Pocket D Jubilee comments and feedback!
By
Alexandria2000,
Posted on: 2007-03-05 11:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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When you base an event on two different player bases, you sort of need them to be relatively equal.
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But that would require planning, forethought, and the general recognition that the game demographics isn't the same as it was a year ago ... Or at least some sort of effort to determine what all was on the servers.
It's so much easier to just slap the same event onto the server year after year (and only a few weeks after the last event with the same boss people just spent weeks pounding on) and declare it ... Fun
Another thing I'd like to mention, the lag in Pocket D. It's almost like a slideshow at times. If you're gonna continue to use Pocket D for events and such, then something's gotta be done about the lag. At least with the winter event we could leave the dance area and the lag behind by going to the chateau area. But the VDay event kept us in the dance area where the lag made it hard to move around and stuff. The strobe lights, the torches in the Tiki Room, whatever it is that's causing it, get rid of it!
I love being able to team up with villains. Tho, having to repeat the mission 5 times becomes tiring after the 2nd time.
While I liked the idea of heroes and villians teaming up, I think
the 'required' teaming is what killed it for me. I had a hero who
had help five villians finish their side, only to see them log off or
run off. My villians had no problem getting their badges, but the
heroes kind of suffered tremendously. I can see that this is the
general concensus here, but I could be wrong.
Also, villians need the 'search for others' in Pocket D. Heroes have
this, why not the villians? This is an issue that does need to be
fixed.
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One of the neat things about the holloween event was the "Eternal Night" thing. THAT was cool and added a very unique feel to the event
"I'm not scared of anyone or anything Angie. Isn't that the way life should be?"
Jack Hawksmoor, The Authority.
Teaming + Forced = Idea + Bad.
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Why don't the mobs in the Snaptooth mission scale up to Team size? This really disapointed me.
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Or down to team size either. I usually play solo, since my computer is slow and lags badly on zoning. I think I might've been able to take Snappy alone, but as amusing as it is to see a little redcap sitting on my shoulders wailing away with his little dagger, it makes it next to impossible to kill an elite boss three times in rapid succession.
I love the teaming aspect, though as others pointed out the disparity between blues and reds makes it hard. I'd have played my reds all thru the event if CoV didn't just lock up my poor tired ol' computer.
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One last thought, I would love to see the Winter chalet again. Even if only for the treat of being able to ski.
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/signed. Why not have the chalet open during the winter months, and maybe have a seaside resort/bungalow for summer month hijinks. You could ditch the Valentine's Day event (which is really too close to the winter event) and replace it with a Labor Day or Memorial Day or Flag Day /4th of July event at the 'island paradise'.
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Another thing I'd like to mention, the lag in Pocket D. It's almost like a slideshow at times. If you're gonna continue to use Pocket D for events and such, then something's gotta be done about the lag. At least with the winter event we could leave the dance area and the lag behind by going to the chateau area. But the VDay event kept us in the dance area where the lag made it hard to move around and stuff. The strobe lights, the torches in the Tiki Room, whatever it is that's causing it, get rid of it!
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Dear God, yes. It's the strobes. I could stand in place, facing away from the dance floor, then turn around and watch my frame rate go from 23-ish to about 3-4fps instantly.
In terms of having a 'second chance' at some reward a few of my characters missed out on (Elec Brute and Thug MM to be specific), it was nice.
In terms of fun? Only if you weren't trying to get everything.
Multi-Snaptooth can become -painfully boring-.
Crossover teaming is fun, though. Unfortunately a bit lost beneath "Ugh let's just kill a grey Snaptooth to get this over with".
Also still wondering why the Ski Chalet was removed when its prescence was a -benefit- to hanging out in the D with no negative side-effects.
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While echoing the other posters sentiments on Snaptooth reappearing, (I didn't bother with the missions), my main problem with the event was the lack of a party. Maybe my invitation got lost in the mail, but I would have thought a w00t dance extravaganza would have made for a great grand opening.
Special appearances by the NCSoft and Cryptic team, maybe some tie in role-play with the signature heroes and villains to kick things off. These are all things that have made the most memorable events for me.
I still appreciate all the hard work done on this, and all things CoX, I'm jaded maybe?
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It made me sad.
1. Same mission content I played the year before.
2. Pick costume items that previously were only available if I could convince a friend to join, both taking the "value" from thoes who sold the product to their friends, and making shleps like me play through the same missions from the year before in order to obtain the pieces... and, what the heck does a Juvie need with sandals and a Laural? Why even do the missions ... again... with this character when the awards don't fit with the hero playing them? Which leads me to...
