I had a discussion with a developer regarding a bug report, and the resulting discussion concluded that I should open a new topic on the Ideas Forum.
First, a discussion on the problem:
When donating to a Giant and the donation amount exceeds the level necessary to obtain an emblem, the additional donation is not recorded. The text is recorded in the local chat activity, but upon "checking favor" the donation status does not reflect the recorded text. For example, my donation to Zille recorded in the local chat "Congratulations! Your devotion has earned you an emblem of Zille! +60 xp, -1900 favor". followed by "You donated to a Shrine to Zille. Your favor with Zille has increased by 141! You gain 432 xp and gain 11 mood. ". Checking my favor level with Zille at present shows "0".
The response confirmed that it is by design to lose favor at the "emblem collection" level. Basically, the order of the messages received is what might be confusing. You do in fact lose any overage on your favor when you earn an emblem. In my example, before earning the emblem, you had 1759 favor with Zille. Thus whatever you donated gave you the necessary 141 favor points to hit 1900, gave you 432 xp and 11 mood [in this case, the second of the messages you received]. Then, when you got the emblem, you received an additional 60 xp and the shrine reset to 0 favor [the second message you received].
But, that's not how I read the game prompts. Here's why I see the current system has an issue, and a suggestion on how to correct it:
I understand the direction the developers want to take with Giant donations, but the game needs to promote some kind of feedback consistency. What I observe in the game responses to my actions are inconsistent in this space because:
+ The Giant shrine popup implies a left-to-right chronology as to the actions that take place after my donation. This implication is reinforced with each donation I make. The only time this left-to-right chronology is in error is when I make a donation that exceeds the necessary amount to receive an emblem.
+ The current left-to-right order of the Giant shrine donation popup lists the emblem cost (first) to the left of the favor gain. Following the left-to-right order above, this implies to me that first the game reduces my favor amount to obtain the emblem, then adds favor to the Giant. The resulting actions do not reflect the implied order of the Giant shrine popup dialog content.
+ The messages in the local chat history are ordered chronologically for any other action in the game. The fact that the messages are out of chronological order in this case make the Giant donation confusing.
+ When I (as a player) encounter limits, the game responds in-kind with an appropriate message to either warn me about exceeding that limit, or that the limit was exceeded. For example:
++ When I reach my daily coin limit, the game gives me an in-game indication and a message in the local chat window.
++ When I crush rocks into elements and exceed the maximum amount (5k) of any given element, a message is provided in the chat history that said additional element was destroyed because I have the maximum amount.
++ When I am about to exceed the (game) day daily limit on favor, the game warns me with a popup and pauses the donation with the Giant, so that I am confirming awareness of this limit and given the opportunity to cancel the donation.
With Giant donations that exceed the "emblem" boundary, none of these messages or notification is given to the player. Because there is no message or popup or alert of exceeding this boundary and because there is implied chronology with the current messages provided, the responses are misleading me as a player.
I humbly recommend either a similar "warning popup" as is done with reaching maximum daily favor levels, or a change in the sequence in the messages, or a change in the message content, or all of the above. Such changes would make players aware of this emblem boundary.
Thanks for considering,
Jacob
(CleverCharacterName)