Magically Clueless
(?)Community Member
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- Posted: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:03:26 +0000
Since I believe the event is over (unless that is another one of your five million glitches this Christmas season) I'm providing my feedback on this event. While there were some great features, many were poorly executed and I hope you will consider fixing that up for the next event, be it big or small.
What You Did Right
- Awesome story and concept. I also love how you tied it in from the monthly CI, which makes buying the cash shop item seem less pointless. When there's plot and reason, people will have more understanding, and as a result, more fun.
- Fighting Fafnir and no one else. My biggest issue with the Halloween event was that we were fighting other players, which led to a lot of issues, especially for someone like me who wants to avoid competition. People were being targeted and constantly killed by the same person, one side got butthurt if the other side was winning and there was a ton of cheating going on. While there is still cheating in this event, getting to team up to fight an NPC was a good move.
-Letting players earn their reward rather than win it in a gamble. I'm graciously ignoring the tier system here, but in the Halloween event, one had no choice but to gamble to get the event items. In the Summer Festival event, getting charms were done through slot machines and randomized games. All that just ended up in frowny faces and angry eyebrows. In this event, when killing Fafnir, it is the player's responsibility to collect the snowflake charms. While they don't have to fight Fafnir, they still have to be online to collect the charms and they have to look for the links, which still takes effort. Every time Fafnir is dead, you are guaranteed the snowflake charms if you find the links within 15 minutes. I love that you have to work for it and everyone has the same chance.
- NPC shenanigans. This one you did both right and wrong, but I'll list the wrong lower down. What you did right was letting the NPCs interact in the event forum. It's really fun seeing all their different kinds of dialogue and their reactions. My personal favorite is Fafnir burninating the countryside, and Louie freaking out about a snowball hitting H&R Wesley. It was really nice seeing Ian, Moira, and Leon, too. I don't think I've ever seen them posting around before this event.
- No gold required to fully participate in the games. Using gold really pissed me off in the Halloween and Summer Festival event. I have the gold to spare, but I know a lot of people don't. In the Halloween event, I ended up using around 300mil a day until I just gave up completely. It's really unfair to assume that people have 300+ mil to use to play the game with decent damage. In this event, though, everyone has equal chance to do a ton of damage. Attacking Fafnir requires no gold, no items, and simply a device that can handle flash. I thought that was a very nice improvement.
- Using GoFusion. I am a fan of GoFusion, and I love getting items, so this is the best of both worlds, really. Earning charms and getting event exclusive items feels awesome. If someone has no gold, they can craft a small item quickly, sell it, and then work towards their larger goal. I find this feature more newbie friendly than most, even though there are still some kinks.
- Charm packs! I'm assuming charm packs were released in Back Alley Bargains for gold because of the huge shortage of charms, namely star charms. This was an awesome move, because charm prices will now deflate and buying the charm packs, more often than not, give a great deal. I hope they'll stay in the shop even after event, but regardless, I'm very thankful that you made this an option.
What You Did Wrong
- Too few options in the event. You can earn snowflake charms by defeating Fafnir, and you can get 6 snowflake charms total from clearing all the gift-giving levels in Switchem, but... there's nothing else. It's one or the other, and when you're done with Switchem, your only choice is to fight Fafnir. In the beginning of the event, I didn't want to fight Fafnir and I wanted to earn my charms for some other means. I thought Switchem would have been reset, but it seems that was never the case. I was being too hopeful and wishing that more games would be introduced, but... that never happened. This event quickly went stale for me because there is only one way I can play and gain progress. The Summer Festival at least had multiple games to participate in, so I didn't have to fight if I didn't want to.
