Discussion: The Deadly Apocalypse is upon us!

Red_Addiction,

All great ideas, yes... but somehow, I just don't see the devs having the time to work on something like this. They've got more than enough work to do on things that people can play with year-round, versus an event that only runs for a week or so. It would also require gobs of new art assets (3D models, textures, bump maps, etc.) and necessitate a download to player clients in the tens-of-megabytes range. (The only reason they went through the trouble for Christmas was because, hey, it's Christmas after all...)

Still, if enough people take the time to post in the forums that they'd like something like this, perhaps the devs will take heed and set aside some time and resources to do at least parts of it.

Yeah well I sure would, and a lot of my friends in game would, but they don't like the forums. Like I said I know it is a lot of stuff to do, I have built 3d models in 3d studio max, so I really KNOW what models entail. I just never got into animating them. So I hear you and agree, but I still feel it would be worth it the effort.

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I do like the new zone event, but if you only have one team it's impossible and frustrating. I would really like to see the Banner damage and the number of defenders that must be killed scale to the number of players either in the zone or surrunding the banners. The scale would not need to vary much, just a reduced difficulty if the zone is sparcely populated. That way a single team might at least have a fighting chance. As it is, there is no way to complete the event. This is causing people to stop trying.

My apologies for the discordant post, but if there was a petition to stop all programming/resources on holiday based events/themes and dedicate them instead to "Going Rogue" and other new permanent additions to this game I'd sign it.

This Trick or Treat/Beat the Flagpole stuff doesn't impress me much. I don't need to be "festive" when playing a video game. I have actual family, friends and actual festive occasions and traditions for that.

What I'd like is new, permanent content - new exciting places to explore. I think my lament with this "event" is that it took resources away from other tasks and improvements.

I think essentially, this "event" boils down to squandered resources. Resources that can be better spent on more permanent, more careful and more intelligent creation than this.

My apologies this opinion, goes against the grain of many others on this thread, but that is how I feel.

While I like your ideas, I would like to clarify a couple of things:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red_Addiction The Christmas event has its own special little zone with the Ski Chalet and the Father Time/Baby New Year missions, etc. It has it's own villain group, the Winter Horde, complete with GM..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red_Addiction The Halloween event pales in comparison with its lack of unique enemies, using recycled enemy groups instead.

First, the Halloween Event does have unique factions. The Fir Bolg, Coven and Unseelie Court were all developed first for Halloween events. Fir Bolg were fleshed out with the missing Lieutenant and Boss ranks for Croatoa, but debuted for the first Halloween event, and the Coven were the template for the Cabal, but have some notable differences in costuming and coloring, debuted then as well. The Unseelie have all of the main ranks, and are completely unique models, though mostly made up of particle effects.

On a related note, the Winter Horde are just lightly retextured Hydra, so if you call them unique, the Coven are even more unique (if that were truly possible) with their different Chest and Legs garments.

I was talking with a teammate last night after the 'supernatural activity' ended in Steele. She was mentioning that she couldn't solo ToT anymore, even with a blaster, like she could last year. I've noticed that the number of reds and oranges - seperately and in two's and three's - are more common than yellows and whites. (Not to mention that when there is an orange, sometimes they will be solo, but more often than not they will have a yellow along with them.)

Another member of our team mentioned that he felt the devs were probably hoping to entice all these new players out of AE for this event. Unfortunately, I don't think that's happening. There have already been two times where I've seen either this or the zombie event start up, and I see no 'team forming' messages in the broadcast channel.

Getting back to the upped toughness of the ToT enemies, I have a question. Was this done in order to hopefully curtail the number of farmers who would be fighting these enemy in hopes of getting the costume pieces for sale at a later date in the auction house for a profit? If so, I don't see it working.

(Sorry, but I've said it many times before, while the methods you've implimented to try and curtail the farmers/RMT'ers are commendable, in the end they will not work. Since those these are aimed at will just shrug their shoulders and find other ways of doing what they want to do, and it will be the general playerbase - who were just going about their normal business - who will have to bare the burden of this.)

Now, with this all said, I am enjoying the event.

The rest of your points are all fine, and I would certainly love to see your ideas added into the event. So long as they kept all of the badges currently available for the thing, and ideally added them into the mix of the haunted house and other activities you suggest, I can't see a problem with your suggestions at all, save for whatever amount of work it is.

Red,you have some good points there but a new zone would be out of the question.Croatoa would be a good place to hold an event like that. Its dark,its spookie and if you pay attention to the background noise you can hear the chimeing of a Big clock tower and other ghastly sounds.

Croatoa would be perfect for this and use the other zones for ToTing for the candy and bring them to the witch lady on the side of the tram...relocate her and put her next to or in a house where you can go visit to make the exchange.

Yeah, I could see something like that in Croatoa, that is a very good idea. But how would they handle the House, Cathedral, Crypt, Graveyard and other content? Does it all just mysteriously appear for Halloween and then dissapear when it is all over? I would rather see this in a new zone, and don't really see a reason why it would be "out of the question". Being in Croatoa, the ambience of it all would kinda be interupted by the other content that is permanent there. Take the Ski Chalet for example, could you see that in any other zone?

Thank you Ghoost

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Yeah The reason why i said "out of the question" is because of the man hours that would have to go into it and a zone like Croatoa would be a perfect place for the ideas you have to go there. Yes a house spawn like the chalet in pocket D around Christmas time,of that sort.

