Dear Designers: Lets Talk Events.

valesia · January 2019

While i an very much appreciate the break from the usual day of AD farming and questing. I think the definition of "fun" is something that is escaping the design team in recent months. So lets start with the definition of "Fun"

funDictionary result for fun
/fən/Submit
noun
1.
enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure.
"the children were having fun in the play area"
synonyms: pleasure, entertainment, enjoyment, amusement, excitement, gratification; More
adjective INFORMAL
1. amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable.

Now what is not fun is

1. New Simril Fishing
2. Having to run 120 CTA's over 4 months for a weapons lower quality then you could farm ad for in 3 week
3. Playing fireworks "Wack-a-mole" along with 3000 other people.

Effectively if the event is not fun (see above) your participation is going to suck as well.

So i while i appreciate Arc trying to mix it up i think someone needs to re-think "fun" activities for these events.

deterrant · January 2019

The CTA season is bugged(posted about it today) and the boar fest is a run-for-the-mortar fest, Yeah great "fun"...

ktriol · January 2019

Ditto on this. NOT FUN! If the event doesn't change .. I'm skipping it whole. I've already decided it wasn't worth the stress for me, today, which means I won't get enough of whatevers to get anything good probably.

Yes, I know I can group up with others in my area but it's still on a 3 min timer between clicks, so someone is screwed every 3 mins till they get lucky. This event on top of the other event, which yes, was also on top of the previous event, has brought me to the forums, btw. You can find my 'bug' / feedback in the queue titled " F U Devs " .. That's what my stressed out life and these stressed filled "Fun Events" has brought me to! Despite me knowing and being friends with many a dev in many a different games over the years and knowing the pressure they are also under .. I'm still losing my [censored] on this game's devs here!!

pitmonster · January 2019

OK, I thought I just did not understand how this event worked. I went up to the mortars and........ I mean WTF????????????????????

Who the hell designed this? Did you load test this with a max 40 players? This makes this event almost completely undoable.

w00trandomsnoobi · January 2019

I kept thinking I missed something, like I was supposed to pick the fireworks up somewhere, bu tthen I read the zone chat. Yeah, hard pass on this event, I don't have time for this.

naoqueroforum · January 2019

The thing I really like about the event is how much PE resembles the generic chinese grinding MMO this game mostly is.

I agree, these events are terribly designed in non-creative ways just as mindless, grindy fillers. Making a fun event takes a lot of effort, not sure what it could be, who knows, maybe some tower defense thingy. Or maybe bringing back sword coast adventures for events, now that would be great. But imagine how much extra work that would be.

So be glad they didn't get rid of the only useful events, x2 events, and replace them all with x2 bugs events.

Btw, I still can't get over the fact that in a game based on D&D, the narrator on one of the portobello dungeons calls the giant 20 sided dice a dodecahedron instead of an icosahedron. The icosahedron is basically the soul of D&D and the damned narrator calls it a dodecahedron. Heads should be rolling over that.

Again, bring back sword coast adventures.

tazz4now · January 2019

it took me 25 minutes to stand there trying to "catch" the F button on 4 mortars, no I will not be doing this for ANY alt not my main, I have way too many other things to do with my time, oh and the quest gating on the dogs was the icing on the cake, nope count me out as well, last week was bad enough

regenerde · February 2019

Once upon a time, events were a fun activity and a break from all the regular game grind... not anymore.
I have not tried the new event after the messed up CTA, and i'm not going to, unless the Devs actually fix this HAMSTER.

callumf · February 2019

I woke up this morning and just knew there was going to be more negative feedback.

I started the quest thing the looked at the rewards - two greens?

And then I sat and watched as Zone Chat players were getting more and more frustrated:

40 players sharing 4 mortars with a 3 min cooldown.

