Celestial Challenges 2022

[Luthan.5236]

9 hours ago, DaFishBob.6518 said:

Just because that one person managed to get an extra stack does not mean you did not benefit from your own hard work as you still helped get the final chest to spawn faster with your efforts that pushed the person who got the stack to complete the event faster.

Yes of course. But this only/mainly works as long as you don't spend your with doing something else. If you really have fun doing the challenge - actively playing it. And getting more rewards in the same time - by completing it faster (if playing efficiently.).

If my goal is only to get the daily ... then finishing and after that playing some other content  ... of course I can not just play the other content during the challange - and go back to loot the chest once it is finished. I need to stay in the map. (Might as well play - to not get bored while waiting for others to do the work.)

The main thing for me is: I actually get bored fast - tend to alt-tab out and read some news. Most of the previous challenges I have tried to fully play. But every now and then (especially when joining and it almost is finished - only 1 or 2 more events to complete) ... do only a little bit - then alt-tabbing out doing something else then tabbing back to loot the chest.

I remember doing a similar playstyle in certain other areas in the game. WvW for example at the moment I try to only get wood tier every week (for the +1 extra pip following week if completed wood before - so I have that extra should I decide to play more). With killing 1 player resetting participation timer to 10 (or capping a camp) - I often alt-tab out for 5-8 minutes .... then going back to just cap again. (And repeating - until the wood tier is completed.) Lol. but depends on how much is going on. (If there are fun fights ... I actually enjoy the fun. But sometimes the matchup or the time I play ... it is just boring.)

Edited February 1, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Danikat.8537]

I just go in assuming I will never get top participation. There are players who will change their whole build for this activity, memorise routes for the most points and things like that. I'm not that desperate to get an extra chest and as long as I don't those players will beat me so it's not worth trying to do a bit better than I currently do when it makes absolutely no difference.

I don't go afk during an event or anything like that, I still play actively throughout (as someone else said it helps get it finished sooner) but I'm not going to worry about if I could have gotten one more gate or target or whatever if only I'd had a slightly better technique. It's not going to make a difference, so it doesn't matter.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 2/1/2022 at 2:15 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think one of the real problems is that, particularly with the race events like Horse or Rabbit, once a player gets more than a couple of seconds ahead you know they're going to win unless they mess up. Having some sort of bonus for second and third place would ameliorate this.

It would be better just to add bonus chest for everyone that is above certain participation level. That level could be adjusted based on high and low results, or could be a certain flat value, but it should be high enough that even someone that would go for "bare minimum for bonus chest" would have to put some actual effort into it.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

I am pretty disappointed with this event this year.  In part for the reasons others have stated (buggy events, easier to leech than engage, etc).

It is common to see only 5 events (and the 5th be partial) as the first 4 don't always get completed in time.

I would prefer to see the events do the following:

1. Events should scale based upon players in the instance.
2. Event timers should be lowered overall (down to 2 minutes from 3) , but guaranteed 6 random events will trigger.
3. To gain the first stack of Lucky Auras per event, each player would need minimum participation per event (5 motes or 3 cheese or 5 race gates etc)
4. Bonus Stacks of Lucky Aura are given to everyone if the event is beat before the timer expires

This feels 'fair' to me.  You come to play, and if you play hard and the team succeeds, everyone gets a bonus.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Ashantara.8731]

19 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

1. Events should scale based upon players in the instance.
2. Event timers should be lowered overall (down to 2 minutes from 3) , but guaranteed 6 random events will trigger.
3. To gain the first stack of Lucky Auras per event, each player would need minimum participation per event (5 motes or 3 cheese or 5 race gates etc)
4. Bonus Stacks of Lucky Aura are given to everyone if the event is beat before the timer expires

Those are all great suggestions!

Let me change the title of this thread, I think my initial concerns have already been addressed and it was an issue of perception on my end.

[mythical.6315]

On 1/31/2022 at 5:49 PM, DaFishBob.6518 said:

helped get the final chest to spawn faster

Not really that much faster. 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

I guess that there is some form of scaling as today, trying to clear my weekly out, ran the challenge a few times and at least twice had 3+ people AFK in instance leeching.

It made it impossible to finish 2 events (simply not enough DPS), most collection events never finished before the timer, and Rabbit.....I ran 2.5 times around the course before it was finished.....

I haven't had that same experience previously, when in an instance with 3-4 active players and no one AFK.

This whole festival is pretty weak, but the more I think about, look at and play the Celestial Challenge, the more I realize how poorly designed and implemented it is.  That you can AFK and get as many rewards as someone trying (but not getting top contribution) is very poor all around.

EDIT

I can confirm scaling.  Entered the instance this morning with only myself and 1 other player.  We needed only 5 cheese total for Rat.  Then 4-5 more players zoned in and 2 went immediately AFK on the back ramp.  We were unable to finish any of the next 5 events on time.  The two AFK players?  They were running up to the chests as soon as the last event expired.

Players should not get loot for zoning into the instance and doing nothing.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Firebeard.1746]

On 1/31/2022 at 5:49 PM, DaFishBob.6518 said:

You're all looking at it the wrong way if you don't get highest contribution. Just because that one person managed to get an extra stack does not mean you did not benefit from your own hard work as you still helped get the final chest to spawn faster with your efforts that pushed the person who got the stack to complete the event faster.