-Changing the level rewards on Switchem. I was pleasantly surprised when getting the items on Switchem didn't require a ton of GC in order to defeat. I think I ended up using it probably once, but I discovered that I could get to level 11 by myself after trial and error. I was able to get all the gifts, and I was really happy! Until... you changed the gifts in the levels. Instead of every level after level 1, the gifts changed to every OTHER level, which makes everything horrible and unneedingly difficult. You shouldn't have done this, as it 1.) changes a fair game to an unfair game, 2.) gives the early birds an unfair advantage, and 3.) it's just outright horrible to make a prize harder to obtain like that. People should be able to collect all the event items. It was bad that you made some of the Halloween event items limited quantity, and this is almost as bad if not just as bad. Please don't do this again. Keep it fair.
- Fafnir's gigantor bar of health. Fighting Fafnir is extremely tedious and very frustrating most of the time. When he was being killed every 15 minutes, that was awesome and fun, and I could join in whenever I wanted. Waiting an hour and a half, even through constant fighting, is not awesome and fun. It is boring and I will barely get anywhere regardless of how much I participate. Also, the lower his health gets, the smaller the damage. I find that very strange, and it would be very nice if players didn't cause 6 points of damage. Because of the previous point, if I want to earn snowflake charms, I have no choice but to sit here, attack, and cause 6 points of damage.
- Good God, the sweaters! This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. The sweaters themselves are nice. Having to craft ALL the sweaters for a formula, with incredibly high prices of charms, then destroying them all to get one item, is not nice. For those who aim to craft ALL the sweaters, that will take 1,290 charms: 820 hearts, 425 stars, 26 diamonds, 7 snowflakes, 7 unique charms. (thanks, One Rainy Night!) That is impossible without some serious hoarding and spending. If you don't want to craft them, then you have to buy them with the daily tier system. Having to use GC to get a part of a formula is disgusting at best and puts some users at an unfair advantage. For those who can no longer buy the sweaters for 5 dollars must go off the market, which are all in the billions. This shouldn't be "who is the richest", this should be "who is the most dedicated", as this is an event and not a shopping spree.
- High prices of charms in general. I like that there are a lot of snowflake charms to collect. I understand that one needs to collect 15, 35, 50, 60 snowflake charms to get an item. I hate that many items require 50 and up of the other charms. There's no really good way to earn the other charms, so getting 50 snowflake charms for the snowman bundle and not having 50 heart and star charms is tedious at best. The cost of making GoFusion items is even WORSE than the calculations in the point above if you aim to get ALL event items.
- UNIQUE CHARMS. What were you even thinking? Integrating a unique charm feature and only letting people earn it ONCE, earlier in the year? You didn't have ANY plans to let users earn unique charms in this event, yet have items require unique charms?! This would have been a perfect game prize to earn unique charms, but seeing as it's almost Christmas, I feel like that idea's totally shot down! Using unique charms and preventing users from earning them is a horrible, horrible, horrible idea! This is bad and you should feel bad!
- NPC shenanigans. I've listed the good, and now I'm listing the bad. The NPCs being scripted is... okay... but having them quote everyone and posting the same old stuff is terrible. I think everyone's seen how they appeared in GCD, CB, and even our very own SF, which means they have been disruptive and posting in topics that would be inappropriate for them to appear in. In the event forum, that's fine, but for bots to appear in other forums? No. It's not hard to get people to volunteer for the NPCs, or maybe trusted mods or staff members, anything. It would have been much more enjoyable to have a person behind the NPC and post where it's appropriate.
- Charm limits. I'm convinced this isn't a bug and it's happened to a lot of other people. I can no longer collect charms for GoFusion with a grant error stating "you have already collected the maximum number of snowflake grants", but I can count it for the snowflake charm count on the event page. WHY would you do this? Why would you have users work to get these items and then not let them collect as much as they want? They WORKED for it, so they should GET it. If I had the snowflake charms, I should be able to get as many snowman bundles as I wanted! This is unfair for those who dedicate their time getting items, especially if they aim to collect ALL the items. Edit: Apparently, some people could collect hundreds of charms while some people (like me) could only collect up to 150 or 175. That is probably an error, but an EXTREMELY unfair one at that.