I smiled a smug smile, ran some Random Queues, and slowly closed my laptop lid with a chuckle and made my way to the TV to watch True Detective Season 3 with a glass of red wine... and relax, happy that I wasn't going to try that rugby scrum in PE.

silverkelt · February 2019

They did fix it, but the foresight and thought on these seem to be lacking in general lately.. overally what should be a log in giveaway.. seems to be not that.. while this one isnt as bad as the cta mess, there really shouldve thought it over before releasing.. also this tendency to add timers to things that shouldnt have them.. HAS to stop.. stop wasting our time.

nunya · February 2019

pitmonster#5684 said:
OK, I thought I just did not understand how this event worked. I went up to the mortars and........ I mean WTF????????????????????

Who the hell designed this? Did you load test this with a max 40 players? This makes this event almost completely undoable.

No. I don't think they even had that many players. From what I can tell, they did it with two people, which led them to conclude that a ~~5 minute~~ ("3 minute, sir!") 3 minute cooldown was just fine. Honestly, if they had tested it with even ~~5 people~~ ("3 people, sir!") 3 people, I think they would have had some understanding that any cooldown longer than about one second was too long.

Personally, I don't understand why they didn't just use their existing fireworks logic for this event, instead. It's known-good code and would have alleviated all kinds of problems. I suppose it's possible that Cryptic's developers are unfamiliar with the concept of "code re-use".

callumf · February 2019

nunya#5309 said:

pitmonster#5684 said:
OK, I thought I just did not understand how this event worked. I went up to the mortars and........ I mean WTF????????????????????

Who the hell designed this? Did you load test this with a max 40 players? This makes this event almost completely undoable.
I suppose it's possible that Cryptic's developers are unfamiliar with the concept of "code re-use".

... or common sense

rifter1969 · February 2019

nunya#5309 said:

I suppose it's possible that Cryptic's developers are unfamiliar with the concept of "code re-use".

Of course they know how to re-use code... look at the entire Elemental Evil campaign, is all re-use code, well at least maps.

gethund · February 2019

I'd like to express my gratitude to the devs for extending my knowledge. Previously (and naively) I thought a 'shoat' was a sheep-goat cross.

I am educated. Would have liked to own one, but ain't nobody got time for that mortar hamster.

dionchi · February 2019

I keep reading some players saying they are having problems loading the mortars, personally I've run the even numerous times with several characters in different PE instances and never saw more than one or two other players around any mortar location.

I suppose I should count my blessings...

Previously I recall a lot of players complaining because events were "boring", "the same thing" year after year and the rewards are "always the same"...

Here we have a brand new event, nearly completely different from the ground up and with event rewards not obtainable in any other event and people (seems to me the same people in some cases) are still complaining.

It's not like someone saying "I don't enjoy it so I'm not going to do it"...

It's: "I don't enjoy it, but I ran it 120 times" or even multiple times anyway...

I get not liking an even or portions of an event, when I get to that point I just don't do it...

These events aren't 'red boxes' where you put in your money (or in this case time) and get what you want - they're more akin to 'slot machines' (or lockboxes) where you spend effort, and hope for the best - but there are no guarantees.

If a player believes the potential rewards they may get from an event is worth the effort of repeatedly running that event multiple times they will continue to do so... if they don't they won't (or shouldn't), but the very fact that despite some players saying how bad an event or portion of an event is - they continue to do it anyway seems to me to indicate that even with their expressed negativity they seem to think the reward is is going to be worth the effort, otherwise they wouldn't continue to run it repeatedly.

Just a personal perspective.

demonmonger · February 2019

I unplugged my computer for a few days. Saved lots on electric bill.. maybe that's their plan ....

hawkeyel · February 2019

This might be more effective if you said Dear designers. Can we just talk please. Some proof of life would be welcome.

thefiresidecat · February 2019

silverkelt said:
They did fix it, but the foresight and thought on these seem to be lacking in general lately.. overally what should be a log in giveaway.. seems to be not that.. while this one isnt as bad as the cta mess, there really shouldve thought it over before releasing.. also this tendency to add timers to things that shouldnt have them.. HAS to stop.. stop wasting our time.

kinda sorta a little, but not really. I was still waiting 45 seconds between cool downs and it was just me.

