Your Opinion on Bloodmoon Event 2018

qawsada

As the title states, what is your overall opinion on this year's Bloodmoon? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Was the scheduling and launching content per week best suited for this? Did you like the new rewards? What kind of improvement would you like to see for next year's Bloodmoon? Anything else you would like to add?

spinnytop

I like the per-week content. Gives the event a better flow, similar to other events. An improvement I would like to see is adding another daily to the first week, so there's something to do other than bouncing around to trick-or-treaters. Maybe have clusters of zombies to nuke or something like that.​​

jaazaniah1

It's good to have something to do with all that end game gear we grind from cosmics

magpieuk2014

I played it much less than in previous years. The Trick or Treat element is dull, to be honest, and ever since the Undead Heroes and Crypts became train/team content I don't seem to be able to link up to it. Tako fights are fun. Rewards are event rewards, so not much to write home about.

flyingfinn

Nice. Nice but dim.

bulgarex

It's always been a pet peeve of mine that in a world of superheroes, there's no way a major menace like Takofanes would be allowed to create so much civilian-threatening chaos, and desecrate the corpses of fallen heroes, predictably on the same day in the same place year after year, without every major mystic hero (and no few villains) lying in wait for him with their deadliest spells to nuke his bony @$$ the moment he showed himself.

But that's only one of the setting-bending phenomena in CO that one just has to roll with if one wants to enjoy the game.

ealford1985

@bulgarex I was just thinking the same thing! Everyone acts surprised every year! “Oh no zombies!”

jaazaniah1

Fortunately he does show up at the same place every year, and there is an army of heroes there to smite him down, every year. So you actually are describing what is happening in the game. I'm sure some of those player characters waiting to jump him are as villainous as tako himself, if costumes are any guide So, again, you nail it.

bulgarex

But the heroes just try to contain the damage after Tak's rampage begins, not stop it at the source. No effort to prepare special tactics or traps, to shut him down before the Blood Moon gets going and people are hurt. Totally reactive, not pro-active at all. That's not smart, not to mention un-heroic. It would never play out that way in the comics -- there could be a whole series of issues devoted to tracking Tak down to find out why he's doing this, and put a stop to it once and for all. And there does have to be a reason. Takofanes is patient and subtle, and he doesn't cause chaos just for its own sake. The reason would probably be really big and scary, because the Archlich plays for all the marbles.

jonsills

If the code would allow for it, I'd love it if the NPC reactions could be made more blase for the event.

"Great, zombies again. Tako must be back in town."

ealford1985

Perhaps we live in a type of Ground Hogs daddy Bill Murray and every wakes as if it’s the first Tako invasion.

I always wanted an update to Mechanon like that...each event he is upgraded. He was Mach 41 and he wouldn’t attack with that same model.

pwestolemyname

I liked it a lot. Only thing that was annoying was the targeting in BITE. Also, failing the Tako's was totally ridiculous.

chaosdrgnz43

Got real underwhelmed throughout the whole event. The rewards just didn't have any hype factor anymore.

ealford1985

I really wanted more zombie bits. Like tight patterns on the already existing bodies.

Some of the NPC zombie buts we don’t have (minus the missing arm)

lezard21

I really liked the variety of options you had to collect Tokens this year. I really appreciate the first week BITE focus, though it sucks that it died down as the rest of the event was made available, but it was a fun week \o/

Tokens were so easily available that I farmed all the costumes I wanted, and even bought some that will probably never use cause I was often approaching Token cap just from doing DLs/Takos.

My only major petpeeve is 2nd and 3rd week DL drop bug where they were dropping triple their normal drops which as a result caused a huge deflation on costumes/transforms/aura/AF prices. I have half an inventory tab full of cats that are now only worth 70g compared to last year's 2k.​​

spinnytop

Oh also, the ZA daily is dumb. People just queue and die as fast as possible. It's even more colludy than Bite For some reason I expected to join it an actually have some good old fashioned ZA fun, but there was no fun to be had. Somehow only winners should get rewards, or at least winners should get bonus reward.​​

Unknown

This content has been removed.

lan

I can haz moar kitteh?

Other than the cats, it wasn't much. Mostly rehash of last year. Good thing I needs kittehs.

xacchaeus

played maybe two days of it, got two costume bits, got bored and left...

dreadjaws2

I liked it. Not very different from past year, and escalation made things different so every week would have a different focus. The only thing I found disappointing was that one of the ATs they put in the event store was nothing but a palette swap of the previous one. I still got it because I was overstocked in coins, but it's entirely useless if you have the other one (particularly if you have power coloring).

aesica

I liked it overall, however I think the trick-or-treater quest should be "interact with X NPCs" not "kill X monsters." Less RNG, and it makes me feel less like a villain: "Yaay another human, I want to kill him/her anyway just to get my damned quota."

