A Look Back on Halloween 2018

[Alimar.8760]

Now that Halloween is coming to a close, by far I've found it the best of its kind since it's debut right after the games release. I wanted to post this so we can discuss what we enjoyed, what we disliked, and what we wish we could add to the festival next year. Offer suggestions, comments, and ideas.

I enjoyed:

• The return of Reapers Rumble and a beetle track on the same map.
• The addition of decorations to the guild hall
• The addition of holiday decorations and merchants outside of every major city in the starter areas.

I disliked:

• How the beetle track was not a new or dedicated map designed around the beetle, but a race track for beetle built around an existing map.
• No return of the Mad Prince's story missions or dungeons. It would be nice to have these back as well.
• The lack of significantly interesting guild hall decorations.

Comments:I enjoyed the raceway. But despite that I couldn't help but dislike the map even though I dedicated time to be able to do the race under 50 seconds. It just feels clunky and unwieldy. It shows what you can do with a map that isn't dedicated to the beetle. (Which is make a very hard race.) But I feel the implementations and expectations of it's announcement and subsequent release could have been done better.)

I've mentioned before that I couldn't wait for Reaper's Rumble to come back. Now that I've done it, Reaper's Rumble feels very slow. And there seems to be a lack of player base in the game type like many other festival games. Seems I'm only playing with one or two other people unless it's a daily.

The lack of significant decorations in the guild hall were interesting. I enjoyed the flowers and the casket. The giant ribs seem another matter. They seem designed for maybe beetle but outside of making a large beetle track using these decorations I hesitate to see how they can be used. Feel free to offer suggestions!

Suggestions:

• We can't do much with the raceway, let it keep its difficulty. Halloween has had famously hard content like the clock tower. Let it stand as something to master for next year.
• Reapers Rumble and other subsequent pvp holiday games should get a rewards update and maybe help people do matchmaking. Increasing the rewards would help encourage people to play them on occasions and a main reason I like these holiday games is to play with friends in a non serious pvp environment. Perhaps allow guild's to queue into a map together. Although I see this as being potentially impossible with current coding and infrastructure.
• Decorations! There are so many possibilities of assets that already exist and we get giant ribs, a casket and flowers! They're great but I'd like to offer other ideas. All the decorations used for the holiday area outside each major city should be made into a decoration: https://imgur.com/a/lpPhvSF Piles of gourds, a large stage, pumpkin lights, large pumpkin tent, hay bales, small round orange and black tent, a cart with pumpkins. These would all be excellent decorations in the guild halls and the assets are already there. I would also like to offer piles of candy corn and the different trees, doors, and gravestones in Lions Arch, and creepy fences likened to the small walls we jump over in the labyrinth.

That's what I have. What suggestions do you guys have? Let's give this Halloween a good sendoff.

[kharmin.7683]

There is already a Halloween 2018 feedback thread here

[Randulf.7614]

The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...

• excessive rng, with very low odds on getting new stuff. In 3 weeks, I got 1 new skin and 2 new minis. In every Halloween game this year I got everything I wanted for mycharacter and decorations, in less play time. These are fun things, we shouldn't have to grind, farm or work hard to get them. There should be enough time to get areasonable amount of things easily, a couple of very rare things and a bit of time to actually show them off within the festival.

• the beetle track. sure they fixed it and quickly, but it worries me a little that they thought it was fine to release

• clocktower lobby. I don't mind being unable to do the jp. I mind waiting more than trying though

Things I liked

• the content. It's always fun at least even if the least rewarding of all the halloween contents I played. And there is always more halloween content than elsewhere

• the new mount skins and the chair

• the precursor that dropped for me. Took the sting out of the lack of any festival rewards

• an attempt to bring Joko into it, even if it was a bit thrown together

Improvements :

• better designed beetle track
• less emphasis on excessive grinding and farming
• bring back the Prince Thorn story
• work on improving clocktower waiting times
• maybe scale Mad Kings Ascent better for 5 players.

[Hashberry.4510]

The lab grind is entirely player created, nothing forces that.

[Alimar.8760]

@"kharmin.7683" said:There is already a Halloween 2018 feedback thread here

Thank you for the information. While that is a feedback thread, I think it is important to separate our initial impressions from our feelings after the whole festival has had it's course and the devs have made all the last minute changes they have decided to make.

[Alimar.8760]

@Randulf.7614 said:The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...
• clocktower lobby. I don't mind being unable to do the jp. I mind waiting more than trying thoughImprovements :
• better designed beetle track
• less emphasis on excessive grinding and farming

I understand what your thoughts are about these. But the player rules are exactly that. Player rules, you are in no obligation to follow them and there are plenty of maps out there with tons of commanders that farm different ways. In general though, there are reasons for the rules. Mounts hit too hard and prevent everyone from achieving tag credit. The same goes for trinkets, they push the dps too much and you end up killing the creatures before everyone can tag. Bosses take too much time when you are prioritizing number of bags versus time. The commander is exactly that, a commander. If you don't want to follow them, then why are you in the squad? It's a map for farming, I see nothing wrong with squads prioritizing farming and telling people what the best way is for everyone.

