue]

I rarely bother with Voidworks since it doesn't work on my "neo computer" and while it technically works on my phone, it's so dark I can barely see it.

ETA: So... I was on my "regular" computer, broke down and played Voidworks because it works on this computer. Also discovered how much faster Cosy Campfire is and received a trophy!

Anyhoo...

You won a prize!

Gamer Boy Usuki

Something Has Happened!

You are now eligible to use 'Voidworks Technician' as an avatar on the NeoBoards!

Woot!

[Pickles]

So I will try hard over the weekend (after our current guest is gone) to update the plot page, but this is big news:
Neoboard post

Hello Neopians
We're pausing the Void Within plot between Chapters 7 and 8 to make exciting improvements based on your feedback. Thank you all for your energy and insights — your involvement has been incredible!
During this brief break, plot-related activities like void point collection, battles, volunteering, comics, and achievements will pause.
We have plenty of holiday events planned for the rest of this year, and The Void Within will return after the holiday season in early 2025!
Check out our FAQ below for more details. Rest assured, you'll be able to complete your plot goals and face new BD challenges when we're back!
https://classic.support.neopets.com/hc/ ... oid-Within
The Neopets Team

FAQs added:

Can I still get plot game related avatars during the plot interval?
Yes.

Why doesn’t Dr. Landelbrot’s Voidworks reset at midnight NST?
We tried a different way of resetting Voidworks based on when you last played to account for different time zones but are changing it to reset at midnight Neopian Standard Time. This change will go into effect on November 7th.

Will I be able to complete the Voidworks fearless deed once episode 2 starts?
Yes.Yes, it will be obtainable by completing 3 perfect games

What will change once episode 2 starts?
1. Bug fixes
2. More difficult battledome challengers
3. New battledome and prize items
4. More games
5. Daily activities will be rebalanced to allow players to enjoy the plot at a more relaxed pace.
6. The plot pacing will be re-arranged to improve story cadence.

When will episode 2 start?
Episode 2 will start during the first quarter of 2025. We will let Neopians know when we have an official date.

Can I use my double plot point cookie during the plot interval?
No, double plot point cookies cannot be activated during the plot interval. You can activate them once the next episode starts.

Will items be removed from the prize shop during the plot interval?
No.

Will my plot points expire between episodes?
No, they will be carried over to the next episode.

Can I still exchange my plot points for items in the prize shop?
Yes.

Can I still get fearless deeds during the plot interval?
No, fearless deeds will be attainable again once the next episode starts.

Can I still play plot games during the plot interval?
Yes, you can still play all plot games during the plot interval. Completing Dr.Landelbrot’s Voidworks and Cosy Campfire Collection will award you with an item and Neopoints once per day. Tea Time with Tavi can be completed up to 5 times per day and will award an item and Neopoints for each completed request.

My pet was in the middle of a shift at the Neohospital before the plot interval. Can I still complete the shift?
Yes, you can complete the shift and claim rewards for it, but you won’t be able to start another one afterwards.

My pet was in the middle of a fight with a plot challenger before the plot interval. Can I still finish the fight?
Yes, you can finish the fight and claim rewards from it, but you will be unable to fight plot challengers again afterwards.

I didn’t claim the void essence collection community goal prizes before the plot interval. Can I still claim them?
Yes.

I didn’t claim my void essence collection prize before the plot interval. Can I still claim it?
Yes.

Can I get plot points during the plot interval?
No, all plot point granting activities will be paused until the next season starts. This includes:
*Void essence collection
*Battling plot challengers
*Volunteering at the Neohospital
*Reading new comics
You can still play plot games, but they will not grant you plot points.

Will new comics be released during the plot interval?
No.

Can I still read already released comics during the interval?
Yes.

Will already greyed out maps stay grey during the plot interval?
Yes.

What does this change mean for the plot’s length?
This interval will give us time to reformat the pacing of the plot so that we can streamline the experience for Neopians and ensure we conclude the story by next year.

When will the plot interval start?
The plot interval will go into effect on November 11th, but certain activities will be disabled before then:
1. Buying and activating double plot point cookies: November 1st
2. Void essence collection: November 8th
3. Volunteering at the Neohospital: November 9th
4. Fighting plot challengers: November 9th
5. Reading comics from the current chapter: November 11th

Why is a plot interval needed?
TNT needs time to put together the best plot possible for Neopians to enjoy. This pause is intended to help restructure the plot to improve the cadence as well as improve balancing of daily plot activities based on the feedback we’ve received.

