Unofficial "The Players TW Season" 3 2016 End.

REMINDER

The TW season ends tomorrow! All faction leaders should submit their rosters as soon as possible - I will be taking screenshots of the map by EOD today or when the last war finishes whichever comes first, and will be writing up the winners to be announced.

Also as a general reminder - while competitive banter is ok, please be sure to keep in mind the community guidelines and forums rules. Thank you!

Ahhh one of our mods, ArsPaulina, has started a new job and wasn't able to post/mod as much, though I have encouraged her to make an announcement about it very soon so as to not leave people hanging. SylenThunder has been posting around and being active, as far as I can tell.

I'm double checking my data today and during maintenance tonight, I'll go ahead and post winners for this season as well as the reminders of prizing. An official newspost will probably not go out until Thursday or Friday at the latest.

Also as another note, due to the falling though with the random prize distribution, I'll be assisting with that for next season so players can their the random drawing of the month prizes! I may or may not take ideas for what sorts of prizes people might want sent out as well! (no Nuema Portal Chests or Dragon Orbs Flames/Mirages, I get this suggestion more times than I can count)

It was my understanding that Event Gold was being handed out for those who were in factions that owned specific lands at the end-would this pump too much Event Gold into the system if we include the random drawings on top of that going forward? I suppose its not too bad given that newer factions that land on the map have a shot at some goodies.

Some of the codes that have been going out to players have had the "quality of life items" in them before (HP/MP pots, charms, teleport items etc.), so I can definitely put those on a list of considered items!

I should definitely make an intro post! I just saw my permissions finally updated and just went gungho on the forums without really stopping to think. I will double check on the titles today, I think they already were localized.

As for me? I am a Senior QA tester for the PWI title, but I also do a few other things on the back end related to the game. I've been a live player for quite some time, so I've seen alot of the ups and downs of the game. In my spare time I play on live servers (haha!) and am an avid fan of other games! Feel free to check out my social media for lists of things I play, will refrain from linking/discussing them here to avoid derailing the thread. Will probably post all this information in a proper introduction!

Alot of those ideas are great and actually most of it will fall into whitelisted items making it easy to deliver these to players! No lounge area though

kalystconquerer#0876 wrote: »

It was my understanding that Event Gold was being handed out for those who were in factions that owned specific lands at the end-would this pump too much Event Gold into the system if we include the random drawings on top of that going forward? I suppose its not too bad given that newer factions that land on the map have a shot at some goodies.

Some of the codes that have been going out to players have had the "quality of life items" in them before (HP/MP pots, charms, teleport items etc.), so I can definitely put those on a list of considered items!

You are correct, there is loads of event gold flooding servers due holding specific lands at the end of season will award factions event gold. Or thats how its supposed to work, this is first season we got this change.

As for items, which I feel would likely be very appreciated by players, I leave amounts of items away as thats for you to determine.
¨
Astrobana pearls. These are useful for everybody but handful of players still.
Nebula Dusts. Same as above.
War Avatar Chest A.
War Avatar Chest S, though this might be an overkill.
Rare Minion Pouch A.
G17 mats - Like Ether Jades for example.

These are what I would like to see and I dont think they would be too gamebreaking to give away. Charms and the usual goodies you give have generally been good so tried to think outside of the box.

kalystconquerer#0876 wrote: »

Also as another note, due to the falling though with the random prize distribution, I'll be assisting with that for next season so players can their the random drawing of the month prizes! I may or may not take ideas for what sorts of prizes people might want sent out as well! (no Nuema Portal Chests or Dragon Orbs Flames/Mirages, I get this suggestion more times than I can count)

I think getting people event gold is very fair. Something most of the PWI staff doesnt like to acknowledge or talk about is that a large amount of players has tens of thousands in event gold do to abusing a mailbox exploit in the past, this exploit is no longer available to my knowing. Event gold is a lil more scarce for the people that did not abuse this exploit, to the point where the people that did are offering services for money to the people that didnt. So giving out a reward that is beneficial to those that didnt doesnt sound unfair to me, its a worthless reward to the people that did abuse this system, but thats pretty much their own fault.

