Feedback Winter Event - Bugs and Suggestions!
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2008-12-19 15:24 in Developers' Corner
Next year can we have a skating rink someplace in PocketD? The frozen lake in the BNY mission is my favorite part.
Next year again would it be possble to have the snow legions drop candy canes as salvage?
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Objective: The Winter's Gift IO set is pretty expensive at 130 candy canes. At a rate of one candy cane per several presents, or 5 per Baby New Year mission, it's really hard to avoid grinding to get them.
Subjective: I would like to see a more fun way to obtain the Winter's Gift enhancements. Something to think about for next year.
Also, I think that the required times for the Bobsled medals are too low. I haven't been able to get a silver without a jumping power, and I can just forget about getting a gold. It seems that jumping powers are factored into the times, and the high level jumping limit is factored into the gold. Other than that, it's a fun and very well designed course.
Objective: The Halos aren't color tintable, despite being labeled as such in the promotional stuff on the frontpage.
Subjective: There are only two ways to get candy canes (three if you count the market), and they get repetitive pretty quick. A couple different kinds of missions would be appreciated quite a bit, and would go a long way towards relieving the "grindyness" of getting the canes.
I would like to see the shinies from any event be more attainable for those of us who have and play many, many alts. Instead of having fun with the event I find myself repeating the same grind over and over just to hopefully get all the candy canes, salvage, etc. needed for all my toons. And before anyone says "just go buy them" .... that's not any fun either.
The halos that are obtainable by any level but can't be used until auras are unlocked at level 30 is pretty lame.
As for the new ski run.......it is completely out of reach for me and that is very disappointing that my badge toon has to just do without because the course was not really designed for all levels of gaming experience. Once again, I think such things should be geared to a lower common ability than to a higher one.
On the surface the Winter Event sounds and looks like a lot of fun but in reality it is a lot of repititious grinding/farming during a time when play time can be somewhat limited anyway as people are busy with other holiday activities.
Winter's Gift IO, I want to be able to choose what level it is.
Since the Unique Slow Resist becomes inactive if you exemplar more than 3 levels below its level I do not want a level 50 version of it.
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My big problem with the winter event is that the most efficient way to get candy canes is for a high level to go to Galaxy and move at top speed, opening presents. If he gets a cane he moves on, if he spawns snowmen, he leaves them to harass other people in the zone.
It seems to make a lot more sense for you to only get rewards for opening presents in zones that are appropriate for your level. In addition, in order to give an incentive to actually fight the snwomen rather than leaving them, there should be a chance for snowmen to drop candycanes in addition to salvage, kind of like the Rikti and the Vanguard Merits.
okay. Haven't even bothered to read any of the other posts, so these probably have been up before.
New Ski-Slope : seems heavily developed for avatars that are 30+ in levels. Avatars level 20-30 supposedly can achieve gold rankings if both Jumping and Running speeds are capped, although I've yet to be able to duplicate this myself.
Sub level 20 avatars are just plain out of luck on getting gold times on the ski slopes because of the speed limits due to level.
Suggested Fix: Removing the Level Speed cap in the Pocket D zone.
Advisory : Remove the level speed caps in Shadow Shard zones period, and raise the cap on flying in Shadow Shard zones as well. :: In-game logic to do so? Gravity and physics work differently, hence large rocks hanging literally in the middle of nowhere. Heroes and Villains find the physical limits on their movements have been lifted.
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Bug : Mission rewards not applying on Baby New Years Missions even if avatar is soloing.
Have yet to personally experience this issue. I've only heard about it.
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Bug : Baby New Year is Ugly.
I know of a global chat channel that was threatening to /bug Jay into redesigning Baby New Year. While I realize that this isn't exactly a bug, it does lead into a real bug with the Baby New Year.
Bug : NPC's follow function is effectively broken
Long standing bug that probably requires an update to the actual game engine. Symptoms include minor geography items like rocks and bumps preventing Line of Sight on Baby New Year, even if player has physical line of sight, or is standing within 3 in game feet of Baby New Year; Baby New Year pulling a Fusionette and going whoever knows where on its own; Baby New Year travel doesn't account for player travel, in my specific case a 41 spines / fire scrapper with no travel powers enabled getting outside of Baby New Year's tracking just on swift and movement boosts.
Suggested Fix : The follow-system itself needs to be overhauled. A temp fix would be to assign a similar AI to NPC's that owned pets get, and to match NPC run speeds with player run speeds.
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Bug : Winter's Gift IO Proc doesn't
Basically I can't figure out the behavior of the Winter's Gift IO proc. After making one and slotting it on the aforementioned lvl 41 spines / fire scrapper's super jump, I got a 20% debuff resistance note in the power monitoring system.