Mainly though, I disagree with making the bags bind to character on pickup because it actually discourages player economics. Farming bags to sell, or buying bags from other players to avoid farming should be a legitimate option. I'm hoping this was just a test run, and that it won't be the norm going forward.

Finally, I think that, with the de-emphasizing of farm-the-hero trains, perhaps it's time to scale the hero strength back down to what it used to be. The crypts are meant to be smaller-group content, yet to unlock them, you need a larger group. During "Tako week," getting the crypts done can be quite difficult because everyone just wants to kill Tako ad nauseum. By scaling them back, you effectively have something for everyone in this event:

• Trick or treating for extremely casual solo players of any level
• Heroes/crypts for tougher soloers or small groups
• Tako & friends for big groups

Bite was lame as expected. Didn't even bother with ZA because I didn't even know it was a thing.

screwthisprocess

Didn't like it, felt like I was getting less coins, less chances at gear. Halloween was pretty much the only event I liked. Starting to drift away from CO; fatigue, which is normal. Crazy part is I don't play that much to fatigue. Weird. Liked the trick or treat stuff, that is about it.

spinnytop

I'm drifting back into CO after not having really played for a while. Yaaaaay! \owo/

But not because of Bloodmoon u3u actually cause of the alert reward thingy...​​

salmialmi

I don't really care for the bloodmoon revamp and spent most of the time playing other games and reading until week three and four, Though four saw more play than three as killing doom lords just isn't as fun as running the train.

I'll quickly sum up my take on the four weeks.


First week was dull and uninteresting because running from tot to tot is just not fun. Got all the new perks in a timely fashion. BITE hunters feel clunky and the wolves play just fine.

I really though the zombie heroes would show up the second week, but it ended up being tako light with 1-2 hour cd.

week three didn't have any reason to run undead heroes except for doing the yearly mission and I completely stopped doing anything that wasn't doom lords because the rewards were just better after the rng spawn was dealt with.

fourth week was a good old tako brawl.

solhuset

Not a fan. I never liked Trick or treaters or BITE to begin with (not a big fan of goose chases or PvP) so having the first week purely geared towards those two made me just not play week 1 at all. Same with week 2. Not that I dont like doom lords, but the spawn timer being totally random made it more of a hazzle than it was worth, since you pretty much had to be present at all times up to possibly two hours or you'd risk missing it for your daily. And then you'd have to start the wait all over again. So I didnt bother with that either since it was way more of a hassle than it was worth.

Week 3 though I tried for a bit since that had the activities I actually enjoyed, and it fixed the doom lords which was nice.
But heroes having a full hour cooldown and crypts a full day? Not to mention the heavily nerfed rewards made them mostly abandoned after two days or so. So in the end I only did the yearly and didnt log on for the rest of the event cause the one event I actually enjoyed was no longer for me.

I heard Tako was still cool though.

sgtken60

Well I am a newbie - But I really did enjoyed Bloodmoon Event overall, I unlocked the Savage and Cursed ATs, the Wolf hair and the Machete. I got to do Tako a lot, but only got to do one of the Undead Heroes Crypt Runs, and it was a early morning pick-up, they needed a body, and my Cursed got SK for the first time.

The only thing I wish that there was more information out there for the Event and the game as a whole. I wish there was a way I could build up more interest in this game. Some of my gaming buddies at work have never even heard of it.

jaazaniah1

So kind of like Superman's spiel to turn Justice League into Justice League Unlimited? Hard enough to get 30 CO heroes to show up and fight Eido in a coordinated fashion.

OTOH, most superheroes are just reactive, waiting for the villains to strike, rather than striking first (maybe that is unheroic?). Supers are basically just playing whack-a-mole.

