Winter Event Test ~ Official Feedback thread

I got to try this twice, once with a 50 and once with a 7.

The first time, there were about 3 full teams and we managed to beat the guardians and Lord Winter and get the merits and badge (and canes!). Happiness was had by all.

The second time, I was on a team sk'd to 49, but very vulnerable due to being actual level 7. Got killed a lot.

My team mates rezzed me a couple of times, one time I tried to use an awaken but that was pointless because of the huge number of minions all over the Lord Winter's realm.

However I hit the hospital button finally and discovered a great thing: there is an in-zone hospital/rezzng station! This is my pick for best single detail of the event.

It was also located very close to where Lord Winter was, so I didn't have far to run to get back into the action. I couldn't tell if there was no debt, but if so, this would be cool. It helps defray some of the frustration of getting killed a bajillion times, which is inevitable for lowbies even sk'd to a 50 team leader.

The bad news about the second time though was that the time ran out on us. Like others have commented, we didn't know there was a timer, and when it sent a 2 minute warning we didn't know what that was all about. We were very close to defeating LW, but the timer ran out first, and as has been noted, got booted out, no badge or reward.

The timer, if it has to be one, needs to be longer, folks, especially if people want to have a hope of completing, after the first weekend, and on lower pop servers. Otherwise it's going to be even more frustrating than the new halloween invasion when that failed.

I like a bunch of things here, the more complex event, the mini zone, and my #1 fav, hospital in-zone!

I like that the devs are giving us credit for being able to tackle more challenging events.

It does need to be tweaked, though. Maybe the defeat of each Guardian could add something to the timer? Like in bank missions when destroying and defeating cops adds to the timer?

That would help, when we were really getting it done and just needed a little more time than we had.

I also ran up to the chalet and did the regular baby new year mission and can confirm it's exactly the same. ;P

It's a guess but I had the feeling that the instance where we did defeat LW, the zone did not time out so maybe, like a bank mish, that gives you an untimed zone so you can hunt minions and explore.

Would like to confirm this is true or not.

Thanks devs for the new event, thanks team mates for making the testing lots of fun.

OFFICIAL FEEDBACK GO!

I ran three teams and did the event three times. First run was completely blind and we didn't have anything to go on other than GF telling us to open presents.

RUN ONE:

We got a WL spawned pretty quick. He was no issue to take down, and we earned 2 merits for it. He then summoned a giant present which we all gathered around because we didn't know what else to do. The timer got us all eager for whatever was about to happen. After the timer we were met with a new zone.

Initial feedback is that this zone is way too foggy. Was really hard to navigate and see all three times. Also doesn't have any landmarks or anything so it turned out to be hard to call out happenings to other teams. We also didn't understand at first that he phased and we'd have to find the extras.

After some people started realizing what was going on, we were quick to jump on the mini GMs. We all noticed early on that the GMs didn't give merits. The big one gave 6 so this didn't seem like an issue at first, but becomes one in the third run. We had about 3-4 teams in total and we had no problems taking him down.

RUN TWO:

Second go at it was pretty smooth as well. We had fewer people but we still had no problems spawning the initial GM and then entering the zone to get started. Since some of us knew what we were doing this time, it was a very quick run and we were able to jump on the mini GMs and take down the big guy rather fast.

I experienced some detoggling here, and also got hit by the 100 mag hold. Being on a Blaster the hold didn't bother me, but the detoggling took off my armor and Tactics. While I don't have as much experience with it, a friend told me that the detoggling was annoying more than it was a challenge. She didn't like having to look at her toggles along with buffs and health bar. I have no real complaints.

RUN THREE:

Third run we didn't do well at all. We only had two teams total. Possibly less, because our team was at 8 with one dropping later on, and someone on the other team said they had 5. There may have been a third team, but if so they didn't have a full 8. It took us longer to spawn the initial WL, and the box timer was 6 minutes.

The issue we had was not enough people. The first two runs had at least 3 teams and everything went real fast. With just the 1.5-2 teams, we didn't have enough people to do it. We slowly struggled through the WL's HP and got all the mini GMs down and were working on the last of his HP. This is when we noticed there was a hospital here.