In terms of fairness I think event gold is a good choice, however, there is also the incentive to keep in mind. Especially the people that do have that much event gold have absolutely no incentive to participate in TW, and it has been this way for years (pretty much since the first anniversary and gold prices shot up). Ever since that time TW has pretty much only had the competitive banter as an incentive to actually participate (aside from the fact it was fun of course), because you would never get any money out of it, while dumping a lot of money in to it, unless everyone joined the same faction and owned the whole map, which in turn is also very unhealthy for a competitive scene. So it you consider re-vamping the TW rewards I would very much like to stress that we need an incentive to participate, it needs to be worth our while, maybe not on an individual level, but perhaps on a faction level. I think more than anything xTW has shown the correct approach to this. The top 3 factions are all rewarded with a number as special helmet, otherwise unobtainable, and these helmets arent just for show, they are good helmets, without being too good. It feels very rewarding for a faction to works towards something and then earn it together, sure it can only be given to one person but this too can be dealt with in a good manner, an auction for example, where the money gets distributed to the faction members.

That brings me to my suggestion, because there is currently something very similar going on in PvE, at least on my server. With the release of UP and G17 people have begun farming their G17, which doesnt really work as well as expected, I think mainly because of server population is way lower than the Chinese servers, so the droprates dont fit the size of our community. If you look at my server, Twilight Temple, there are currently 3 factions that are farming the G17 weapon for one of their members, whoever decided to commit to it the most and is paying a large sum of money for the items, they may not be aware of it but this is very much the case, simply because there is an extremely low number of Dull Zenith Skulls available. As people are slowly catching on to this reality less and less people are interested in doing UP because they are realistically farming for themselves. I think this item would be an excellent option as a season reward for TW, and not in an extremely low number, but Im talking 100 to the winning faction, 50 to 2nd place, 25 to 3rd and so on. This gives factions something to distribute that is worth money, without pumping more money into the economy. Although the power level of the G17 weapons is relatively high, they have been made to enter the game, they just havent because our community is so small. I think this would give factions an incentive to actively try to perform in TW and could possibly pump some more life into it, while at the same time pumping more life into UP, because it creates a prospect of realistically obtaining a G17 weapon which might be all that some players need to actively pursue it again.

As closing suggestion I think Event Gold could also fulfill the role of a proper incentive, provided that everyones current Event Gold gets completely wiped and they add items to the event boutique that are more worth our while. Or a new ''Event boutique'' gets created where u have to use a currency that you obtain from performing in TW, much like the Dragonlord Coins from xTW can be used to purchase charms and mounts. And you can put starchart items/war avatar items/G17 mats in there. I think Event Gold is on the right track, but simply because of the fact some people have almost an unlimited amount (due to the previously mentioned exploit) this can never be used to give out stuff thats actually good, and thus will never serve as a proper incentive.

saxroll wrote: »

here has been plenty of charge/spend rewards to stack event gold to pretty disgusting numbers.

So not from TW, so it shudnt be usable for rewards meant for TW, maybe you should properly read my post before u get all ''Excuse me'' SassyMcEarrings on me. Its about TW rewards, it has nothing to do with your cashshop gold, and it has even less to do with you personally, I dont think I mentioned you anywhere in my post. But like I said, to seperate all this event gold with TW stuff it shud probably be a new boutique format, but I guess you didnt read that either, much more easy to just take everything out of context I guess...

kalystconquerer#0876 wrote: »

It was my understanding that Event Gold was being handed out for those who were in factions that owned specific lands at the end-would this pump too much Event Gold into the system if we include the random drawings on top of that going forward? I suppose its not too bad given that newer factions that land on the map have a shot at some goodies.

Some of the codes that have been going out to players have had the "quality of life items" in them before (HP/MP pots, charms, teleport items etc.), so I can definitely put those on a list of considered items!

Event gold items cannot be traded. Also there is nothing specifically than can be bought with event gold to make someones toon stronger than someone elses. Its mostly generic stuff like teleacoustics, teleport stones, random dyes so I dont think too much event gold would be a problem.

kalystconquerer#0876 wrote: »

REMINDER

The TW season ends tomorrow! All faction leaders should submit their rosters as soon as possible - I will be taking screenshots of the map by EOD today or when the last war finishes whichever comes first, and will be writing up the winners to be announced.