What is a plot interval?
A plot pause is an intermission between plot episodes. The plot and plot activities are suspended during a plot interval.

Soooooooo we won't have any more updates after this chapter until the new year, you can still earn prizes from the minigames but not plot points.
Hopefully when they restart in the new year, it'll be less tedious.

[Blue]

This feels like good news. So much bad going on in RL that this one is great piece of news. The daily activities have become rather... tedious. The exact 24-hour reset time of Voidworks was ridiculous, resetting at midnight makes good sense. I did not see anything about Tavi's Tea Time (TTT) pool getting to be reasonable, but meh. If it doesn't grant plot points, I am happy to never do that again. TTT actually soured me on the plot and actually turned me against Tavi altogether. Her face when you didn't complete a quest is beyond annoying. Now, I am jaded when reading her story in the comic. Oh, do I need a break from this. Sounds like we will get that in about 10 days. Perfect timing since I'll be traveling later that week, so I can back off of the void dailies.

ETA: Clicking on the first panel of today's comic will give you a popup that says, "Mouse Clicked"

[Siniri]

It sounds almost like they've been reading our posts here! Voidworks achievement, story pacing, tediousness, midnight reset... (I don't mind just occasionally trying the tea quest, but I'd prefer it not to be for plot points.)

Oh, and also, I've gotten two really common items in the tea quests yesterday and today (Neo Crackers and black cherry tea), so hopefully they continue to tweak it. It's 1-2/day at this point, and I'm not rushing to go every four hours.

I'm very happy for the break, as I fell asleep after a long (but good) day offline, woke up, and have been trying to get the huge list of dailies done. Plus that gives us more time to train up. I should hopefully get that last ability before the next round of battling, and Blue should hopefully reach 1-2 more strength boosts, and maybe even be close to being training school-trainable again.

Speaking of training... While looking into whether I'd forgotten any methods for increasing level (couldn't remember if dice a roo was one -- turns out the levels in the guide refer to the dice colors, not your pet's), I found an interesting reddit post where someone tested 975 training potions with double bubble (including bubbling fungus and strength serum -- not sure about swamp water or bullseye). Their potions replenished ~25-30% of the time, which was a considerable savings (2M NP for 8M spent).

So if you're doing potion training, you might want to consider stockpiling potions until you can use the boon, to get even more stats from each. Especially knowing we won't be having any plot battling for a while, anyway. (This might be partly why the battle guild selects Brutes a couple times a year.)

[Pickles]

Fri Nov 08, 2024 9:13am NST
Essence collection has halted for now.

A message from Dr. Landelbrot:
According to my void essence container readings, we have collected more than enough of this mysterious substance to support my ongoing research. You’ve certainly earned yourself a break from collecting!
Please kick back and do some Sudoku while Jerdana, Scintilly, and I get to work. We will be sure to reach out should we require more void essence!

Other things will start to shut down over the next couple days. It looks like from the AMA that the plot will be paused until at least February (possibly March).

The Go With the Flow achievement is now possible to get again!!! Complete a puzzle "perfectly" (like how it had to be done for the avatar, whatever perfect means - maybe no wrong/extra clicks?) and it should show up. Everyone else in my household got it either last night or this morning. Yay! Also, Voidworks now resets at midnight NST. DOUBLE Yay!

I'm still exhausted but here's a few tidbits from the AMA last night:
Tavi will have a reroll option soon. Chapters will progress faster after the break to keep the ending of the plot at roughly the same time it was originally planned to end. The next section will be more focused on puzzles and games, but there will be new battledome opponents, too. The prize shop will get expanded at some point, as well.

TNT Aesop asked people to not inflate codestones as they'll be increasing drop rates in the battledome to help compensate for the cut down in items we get every day (since we'll no longer have the extra 15 from plot battling, and those were reasonably codestone heavy). I have no idea when this might happen, though. Some codestones have already started to inflate.
At the same time, strength/defence boosts might be getting expanded??? I have no idea what THIS means, either, or when it might happen, but I totally expect that people will go crazy with inflation on the stat boost items, especially when they're not given out from the hospital anymore. As most people stop training strength and defence after they hit the 750 boost...this could provide some serious chaos in the future, depending on how much higher those stat boosts go.
So...maybe all the extra strength and defence boosts I've gotten from kitchen quests (or like, Battle Faerie or Fyora or Soup Faerie quests) will be useful? Maybe? I'm not changing up how I'm training (or not training) at this point, though. HP grind it is...

ETA: Tavi now has an abandon quest button! Wohoo!

