Discussion: The Deadly Apocalypse is upon us!

Great job on this new event WW. Apart from uber lag, which I think is totally normal, specially the 1st week after an event or Issue is released (although a MASSIVE mapserver and having a character locked for 20 or so minutes is not exactly my cup of tea ), the idea of having a damage thresold and people spreaded between the 4 banners is quite interesting, besides the Spirits (ToT) rate has been improved in comparison to last year, so that badge is affordable again.

I've enjoyed the event immensely. Spent some time hunting eochai and jacks on Freedom, banged through the banner events a few times although I haven't faced off against the final GM. Only thing that frustrates me is the werewolves spamming a knockback on my 28 blaster -- if the werewolf gets to me, I'm basically toast.

Hey! Looks like it will be extended too, in order give players who were affected by bugs (to be fixed in a new patch) more time to collect badges.

Neat!

Given the amount of parties I'll be attending in the next two weeks, it works for me

And more frequent banner spawning too.

"Be sure to visit Ravenwing Cabbal’s Annah in Croatoa or Granny Beldam in Nerva Archipelago to learn more about the 2009 Halloween Event activities."


I went to see Annah, and she had the same message about TOT salvage/costume slot that she always has. Was she supposed to be providing news about the 2009 event activities?

Haven't read everything, but am I the only one that finds the Aspect to be decidedly squishy? Especially when comparing it to the banners.

So far, I've seen the GM a grand total of three times. All three times, he's at about half life by the time most of the people get to him, which isn't that long. Was denied the badge on one character, barely got it on the second, and was lucky enough to help the third team get it. One Scrapper was enough to do serious damage to him.

Combine that with the people who can't understand the concept of 'Wait for everyone who participated in taking down the banners' and you have a recipe for mad players. Even more so when a full team, unless it's staffed with a Rad or a Kin or some other debuffers, can't manage to take down one banner, much less all four, in the time frame allotted and consider themselves bloody lucky to see the GM and have a very limited chance of getting the badge.

All in all, I like the concept, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

Edit - For example, just tried a Banner spawn with a group of 6 scrapprs, 2 blasters and a defender. I think there were at least one or two others. It took about 8 minutes to get that banner down. Those banners are way too tough (too many HPs and stats) and the GM is way too squishy.

There's a happy medium in there somewhere, but what the settings are currently at, isn't...good, IMO.

10% my eye, after 25 Eochai kills, jack has still not shown up. and I'm in PI2 so the zone is def over the level 20 limit...

28 so far, no jack in sight
30... I give up for tonight, if your gonna extend it a bit, try to up the percentage jack comes out cause this is horrible!

The whole Jack spawn thing could be fixed with a simple streakbreaker code insertion. If Jack hasn't spawned within 10 or so Eochais, then spawn a Jack.

*shrug*

Why they haven't put one in, after what? 3 years now? I'll never know.

On the upside, at least the ToT-Ghost spawn rate was fixed.

Warning, I need to vent some frustration. If you don't want to read it, then by all means, ignore my post please!

<rant>
I must say I LOVE the new Halloween event, but omg I've come to realize just how LAZY people are! Okay, I can understand people zoning in to the dead apoc event might need a shout out of what to do during the invasion, but leaders of full teams jumping zone to zone and giving incorrect instructions?! UGH. How hard is it to read the gmotd or click the little blue "i" in the navigation window to figure out what to do? X( For instance, there was one little team in all of Perez Park, and the leader of said team proclaimed that they could make the banners vulnerable just by gathering at one. Uh... no. Also:

-----
Is it, or is it not this easy?
1) get a team
2) get to a banner, making sure there are people at each banner in the zone
3) defeat enemies around banner until message "Banners are Vulnerable" pops up
4) pick a banner to have the ENTIRE ZONE target, and destroy it*
5) continue to destroy each of the other banners one at a time in the same fashion*
6) when all banners are down, locate the GM and kill it
7) claim your reward

*Not required to have the entire zone coordinated if it is full. Besides Peregrine, I have yet to see that happen, so the zone has to focus on one banner at a time to have enough firepower to take down all 4 in the time allotted.
-----

~deep breath~
All that said, why is there still confusion? The same coordination for this event is needed in a Rikti raid, so why are so many people lost? I'm sorry, but if you read the information provided and possibly read the forums or (heaven forbid) ask someone nicely, I feel the directions are simple. But get just two people giving out conflicting commands in the zone, and it can cause your team to miss out on the badges; tonight I've tried 3 times with full teams, and haven't gotten a single badge yet. Yet when the event was on the test server, a zone with just 2 teams could work together and complete it--getting all 6 badges in one fell swoop AND with time to spare!