hard pass on this event too. I was really excited for something new. if you're going to just make it another boring grind at least make the rewards worthwhile for everyone. the mount is just a warboar basically. yay. and an aug pet. yay. at least give us stronghold vouchers somehow. a new skirmish.. something. and the new cta.. yay... hard pass... I'm so bored with this game. events are the thing that give you a reason to come back.. unless they don't. basically all i'm doing is the occasional random que and codg and professions. MC is bugged... so I can't do all I wanted to.. yeah.. just not a lot of reasons to play right now. (within a month of a new mod release.. that's just sad) #makenwfunagain

ghoulz66 · February 2019

Lack of nice rewards is the main issue. We endured getting the broom mount. Even has a new fashion set.

eliasar · February 2019

Exactly. With the fix even mortars are not so bad after all but people have mostly no reason why should they want to run it at all. People got excited at first about: companion, hairstyles. Event starts and.... everything that would be worthwhile of time spent on mortars... was obtainable only by zen while the event currency exchanger got in stock... green mount for appearance and green augment

. Even green version of zen companion, or super expensive hairstyles in this shop would be worthwhile since its so rare. But getting boar mount with a bit different skin... isnt worth of frustration of standing over mortars for... I dunno... hours?

ghoulz66 · February 2019

Hope the devs aren't in a habit of selling hair that bloody clips with tiefling horns.

azurin93 · February 2019

Do you knw guys when will be february twitch prime loot available?

wylonus · February 2019

going to add.

this festival of lanturn are suppose to be fun event and something to "Celebrating", already burned out from last CTA event chasing something you want, doesnt exist for me. also ready still burnout from Dungeon Master event, mechanical beholder still eluded.

nearly fed up with grinding for tokens and often i had to miss several days. I DONT HAVE TIME to rerun same runs repeating since that RNG is an ugly "Hamster". most hated, always playing layers and layers of slot machines that get people very upset.

Where is the fun? you guys dont get it. rewards are crappy and always get same rewards, i dont see anything "ramdom items" rewarded.
you still hadnt fix the bugs in those festivals or any upgrades, and rewards are outdated.

you know what players want the most as rewards from chest and loots, Coal wards. start the poll. it was taken away from merchant. you said this is "FREE TO PLAY" and i dont see it, so you threw in VIP and i still dont see it,

some had no choice but to get VIP, it is considered pay to play to me. i can see why you are avoiding to add "Lifetime" account package for NWO and get some bonus perks.

grinding is not part of celebrating and fun. it is mental torture. i tried to get 10 times and i end up getting sleepy all day.

dingoballz · February 2019

So from what I gather reading these posts is "they released something that did not work" . Wow who would of thunk shocking it is just shocking.
Also a earlier poster said they thought this game was based on D&D . It is in name only , it is about as close to D&D as a frog is to being a horse.

checkmatein3 · February 2019

My opinion of this event: it was filler for this week because they needed something. It has all the appearances of looking rushed.

1. Simple spelling mistakes appear in 2 places (Envelopes and Fledgling).
2. Cooldown timer (pre-fix) was too long for any practical achievement in a zone of 40 (even parties of 5 had to wait)
3. Bugged Quest made the Red Envelope quest too easy (AH fledgling completes the quest...still not fixed)
4. Green Mount in store, white mount in stable, green mount bonuses.
5. Green mount is a simple reskin.
6. 100 Zen for 1 boar coin and 36 tokens. Maybe that cooldown timer was NOT a mistake??
7. 700 Zen ($7) for a unique hair style, separated by men and women. Money grab. The hair style should unlock for both genders. $14 (with no discount) for players who have both, unless you are DB and its mute.
8. No transmutes or fashion.
9. Sound problems from completing the mortar quest (I like my eardrums)
10. Green Augment's active bonus is broken (reported with no response from devs...2nd event now where event companion is bugged).
11. Zen store companion that appears BIS (pre-testing), and is purchased because no one knows if this event will be repeated or if the companion will ever return (and for companion collectors). So companion + hairstyles without discount = $39.
12. The companion is worse in movement then other known porters (which makes it useless in boss encounters where there are edges that can be jumped/fallen off...turtle, CODG, Tong...), and its debuff does not stack.

