12 Hour Reservation Limit Too Restrictive

[Maggie Miller Williams]

If, for example, you take the task of 9 ships to Tropica Island and it takes 8 hours to complete one trip, it will take 16 hours to complete that task, meaning a reserved task will time out. That is also true of 135 point train and plane tasks. So is this just a ploy to get us to spend T cash to buy our way to task completion within 12 hours?

[Nevada]

It's a way to stop the task board becoming cluttered with reserved tasks.

Several people on here (not saying this is the reason for the timer, just, an insight), especially those in bigger co-ops commented that boards were getting filled with the same tasks being reserved for several days, and said it would be nice if the reserves were timed.

What most people wanted, was a timer that could be set by co-op (so, my co-op would have no restrictions, your co-op may allow say a 36 hour reserve, someone else's a 2 hour reserve).
The other request was for a timer that counted up. So you reserved a task at 00:00, and it counted up so you could see John had reserved his task 13 hours ago, or whatever.

What we got, was a 12 hour limit.

[Pink]

If, for example, you take the task of 9 ships to Tropica Island and it takes 8 hours to complete one trip, it will take 16 hours to complete that task, meaning a reserved task will time out. That is also true of 135 point train and plane tasks. So is this just a ploy to get us to spend T cash to buy our way to task completion within 12 hours?

The reserve feature is there so that you can start working on one task while you complete another. So if you reserve a train or plane task, you need to start that task before you send off your first train or plane in order for it to count.

If you're doing Island tasks, there are two types this season, those that want goods and those that say, 'send x ships to y island'. For those that want goods, you can reserve the task and wait until your ships are in port before starting that task, if you reserve a task that says send 9 ships to tropica, you need to start that task before you can send your ships off, in order for it to count.

We have a 2 hr reserve limit in our co-op which means, anyone reserving tasks, has to be ready by then in order to start their task.

I would've like the ability to set the limit too.

[Bessville]

... is this just a ploy to get us to spend T cash to buy our way to task completion within 12 hours?

No, because you don’t have to complete the task within 12 hours, just start it.

The only task where it’s really a problem is growing silk and cacao.. most people want to reserve the task, then plant, wait for it to grow, then harvest immediately after starting the task. Both of these crops take too long to do that, though the cacao isn’t by much. The current time limit means you risk having fields full of silk for 15 hours that will be wasted, unless you speed up the crop with a booster. Which sucks, imo.

I too would much prefer the leader to set their own time limit, and to see a timer showing how long a reserve has been active.

[Nevada]

True Bess, but what if you've just started (planes), and a HoL pops up in its place? Now you want to reserve the HoL, but you're not gonna get your planes done in the 12 hours, so you spend TC to speed your planes back before your 12 hours is up on your reserve.

I think...

I'm confused now :/ lol!

[_DD_]

True Bess, but what if you've just started (planes), and a HoL pops up in its place? Now you want to reserve the HoL, but you're not gonna get your planes done in the 12 hours, so you spend TC to speed your planes back before your 12 hours is up on your reserve.

I think...

I'm confused now :/ lol!

erm... what? lol
easy solution: HOL (and other fast tasks) can't be reserved at all

[Bessville]

...what if you've just started (planes), and a HoL pops up in its place? Now you want to reserve the HoL, but you're not gonna get your planes done in the 12 hours...

Then you shouldn’t reserve the hol cos you’re too darned busy, tough toenails, hahahaha!!

I was thinking about the silk as the one where the 12 hours forces you to risk wasting the 15 hours you just spent with your fields full of the dratted stuff.

As a feature, tbh I think reserves work best when they’re being used to increase efficiency and avoid the frustration of either wasting prep or dumping long-prep tasks. That’s why a lot of teams only use it for prep-heavy tasks, such as long crops, standard ship tasks, and factories, as we know. As a free-for-all it mostly serves to cause resentments, block up the board, and decrease efficiency generally, imo, 12 hour reserve timer or not.

But, given how we all use it differently, putting a 12 hour time limit on reserves seems both arbitrary and unnecessary, to me. Playrix should either allow us to set the limit, or not have one at all.

[Starshine]

What no one has mentioned is that reserving a task at all locks up one of only 12 task slots. Until the reserved task is taken, that is 1 less opportunity for the other coop members to see a task they might like to do. In a 30-member coop, if you had 10 tasks reserved, that would only leave 2 slots for generally-available tasks until the reserved tasks were collected. We are one of the coops that only allow reserving of tasks that take a long time to prep. If a HoL task comes up when you are doing a different task, someone else will take it. The coop still benefits and hopefully another one will pop up later when you can take it.

Sure, being able to set your own limits would be nice, but I think the 12-hour limit is better than no limit at all.

[cdosr]

What no one has mentioned is that reserving a task at all locks up one of only 12 task slots.

And to add to this, if a co-op only does 135's, and they continue to artificially limit the number of 135's on the board, you could easily have 3 reservations freeze out the entire co-op.

Folks need to exercise a lot of common sense when reserving tasks. We only allow it if someone has already made significant progress on the task *and* is almost done with their current task. No reserving an "Olive" or similar island task and only then sending the first ships out. Unless you planned (or guessed) ahead and already have the ships in the dock or minutes away from returning, you shouldn't reserve it.

Leaders need to exercise a modicum of control and cancel reservations that don't benefit the team as a whole. Plus there's always a need for "good faith exceptions" for some circumstances.

[Bessville]

As I said, long reserves block the board when 135s are capped.

But I can totally see how teams who don’t play cooperatively will have issues with reserves generally and 12hrs is just too long to have a blocked board.