Still, CO does have that Until base in the QWZ, so there is some proactive activity there (though I do feel sorry for those Until artillery crews, if the guys who went through Demon Flame got messed up, those artillery guys are really going to suffer). I don't think I could stomach another mini zone where we have to face yet another supernatural threat trying to break in to our world. Been there. Done that

bulgarex wrote: »

But the heroes just try to contain the damage after Tak's rampage begins, not stop it at the source. No effort to prepare special tactics or traps, to shut him down before the Blood Moon gets going and people are hurt. Totally reactive, not pro-active at all. That's not smart, not to mention un-heroic. It would never play out that way in the comics -- there could be a whole series of issues devoted to tracking Tak down to find out why he's doing this, and put a stop to it once and for all. And there does have to be a reason. Takofanes is patient and subtle, and he doesn't cause chaos just for its own sake. The reason would probably be really big and scary, because the Archlich plays for all the marbles.

bulgarex

Well, the difference is Takofanes is doing this particular heinous thing repeatedly, predictably, it's widely known in advance, and in comic-book context it's probably leading to something bigger and much worse. If Cryptic was still creating significant new content for CO, it's the sort of situation I'd expect to lead to a "comic series" bringing it to a resolution. But it's just a recurring event in a MMO, not meant to be taken all that seriously. If I really want my setting-based logic offended, I can stop in at Club Caprice.

bulgarex

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

So kind of like Superman's spiel to turn Justice League into Justice League Unlimited? Hard enough to get 30 CO heroes to show up and fight Eido in a coordinated fashion.

Nope. JLU was organized to protect against possible future threats generally. This is more like Game of Thrones' White Walkers and the Great War, or Thanos hunting Infinity Stones. You can see something really, really bad is coming, and you can either be overwhelmed, or get your act together and take action to stop it. And if you're thinking Takofanes isn't that bad? Lore-wise, yeah, he's that bad.

But you're right, when you're dealing with a bunch of diverse gamers, getting their PCs together for one thing can be like herding cats. Just one of the reasons why I prefer tabletop Champions play.

gameon

aesica wrote: »

Mainly though, I disagree with making the bags bind to character on pickup because it actually discourages player economics. Farming bags to sell, or buying bags from other players to avoid farming should be a legitimate option. I'm hoping this was just a test run, and that it won't be the norm going forward.

This right here... in a game where we can have up to 100 alternate characters, on top of player economics...
Being able to trade, sell, buy, alt-swap those bags for tokens made the grind a little less dreadful... and it wasn't like EVERY bag became a Token... So. Much. Candy... Candy EVERYWHERE!


My general thoughts on the BM Event:

Adding in the ability to actually BUY the cool devices with event points instead of inflated AH Global Costs (I don't remember it that was possible via tokens in years past)... That was awesome!
But then nerf the gift bags by binding them to one character... Boo...
AND of course those items bought with tokens were bind to character, on pickup... Boo...

Did the devs forget how many characters we can have? They did just turn around and limit us to 100...

The nerf to the undead hero trains was lame... I have to question WHY?
Were players leveling too fast? It is a 9 year old game...
Were people getting tokens too fast? Trick or treat bags and items in the BM Shop are bind to character on pickup... and there are a LOT of items in that shop... AT's, Vehicles, Devices, COSTUMES... at least Costumes are still Account unlocks...

Did anyone actually get the traditional BM items via drops this year? (Nimbus, Orbital Cannon, ect... I saw the costume parts and Tako Throne, just not the Undead Hero devices...). Seems the drop rate was too low... maybe because of the timer change... but I didn't see as many of them this year as in years past...


Kudos to the quick fix to OV's attacking at the Open Missions... (keeping customers happy, always good!)
But at the same time... aren't OV's SUPPOSED to be the bad guys? (total theme killer - Thanos didn't ASK if he could do the snap, he just did it! Grond doesn't ASK to obliterate anyone in the desert, he just DOES! Any villain in any universe... has anyone ever heard of one ASKING to be bad?)

galactickiri

I participated heavily this year, and have a few points on it.

1) Some seasonal levels are just too costly. Either lower them, or give the event another week or two.

2) The community overall isn't as reliable as it once was. Super groups regularly die, and PUGs are so hit or miss. More of the content should be soloable, that or we need even more yearly, open events.

jonsills

I have to admit, binding to character was one of the main things that turned me off the event this year. I have one toon themed for the event (Death Metal, a zombified bassist), but under the new regime that would mean either he would be a zombie bassist with catgirl parts, or I'd have to start grinding on every single character who might want the parts. Including new ones - if the costume bits inspired a new character, I'd have to create the toon, level until it could do the content, then grind until my eyes bled in order to make the toon I wanted.

