Is anyone else frustrated with Hanging Gardens and Leon's Pyramid??

[Kiralyn]

I have no idea if I will finish these two items anytime soon! Between the two, there are 254 Skye Water, 472 Levonium Mortar, 308 Gustone, 108 Purified Snagvine Root, 36 Golden Mortar and 20 Awakening Stones needed, not to mention the assorted juices and things not so significant to make. How on earth are we supposed to get all these items together?
The game was really fun until this bomb dropped. I am out tending neighbors' cities daily as well as my own and the drops are nowhere near where they need to be to complete this in less than a couple of months or more. And, yes, I request and send daily any items that I can.
Frustrated in NC

[Cordelia]

These quests are meant to take about a month. Gustone, Snagvine Root, Golden Mortar, and Skye Water don't drop.

[Pint Box]

I'm a dirty cheater so I just used the co-operate forum. The wood/stone requirement is annoying, as I gathered continually for a few days including chopping new players' patch rubbles.

[Kiralyn]

Lol the wood and stone are no problems; it's the stuff you have to synth. Just going to chop at it very little bit at a time. Hopefully it doesn't put me too far behind in the other quests.

[Pint Box]

Lol the wood and stone are no problems; it's the stuff you have to synth. Just going to chop at it very little bit at a time. Hopefully it doesn't put me too far behind in the other quests.

Yeah.. I used to feel that wood and stone are no problems, but then I had a month when I had very limited connection to this game and when I came back it was the tower pack. It took me another month to catch my progress.

[Cordelia]

Lol the wood and stone are no problems; it's the stuff you have to synth. Just going to chop at it very little bit at a time. Hopefully it doesn't put me too far behind in the other quests.

Currently there's no quests being triggered by these quests. So just chip away at them and do other quests as they come up, focus on any limited packs as they will be removed eventually.

[Cathy Jacob]

I was lucky I started at the beginning so I was able to soldier my way through both the interior and Tower packs. My second city (with is level 20) is starting to lag. I find getting stone has become quite an issue, plus the time to manage both cities. I do enjoy seeing how some of the starting quests have been laid out. But the thought of those 2 packs does make me think I will end up with just the one city eventually. They can be done but both will take time. Just remember they aren't going away, so you can do a bit at a time. I also would recommend doing limited time packs first, especially if you are like me and enjoy the rewards from the level 10 collections.

[s7rai7flush]

I've never been frustrated at the sheer amount of effort these two take. I'm actually pretty appreciative that the developers decided to give us something so seriously difficult to accomplish, so even once the other weekly quests are done, we still have something to whittle away at. That, and I can't possibly be mad at the game now that I have Kiboko's Wellspring. That thing is just too awesome, and it's a 12hr Wonder not a 24 like I thought it was going to be.

No, I've just been frustrated at the lack of end result benefit from them. The Hanging Gardens gives you about 17K when collected from while full, which is really reasonable... but Leon's Pyramid gives you Leon's Roar. Just. Ugh. I've already griped and moaned at length about my opinion of this Power. It makes you "go fast," but it doesn't actually cut down on energy consumption, and I'm pretty sure that like all the other Powers, it cuts down on drop rates in compensation. So "going fast" doesn't actually benefit the player. It should have been the Power that regrew Rocks in one's city, and then a Power for Houzi should have made people... "go fast." It makes way more sense for a monkey to be lithe and speedy, and a lion be a massive earth-shaking force to contend with. So yes. The Wonder itself is awesome. But the Power? No thanks. (It's the main reason that I'm not trying to hemorrhage my way through Towers and taking my time--I don't have any pressing incentive to finish building my Pyramid because there's no benefit to it aside from a really cool looking structure in my city. I'd rather use those resources to whittle at Interior.)

I honestly believe that a lot fewer people would complain about how difficult it is to build the Towers buildings if there were a difficulty level in between them. Something to bridge the gap, per-say. The Towers pack itself doesn't even really ease the player into it very smoothly. Synth Shop #1's easy. The Skyescraper and Mansion aren't too hard. Then you're told to build a second Synth Shop, makes sense... Then a second 'Scraper, makes the player start to feel a bit overwhelmed like this is going to require a ton of raw materials. I imagine a lot of grinding players are able to get up to Kiboko's Wellspring without getting too bogged down. Even then, the Wellspring itself isn't that difficult, as it doesn't require any two-step Syntheses--it's just the matter of obtaining about 150 SkyeWater, which in essence is 90% of the work of building it so it's really easy but time consuming. I can totally get the Hanging Gardens making a player's ears ring, but then again, most of the effort spent on it is getting the around 180 SkyeWater to make everything, so again 90% of the material amassment is a single material, and it's the same material as the Wellspring so you come out of one still riding the flood of Water from whatever click-throughs you did for the first building. Then Leon comes out of nowhere and tells you that you need another several thousand Wood and Stone and 100+ of about eight different main materials in order to craft this monument to him. It's a more than exponential increase in difficulty, every time the player finishes a link in the chain, so it's completely understandable that it would be frustrating. Synth Shop? Difficulty 1. SkyeScraper and Ladybug Mansion? 2 or 3. Condo and Wellspring? About a 4 or 5. Gardens? Maybe a 6. Then Leon's Pyramid? An 11--or higher. Straight from 6 to 11. And the thing is, previously there wasn't anything harder than between a 2-4 before Towers came out, so OBVIOUSLY players are going to be grumpy and flip tables over how hard it is. It's not the difficulty level they signed up for. And if you don't spam the click-through forums panning for materials, you easily multiply all these difficulty levels by four to ten, depending on how many reliable neighbors you have. So Cordy: Yes, this pack should take about a month to complete--if you have dozens of reliable neighbors, click-through the Co-Op forums religiously, play constantly, and dedicate all related materials solely to grinding that one quest. Otherwise, it can be expected take two or three.

