Re: essence vs comm-quests: Influencing only the named denizens gets me roughly 15-20% of esteem. If we (probably generously) assume that influencing everything gives double that, we're talking 30-40%, let's say 33%. That means 2500 gold. I generally don't do comm quests, so I don't know those rewards, but that at least puts the esteem in perspective.

We tweaked the feeling gains for everyone, religious getting the biggest boost with commercial right on its tail, so hopefully feelings should be a bit easier to upkeep.

As to the difficulty of finding rockeaters, some classes excel where others do not. I mildly point out that rockeaters are animals and can therefore be mimicked by hunter-sorts (the skillset) to be made to come to you - or tracked down by trackers. Same with cows/sheep, which can also be rustled via the same skillset. They can also catch trout, but that's pretty unimportant.

There's more than 2 apples, Kira (though some are hidden so you have to guess if they're there). The fact you can work on so many different aspects of the quest at once should have you bouncing between them (though I suggest paying attention to what you're making in the quest - there's more than one part that can be used for commodity quests!), not doing them one at a time.

As someone who was a tracker for a long time, I'll say that of what is mentioned here, the cows and sheep stuff is very true- just get a rope and run around. Or get that dingbat bell thing.

But as for finding rockeaters, there are some problems. Mimic is slower than running around a big area often- I would only use it as a last resort when I knew something was there and couldn't find it on my own. Seek/unite, apart from being very draining on will, has some bug issues when there are multiples of the same thing- often the bond just won't go. Or if the one it senses, it can't reach for whatever reason, it won't find the next one in line either. It's also limited to the same elevation, and the very segmented undervault, combined with the mentioned "wonkyness" of the seek mechanic, means that its not particularly a good tool for finding rockeaters. Better than nothing at all certainly, but in the prime mountains, you'd be better off just running around.

Are you sure that there's more than two? And if so, are you sure it's in an accessible location? Because I don't know of anyone (and I know of many who have completed that quest) who know about apples beyond the one in the trees, and the one below.

There're definitely more than two apples and in easily accessible locations.

Has it been like that for a long time? I don't know about anyone who knows about other apples than the two in the valley.

And where are they?