Promptly going to Ourobous and exemping down to 14 resulted in the Winter's Gift IO de-activating. My avatar has superjump at level 14, so I immediately filed a /bug in-game stating that the Winter's Gift IO wasn't proccing correctly.
However, when I ran a Positron Task Force last night on the same avatar, Winter's Gift Sporadically activated. No combination of zoning or turning Super Jump on or off would activate the power... but I would be in the middle of a mob, and suddenly I'd have 20% slow resistance, and a graphically glitched Winter's Gift icon under the health bar (which is another bug).
Basically, I'm not sure how Winter's Gift Proc is supposed to Proc. If it's a level based proc, it shouldn't have been active at all during the Positron TF. If it's a power based proc with a time limit, turning SJ on and off should have activated it. If it's a power based constant proc, merely turning SJ on should have activated the power, but the power kept activating when Combat Jumping was turned on. If it's a static proc that always procs regardless of level or power state, it's broken.
Suggested Fix : ... requires coding. I'm not that good.
Bug : Winter's Gift IO icon under health bar is broken.
Sometimes under the health bar where the rest of the buffs are shown on my avatar I'll have a double sized Showflake. Clicking on the snowflake reveals that it's supposed to be the Winter's Gift Proc.
Objective:
Sidekicked/Lackied characters are sometimes not getting the reward from the Baby New Year mission.
When fighting Snaptooth, certain powers (Assassin Strike and Chain Induction at least, possibly others) will cause him to disappear briefly and then make him impossible to target for a couple of seconds. This also happens with Rikti bombs during invasions... no idea what those two have in common!
Subjective:
I've only been around for two Winter Events, and I'm already sick of rescuing Baby New Year. More ways to earn candy canes would be nice, especially since you keep adding more things that can be bought with them. Right now it's a total grind that quickly stops being fun.
The ski runs are entirely too frustrating, and way beyond my middle-aged reflexes. Instead of adding a second ski run, I wish you had used that development time to create another holiday-themed mission, or some other new content.
The halos are very cool.
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Objective: Winter Lords are being farmed at a prodigious rate for merits. I can't imagine trying to be a lowbie in Galaxy on at a peak time. Huge spawns with level 8 bosses everywhere being ignored by the 50s that spawn. And good luck ever touching a present yourself. I don't think it's a problem with the WLs so much as a flaw with the merit system in general.
Subjective: I HATE the ski slopes. I hate playing that kind of game, hate the way that my connection just kills any chance I'll ever have at even finishing a run before the timer takes pity on me and desperately hate the fact that my badge character now has 6 badges that there is no chance she'll ever earn, no matter how much time I waste on that stupid mountain. I tried the new one twice, felt that same urge to break out in audible expletives rising in me that Ski Slope 1 inspired, and left Pocket D altogether. No reason to make my significant other suffer through another few weeks of that this holiday season. Maybe we could add these to the candy keeper along with the Snaptooth badges for those who don't have great connections and/or infinite patience for twitch gaming?
I was really hoping to see new holiday missions from Father Time, a variety of ways to earn all those Candy Canes we need for Halos and Recipes except farming BNY and trolling for presents for hours on end. Instead, it's another <censored> ski slope. Gotta admit, I know you were trying to get I13 ready to go, but the Winter Event was a big let down for me this year.
Objective: Inadvertent griefing by high level characters swooping by, hitting a present, then sailing off and leaving the snowmen behind continues to be a perpetual problem.
Objective: THANK YOU for moving that present away from Hardcase!
Subjective: You erred too far on the side of caution with the candy canes. Of course you don't want people getting all the shinies in just a couple days, but the cost of the entire Winter's Gift set is way too much. It's contributing to some of the present grief, because jerky high level characters zip around sniping presents from lowbies and leaving nothing but deadly snowmen in their wake.
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Not sure which this is, probably subjective - but i think the halos should be set up like the combat auras - it sucks to spend the candy canes and then relize you cant use it till 30th and auras open.
I would like to see a snowbeast mission that drops candy canes as salvage.
I love the new ski runs, and wish they were acessable for longer
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Not sure which this is, probably subjective - but i think the halos should be set up like the combat auras - it sucks to spend the candy canes and then relize you cant use it till 30th and auras open.
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I agree completely. I rolled an angelish character before the event, saw the halo in the chalet and did what I could to get enough Canes to get one... went to the tailor... and bang... have to be 30. Very frustrating. I wouldn't have bothered for a level 6 alt had I known that it wasn't available at all levels.
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I would like to see a snowbeast mission that drops candy canes as salvage.
I love the new ski runs, and wish they were acessable for longer
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The suggestion has been made before to allow Ski-Slope access as a SG / VG unlockable.