- Not announcing an end to the event on Gaia. From the very beginning of the event, people were speculating when Bitter Slumber would end. Many people said December 25, while others said January 1, then January 5. Well, it turns out that you only announced the end of the event on... Facebook? What? You should first realize that not every user has a Facebook, and no amount of information you'll give on Facebook will make some users create an account. You should be able to provide answers on Gaia Online and leave the social network sites as an afterthought. Not to mention, you ended the event a week early anyway. This thread may be very useful.
- Leaving little to no staff interaction. Usually, staff has been pretty good with responding and fixing most the errors that occur in an event, always giving a staff notice about it. This event, we've had ATS canceled two weeks in a row and only one staff notice about the Santa March item, which still hasn't granted to many people. I can completely understand cancelling ATS one week, but with how many fatal errors this event has caused, at least one ATS would have been crucial. Now it's too late, and hardly anyone (to my knowledge) has been online to work on the event or try to fix the addressed issues. This event was managed in an extremely poor manner, and as it went on, there were only more and more bugs and errors before it just collapsed altogether. I understand that the developers and staff are humans and they deserve their time off, but this is a big company with lots of money, so they should be able to pour enough of it to make an event that won't break itself and make an unfair experience for users, or in the very least, have enough people actually working to fix the event.
How to Improve Next Time
- More games! Keep players from getting bored of your event. Add multiple options for different kinds of people. Everyone will appreciate it and be able to contribute effort in their own ways. Also, you don't have to do the fighting system EVERY time. If you do fighting again, try to mix it up. Remember Grave Danger? I do. I loved that event. Fighting NPCs, on my own time, not in the forums, was awesome and gave me a real RPG feel. It was a little challenging, but not impossible, and everyone could go at their own pace. Do more things like that, and please be conscious of those with satellite internet or mobile phones.
- Do not use components that a user cannot earn in that event. This is referring to unique charms. DO NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN. Using unique charms (obtainable in the Summer Festival event) but having no current way to earn them blocks out newbies and turns people away.
- Make the good items hard to get, but don't make them impossible or require copious amounts of gold/GC. This is mainly referring to the Frozen Fafnir formula and collecting all the sweaters. This would have been a much better idea if they were smaller amounts of charms and there weren't so many sweaters to collect. Also, spending 5 bucks a day to get 1 sweater is pretty ridiculous. Please don't do this next time. Let everyone have the chance to earn the big item. Like what I said before, make it about the dedicated, not the rich.
- When players earn rewards, make sure they actually earn it. While collecting snowflake charms is work in and of itself, the players don't necessarily have to play the game in order to get the ultimate reward. Reward those who dedicate time and effort into playing the games rather than reward everyone for what the select few did. I wouldn't mind a big "everyone" reward as well as personal rewards. That way, everyone gets something, but the hardest workers get the most.
- Staff interaction is CRUCIAL. This event wouldn't have gone the way it did if there was more than one person watching Site Feedback or if someone volunteered to do a mini ATS. Anything. Anything would have worked. Please don't make yourself up with a very short staff when you have an event running, a BIG, end of the year event. Plan this all out next time. Don't make it last minute. If you wanna cancel something, please announce it earlier, and have back up plans, have a failsafe, have anything that would have helped prevent such a disaster. I feel like this wasn't an issue last Christmas, but something has definitely changed. Please don't let something like this happen again. I'm sure you guys are able to work out a vacation but still have the ability to at least check up on the website.
In conclusion, you should:
- Make it about the people that want to play, not the people that buy their rewards
- Never include any component or item that a player cannot obtain in that specific event
- Give variety, don't leave it only to simple flash games and a fighting system
- Story is fun and so are the little details, but if you want to include NPCs, make sure a person is behind the account or at least bound to only the event forum
- Actually monitor the event
As of the end of this event, I can't say I enjoyed Bitter Slumber. It was fun for the first few days, quickly went stale afterwards, and then after I could no longer collect snowflakes, I didn't even care anymore. I was no longer engaged to the event and there was nothing to bring me back. I hope you'll take the good from this event and incorporate it into future events.
Thank you for your time.
*last edited January 1