[Siniri]

Thanks, Pickles! I was just about to comment on the Tavi reset button and void essences. I just checked, and I have the Voidworks achievement, too!

I'm guessing those inflated items for Tavi are going to drop like a rock now.

My strength is at 856 and defense 796, and I have a big stockpile of neggs from negg cave (and snowager and daily quests). I'd be surprised if they added more than two more boosts, but if they do, I might actually invest in a FQ cookie or two. (Item training is still more expensive than codestone training for me, and I don't seem to need higher boosts.)

[Pickles]

The real question on the potential boosts will be how far above the current max (750) will they be? Will they continue with the every-50-points brackets or will they jump to 1,000 and 1,500 or something more like that? I guess time will tell. If they do the latter (and max the max boost at 1500), the majority of the people on JN's Battlepedia Top 250 list are already there...but there will definitely be people who will need to actively train those stats. I do not want to think of how many codestones it would take to level enough to start training strength or defense again. I've been doing just level and HPs for so long now. All that being said, unless there are harder challengers (or HP increase challengers are available again), extra boosts are relatively unnecessary. They might help against the Fearsome Five, but definitely not needed in general at this time. So...in this case, we'll just have to wait and see IF and when they show up.

As I was typing this, TNT Dingo popped on Discord and posted this:

Hi guys, just popping in to say sorry for the confusion, the "visual glitch" with the undefined text was also preventing the skipped quest counter from incrementing. Quests can only be skipped 2 times per day, we are working on getting the FAQ updated to reflect this as well. Apologies for the confusion!

I guess for once, I lucked out by trying something right away, because I canceled 3 quests in a row to finish mine up for the day.
So the items will drop but not quite as fast.

[Siniri]

I lucked out, too! I cancelled at least a dozen -- it was so many, I was worried about being SW-banned (and wondered if there should maybe be a limit).

[Blue]

Woo hoo on the Voidworks Achievement! I used a "good" computer and played VW today and got the achievement first time. I went quickly with no excess clicks (e.g. over turning a tube).

It seems you've been going above and beyond in your efforts!
You've been awarded a total of 10 Plot Points for completing these Fearless Deeds: Go with the Flow, 10 pts

Finally This was an ongoing annoyance, for sure.

If there is a "skip quest" button, maybe I'll give Tavi's Tea Time another shot for the 25 plot points. Then again, maybe not.

If will be nice to stop collecting void essences for a little while. It was getting easier on my phone, but increasingly tedious.

[Pickles]

Heads up on two things:
1) Despite the FAQ saying that battling and hospital shifts would end 11/9, the news said 11/10, and they ARE currently still active and possible to earn points on, if you want to.
2) Cozy Campfire collection seems to have updated the prize pool to at least include two rather expensive stamps: Tea Time Stamp and Scary Tree Stamp. Mr. P got the Scary Tree Stamp this morning, so I can 100% confirm that it's definitely in the pool!

I needed like, 5-6 more days to make it to the top tier trophy. I guess I'll get it after the break, although who knows how point collecting will go at that point. I guess we'll see in a few months.

[Siniri]

I could finish today with just under 1k left to the top trophy, if I can get 2-3 more Tavi quests done today. (I burned through my two skips already and am on my second round of waiting.)

It would have been nice to get the trophy before the break, but I'm ready for the break. I know the BD prizes will be capped at 15, but what will be the NP limit? If it stays so high, I'll have to look into what challengers will pay out well enough to make it worthwhile. I hadn't been doing my daily battling except during skirmishes, but getting enough codestones to rarely have to stock up has been nice now that I'm regularly training again.

That's exciting about the stamps! Are campfire and Voidworks going to continue as dailies? They're actually pretty quick, easy NP and prizes. (No more Tavi, though, please!)

[Pickles]

As far as I understand, Tavi, Campfire, and Voidworks will all still be possible to do. Tavi will not award plot points, though, and none of the fearless deeds will be possible to complete, but the avatars will be.

I believe the 50k nps per day battling is a permanent change, but without the high-neopoint-per-battle-plot-challengers will be...cumbersome...to achieve. For the premium dome Giant Space Fungus fought on hard, it's 450nps per win. That's 112 battles PER DAY to get to the 50k limit. I don't know if there's any higher awarding challengers.

I'm hoping to get the stamps for my album, eventually. And the crazy Circuit Negg, because I still don't have that one yet, either. Someday, they'll show up as prizes...someday... (This is also me being too lazy to go buy the negg/stubborn as I really want to actually win it to put in my gallery.)