Board Thread:Friend Code Exchange/@comment-174.31.11.150-20150824114302/@comment-24668482-20150824133851

1) Some Collection items cannot be put on a wish list on purpose and it is to do with the quests in the game.

The last quests in the game are to find the items from these collections (and to combine those collections). I guess the idea is that the further into the quests you get, the harder they should be to keep the game challenging for players. So the last quests originally added to the game (updates have added more quests which are for collections whose items can be added to wishlists) should be the hardest for players. Since getting the item as a gift from a friend will automatically complete the quest, if the items could be added to your wishlist then you could just skip the quests by asking friends to help. This would remove the extra difficulty those quests are supposed to have. So to avoid this, they cannot be added to your wishlist (ever). It would be nice if they could be added to your wishlist after you have completed the quests, but I imagine that would be a headache to implement. Some of those collections do have nice rewards though, so maybe they also don't want them to gifted so they cannot be combined as often. For what it is worth - getting the items as a random items that drops when you are visiting friends or from the collectors desktop award or from opening a pandoras box will still complete the quest.

2) You'll probably get 20 different answers if 20 people answer this question, as it is going to come down to personal preference and playing style.

In terms of basic cost to play a picture versus rewards - i.e. how many energy points it costs to play and how many experience points you win - and comparing all pictures on the same picture level (professor level in this case) - there is a 4 way tie for most economical picture since the Halloween 2014 update changed all the costs/rewards for all pictures. Witch's Hut; Forest House; Winter Street and Observation Deck are the most economical pictures that give the most experience points per energy point spent to play. After that, the higher the game level you need to open a picture the less economical that picture is to play (basically the number of energy points needed increases faster than experience points earned) so Flower Shop is the least economical picture to play. But the difference is miniscule across the board. There really isn't an earth shattering difference between Witch's Hut (3.68 exp points for every energy point spent) and Flower Shop (3.39 exp points for every energy point spent). It's the puzzles that are noticeable worse off, with Blocks being the worst thing in the game to play if you are trying to level up quickly (2.22 experience points for every energy point spent, again not a huge drop from Witch's Hut but it would actually really add up over time).

In terms of which pictures give the best collection items? Well that is definitely personal preference. I guess the technical answer is Tavern followed by Theater and Excavations. The collections you collect as you play these pictures give the most powerful rewards - e.g. by playing Tavern you will get items for Legendary Swords collections that give the diamond horseshoe when combined; and there are other collections that give other super charged Talismans. Excavations also has collections that give super charged talismans. Theater has good collections for tools and strength/power.

But actually, I would say all the new pictures are rubbish to play too often even though they do give collections that give excellent rewards. And that is because none of those pictures give you combining elements when you play them and all those collections require a huge amount of combining elements to combine. If you just played those pictures over and over you would soon be left with tons of collections that you could combine and no way of combining them.

Lets say you play Tavern 30 times and end up with 10 full sets of items for Legendary swords. Wonderful, that is 10 diamond horsehoes just waiting for you. Except you will need 100 each of Dragon's claws, Mermaid scales, and Basilisk fangs to combine those collections, and those items can only be won in Witch's hut so you will end up needing to play Witch's Hut at least 100 times (probably a lot more) to get those diamond horsehoes.

And if when playing Tavern you also end up with 10 full sets of Favourite Heroines - well fantastic that is 10 Scrolls of Wisdom - perfect for levelling up quickly. Except you will need 100 each of Parchments, Decorative Corner, and Satin Ribbons to combine those, and those items can only be won in the Mill so you will end up needing to play Mill at least 100 times. And if you happen to have Mill at a high picture level? Say Magister Level? Then it will cost you 35 ladybugs for every play, so now you will also need at least 3500 ladybugs to combine those collections and get those Scrolls of Wisdoms.

And since all the items that can be won in each picture are weighted, so that more valuable items are less likely to drop than less valuable items. If you did play Tavern 30 times in a row you probably wouldn't have 10 each of those two collections to combine. You'd probably just end up with a huge amount of that pictures booby prize - Megalopolises - which just gives one Holy Water when combined and costs a staggering 20 each of Spiral Springs; Gears; Bronze Gears and Antikythera Mechanisms to combine (there are much easier ways to get Holy Waters, trust me). And if you do end up combining a couple of those all you will really do is use up your stocks of those combining elements and be unable to combine other more useful collections later.

So really it is not just what collection items a picture rewards, but what everything it rewards that should matter. Playing the new pictures that don't give combining elements a little is great, as it sets you up for those big reward collections, but playing them too much is a bad strategy. But the early pictures, the ones you first opened and played (and are probably sick of) do give good collection items but also give lots of useful combining elements. I am talking about the central block of pictures - Joy Cafe to Amusement Park in the top row down to Misty Shed to Crashed Plane in the bottom row.

Each of the pictures in the central block give good combining elements and items for decent enough collections. But the key is, not any one of those pictures will give you every item from a particular collection and every combining element (they are split across them). But by playing them all in rotation you will eventually build up all you need to combine lots of the early collections that will give you everything you need in the game from dinners (full energy restore) to gold weights (full strength/power restore) to tools to anomaly dispelling items. AND on top of that, the collections you will gain will also give you what you need to combine artefacts such as Magisters amulet and Symbol of sucess, which may not be as strong as the diamond horseshoe and scroll of wisdom but they are not that far off and do last much, much longer. And in the process of getting those artefacts you will be adding to your inventory of other items (energy, tools, etc) not taking away from them as you would be if chasing the super charged talismans in the new high level pictures.

The thing is, the game was more balanced when it was first created. Updates have thrown the balance off considerably. But that balanced game still exists within in, and by playing those original pictures and combining those original collections, you will be playing that original balanced game and will find you have an easier time getting everything you need to play.

But that being said, you would have to venture into other pictures occassionally to get extra combining elements (such as those rewarded exclusively in mill, ancient library, eastern bazaar, palatial office, christmas eve, witchs hut etc).

So I guess my personal preference answer to the question 'which location is the most profitable' is: none of them. Variety is the spice of life, and you will need items from a variety of pictures to get things you want. But concentrating on the central block of pictures when you are playing a wide variety of pictures will definitely help.