Help Wanted Quests
| Help Wanted Quests | |
|---|---|
| Type | Quest |
| Board | Bulletin board outside Pierre's General Store |
| Time Limit | Two days |
| Types | 5 |
The Bulletin Board outside Pierre's General Store carries the valley's odd jobs, and a yellow exclamation mark floating above it means a new one is waiting. Accepting a request starts a short clock: the current day and the next, and then it is gone. The pay is worked out from the amount of work involved, the farmer's skills and a little luck, so a request for a few sardines earns pocket change while a request for forty Gold Ore earns a proper wage. A three star counter in the corner of the board tracks completions and turns every third one into a Prize Ticket. Forty finished requests also pays out two achievements, gold in the post from Mayor Lewis, and two hats that cannot be bought any other way.
Overview
The board stays blank on the very first day of a save and then refreshes most mornings, though not every morning, so a daily look on the way past Pierre's is the habit to build. Taking a request costs nothing and abandoning one costs nothing either, which makes it safe to accept anything and simply drop it from the journal when the day goes wrong. Several can run at once, and the progress counter in the journal keeps a tally for each.
The requests are written so that nothing impossible is ever asked. A monster from the deep floors is never named until those floors have been seen, a desert fish is never requested before the bus runs, and a metal bar is never wanted until a furnace can be built. Meeting more villagers does not make requests appear more often, although it does widen the pool of people who might ask.
The two day window is the thing that bites. A daytime festival locks most homes and shops, so a request accepted the day before one can become impossible to hand in, and the only sensible response is to finish it on day one or let it lapse. Requests that end by speaking to the asker do resolve during scripted cutscene dialogue, so bumping into them mid event still counts.
Types
Five kinds of request share the board, and they are not evenly spread: item deliveries turn up far more than the rest put together. Two of the five have conditions attached, since nobody asks for monsters slain before the Mines have been entered, and Emily's greeting round only becomes possible once the opening introductions are done. The remaining three can appear from the first week.
Gathering
Clint asks for copper, iron or Gold Ore in quantity, or for coal to inspect, and Robin asks for wood or stone. The hard rule is that the material has to be gathered after the request is taken. A chest stacked with a thousand stone is worth nothing here, and neither is the ore already in the bag when the board was read, which is why this kind catches out farmers who mine first and read the board afterwards.
Buying counts as gathering, and that turns an awkward request into a quick one. Robin sells wood and stone over her own counter, Clint sells ore over his, and a wallet can finish the job in a single visit for less than the reward pays. Once the journal shows the full number, the material stays on the farm and a word with the villager who asked closes the request.
Slay Monsters
Clint, Lewis, Demetrius or the Wizard will name one monster and a number of them to kill. The numbers vary a good deal, and the pay rises with them, so a long cull of dust sprites is worth more than a handful of bugs. Nothing is ever requested from a part of the caves that has not been reached, so a demand for Shadow Shamans waits until the eightieth floor of the Mines has been seen.
Kills count wherever they happen, which makes these requests a free bonus on a mining run that was going to happen anyway. The journal keeps the tally, and the request closes on a conversation rather than a delivery. The practical trap is accepting one late in the day, since the elevator only reaches floors already unlocked and a deep monster may take two full descents to find.
Fishing
Demetrius or Willy asks for a small number of one fish that is in season, either to thin out its population or to keep the craft alive. The pay is that fish's base price multiplied by the number asked for, and the fish themselves stay on the farm, so the request effectively doubles the value of the catch. For an expensive seasonal fish that is one of the better returns on the board.
The fish must be caught while the request is active, so a cooler full of yesterday's catch does not help. The real risk is the species named. A fish that only bites in rain, or only after midnight, or only at the far end of a season, can make a two day window impossible, and in that case the entry is better dropped than chased. Targeted bait aimed at the named fish cuts the hunt down sharply when the gear is available.
Saying 'Hello'
Emily rarely asks for anything material. Instead she asks for a round of the town, greeting everyone who lives there, and the request only becomes available once the opening introductions have been made. Several residents are left out of the count: the Wizard, Krobus, the Dwarf, Sandy, Kent and Leo are all skipped, which is as well, since most of them live well outside Pelican Town.