3. Unlocking Costume Pieces for only one character. Juvie is my main hero this year. A street kid. I'm not going to use sandals on him. However, Ulysses, the Tanker from last year, Hell yeah! But I'm not really playing him much, and I've already run those missions with him the year before. Groan! Would have rather been able to give Ulysses the Costume Items that Juvie erned. Oh well...
4. Lack of excitement. The Winter event was so good, the ski resort, and the short badge missions made "Badge Hunting" not that awful. Also, the Temp powers were great because they worked for every character.
How I would fix it?
No real idea. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a developer guy, and I don't know how to make things like this work.
Final thoughts.
I do appreciate that there was content, I do appreciate that the content was sharp and bug free, I do appreciate that I...
A. Could have just played with Ulysses and gotten the the costume pieces and would have been all Uber-Greeked out.
b. Not worried about Juvie at all and been happy with what you have given me.
c. Not even played the missions at all and hoped that all the new players can enjoy the "new-to-them" content.
So I did "C."
Thanks for making this thread.
It is hard question to answer, if only because it is hard to introduce the concept of love in a game like this and do it right. Having the character him/herself find love would be so problematic as to be near impossible.
I suggest next year you give people the option of doing the old missions, people seemed to like being ables to get the badges/costume peices for characters that didn't exist last year. But a new story arc an new setting for next year.
Everyone loved the chalet, so perhaps design a new mini zone to be available for the duration of the event. It would fit in since, as the chalet proved, DJ Zero can be persuaded by other entities to create link to thier dominas for a time. As for what sort of place this should be, I'm not sure. Romantic would be the theme since this is Valentine's day we're talking about. Maybe a section of a Paris-esque city? Or maybe a park-type place blooming with flowers? Just as people gave each other presents last Winter event, maybe something simular with bundels of flowers or heart-shaped candy boxes?
As for the story-arc itself: What about a highly placed person from the blue side meets and falls in love with a highly placed person from the red side while they were visiting Pocket D? Both sides worry about what thier person is telling the other person over the pillow. Militants on both sides assume the worse and start gearing up for war. DJ Zero feels somewhat responicible (or at least doesn't want to give ammo to Pocket D's opponents) so he organizes heros and villians to help defuse the situation. The heroes don't want to see the citizens of Paragon endangered by the skirmishes with the Rogue Ilse turn into a full-scale war. The villians want to be crooks, not soldiers. They don't want to subordinate thier own interests to a war effort. So hero and villian must join together again.
Those are my ideas anyway.
I couldn't make it to the last Valentines event, and neither to the recent Christmas event, so it was all actually new to me, and pretty fun. The only lack being that sometimes there weren't enough of the other side to team with, but I did manage to do it on several of my characters.
I'd be up for something different next time, but I don't think it was horrible. I'm just rather sad that I missed the previous events.
After the Winter Holiday event and the deletion of the temp powers (that I spent mega mega hours getting), I was a bit bummed.
That being said, I did try to keep an open mind about the VD event. (I was around for the previous year's event, but did not do the Pocket D missions then.)
I was very glad that I have 2 accounts. Instead of depending upon someone else to assist me with the missions, I double boxed them with the gals that I wanted the rewards with.
The one thing I would absolutely change is regarding the costume rewards for events such as these. One time of choosing the reward should unlock the costume option for the account, not just the character. Badges, I don't mind having to unlock per character, but costumes for some reason bothers me...
And, I was a bit tired of Snaptooth at the end... Through my own fault, though, as I ran and reran missions for both the Winter Holiday and VD events more than I probably should have...
Overall, I really like the inclusion of Holiday Events, but do wish for more fun/variety and a wee bit less tedium.
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Everyone loved the chalet, so perhaps design a new mini zone to be available for the duration of the event. It would fit in since, as the chalet proved, DJ Zero can be persuaded by other entities to create link to thier dominas for a time. As for what sort of place this should be, I'm not sure. Romantic would be the theme since this is Valentine's day we're talking about. Maybe a section of a Paris-esque city? Or maybe a park-type place blooming with flowers? Just as people gave each other presents last Winter event, maybe something simular with bundels of flowers or heart-shaped candy boxes?
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I also did prefer the chalet setting for missions over Pocket D, and the presents were one of my favorite things from the Winter Holiday event.
Here was my issue with the forced crossteaming, and it's not a complaint with the devs at all:
I am mainly a villain player, but I loved the idea of grouping with heroes from a gameplay perspective. A tank that can hold aggro from my mercs as needed? Great! A couple blasters to stay back and use my soldiers as meatshields while THEY lay waste and I keep them healed/not hit? Fun! Some scrappers mixing it up with my little army as we wade in, fear and heals a-spamming? Charge!!!