We saw a notice that the zone was closing soon. I wasn't aware there was a time limit until then. Since there is, there should be a timer. We were shooting in the dark and didn't realize we were racing a clock. Please add a timer to the nav bar so we know that the zone is going to close.

In the end we didn't make it. We got him down to about 5% and we all got booted out of the zone. The bad part was that because we didn't kill him, we didn't get any merits. We killed 3 other GMs and worked his HP down by about 95% and didn't get any reward for it. Please consider revising this somehow so it's not an all-or-nothing reward. Perhaps the mini GMS can all give 1 merit each, with the big guy giving 3, for the same total of 6, but without failure being a total loss. And maybe break up the candy canes too.

LAST NOTES:

Ultimately it seems like this event can't be done with less than 3 teams, or at the very least 2 really good teams. Perhaps consider extending the time limit, because it definitely can't be done with what we had on our third go, and pretty much all our people were level 50. So 2 teams of level 30s or so won't be able to manage this. They need more time, or something else to help them out. You may consider making this a co-op zone, because I heard redside had issues getting enough people as well.

So to recap:
* Less fog
* More time
* Add a visible timer
* Break up the rewards

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Additional thoughts:

My first reactions were based on a 3-team run. It was fun and relatively easy.

On the third attempt with a team and a half, we weren't able to defeat him. This was with at least 1 rad pumping out Lingering Rad and EMP pulse at every possible turn to keep his regen down. I'm predicting at least 2 full teams needed to take down LW. That could spell trouble for low-population servers and teams at the end of the event.

I'd like to tally my vote behind Photonstorm's suggestion. A huge winter storm is thematically better and provides a much stronger clue of when LW can't be attacked.

Also, it would be nice if the Guardians dropped their merits individually. A failed attempt in which the team walks away with nothing at all is disheartening.

Need a timer for the instance.
Northern Lights can still attack when phased.

Candy Keeper's rewards:



Two new on the list:





Badges:



Text from bartender in the Chalet:

[NPC] Chaz the Bartender: You need to confront Lord Winter before he extends his icy grip over Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Bring backup!

[NPC] Chaz the Bartender: You can get to Lord Winter's realm by defeating one of his Winter Lords. I'd take some backup, though.

[NPC] Chaz the Bartender: Sure, you can take on Lord Winter and his Winter Lords, but going solo probably isn't a good plan.

[NPC] Chaz the Bartender: I hear that Lord Winter is trying to extend his icy grip over Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. If you can find and defeat one of his Winter Lords, you should be able to travel to his realm and confront him. But bring a lot of friends!

As others have said, the timer is too short. In fact, most of the text that came up flew off screen so fast that I couldn't read it. Never saw a mention of the timer. Can it be put into the Nav bar like it was with the Halloween event? Can we get that text added to a specific channel so that we can put it in a Tab to monitor it?

Lowbies are going to have some serious problems here due to all of the Minions, Lts, and bosses around the fighting area, and those that follow you back from fighting the Guardians. With the timer, it's difficult to justify fighting those to keep from being hit from all sides while fighting Lord Winter.

I wish I'd realized that there was a Hospital in the zone, I'd have stopped waiting for rezzes.

Definitely need a few people that can hold aggro on Lord Winter and some support for heals, endurance buffs, and debuffs on LW would be a help as well.

It was difficult at times seeing that LW was unaffected and knowing to go after the Guardians, again, mostly because of the text disappearing so fast. Also, all of the other critters around where the Guardian is and between it and LW being aggro'd and following back to LW after defeating Guardian is almost unavoidable.

I got so I didn't mind the detoggling so much on my controller, but likely because she was only running Hover and Hasten. It seemed to be much worse on my blaster, and I don't want to think about what it would be like on my scrappers.

Also, as someone mentioned earlier, it's a bit discouraging to defeat a Winter Lord, zone to LW's area, pound on him a while, defeat the Guardians (with no Merit award) but have the timer run out before defeating LW so you wind up with basically nothing. After the new wears off of the event, and on low population servers, I think this may be a big problem in getting enough people interested to run it.