This is the fiddliest kind on the board. Greetings given before the request was accepted do not register, so a farmer who chats on the way to Pierre's has to find those people again. On the second day the game shows nothing about who was greeted on the first, and saying hello to the same person twice gains nothing, so an accurate mental list matters. The cleanest run is to take the request at first light and then walk the town before speaking to anybody. The payment is friendship with every resident at once rather than coin, which makes it one of the fastest goodwill boosts in the game.
Item Delivery
This is the common case. Any adult villager already met, and able to build friendship, may ask for one item: a crop, a forageable or a fish from the current season, a mineral or gem pitched at the deepest mine floor reached, a metal bar once a furnace is possible, or something as plain as Joja Cola, Seaweed or Green Algae. Weather does not restrict the request, so a rain only fish can be asked for on a clear day.
The payment is three times what the item fetches at normal quality, which beats the shipping bin outright and makes it worth holding a spare of whatever is in season. On top of the gold comes a solid block of friendship points, and because a delivery is not treated as a gift, it does not use up the day's gifting allowance with that villager. The one catch is the handover: the item has to be given to the person who asked, and talking to them with it in the bag does nothing at all.
Not everyone takes part. Jas, Vincent, Krobus, the Dwarf and a married spouse never post a delivery request, while Sandy begins once the Desert is open. A request for Joja Cola is a curiosity, because a can from the vending machine costs exactly what the reward pays, so the gold cancels out and only the friendship and the star are gained.
Rewards
Gold is the headline payment, and it scales with the size of the job, the farmer's relevant skill level and a small random element, which is why two requests for the same ore can pay differently. Friendship comes with deliveries and with Emily's greeting round, and both are worth more than the coin in the early game.
The three star counter in the corner of the board is the quieter reward. A star lands with every completed request, and once three have been earned the next completion hands over a Prize Ticket and resets the count. The board's note about which request will pay the ticket is only a guess, because with several requests running at once the ticket attaches to whichever one is finished first. Tickets go into the prize machine in Mayor Lewis' house, beside the Town Ledger, which shows the next few prizes in line so a ticket can be held back for a good one.
Ten completed requests earns the Gofer achievement and forty earns A Big Help. Special Orders from the town board and from Mr. Qi both count towards those totals, while story quests do not. The morning after each achievement Mayor Lewis posts a cash bonus, a modest one for the first and a far larger one for the second. More interestingly, each achievement adds a hat to the mouse's stock in the Abandoned House in Cindersap Forest: the Polka Bow for Gofer and the Chicken Mask for A Big Help, each sold for a flat fee.
Strategy
Reading the board before anything else in the day is the single habit that pays. A gathering request taken at eight in the morning turns an ordinary mining trip into paid work, while the same request taken at six in the evening is wasted. The same goes for fishing: take the request, then go out, rather than the other way round.
A chest of spare produce makes deliveries almost free money. One of each fish caught that season, one of each crop harvested, a bar of every metal and a few gems set aside from the mines will cover most of what the town asks for, and at triple the sell price it is better to hold stock back than to ship everything. When the counter sits on two stars, picking a delivery for the third is the safest way to secure the ticket, since a delivery can be finished the moment the villager is found.
Watch the calendar before accepting anything on the day before a festival, and watch the shop hours too, since a villager inside a locked building cannot be handed anything. If a request looks impossible after an hour of trying, dropping it from the journal costs nothing and frees the day.
Notes
A divorced spouse can still post a request, and fulfilling it draws a brief word of thanks before the cold dialogue returns, but no goodwill is gained from it. Shuffling ore in and out of a chest does nothing for a gathering counter, so the only route is fresh material or a shop. Gathering and fishing requests both leave the goods on the farm, which means the reward sits on top of the usual value of the haul rather than replacing it.
All Quests
The four kinds of work the valley hands out.
| Name | Kind |
|---|---|
| Story Quests | Story |
| Help Wanted Quests | Bulletin board |
| Special Orders | Special order board |
| Quest Items | Items |