Here's what happened though, more than half the time, on all of my villains that I tried this with (when I was not grouping with RL friends).
"Level 30 group looking for villain for Valentine mish!"
/tell HeroType, I'll join you. Lvl 30 MM
::join::
::enter door::
::take a minute-plus to set up and buff pets::
"I... can't help but notice that you've killed everything and I'll get no exp or reward for this at all."
"Yeah. Now hurry up and blow up the item for us."
::quit team::
The problem for me wasn't the forced cross-over. It was duplicious hero players trying to get me to waste my time helping them, without telling me up front this was what I was doing. I didn't mind helping, if asked, but rude Hero teams just wanted me to blow my evenings being their missionending monkey. Feh!
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I have two questions (if they were answered earlier, sorry for asking, I don't have the time to check all 12 pages).
1) How long will this submission period be open, if it hasn't ended already?
2) What format are you expecting? By that I mean, do you want it in fictional prose format, straight retelling, or is the approach pretty much whatever feels comfortable for the writer?
The call for feedback was more of a "hey lets collect this and pass it on to the dev team" thing than a "lets get something for a PR story together"
So, to answer your questions, you can write me whenever you like with your input in whatever format you like 
Nice formats are more likely to receive replies, though.
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In response to the problem with the forced "co-ed" grouping, here's a germ of an idea for the dev team. They have to pick it up and run with it, but I'm certain they've got people that can do it.
Set up a mid-sized Task force type of thing. Six to eight missions feels like about the right length. It'd have to be run completely from Pocket D to allow hero/villain grouping. My initial idea is to skip Valentine's day in 2008, and instead wait for St. Patrick's. That'd put another month of buffer between this and the Winter event.
As for the TF story, one of two options. Either a leprachaun has gone rogue and you need to track him down - this guy ends up being the AV you fight at the end of the TF. Either that or some villain group (or groups?) have kidnapped someone, and you need to rescue them. Yeah - I know there's tons of blanks to fill in.
Now, to allow maximum accessibility, here's a completely wacky idea for handling level exemping. Take the average (mean) level of all players in the group, and the whole group is either SK'ed or exemped to that level. It'd take some new technology to do that, but it would not limit players at all in terms of accessibility to this content.
The other thing I want, but can't immediately see how to get is some small to medium benefit for a co-ed group. This means that an all hero or all villain group CAN complete the TF, but a mixed group will have some advantage. Needless to say, this will be a balance nightmare, but that aside, it would be cool.
Oh yeah. Toss Snaptooth in the Zig and leave him there for all eternity. If I never see him again, it'll still be too soon.
Scrappers are just like chainsaws. Somewhat hard to handle, EXTREMELY dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane.
@Alissara - an Angry Angel
The Angry Angels. When it absolutely positively has to be spanked today.
That kinda leaves solo players out in the cold though. As did the Vday event too.
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Open topic to discuss the Pocket D Jubilee that was hosted in pocket D from Feb.13 Mar. 4.
Give us your feedback and comments here.
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Ultra-boring reused event...
Just some missions with some twist at the end requiring you to group and an Elite Boss that gets old.
Visually speaking this event makes me think of Halloween... not Valentine.
Can we have shiny red & pink rather than grey & brown ?
It, well, to be nice about it, wasn't the worst thing ever to happen.
*Finding teams -- since the heroes and villians could only get their mission once, a lot of people found themselves standing around waiting to find a villian their level to do the missions with.
Problems with forming teams over several D's. If you exist in the D, why is it that you can not join a team in another D?
When people download a trial just so that they can have a villian to team with... Well, something is broken.
*Time -- Even with a level 1 villian or hero to toady, it took about an hour to do all the missions and get the standard badges (minus the RedCap/Lasher/etc badges). On a full team, you could spend an hour just doing the Defeat Terrigol mission. For someone with a lot of alts, thats more play time required then most casual players have the time for.
*Fun -- It wasn't very fun. A lot of people just wanted to farm the mission for the badges (all of them), some did not have time to do a complete run at a time, issues building teams to do the missions for xp, issues finding a villian or hero with their mission still available... To make it short, it wasn't that fun.
Lessons to be learned:
*It has to be simple and direct so that anyone that logs on can jump right into it.
*Too many badges/rewards that are earned seperately takes way from the event and becomes the reason for the event.
*Defeating Snaptooth once was fine. Running the same mission 5 times gets old in a hurry. Doing the same mission 40+ times to get the badges for all your characters is sickening. Doing it 80+ times because you have multiple characters on multiple servers is a pit of despair that swallows your soul.
*Needing someone to help you complete your mission is doable. Needing someone else's mission makes it more difficult then it should be.
Man, I would love to see the datamining on the VDE!
--NT
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