In short, yes, we the community do want new challenges and new events. Yes, we do know that mod 16 is coming, and have put hopes on its size and quality to sustain our enjoyment. But, releasing half-done, money-grabbing, ill-planned, rush jobs as a completed event is bad for business and the community. Overall, it will probably not make anyone RAGE quit (its too insignificant to care about too much), but that is the point. We know its insignificant and pointless and a money grab and filler, and it just reinforces the pervading attitude in the midst of our waiting for mod 16: shoulder shrugs and sighs.

pitshade · February 2019

The Mount is white quality through and through. If its insignia were Green quality, the second slot would be universal.

cosmin996 · February 2019

naoqueroforum said:
The thing I really like about the event is how much PE resembles the generic chinese grinding MMO this game mostly is.

I agree, these events are terribly designed in non-creative ways just as mindless, grindy fillers. Making a fun event takes a lot of effort, not sure what it could be, who knows, maybe some tower defense thingy. Or maybe bringing back sword coast adventures for events, now that would be great. But imagine how much extra work that would be.

So be glad they didn't get rid of the only useful events, x2 events, and replace them all with x2 bugs events.

Btw, I still can't get over the fact that in a game based on D&D, the narrator on one of the portobello dungeons calls the giant 20 sided dice a dodecahedron instead of an icosahedron. The icosahedron is basically the soul of D&D and the damned narrator calls it a dodecahedron. Heads should be rolling over that.

Again, bring back sword coast adventures.

just quit the game then. Why are you still here if you don't like it? It'a all about knowing how to play the game. I you don't know how basic economy works to make AD and advance in the charts, it's not the game's fault. I didn't spend 1 dime on the game and I enjoyed it to the fullest and for free with 3 18k toons. And I am playing only 2h/day after work. I am getting tired of crybabies.

valesia · February 2019

This thread was not intended to talk about everything you hate about PE. The idea was to give the designers some feedback so that maybe moving forward they could implement better event designs an example for CTA Season would be this is a bad example but.

1. Easy Mode - run the cta 120 times for your weapons (10 a day)
2. Intermediate - only takes 60 CTA's but the monsters are tougher (GS 10k +) (5 a day )
3. Advanced - only takes 30 CTA's but the monsters are advanced queue (GS14k +) (3 a day)

Another way to do that would be an advancement tier like ok you did first 10 you can move up to tier 2,3 etc each tier getting tougher and counting as 2 or 3 cta's toward your total. Problem here is anyone in the advanced tier will not want the reward.

Also some more design notes. Do you guys have any idea how boring this is for a tank ? i mean really our job in the last cta was "stand there and look cute while the dps kill everything" no worries it will be dead before you can even get there.

silverkelt · February 2019

I do not like the spacing between events.. there are other things happening in the game.. every 2-3 weeks seems a bit tight.

Also I agree with you.. running stupid skirms over and over is boring, terrible.. boring.. boring ... boring.

Everyone wants to point out thier length.. I want to point how boring its is.

its like jims basement.. who cares if its 3 mins.. its 3 mins of boring-ness.. would rather have all the weeklies just give 25.. then run a few skirms to round it out. Not 17 Jims basements.. who decided on doing that design is not a good designer.

ghoulz66 · February 2019

silverkelt said:
I do not like the spacing between events.. there are other things happening in the game.. every 2-3 weeks seems a bit tight.

Also I agree with you.. running stupid skirms over and over is boring, terrible.. boring.. boring ... boring.

Everyone wants to point out thier length.. I want to point how boring its is.

its like jims basement.. who cares if its 3 mins.. its 3 mins of boring-ness.. would rather have all the weeklies just give 25.. then run a few skirms to round it out. Not 17 Jims basements.. who decided on doing that design is not a good designer.

Epic CTAs that scale to high ilvl players with more rewards. One can only dream......

callumf · February 2019

It would be great to see SES, SMOPs and GMOPs dropping from events or buyable from event currencies. With the rising power creep due to Vistani gear etc, would be nice to see those enchants getting geared up/

Dear Designers: Lets Talk Events.

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