Perhaps it is time to re-suggest that idea.
I'm not sure how objective this is, but I hate that there are badges for the ski slopes. I enjoyed them much more when they were just there for fun. It's especially frustrating that my badge character most likely won't be able to get them, despite the fact that I have spent hours and hours trying to get them. I know it's entirely my problem, but thought I'd share it anyway in case there are others who feel the same way I do.
I also hate that you can buy old holiday badges, particularly the Scrooge badge (and the hero equivalent, whose name escapes me), as it is a badge that is associated with content that is no longer in the game. If you had it so people could earn them again, that would be great, as the content would be there. It also makes no sense to be able to buy the 2006 log in badge, which is dated in the badge description.
As far as the rest of the event goes, I enjoy it a great deal. I've been having a lot of fun hanging out in the chalet and doing the Father Time missions. I'd love to see the ski chalet expanded, and I like the suggestion of an ice rink for next year.
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Next year Praetorian Santa please. 
I echo everyone else's concerns. I've given up trying to candy cane multiple characters, I'm doing just one (a new alt). Just the old badges alone comes to 100, that's before halos, another 50, and IOs, 100+ (forget exactly).
On the topic of having to go to a zone your own level for candy canes, have you every tried present hunting in Sharkshead? It bites. Villainside gets very little option in present hunting. (Rather than grief lowerlevels, I hit BB and Sirens.)
Costume pieces should not cost 25 candy canes, you should not have to grind to get costume pieces. These should be lowered to 10. The Santa Hat should be added as a reward.
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After 4 and a half years playing this game I am feeling a bit taken advantage of his Winter Event. The Same Baby New Year Missions, the same Prsesents popping up in the SAME places, even the Winter Lords have been met with Apathy.
What about adding something new each Event so its not the same old thing?
Having Zombie Invasions in the Winter Event is not a good idea - whoever is supposed to be coordinating the Events should be left go. We need someone with some fresh blood and some new ideas and not someone who just keeps throwing the same old crap at us.
- Disgusted with Winter Event and Issue 13
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Having Zombie Invasions in the Winter Event is not a good idea - whoever is supposed to be coordinating the Events should be left go. We need someone with some fresh blood and some new ideas and not someone who just keeps throwing the same old crap at us.
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The developers aren't firing off zombie invasions, those are player-triggered. But it would be cool if, during the winter event, Santa Claus (willpower/claws mastermind with cold blast attacks) and his elves popped up to fight off the zombies or Rikti invasion.
My feedback on the Winter Event:
(1) Add me to the list of those with middle-aged (moving towards late-middle-aged) without the reflexes to get badges on the ski slopes. Still, I'm not saying that the badges are bad for those who can get it, though I might really extend the bronze times so that you basically get them for effort.
(2) Please, please, please, please, PLEASE give snowmen the "always con to your level", both the snowmen that pop out of presents and the ones that the WinterLord GM throws at people...A 50 and a 10th level can fight a WinterLord together with each dealing with him as though it's there level, but if the WinterLord throws a snowman at the 50, the 10th level is about ready to die. This will solve the issue of "50th level hero opening boxes in Atlas and leaving behind a 6th level snowman spawn for the passing 2nd level" (This also applies to the trick or treat foes during the Halloween event.)
Also, could Snowmen have a chance of dropping a candy cane?
(2) Please have WinterLords spawn the way that Eochai spawns during the Halloween event instead of popping out of boxes. Let big teams pop boxes for regular snowmen, and don't require box popping for those that want to hunt the GMs.
(3) The ratio of naughty-to-nice is way out of whack. It may have made sense to get the snowman badge before the Baby New Year mission was added, but now, the easy way to get that badge is in the mission, not through opening presents. Please make it more like 80% chance of nice...being heroes, we're automatically nice, and even the villains help save the world from the Rikti or time meddling by the 5th or stopping time with the kidnap of Baby New Year.
(4) For 2009, please add another mission (Hopefully not involving Baby New Year). Don't replace the Baby New Year mission, I enjoy it, but I'd at least like something to do. To help with hero badge hunters, maybe something with the cold demons (who would be quite at home in the wintery croatoa mission).
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I like the new ski slope. I keep thinking that it would be fun to see something like this on a larger scale. Either a mission where you slide down something (a REALLY long slope, several miles long preferably) and must finish in a certain time - with enemies sliding along with you, shooting at you. And of course you would be able to shoot back, without rooting since you're sliding. That would be awesome.
As for the other part of the winter event, the baby new year mission and the christmas present hunting, I think it would be more fun if for next year we got an entire Task Force devoted to this.