Fun event, but it could use a few tweaks.

Just played a little on test.

I was playing my 50 Spines/Regen Scrapper in PI and started opening presents. I think the Frostlings have been eating stupid pills. None of them attacked me after opening the present. They conned blue, green, and grey. Even after I attacked them, they just stood there. The grey's used to sometimes attack, but they always ran away.

I zoned into AP and saw a big red message about the Winter Lortd leaving a special present. It flashed by pretty quickly tho. Would love a marker for the present.

I was part of 2 teams that fought Lord Winter. It was very interesting and fun for a 50. It's also interesting that this GM is geared for more range friendly fighting.. i.e. toggle dropping for melee characters. I actually liked getting held as that never happens to my scrapper.. gives the character a new obstacle to deal with. However, the toggle dropping kinda confused me. I thought only damaging toggles got dropped when held, not passives. My integration and focus acc went down a lot. Or is the Lord Winter just dropping ALL toggles randomly?

I didn't mind the "grey out" as much as others did.. it really let me know something was up.. especially when the GM's text bubble was at the top of my screen and covered by my navigation window. (With everything going on in the combat window, the GM's chat scrolls by way too fast - that's not a complaint.

A timer on the nav window would be good for the LW spawn.

OVer all it was enjoyable!

There are parts of this that are really fun. but other parts...

First, the timer. It's too short, and it's hidden. The timer should appear in the navigation area as soon as you enter the zone. I did it twice, neither time did I see a "2 minute" warning, just a "get out now" message (and that went by so fast, I'm not sure what it was until others talked about it).

Second, the Winter Lord's special powers just aren't that much fun. Mag 100 hold is cheap but not unheard of, the detoggling is a complete fun killer (in part because, if you aren't watching your toggles, you may not notice). The detoggling pretty much killed any desire to face him again, so for me, it would be one and done for my badger. Which is a pity, because a lot of it is very cool.

Third, while I'm not speaking for actual testing, not having any lowbies on test - this is going to be No Fun and incredibly frustrating for lowbies. Part comes from the timer - high level characters can just skip past the normal Winter Horde, and ignore the ones near the Lord of Winter, lowbies will need to do more clearing, and with the timer, that's an issue. But also - the Lord of Winter is clearly designed to be a challenge to heroes or villains with the full range of powers at level 50, 10th or even 20th level characters just won't have the powers to deal, even with super sidekicking. Yes, if there are enough high-level people doing the event, some lowbies can get pity slots and slip in, but that assumes that high-level people will find it fun and rewarding enough to do it enough to provide pity slots.

And fourth - it's great that there's an event that can be fun for multiple teams at once. But requiring multiple teams, and from what I heard, two full teams is unlikely to be enough, is a big change, and I'm not sure that's good. (Particularly when there's a very real chance that you'll spend the time and fail, coming away with bupkis.) I don't have an easy answer to that for this event, but I hope that isn't going to be your approach for every new event, seasonal or zone.

ok..full opinion on the new event.

I really like the idea of this instanced "raid" zone. I hope this mechanic will be used lots in Going Rogue and other upcoming issues. I like the fact that players go to Lord Winter's realm, but I'm on the fence about it being just a snow covered part of Croatoa. Also, Lord Winter and the Guardians looking just like the Winter Lord was a little bland. Lord Winter definitely needs a better name as Lord Winter and Winter Lord are too much alike.

The Reichsman style health that Lord Winter has kind of put me off also. He phases at 75%, 50% and 25% health and calls upon a Winter Guardian. I quickly found myself saying "Oh this is the Hero-side Reichsman fight all over again". This coupled with a currently unseen timer doesnt work in my opinion. I think you need to either extend the timer, or lower Lord Winter's health, because I can see failing the event and not getting anything is not going to sit well with players. The super hold doesnt bother me, but the detoggling is a real pita. I think this should be removed, or just made so toggles supress.