Yes, I believe if done right that zone would boom with activity with that event there. A CoP type of mission would be good and each time that mish is completed the banners would spawn. And for the Villians I would put that same mish in PO at that Fort with all the spectral pirates are or spawn a Island of Dr.Moreau type Isle, and put G.Bedlam there...(shrugs*)I don't know...im kinda reaching a bit here.

Oh...I forgot about that isle in Nerva where the ship wreck is with the badge.That could be a goos spot as well.any suggestions.

So, this is my third time doing a Halloween event. It's always fun, Trick or Treating is a blast, as always. I really do enjoy the Halloween Event because ToTing is a fun thing everyone wants to do on the side.

As for this Deadly Apocalypse, well. It's a good event. I've done it a couple times now, and it encourages team work, organization, and leadership. All of these things help make players into better players. I have no problems with the event itself, more so how the event activates.

I understand there were some complaints as to how often the event starts. Yeah, more often is always good. However, I did the DA for the first time today in Atlas Park. While I was smacking a banner, the event started again in Founders Falls. A few minutes later, Skyway. A half hour after that, Faultline, Hollows and Croatoa. This is a great event, but it's really confusing to have the same event going on in three different places. It draws away from the total number of participants because they run off to a different zone then the one where the majority of the players are gathered. All four of the times I tried at the event it failed due to a lack of players. Personally, I think that the event should stay exactly the same as it is now, but have the event generator run a check to see if the event is already in progress before starting a new one. Having the same event start in 6 or 8 different zones in an hour (when each event runs only 20 minutes) is crazy, in my opinion.

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Thanks Ghoost, that is a pretty good suggestion, I know what you mean about the hours put into this. So maybe instead they should just work on it a little bit each year, and when it is ready, then load it in. I would much rather them not do it at all, than to do it "half-*****" for lack of a better word. Same goes for the event in general. Like I said earlier, either do it, and make it awesome, or just focus on the other stuff instead.

Putting the same house in 2 different zones, Blueside and Redside, would not be a good idea in my opinion because there would be no hero/villain interaction like there is in the winter event. That would render some of the co-op event ideas useless. I did think this thing out a little, there are good reasons for the suggestions I have made.

Thanks for the input though.

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The Deadly Apocalypse (at least, the banner thing), has been rather underwhelming for me.

The first time it happened to me, I was alone, and unaware of this new event. I stumbled upon a banner, and went to investigate. As I approached, four bad guys spawned. Then, 2 seconds later, four more. Then 2 seconds later, four more, and so on. I was swamped by dozens of foes in a matter of seconds. Not much fun, I'm afraid.

The next time, I was on a team, and it happened around us, so we started doing it. We fought foes at a banner for ages, but it never became active, and the event passed unresolved. Again, underwhelming.

The third time, there was a big group of people doing it, so I took part. On this occasion, I was fortunate enough to get on a team, and got all the badges. The final fight was kind of disappointing, it went so fast and wasn't anything new. Just Jack-in-Irons.

The next time, I took part as much as I could, and after the four banners were destroyed, the avatar was defeated before I coudl get anywhere near him. Telporters are seriously disadvantaged trying to find him.

Every other time the event happened, a dozen or so, I was playing redside. The largest team I ever saw was 5 people. On average 2-3 people was the most that showed up, and they were entirely unsufficient to the task of even surviving the overwhelming spawns, let alone trying to damage the banner.


Like so much in this game, I see here an event with tremendous potential and eye candy, but little substance and poor execution.

I get that solo players aren't supposed to be able to overcome it, but you should not have made it impossible for a soloist to enjoy some of. If I could go to the banner and fight reasonable spawns, I might enjoy it somewhat. As it was, it took all the street spawns away, and left me with no way to enjoy the event (because of the unreasonable spawns... 30-1 is LONG odds), so I had nothing to do in the zone.

All in all, a good try, but underwhelming to say the least.

Ultimo, the biggest problem with the new event, as far as I can tell, is that the devs were hoping to see tons of players on dozens of teams all working together to take down the banners - just like it was in the old days.

Devs, it is no longer the 'old days'. We do not have the player base we had 3-4 years ago, when we could see plenty of that base on at roughly the same time. We no longer have plenty of players who willingly pile on to an event at the drop of a hat.

One thing that Ultimo pointed out rings true, that spawning the event in too many zones at the same time can only be detrimental to the enjoyment of said event. (And yes, I knoticed this even before the patch to increase the spawn rate.)

I was in Mercy Island for about two hours this morning. The team I was on broke up just as the banner event started. I asked the level 45 toon if he was going to be forming a team, to which he replied that he was just going to chill and hang with his friend. (I could only see the three of us at the time.) Then about an hour later, the zombie event started up, and there was no call-out in the broadcast channel of a zombie team forming, let along call-outs to join teams.

Not to say that it doesn't ever happen. I was online Saturday night with one toon, and got all the zombie and banner event badges within about 40 minutes. However, this happened blueside.

Maybe with Going Rouge we'll see a meaningful uptick, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Yes, the new graphics engine will be a plus, but if all former players (some of whom are now over at "That other superhero MMO") hear is how poor things are now, do you really think that will make any difference.

Compared to last year this event blows. The stablity issue alone makes it bad. But because of both the badies being too tough for lowbies and the new sidekicking; the zones are dead except for PI.

As we know, over the summer people stayed in Atlas then went to AE for PL/farming. This wasn't good. So the Devs made changes. But now with short sightedness people go to Atlas then via SG or Vanguard building end up in PI to guess what; PL and Farm.

Too much in one zone causes lag, mapservers, and general dc'ing.