I'm thinking 3-5 missions set in a frozen snow-covered minizone similar to the snowy Croatoa. We would go up against the Winter King and his minions. To help us: Baby New Year and Gamester. Of course, Gamester being who he is (Lord Nemesis), he can't be trusted, but we still need his help. Don't ask me how I know Gamester is Lord Nemesis, but it's really quite obvious. Just humour me.
In the task force (which is given to us by Father Time) we would first have to save Baby New Year in a manner similar to the current mission. With the future on our side we travel to a wintery St Martial to seek out clues on Gamester by collecting 99 presents scattered about the instanced map. Each one has a chance to provide a candy cane or spawn enemies - but not just the snow guys. They can spawn almost any kind of enemy. The last present has a message from Gamester. He is held captive by the Winter King and is forced to make presents for him. We travel to the King's domain, a frozen winter land with plenty of ski slopes, redcaps, tuatha and winter horde enemies scattered about. There we invade the Winter King's ice palace, free Gamester and together we take on the Winter King himself. The king spawns Winter Lords to his defense and is aided by Snaptooth and a horde of redcaps. When the king is defeated he gives us his hoard of candy canes (30 canes per person should be fine) and promises to not invade again for a whole year.
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im 51 and my reflexes are going down hill,pun intended, I do not even try the slopes,as for cost , yes it is a bit much for the io and such, the devs keep shooting them selfs in the foot, they setup a nice prize, give us a limited time to get, make the cost a bit high, then act surprised when we start farming
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Objective: Snaptooth spawns as an Elite Boss (level 4, in my case) while soloing on Villainous. That seems a little tough for a new character which only has a couple of attacks under their belt.
My feedback will mostly mirror that of others here, but perhaps repetition is what you want to hear.
To begin with, farming BNY is getting a bit old. I wouldn't mind having to do it the 5 times required to get the badge, but I have around 90 toons, and each year I only get thru so many trying to pick up all the badges and such, that still not even half of them are done.
Candy canes should drop (small percentage chance if you like) off snowmen. It's very little effort for a higher lvl toon to kill the snowmen they spawn while present hunting. The work of a few seconds in most cases, but many don't bother because they have no incentive to do so. Provide that for them.
I'll join with the others in my opinion of the ski slopes. For those that like them and want others to know of their prowess, provide some sort of bragging rights. Maybe zone announcements or something, but not badges. I love badges, and I'm unable to get anywhere near a gold, which leaves me feeling a bit ill. Lower the required times or allow us to purchase the badges.
Now allow me my rant about halos. I love the idea of halos. I have a couple of demon toons and one angel. Problem is that they are all well below 30 and given my extreme case of altaholism I won't be seeing 30 in all likelihood before next Christmas, or later.
I don't believe halos should be auras at all. They either belong under hats (assuming you can fix the hair issue) or under Head Detail 1. Why should I get screwed out of using a regular aura when I finally do hit 30? I had my angel's 'heavenly aura' already picked out in my head and now I'll have to decide between that and a halo. Not fair. Put em under Head Detail 1 and you solve all the problems people seem to have with them.
As fun suggestions, perhaps you could have it snow outside. That would be nice. Don't cities usually string up lights and holiday decorations on buildings and lamp posts? Really get us into the holiday mood.
Perhaps you could have random sightings of Santa and his sleigh in the skies over Paragon City.
Random ice throughout the city could be fun as well. Like the ramps and ice found throughout the Frostfire mission.
A giant Christmas tree in AP would be nice. With a skating rink. And holiday music being played over a nearby speaker. You could use one of the parking lots around City Hall. And maybe turn one of the main drags in AP into a speed skating course. Not for prizes or anything, but just for fun. A nice mile long street you can skid up and down to your heart's content.
Well that about does it for me. Thanks for the thread. Again goes to show how much you guys care about what we think. Happy Holidays!
Greetings Heroes and Villains!
We want to hear your feedback on this years Winter Event.
Please use this thread to post about any bugs you have found as well as any suggestions you may have for us.
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Feedback is important to our development process, there are two types of feedback and both are helpful although some give us more insight and are more easily adapted into game changes.
Objective Feedback: Objective feedback is based upon what you as a user see or experience that other users may also see and experience. This feedback usually can be replicated easily as it involves facts and unbiased opinions. Example: When using the base editor items are sometimes getting caught in columns or pillars.
Subjective Feedback: Subjective feedback is based upon how you feel or experience the game as yourself. This experience may not necessarily be replicated because it is based on feeling and emotion. Subjective feedback is important to us but it is usually helpful if more information is present to describe what and why you feel the way you do. Example: I like the way the graphics look on my shield animation it gives me the feeling of being truly super-powered.