That's kind of a disincentive, in a game that advertises "be the hero you want to be". If the various items and bags had even been Bind to Account, I could have used them - but Bind to Character? Really?

guyhumual

The one good thing I'll say about Bloodmoon is I really liked the changes to the Tako fight. It used to be an average beatdown, but the new fight is indeed improved as it makes it more dynamic. I should add that I liked one of the first changes they made to the event, adding the event vendor as well, that year was my favorite blood moon ever. I've already talked a lot about the other changes and why I don't like them, suffice to say this used to be my favorite event but now it's probably one of my least favorite. I like it more than the nightmare event. Overall I'm not sure how they could improve the event, other that reverting some of the changes, but that's not going to happen. So I just have to live with the disappointment that the Bloodmoon event has become for me.

markhawkman

aesica wrote: »

I liked it overall, however I think the trick-or-treater quest should be "interact with X NPCs" not "kill X monsters." Less RNG, and it makes me feel less like a villain: "Yaay another human, I want to kill him/her anyway just to get my damned quota."

Did you read the quest description? The ToTers aren't human. They're supernatural entities who came to Earth to spread chaos.

gameon wrote: »

Did anyone actually get the traditional BM items via drops this year? (Nimbus, Orbital Cannon, ect... I saw the costume parts and Tako Throne, just not the Undead Hero devices...). Seems the drop rate was too low... maybe because of the timer change... but I didn't see as many of them this year as in years past...

I got several of those items. I also got a ghost aura. Yes, a non-CBoP aura.

jonsills wrote: »

I have to admit, binding to character was one of the main things that turned me off the event this year. I have one toon themed for the event (Death Metal, a zombified bassist), but under the new regime that would mean either he would be a zombie bassist with catgirl parts, or I'd have to start grinding on every single character who might want the parts. Including new ones - if the costume bits inspired a new character, I'd have to create the toon, level until it could do the content, then grind until my eyes bled in order to make the toon I wanted.

That's kind of a disincentive, in a game that advertises "be the hero you want to be". If the various items and bags had even been Bind to Account, I could have used them - but Bind to Character? Really?

While true of Auras, not true of costumes. Costume parts are account unlocks.

spinnytop

jonsills wrote: »

or I'd have to start grinding on every single character who might want the parts.

BoP motivating you to play your characters. Ta da!

Well not really since as markhawkman points out the costume pieces aren't per character. I mean... did you really go this whole time thinking costume bits were per character? That would explain a few things you believe about the current "regime". To think, you've been being a grumpy gus this whole time over nothing!

jonsills wrote: »

That's kind of a disincentive, in a game that advertises "be the hero you want to be".

"Be the hero you want to be, but you might have to spend a short amount of time without an aura when you first create the character, horrible I know but the good news is that all you have to do to rectify that is play that character during an event." was going to be the slogan for the game, but it wouldn't fit on the box.

Also this whole "grind until my eyes bleed" thing... just a bit melodramatic. We're talking about playing video games remember? If you don't wanna grind anymore, then just don't. Who cares if your toon has bats flying around them or whatever, get it next year. Converting questionite>zen>keys>opening lockboxes for drifter salvage>buying currency is also a thing you can do. That's what I did this year, got the majority of things I wanted that way.​​

Unknown

This content has been removed.

jonsills

Of course it's "a bit melodramatic", Spinny. Not all autists are incapable of understanding metaphor - I wasn't claiming my eyes were literally bleeding. However, the thing is more than a little grindy, and the fact that I can't use the toon I want to gather rewards for my account is sufficiently annoying that I actually did as you advise - I sat the event out. Plenty of other stuff to do, like starting an AoD toon in STO and getting him to lvl 20 (doesn't take long) so he can enjoy the rewards earned earlier by my Delta, Temporal, and Gamma Recruits...

markhawkman

jonsills wrote: »

Of course it's "a bit melodramatic", Spinny. Not all autists are incapable of understanding metaphor - I wasn't claiming my eyes were literally bleeding. However, the thing is more than a little grindy, and the fact that I can't use the toon I want to gather rewards for my account is sufficiently annoying that I actually did as you advise - I sat the event out. Plenty of other stuff to do, like starting an AoD toon in STO and getting him to lvl 20 (doesn't take long) so he can enjoy the rewards earned earlier by my Delta, Temporal, and Gamma Recruits...

Again though, if it's actually the costumes you want, those ARE account unlocks.

spinnytop

jonsills wrote: »

I sat the event out.

Did you at least farm the costume pieces you wanted? Those are account-wide o3o would hate to think you sat out cause you thought they weren't...​​

guyhumual

Probably took your advice:

spinnytop wrote: »

Also this whole "grind until my eyes bleed" thing... just a bit melodramatic. We're talking about playing video games remember? If you don't wanna grind anymore, then just don't.