Also as a general reminder - while competitive banter is ok, please be sure to keep in mind the community guidelines and forums rules. Thank you!

hi @kalystconquerer, this approach is so prone to mistakes, you want screenshots, then you are manually going to type out each person's name on the roster?
what about names that look similar with similar characters, you can't honestly be relying on a screenshot...
PWI must have some sort of data grab that they are trying to validate with a screenshot...!


I don't remember PWI doing that for previous rewards though?

I would love seeing an event boutique update! And foxy smilies!

Please dont minimize the event gold distribution based on players who exploited a glitch tho.... Some of us dont have thousands of event gold waiting for a rainy year i even had to farm event gold 1 gold at a time for the lonely hearts set you know how painful that was

daymond wrote: »

heero200 wrote: »

"The Players TW Season" 4 2016 Will Close on the 3/2/17!
After Season 4 2016 has closed. The Season will revert to Season 1 2017 and the TWISTS will begin!

Lastly

Would the TOP 3 Factions from Each Server Supply a Web Address for applications. I have also contacted a few factions for Interviews. As this is something I have not done before I Hope to have this done Soon and out in January Mid season.

Further more if their is anything anyone wants to suggest please do I will be looking for ideas. Either into Suggestion Box or my Wall.​​

Kniraven, leader of Knights - 2nd Place Twilight Temple
http://www.KnightsPWI.boards.net

Available for interview :P

karma.pwi.shivtr.com

Aa for interview, contact me and we can set one up. I am saying this because I am likely easiest one of the officers to catch on forums and I can work as middleman to get you the officer you want to interview.

Either way seems like an interesting idea so thank you for this, lets see how it pans out.

kalystconquerer#0876 wrote: »

High tier items such as Zenith Skulls are actually not allowed in the regular or Event Boutiques at this time, per dev's request. We want to encourage participation in TW, not create a walled garden. But at the same time, we want to give back to the high tiered players with something for their engagement season after season. So this is a delicate balancing act of sorts.

When I suggested it I wasnt thinking about either boutique, but just as an item given to the faction leader for him to distribute amongst the participating faction members (I think all factions take attendance and pay members according to their contribution).

Any way, I wish to explain my thought process, it doesnt have to be this item, but I think it should be something comparable, but regardless I do feel strongly about the fact something needs to happen with TW rewards. Just looking at Twilight Temple, (all banter aside, serious time! hue) in terms of competition 2 factions are very even in terms of strength, but one can not TW without the other, simply because there is no other faction to challenge either of these two. For one of these 2 factions to quit doing TW is a very bad sign, which is exactly what happened this TW season. Just to clear this up, Im only representing my own opinion here, so if you disagree with something I say, please dont immediately break down in tears n tear my post to shreds. v_v

I think what we really need in TW is an incentive. An incentive is basically doing something and as a result you have something you didnt have before, so u can look back at what u did, and what u gained, and tadaa incentive, its basically a net gain. I see a lot of suggestions from people that are all pretty decent items, they're most certainly useful for pretty much all the players, so thats a good thing, especially the post @heero200 made listed a few items that are definately desired by all, and fashion is also desired by a considerable amount of people, but all of this is basically gain. In order to look at this counting as an incentive, a net gain, we also need to look at the other side of the coin, the loss/cost. Now I think this is where this becomes more complicated, and why I think that, although all very useful, all these suggested options arent viable options for them to be considered an incentive.

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When it comes to the topic of the cost of the TW, I think I am a bit of an extreme example, which, I think, is a good thing. In the game there's basically 2 classes who, at the top of their job description, have written ''Get smashed n beat up by everyone n their mother''. These 2 classes are BMs/Barbs. All other classes kinda want to avoid getting hit too much, this is definitely not the case for these 2 classes tho, its their primary job. Generally Barbs have a lot of their cost covered by the faction (I think most factions pay for the hp charms for their cata barbs) but BMs arent as fortunate. Just to point you a picture of the expected cost I have to deal with in TW:

A competitive TW will generally go the full duration, and this costs me 2 platinum hp charms. We can have either 2, 1 or 0 of these TWs per weekend, in a 12 week season this means I can theoretically use anywhere between 0 and 44 platinum hp charms in a single season, now I realise 44 hp charms is a big extreme, and so is 0, you can expect that to be somewhere around the 20~ side. Platinum hp charms cost 4.2m/ea right now so that leaves me somewhere between 0 - 185mil in the hole as cost of the TW season, like I previously stated, a more realistic number would be around 80 mil. So in order to discuss ''incentive'' I would first have to climb out of this 80mil coin hole, but as you can see the variables are huge, since it depends on the amount of competitive TWs, as well as which class you play, since I think most other classes dont even come close to this cost, but like I said before, I can only speak for myself. It would be unrealistic for PWI to compensate for variables this high, what they can instead do to fill this ''hole'' is provide a currency that is otherwise useless that people can use for their charms (much like xTW does). And like I said, none of this would serve as incentive, this would take me out of the 80 mil hole, BEFORE we can consider an incentive.