I mean I'd rather get to that main chest faster even if it means I get a few less greens, essences of luck, and token shards than someone else.

My main issue with this mechanic is that it favors particular professions and it's basically asking me to play professions with more mobility instead of one i enjoy. Something like that feels really out of place in a festival. And yeah, it does suck, even ignoring that 

 

Let's say i'm barely second each time, sure we got it faster, but winner takes all in terms of bonus doesn't properly reflect the fact that i also worked very hard and put in a lot of effort and am largely responsible for faster completion. Let's say because of bad luck i'm also always put with someone better than me, but i'm better than 90% of the population. That would mean i'm not getting better rewards than someone worse than me who has better luck. 

 

If they're going to reward participation, they should reward it for hitting certain breakpoints in terms of performance, not being the best. I'm fine if the person gets one extra stack at the end after all events if they're vip, but they shouldn't get double the bonus i did, especially if i'm a close second in every event. 

[draxynnic.3719]

While I largely agree that the events should be a little less "winner takes all", I have to ask...

...are they getting double the reward at the end?

Sure, they might get twice as many of the smaller chests, but there's still only one big chest at the end regardless of whether you get 1 charge or 12.

[Firebeard.1746]

27 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

While I largely agree that the events should be a little less "winner takes all", I have to ask...

...are they getting double the reward at the end?

Sure, they might get twice as many of the smaller chests, but there's still only one big chest at the end regardless of whether you get 1 charge or 12.

 

Well i did distinguish that it's double the bonus, not total reward in my post. However to flip this on its head: what's the incentive for trying harder if i'm not #1? If i know i won't get first place there's not much reason to push myself. That might be why there's person(s) complaining about afkers on this very thread. I'm not saying you're wrong, but i feel the impact on gameplay of this system isn't positive. 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

...are they getting double the reward at the end?

Compare the rewards:

Big Chest vs Little Chests

It is all about getting Token of the Celestial Champion Fragment and since you get 2-4 in the Big Chest and 1-4 in the Little Chests, winning events gives you a fast way to increase your Fragments earned.  If you on average complete 5 events per Challenge, and you can win 2 or 3, the extra Little Chests add a lot of Fragments to your loot.

That bonus is worth it enough for some players that they will optimize their builds for the Challenge.

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/7/2022 at 8:45 PM, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Compare the rewards:

Big Chest vs Little Chests

It is all about getting Token of the Celestial Champion Fragment and since you get 2-4 in the Big Chest and 1-4 in the Little Chests, winning events gives you a fast way to increase your Fragments earned.  If you on average complete 5 events per Challenge, and you can win 2 or 3, the extra Little Chests add a lot of Fragments to your loot.

That bonus is worth it enough for some players that they will optimize their builds for the Challenge.

 

It might technically be 1-4 for the small chests, but in practice it's weighted very heavily towards the lower end - the average is somewhere between 1 and 2. Meanwhile, the average for the big chest seems to be close to (albeit a little below) 3.

More importantly, though, unless you're pushing for all eight full tokens per day and running it multiple times, the first time you do the activity each day you get one full token. So the big chest is worth around 11 fragments, so it's effectively worth around 6-8 little chests.

Now, obviously, the relative value of the big chest is smaller for subsequent runs, but you've still got the baseline of one chest for each event, plus the big chest. So even if one player wins every single event, the player who AFKs is still getting more than half. In the more likely scenario of one player with an optimised build and experienced with the challenges winning about half of the challenges, the gap is going to be smaller. Still worth going for winning the events if you have a shot, but it's far from doubling the reward for the run overall.

I do agree that there should be a more organic bonus reward structure than "you win or you get the baseline", but even in the most extreme case of one player winning every event, they're not getting double the reward of everyone else, and I don't think I've ever seen one player winning EVERY event. 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I do agree that there should be a more organic bonus reward structure than "you win or you get the baseline", but even in the most extreme case of one player winning every event, they're not getting double the reward of everyone else, and I don't think I've ever seen one player winning EVERY event. 

I've had 11 Small Chests several times over the past 2 years.  It isn't impossible but, unlikely.

Consider my observed situation above, where the average player gets 5 events and 5 chests, and if someone works hard, they win 2 or 3 extra chests.  That is 40-60% more randomized loot (or 33-50% if you want to add in the big chest).  If you are farming to max Fragments for the day, that speeds you up considerably.

It incentivizes making custom builds to farm this, which I did do last year.  Last year I was able to win 2, 3 and even 4 events easily per round.  As most players won't do that, you do have a very high chance of winning several events and cashing in on the extra chests.

This year I am not invested in farming, just do my daily/weekly minimums and get on with my life.  This change of view has made me realize that the extra work to not get extra rewards is a waste of time.  Sure, if the events are cleared faster you can get to a 6th event but, you would actually need everyone trying to finish each event quickly and efficiently, probably using a decent build.  That rarely if ever happens.

[Shining One.1635]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I do agree that there should be a more organic bonus reward structure than "you win or you get the baseline", but even in the most extreme case of one player winning every event, they're not getting double the reward of everyone else, and I don't think I've ever seen one player winning EVERY event. 

I've won every event... multiple times. I've even gotten enough stacks of Lucky Aura to open all 12 chests a couple times. I would imagine that skilled thief mains (which I'm not) would do even better.