Anyways, auras and the new transform devices are kind of essential to some to some character designs. Maybe not as much from the Bloodmoon event, but imagine designing a character that'd use the "big head aura", but couldn't even earn it till level 10. That's an hour into the game playing a character that doesn't look anything like you'd imagined. Personally I used to farm these events to get stuff to make new toons, but they expect players to make new toons to farm the event, which to mind is completely counter intuitive, but hey, I'm just a player not a game designer. All I can say is like jonsills I sat the majority of this event out. I hated the "improved" trick or treating and the only thing I like about this event now is the Takofanes fight. Even that didn't really interest me too much as I can't make any new characters.

shadowolf505

I made a character called Phantom back in May or June and he needed the Spectral Aura but I couldn't get it until Bloodmoon. That didnt stop me from making the character or playing him, just took a while to get the item I wanted for him. So it doesnt really matter if the character looks differently without a specific piece of what you needed, it's just if you want to go through with the theme or concept still. And on that note, I will say that Bloodmoon 2018 was nice. I missed the first week because of classes and then got the aura I needed in the second week. I played for a while during the last two weeks for farming just because. I like the approach for events like this and would like to see more events happening this way.

spinnytop

guyhumual wrote: »

but imagine designing a character that'd use the "big head aura", but couldn't even earn it till level 10. That's an hour into the game playing a character that doesn't look anything like you'd imagined.

None of my characters now looks the way they did during their first hour of play, so I don't even need to imagine that. Hell, Kagami wasn't even wearing real magical girl costume pieces for years... cause they didn't exist, didn't stop me tho!

I have an easy solution for the proposed situation, here's what you do:

1. Give the character a temporary costume to use until you get big head aura.
2. Play the character in this state until you get the aura.
3. Change the costume to the one designed for big head.

Modify as needed for any other auras. I know that ghost pirate won't look just right without some skulls flying around him... so just don't have him be a ghost pirate until you get those auras! Heck, you could make a rp opportunity out of it and have him be a living pirate until you get those auras or something. That sounds fun!

Sort of a modified version of what I did with all my magical girl and furry characters. Did you know I had a bunny character years before any of these wonderful furry heads were produced? Was one of my favorite toons too, imagine if I had let a silly thing like "no bunny head" entirely prevent me from playing her!

Now of course I understand that you might just not want to do this, but in that case keep in mind that I've given you a perfectly functional, proven solution, and you chose not to use it. So, when it comes to you never playing that character you have only yourself to blame.​​

guyhumual

I can't make characters anymore, so your solution simply has no barring on my gaming experience, but maybe it might be of some value to someone else? Personally if I still had the option to make new characters I think I probably wouldn't bother making a new character for the event, waste my limited play time leveling a new toon, I'd grind with existing characters to get something that would fit that character. Which, by the way, sounds like what you did. You didn't see a cool new aura and make a new character, a new costume part and build a new character, what happened was you had an existing character and used those new bits and bobs on that existing character. That's fine. My style was different, I'd see a costume piece or set and I'd make a new character to use it. Occasionally I'd find something that fit a character I already had but usually the new stuff would spur on a desire to make a new character. I'd think that as new character slots are things that are sold in the real world money store that encouraging people to make new characters would be an integral part of the business model. That's just me though. I've always felt that the costume designer was the best part about this game.

spinnytop

guyhumual wrote: »

I can't make characters anymore

So there's not even a problem to solve o3o​​

xacchaeus

guyhumual wrote: »

Personally I used to farm these events to get stuff to make new toons

this right here... didn't have a concept for an aura "yet" but the option for a new alt down the line gave me the incentive to farm for it anyway... now the aura, or whatever is bound to the character that farmed it, thus I lose the incentive, and thus I have a hard time giving a rat's butt about events anymore...

spinnytop

I will likely never understand why people let something so small get in the way of getting the things they want.​​

redcastle56

Wasn't there an event where you could put the bound aura into a box, (for basically double the cost) and then you could trade it to another toon. Once you opened the box, it became bound again. Whatever happened to that?

ealford1985

Bloodmoon

themightyzenith

redcastle56 wrote: »

Wasn't there an event where you could put the bound aura into a box, (for basically double the cost) and then you could trade it to another toon. Once you opened the box, it became bound again. Whatever happened to that?

They got rid of it, which is a shame.

spinnytop

More leik fart moon, amirite?​​

ealford1985

Which seemed silly to do....it encouraged farming more for a BoE aura. You would think they’d do that to more items