Winter Event Test ~ Official Feedback thread

I only got to test for about 20 minutes and missed the new portion of the event. I did however open a few presents and found a bug.

The Winter Horde that spawned from the present I opened completely ignored me. They would just wander around the general area and never attacked at all. I Brawled one half to death and got no reaction other than for it to turn around and crouch-walk away.

I'm not sure if anyone else experienced this, but it should be fixed since it's exploitable.

Arwen, I think I only got that fogged view once, and most of the time I was in Hover. I assumed it was a graphical glitch since I couldn't reproduce it. At all.

Of course, the one time I saw it it was right after I'd seen LW calling forth a Guardian, and when I turned around the Guardian was in sight.

Enjoyed the new one on test quite a bit.

A few issues that are small there but could get large with live.

1. 500 Candy canes for the holiday respec Ordinarily not a problem but with 2 its a bit problematic

2. No candy canes for baby new year ?

3. Lord winter 226K hit points ? I play on low volume servers. When I looked at our pop villainside before heading over there were 26 villains on that weren't hidden and 60 some odd heroes. He can and will be a problem for teams that aren't well formed or large. Villainside I don't think we could have mustered up either.

4. Whats up with the toggle dropping and is there supposed to be a strategy for dealing with it ?

5. Almost forgot 20 Candycanes is kind of low for lord winter. Given the amount of effort that goes into him, (3 GMs and one Reichmsman class monster)

Okay, cool! No bosses or multiple Lieutenants popping out. And they seem to have fixed the levels of the snowmen in Galaxy City! Gonna check Faultline during the next test. Also, gonna try to see what happens if I'm in the middle of the "opening the present" progress bar at the moment the event gets shut off.

I believe I was on that last attempt with Miuramir, but as a hanger on to the team. So as a team +1 we got him to 50% health before the timer tossed us out. Out of four attempts, I saw two successes and two failures. Those two successes occurred with 2 1/2+ teams. I wasn't able to time the runs to see how much time is allowed in LW's realm. I would guess that the whole event from start (opening presents) to finish took about 20 minutes.

So for an event that seemed to require around half the participants of a Hami raid and half the time, we received 6 merits and 20 candy canes compared with Hami's 40. A single team could clear 4 regular GM's in that time and walk away with a better rewarded (provided the GM's are spawned).

On one hand, I enjoy the challenging aspect of the event and the possiblity of failure. It makes a win more satisfying. However, the balance is definitely skewed towards upper level characters and will require a level of participation that may not be present through the entire event. I can see people quickly become disenchanted with it.

Also, I think phasing is a terrible, terrible idea. While the transparent effect is fairly noticable due to his size, many people are going to fail to notice that Unaffected warning that floats over his head. I'm thinking particularly of those in melee and newer players. There is a definite reason Dimension Shift et al are some of the most avoided powers in the game. I would strongly recommend Photonstorm's idea of a snowstorm that repels/knockbacks everyone in range until the Guardian is defeated. It's obvious and easy to understand for any player new or old.

Seeing as there are a few new NPC's in this Christmas Event (It's Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays, I don't care, I celebrate Christmas, I'll say what I want, don't like it, tough), anyway...

There should be more badges for the event.

I'm posting this because I hope that maybe the Devs can add these in. Theres around a month left to the event so there could be some time.

An exploration badge for going into the Lord of Winters Domain would be nice and would make sense. Something like: Walking in a Winter Wonder Land or Wonder Land Wanderer.

One badge each for defeating each type of new NPC.

A badge for clicking on the door/present leading to the Lord of Winters Domain.

Also, a badge for reaching 999 Candy Canes and no, trading them doesn't count, it would work like the AE Ticket Badge.

With all of the new things added this year, it doesn't sound like it would take to long to get 999 Candy Canes.

What do you think Ghost Falcon.

Haven't read any of the other replies, just my own thoughts as they occur to me. Overall, I like the new Lord of Winter addition with a few concerns.

First, whenever a timer is involved, it should be visible. That includes however-many minutes the present portal remains open and available. A friend of mine was trying to join one of our runs this afternoon, but she arrived a few minutes after we'd started. Then she reported that the portal in Atlas had vanished. I'd had no idea it would disappear, so that surprised us both. I can think of some reasons why you'd want to do that, but it ought to display some visible indicator of how much time remains. That's less important than having a visible timer within the Lord Winter event map itself, though.

Speaking of which, I'm concerned that there needs to be more time within the event. In one attempt, we had maybe a couple of dozen people inside, and we failed to defeat Lord Winter in the allotted time. Some of that time was lost because most of us were there for the first time, and we didn't know when Winter goes intangible we had to defeat the other incoming GM. So, we lost a few minutes, but that suggests there isn't a lot of time to spare. Even on our successful attempt, we had maybe ... three minutes left over? Not much.

Which brings me to my main point: although I loved the Deadly Apocalypse event, the timer was a bit aggressive for lower-populaton servers where (after the first couple days of crazed badger participation) you might have a dozen or so people show up to participate. A well-tuned group can maybe do it in that time, but the PUG nature of the event means you won't often have an optimal balance. I attended several Apocalypse events where the participants simply weren't able to defeat the banners quickly enough after they became vulnerable. The glyphs scaled up banner toughness very quickly even for smallish groups. It's aggravating to watch time run out when you're on the last banner ... again.

For the Apocalypse, I maintain that each banner defeated should have added two or three minutes back to the event timer. Similarly, I suggest each of the WLs spawned within the Winter event should put a few minutes back on the timer when defeated. Lord Winter seemed very tough, and he certainly needs to be tough to last any amount of time against the kind of crowds he'll be seeing on some servers. But a person's chance of success should not be dramatically reduced just because they prefer to live on a lower-population server. It's not quite proper for a team to fail not because they can't beat Lord Winter (or banners), but because they can't do it quite quickly enough. So yes, I'm just arguing for a somewhat more generous timer.

I hope you guys know what you're doing with the portal to other instances of Lord Winter's zone. Considering the amount of time involved to defeat him compared to gathering canes via presents and defeating WLs normally, maybe people trying to chain-farm his zone isn't really anything to be concerned about.

MInor detail: it's one thing for Lord Winter to go intangible, but all of the little sprite things that spawn around him really shouldn't blink out with him. Or if they do, it's rather annoying for them to be able to attack while phased. You should also put different sound effects on their Peacebringer-type blasts.

Those are really my only concerns, I think. Everything else seemed fairly straightforward, though it had to be explained to most of us. The first time in, most of us didn't even know there was a "Lord Winter" on the map to defeat, much less the WL spawns, and such. The reward (6 merits, 20 canes, badge) seems about right, no matter what others may say. I'd rather not see us reduced to nothing but LW farms for two weeks. The inevitable yearly all-day WL-hunting parties in Atlas are quite enough.

Thanks for the opportunity. Glad I finally happened to be online and on test during the day.

Regards,
FCM

I saw the Naughty Halo on one of my characters list, not sure why it isn't showing on Zombie Man's list.