[Pint Box]

I think the second skyscraper is the most annoying.
Also, yes, I was initially clicking-through the co-op before I was finally totally frustrated and decided to post there instead. Fortunately there was another quest line at the time that requires tremendous L mortar so I was able to gather many stuff quickly. I still grinded on the wood/stone part though. I would say for most people it should be a 2-3 month effort, but then still, after I finished this pack the whole world becomes a lot brighter.

Regarding Leon's Roar, I think it's best used when you wake up, have something to do and want to use all your energies quickly. Frankly speaking, most of powers range from yeah.. to meh except for Hummingbird and Ladybug. I seldom use renew because there are the whole interior I can work with.

[nextphaze]

My two cents:

1. I will NEVER build L.P., as I find it totally useless and space consuming (might I add ugly? :P).
2. I also was red with fury when I saw the biblical requirements for the Tower packs, but my approach was this> do a uberstone now...make a beam in a couple of days...throw in another water droplet in between and ...when I later checked my materials I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had neatly stashed 4 ubers., 4 beams. etc. So> no pressure, took my time, things got cooked and everything was good. This "no pressure" strategy really pays off
3.. Somehow, I`ve managed to get a good pace in the game (finish the new packs in max 2 days without playing more than 1-2 hours a day), and my new "hobby" now is to build ONLY hanging gardens (good for the cash ).

OFF-TOPIC> I`ve already stated that throwing new packs of buildings/decos every other week can be frustrating as there is no place to put all our stuff in the city, so I think I`ll drop in the "Fan Art" section some screens with my Stash (full of flowers, trees, buildings, etc. I`m quite proud of it :P) ! Ha! Sidenote> My City now is a FACTORY, as I like to call it, optimized for getting enough EXP to pass to the next lvl (kinda my permanent incentive to play the game, sadly...).

[Pint Box]

EXP factory? Would you like to explain a little more?

[matthewb9]

I still do not get the point of Leon's Roar. If you could use it with the Golden Axe, that would be cool. But what is the point of going fast if you still need to use 3 or 4 energies to cut something. I hope someone can explain this to me. What am I missing?

[RuthM]

If you just know that its going to take weeks to complete, its easier to deal with. At one point I decide that I wasn't going to do any of the side quests at all until I'd build the pyramid and just focused on it til it was done, but it still took ages.

What a relief when its over though!

[Sapphire44]

Yep - it's tough but I got through - slowly at first and then I spent a couple of weeks being really committed. I personally couldn't stand the thought of making the building materials for one and ending up with zero so I made enough materials to finish both the Hanging Gardens and Leon's Pyramid almost at the same time - it just helped me focus and stopped me from having that sinking feeling of using all your dream droplets say for the Hanging Gardens and having to start again for the Pyramid.

Whichever way you decide - just keep on going - don't give up - use the co-operation forum and you will get there.

[Karyn Aleshire Ellis]

I have no idea if I will finish these two items anytime soon! Between the two, there are 254 Skye Water, 472 Levonium Mortar, 308 Gustone, 108 Purified Snagvine Root, 36 Golden Mortar and 20 Awakening Stones needed, not to mention the assorted juices and things not so significant to make. How on earth are we supposed to get all these items together?
The game was really fun until this bomb dropped. I am out tending neighbors' cities daily as well as my own and the drops are nowhere near where they need to be to complete this in less than a couple of months or more. And, yes, I request and send daily any items that I can.
Frustrated in NC

I know exactly what u mean! When they came up for me I didn't know about any of the help sites so I was on my own with only the help of lame neighbors. I can tell u that when u are done the whole thing gets much, much better though and as far as I know there won't be any more like that. For a while they have some build with 28 times whatever the wood and stone is but lately they have come to their senses and lets hope they continue to keep their brains about it. I almost wanted to quit. Good luck and remember you don't have to finish them at the same time.

[waldnorm]

It took me at least three weeks to get the pyramid done. I think the hanging garden was similar. Given that, I've made deliberately some additional uberstones, night diamonds, oak woods, etc. just in case a quest like that comes up again. So far, after the hanging gardens, there hasn't been anymore, and I may store at least one of the synthesis shops (already stored the widget making shops).

[Jon Paul Sistermans]

i think it is good to add some hard to get buildings. at the end if you finished it you think pff i am glad i finished that and you can be proud you have that building. and also it keeps you busy. game that is tooo easy is no fun and a game is ment to keep you busy.