Now we currently do have a currency to buy charms, event gold. Instead of spending 80 mil on hp charms I can buy:

(20 * 1.2) = (x * 0.35) = 69 silver charms in the event boutique, each costing 6 event gold each. So instead of spending 80 million I can also spend 411 event gold per TW season for my charms, in order to not fall in this 80 mil hole, which is what I have been doing.

Now giving Event gold to everyone isnt a good option since everyone has a different cost, there's too many variables. A lot of people are very happy receiving event gold as they can buy fashion with it, and smileys, and all sorts of things. The event boutique can be updated to give all sorts of other cool stuff people can buy with their event gold. I cant do that

And like Ive said before, all of this is just to break even, we're not even talking about an incentive here. So I think the only viable options would be this new currency that is completely worthless except for purchasing charms. But I think that too isnt a great option, because charms are an important part of PWI's economy, we already dont need charms for xTW, making them useless for TW too would damage this part of PWI's economy.

Conclusion: I dont think filling the hole caused by the cost of TW, especially for certain classes, is a viable option, so offering smaller, very common, rewards isnt a good option in my opinion as I can just not do TW, and buy those items in tenfold with the money I saved by not doing TW. Unless PWI plans to give out an enormous quantity of these items, which isnt realistic

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The second option to explore is very subjective and that would be to make TW more fun. Fun is always a great incentive! This is a very dangerous topic to discuss because everyone has a very different opinion about what would make TW more fun. Ill just give the very quick rundown of why I think TW isnt fun anymore.

1. Psychic buffs, this topic has been discussed so many times, Im sure you are aware of the complaints and I wont need to explain it. I think its been said many times, just make this buff self-buff only...

2. Stormbringer vortex, the only way to finish a TW is by taking the fight into the enemy base, which is extremely small and a few stormbringers can make the entire area unplayable... literally. Killing the stormbringers isnt a viable option because you are in their base, they respawn and repeat. Since PWI never nerfs skills I dont think nerfing stormbringer would be a good option. I would instead like the respawn time to be increased. With the decrease in TW duration I think the respawn timer needs to be increased. Currently when u respawn you get sealed for a few seconds before you can re-enter combat, purely from a balancing point of view I think this time needs to be extended by a few seconds, to make turtling a less viable strategy.

Conclusion: These are just my opinion, I think the psychic buffs are hated by all but its a very scary subject so lets move on from this one. I dont think PWI is very interested in balancing TW in this regard, so I dont think this is a very viable option either.

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This leads me to, what I think is, the final option to create an incentive. This is where the Dull Zenith Skulls popped up in my head but I guess there's many alternatives. This would be to offer more exotic and hard-to-come-by items as a reward for TW. Simply because these items may not have an established value and people would prefer for these items to stay in the faction, which adds on to the incentive of not only wanting to obtain these items for yourself but at the same time deny them from others. I think Nuema Portal Chests would be a little ridiculous and 11*/12* Orbs are also a lil too much. But I personally see no real downside to this. I understand you dont want to create a walled garden, but I think thats pretty much what you have to do unless you wish to explore any of the previous 2 options, in order to provide a real incentive to TW. What you could also do is add fashion thats only available through TW or whatever, but this only targets a part of the community, just like giving event gold only targets a part of the community, since not everyone wants or can use this.

Conclusion: I think adding limited available or extremely rare items to TW rewards is the way to go. Downside to limited available items is that it will have to be something everyone cares about, which means it has to be ''an upgrade'' or at least useful.

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TL;DR: TW is expensive, not very fun in its current state and doesnt give me any items I care about. I really want TW to not be expensive, be fun again or give me items that I care about.

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Sorry long post, sorry typos, sorry bad englando, please no copy pastarino