I guess I just have a beef with lazy and/or ignorant people.
</rant>

Thank you, devs, for such a great event. I'm sorry there are individuals too impatient to figure it out, but I suppose that's to be expected. And again, sorry for the rant, but I felt it needed to be expressed.

So... anyone else run into this problem, or am I just too irritable?

Actually, my big problem is that the zone seems to fill up and the banners drop so fast that my team won't even deal enough damage to get badge credit, and the GM will die before we reach it. We've been through two full successful runs today and only managed two of the badges.

This is probably just a Virtue late night issue.

Took another short break from here and I am glad to see a new aspect to the event. Unfortunately, the event isn't that fun as it stands (most of my reasons are similar to the ones already posted and it looks like the DEVS are making some adjustments). Also, the constant zombie invasions that go on all year really ruin the novelty of this event and it just isn't highly anticipated (by me, anyway).

This game just looks dull now after playing some of the new stuff. I still prefer CoX due to lack of content in CO (not to mention the polish it needs) but who knows what CO will do. Right now I am back to CoX and here until I find out what GOING ROGUE is about. It will have to be significant for me to stay.

Hi,

First up, I am a badge rat and was waiting, salivating,with my badge toon for the first event after it went live. We failed, a. because it was in the Hollows which meant long travelling distances, b. only two of us had done the event on test, and c. we were not enough to damage the Banners after we made thenm vulnerable.

By the second time we were mob handed, and had organised a strategy just as you posted Ayarel, and I think everybody that was there got all six badges in that one run.

My thoughts are that this new "Wham Bam, thank you Mam" approach to the badges, particularly with this event, spoils it.

After that one run, there was little if no incentive for me to run it again. I would have prefered a situation where a player could only get one banner badge per event meaning I would have had to do four runs and perhaps five if the GM badge was also limited by a one badge per event award sysytem.

And yes, I also think that keeping the Zombie raids for the Halloween event is better than an all year round system.

Happy Trick or Treating

It's always a confidence booster to see the Devs watch and act on feedback.

-Fixing Jack to spawn a bit more would be a good step. After all, he's as big a part of the whole thing as Eochai, not really sure why he should spawn less?
-Increase of the Aspect GM HP and/or toughness.
-Most likely make the Zombies a Halloween only event. They lose the cool factor if they are up all year.

That aside, great work =] Im not on much atm, mostly due to actual playing burn out. I got the creative buzz, bu find playing drains me a bit. No fault of the game, except for being addictive

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The only feedback I have is that the TOT spawns while solo are a bit too tough. My wife has given up solo TOT which is sad because she loves doing it.

<Edit> Ok, that and I love the changes made since last year. It really seems to have cut down on the knock-and-run griefing that was so prevalent last year.

When the event started the first place on Union (that I was a part of) the Banner event came was the Hollows. Now, even then, due to my experience on test I began coordinating the event.
Just confounded by players inability to you know.. actually read (or think of others).
Some headed my words but those who thought me, mine and moi did not (pity i never got their names).
Result, as a badger it took me three events (with one being the croatoa zone crash) to get the new badges for my main badger. (rawr).
Guess I did get a lot of training in coordinating. Cause in every other event i've been on since then its... almost the "listen up this is the plan... (tell them) is this ok?" Well not in those words, but meaning...
But even then there are players that do not get badges Mostly due to some not listening and attacking the Aspect with debuffs (as that is needed... not).

On another note. Had an early blast yesterday, logged on before I went to work and saw that there was a banner event on vills. We where not able to complete it as we began with a handful, but we did get to banner 3 (one team). Then we saw it happening in Sharkhead and wanted to give it another go, being a full team of 8.
It was one of the most enjoyable ones I did. 8 villains working in harmony and defeating the Banners and the Aspect (with 2 or 3 min to spare). Aaah, it felt good

I absolutely love the DA. Good implementation, and some much-needed "outside the box" thinking. Thanks, WW, for giving us something different.

I guess my main problem with the Halloween Event 2009 is the door mixup when two doors near each other are both engaged by ToTers. The second group (I'll refer to them as groups, even though it might be a solo player) coming to a door next to an already engaged first group and door will spawn their door critters at the first group's door. This happened without fail in PI (not sure about the problem in other zones, I haven't ToT'ed in other zones yet this year) and seems to be a prime opportunity for griefing. If you wanna grief someone, just head to the next door down from a soloer who's already engaged at a door (it's not so much griefing as helping their exp when done to a group) and click the door. Your critters will spawn at their door. Not sure why this happens, but it's a consistent problem in PI, at least.

Other than that, this year's Halloween Event has been a blast!

(On another note, I'm not seeing the lack of Jack this year, as some have said. My fav zone for Eo and Jack is Brickstown, and yesterday I led a team through 10 or so GM spawnings and Jack appeared 3 times. It actually seemed better than last year's event when you could easily go through 15 Eo's before seeing Jack.)