The Northern Lights phase when Lord Winter phases, but they can still attack, while we cannot attack them. I'm sure this is a bug and will be addressed.

The removal of the candy canes from the Father Time mission doesn't sit well with me either. Sure you can get candy canes from presents and Winter Horde minions, but awarding 5 CC's at the end of the mission made a nice alternative.

There's also an animation bug when you go through the portal on the advanced ski slope.

About to hit the test server, and if I see that Winter Horde Bosses or multiple Lieutenants ever pop out of 'You've Been Naughty' presents for SOLO characters, I will be upset. I mean, I died so many times on my low-level/non-mez resistant characters during the Halloween Event because of those damn Vampire Lords and Crones and Werewolf wrestling duos piledriving me repeatedly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Photonstorm From my experience on test, 3 teams can do the event very quickly. I don't think it will be a problem during the peak hours.

Not everyone can be on during PEAK hours.

Lord Winter's Dialog:

[NPC] Lord Winter: Soon winter will spread across all the lands and my icy grasp will hold everything.

[NPC] Lord Winter: I see that unwelcome visitors have entered my domain! I will give you a chilly - and painful - reception!

[NPC] Lord Winter: You are more powerful than I thought! Winter Guardian, I call you forth! While you stand, these mortals cannot harm me!

[NPC] Lord Winter: Nooo! Winter Guardian, I call you for the last time! Protect me from harm!

BUG: Spawned Winter Horde from opening presents don't fight back. I was on a level 50 in Peregrine. And the level 49 and 50 spawns, both the ones I spawned and others left behind didn't fight back as I attacked them.

Problem: While it's nice that the Winter Horde in Lord Winter's Realm and the Naughty Presents now drop Candy Canes as salvage (along with much sought after Arcane Salvage); it's not nice when the Naughty Spawns are way below your level (level 50 toon v. level 41 grey conning horde) or way above your level (level 1 toon v. level 7 deeply purple conning horde). When there is that discrepancy, there is no motivation to fight them. They either won't drop salvage, or they're unbeatable. So, again, my plea:

Make all zone event critters use the 'purple scaling' code.

The Winter Horde in Lord Winter's Realm all use it, so, why can't we use it for the Naughty Presents?

Can we at least get a Dev to please tell us why they won't do this if they've decided not to? It's a bit angering to me when Devs will reply to some of the most absurd things on these forums and yet are silent on something that many of their most well known play testers have mentioned over and over again for years.

Why won't you do this? Why the silent treatment on this? If you at least say, "It's not happening," it will save us time every time we test this for you.

I liked the instanced raid zone. I hope this tech continues to be used, and I think it's a great alternative to a future Hami update.

The new badges have great artwork! I also really like the purchasable /throwsnowflakes emote.

While I appreciate you guys making some things more difficult, I think this is a bit over the top for a holiday event. Like Abraxxus said, it's too much like the hero encounter of Reichsman. It also seems to take an incredible amount of people to have an encounter run smoothly. My second attempt at it consisted of two full teams and a half team, and we couldn't beat him. That is way more than should be needed for a holiday event. I am also concerned about how low level characters would fare, especially low level Scrappers and Tankers as that foot stomp is nasty. It also doesn't help that he has the super annoying ability to detoggle you and has a mag 1000 hold.

Further complicating the encounter is this:


My screen did this every time Lord Winter phased. I noticed it was worse when flying, which made finding the invading Winter Guard more difficult than it should be. If, however, this is WIA, could we please get ambush text for the Winter Guard so they're easier to find?

Another issue I had with the raid encounter is that after my first run, I was granted Holiday Spirit again, after having received it at log in. I had used the one I received at log in as soon as I got it, and I got another one when I got the Lady of Winter badge.

I also have to agree that the art and the naming are too close to what we've already seen.

I greatly dislike the removal of the candy cane reward option at the end of the Father Time mission. This puts a real damper on a soloer's ability to collect them.

The advanced ski slope has a major glitch in the portal section of the slope. When you emerge from the other side, you are turned the wrong way and the camera is zoomed into first person.