Could someone explain new Halloween event to me?

A Veteran of the last two Halloween events, and I can genuinely say, I'm not exactly sure how this year's event works. The description confused me. Can someone break it down for me, as I can clearly slow today? And what new badges are there?

When the event starts, there will be 4 big rune circles spawned (they show up on the game map), each with a ghostly flag/banner in the center.

After a few minutes, specific types of mobs will spawn around each circle (different for each of the circles).

As the mobs are defeated, a status bar progresses. Once enough go down, the flag/banner will become targettable and can then be destroyed.

Destroying the banner gives a badge.

If all 4 banners are destroyed, then a special giant monster spawns in the area. It's worth a badge too.

Get all 5 badges (4 banners + GM) and you get the Accolade badge for the event.

Ah, but what about the status bar?

We had a big debate about how to progress the bar faster: do you want to spread out between all the banners, or just all focus on one? It seems to work better to focus on one, from my experience, but I have had a lot of people debate it with me (which is not good when you're on a timer and need to get done fast!). So which is it?

I just like the new zone event interface - approaching a banner location triggering activity in your Nav, and distance indicator tied to the spawned GM. Makes me wonder what they are playing with for GR.....

Well, personally, I think the best tactic is to spread out your firepower around each banner, until the banners become vulnerable.

Then have everyone gather and take out each banner in turn, one at a time.

That way, everyone gets each badge on a single run through.

Unfortunately, what seems to be occuring (from last night's examples at least) is that once the banners are vulnerable everybody just wails on whatever banner they were at rather than taking them in turn.

This results in you basically only getting the badge for "your" banner (and the GM usually), meaning you have to participate in several event cycles to get all the badges.

(It took me 3 events to get all 5 badges on one toon last night...after I saw that nobody was really listening and taking the banners in turn, then I just started each later event at one of the banners that I didn't have the badge for yet)

Paragon Wiki is your friend

I had to look it up too... the nav bar thing is a little confusing, especially once the banners go down... I've not had any luck getting to the GM Aspect by using it. If there are several teams in the zone, it's likely the GM Aspect will go down faster than you can say "boo"... and you have to be in the vicinity in order to get the badge for it. PITA, if you ask me.

I must have lucked out last night in the Hollows (Triumph server). Got all four banners and the GM in a single event with the same character. Was not aware of any planning, just followed the mob when one went down.

It took me 3 events to get all 5 badges and the accolade. I saw a couple different strats come into play last night.

One was the everyone rush to a banner and go nuts.
Another was fight to bring down the shields then go clockwise from banner X.

In some cases teams stayed together when it was clear that there were other full teams focuses on a banner while others split 2 to each banner.

I got 2 badges in the first event plus GM then 1 badge in the 2nd and the remaining badge plus accolade on the 3rd (while I was crashing out, so I didn't get the power choice or actually see the accolade awarded)

looking forward to doing it all again on the next character tonight.

Like the wiki says, you cannot just fight at one banner in the beginning. During one event I was at, everyone in the zone was at a single banner and we fought until the timer hit the 10 minute mark without the banners becoming vulnerable. Finally, people split up and the banners become vulnerable within a minute or two.

That certainly explains things. I didn't know that the required number of defenders had to be defeated at all the banners before any banner became vulnerable.

The number required at each banner must be pretty low if you can put 2 people on each banner and get them down within a couple of minutes. I can see how it would go a lot faster with two teams. Hmm... sounds like a good Coalition event if you could only predict when/where the events would show up.

I was wondering is the number of defeats needed scaled to the number of people if the event area. I've done it with small numbers and bigger crowds.

I wrote most of what the Wiki says on how the event works.

On the Test server, we had everyone in the zone (just one team) working on one Banner and the progress bar didn't budge.

But when that one team divided itself up with two people at each banner, then we succeeded.

We never tried the strategy of everyone at one banner for a minute then the next and so on to see if the progress bar can be moved by successive attacks rather than simultaneous attacks.

Now, if you have just one or two teams, then you have to spread them out. It wound up easier that way with every full team spread out all their members to all the Banners. This way, you didn't even have to bother coordinating between teams with who's at each banner.

With only one or two teams, after the banners become vulnerable, it was definitely better if they all converge on the same banner and destroy each of them successively. However, if you have four or more teams in a zone, then there's enough firepower to destroy all the banners simultaneously.

Although, keep in mind, that the more players at a banner during the destruction phase means the more 'glyphs' the banners produce. Check out the empty circles in the runes. If they have an icon in it, something's getting buffed. And each banner can produce up to four stacking copies of that buff. The Glyph of Might (Red) gives the Defenders a 25% damage bonus. And I saw three of them on one of the banners (go Mk III Analyzer!). There's a Glyph of Defense (Purple) and a Glyph of Resistance (Orange).

And because it can't be said enough: The final GM grants 2 Merits and the Reward table to anyone who does any amount of damage to it and is nearby when it's defeated. There is no need for an individual or team to do 10% or 25% or more damage to get the rewards.

The instructions say...defeat enough defenders to make the banners vulnerable. The instructions do not say defeat enough defenders at EACH banner to make the banners vulnerable.

By dividing forces at multiple banners you are assuring you don't have adequate firepower to defeat a vulnerable banner; and many are suggesting you then have to rally the team at one banner at a time anyway. Try that strategy in Indy Port, assemble the team is your friend.

The fastest method I've seen is concentrate at one banner; the more hero's there the more baddies to defeat and open up the banners for attack. Once the banners are open you are already concentrated for banner defeat and the only travel time is to the next closest banner.

Soooo....question to the Dev's, which is it.....defeat enough defenders (as the event information reads).....or defeat enough defenders at EACH banner?????

Regardless of how it really works, it is a very fun addition the the Halloween Event. Thanks Dev's for the great addition!

It is possible to make the banners vulnerable without having people at all of the banners fighting. I was in a group in Faultline the first night and almost everyone was at the purple banner. They became vulnerable with about 5 minutes left, and everyone proceeded to quickly take them down, getting the last one with about a minute to go on the timer, so we all got all 4 banner badges in one go. Eventually that alt will get the GM badge. Maybe.

OTOH, my main, which is my badger, has done the event 5 times now. And has 3 of the banner badges and the GM badge. Crashed out of Talos on Virtue twice last night, the second time just seconds before getting the last banner badge. I am going to avoid Talos for the rest of the event.

2 of them I don't. The Blue one was my team, but we left it to go to the purple long before the barrier started coming down. The little bit we did there may have been enough to contribute to lowering the barrier, or someone else may have shown up and took over 10 minutes after we left. If so, there were not very many of them, because it was a fairly small number of people in the zone.