With your thoughts on clocktower, I think the lobby is an inherit fact on how the clocktower is based. The map has a specific time, and resets after 15 minutes or 30 minutes. The map itself has a lot of things going on and I don't think it'd be feasible to provide everyone their own instances.

[Dibdabs.3410]

I find Seasonal Events incredibly tedious in every mmorpg I have ever played. They're just not my thing, plus the grind/rng is very aggravating for the rewards you end up with.

[Dante.1763]

@Randulf.7614 said:The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...

When it comes to the player rules bit, i snapped finally when i went to do dailies on a map that didnt have a commander, and after doing my 2nd door, a commander tag appeared and began crying in map chat about people opening doors without the zerg she had being there(5 people), and wouldnt stop sending me squad invites...that was it for me, i didnt go back after that(thankfully there was no point as it was the last time frame i could get the 5 days achievement done).

[Alimar.8760]

@"Dante.1763" said:When it comes to the player rules bit, i snapped finally when i went to do dailies on a map that didnt have a commander, and after doing my 2nd door, a commander tag appeared and began crying in map chat about people opening doors without the zerg she had being there(5 people), and wouldnt stop sending me squad invites...that was it for me, i didnt go back after that(thankfully there was no point as it was the last time frame i could get the 5 days achievement done).

For that I really wish there was an option to click "Not accepting invites" because I know there's the "invisible" option but I don't think it prevents people from inviting you.

[Goettel.4389]

Hard for me to do anything but grind lab, looking forward to that each year. OCD <3

[Alimar.8760]

OH! An addendum to my original post. Updating Sonder The Seller, to be able to sell the candy corn items from the candy corn merchant. Since most if not all other festival items are available there after the festival has ended. It would be nice to have this also be updated for Halloween.

[Alimar.8760]

@Goettel.4389 said:Hard for me to do anything but grind lab, looking forward to that each year. OCD <3

I wasn't able to farm as much as I wanted to this year but I've never regretted the lab or think the lab needs improvement. The additional upgrades to the lab this year were great and allowed me to fly over most of it with impunity.

[Randulf.7614]

@Alimar.8760 said:

@Goettel.4389 said:Hard for me to do anything but grind lab, looking forward to that each year. OCD <3

I wasn't able to farm as much as I wanted to this year but I've never regretted the lab or think the lab needs improvement. The additional upgrades to the lab this year were great and allowed me to fly over most of it with impunity.

Being able to properly griffon across it was a BIG plus for me. I loved looping and diving so to speak

[Hoosierpappy.8412]

"silly player rules".....pppfffttt......Im an outlaw and I ride if I wanna! Keep inviting me, I do as I wish! How many times I ressed those dead fools!

[sorudo.9054]

the grinding killed it for me, 30.000 corns for a hat is just absurd...

[starlinvf.1358]

@"sorudo.9054" said:the grinding killed it for me, 30.000 corns for a hat is just absurd...

That equates to roughly 102g, or 350 gems give or take...... and "THAT" is note worthy for absurd things you can think of?

BTW, if anyone hadn't realized it, the corn cobs and candy corn can be traded on the TP.

[sorudo.9054]

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"sorudo.9054" said:the grinding killed it for me, 30.000 corns for a hat is just absurd...

That equates to roughly 102g, or 350 gems give or take...... and "THAT" is note worthy for absurd things you can think of?

BTW, if anyone hadn't realized it, the corn cobs and candy corn can be traded on the TP.

i find 102g quite an absurd amount, not everyone has 200g an hour, some take months to get 30g.

[Blocki.4931]

@Alimar.8760 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...
• clocktower lobby. I don't mind being unable to do the jp. I mind waiting more than trying though
  Improvements :
• better designed beetle track
• less emphasis on excessive grinding and farming

I understand what your thoughts are about these. But the player rules are exactly that.

Player

rules, you are in no obligation to follow them and there are plenty of maps out there with tons of commanders that farm different ways. In general though, there are reasons for the rules. Mounts hit too hard and prevent everyone from achieving tag credit. The same goes for trinkets, they push the dps too much and you end up killing the creatures before everyone can tag. Bosses take too much time when you are prioritizing number of bags versus time. The commander is exactly that, a commander. If you don't want to follow them, then why are you in the squad? It's a map for farming, I see nothing wrong with squads prioritizing farming and telling people what the best way is for everyone.

The no mounts "rule" is really sensible for the lab at least. The mobs are so frail, they die in 10 hits. A mount engage skill deals like 8k damage, meaning only a couple hits remain. It's simply extremely rude and people who were shamed for doing it all the time after being asked to stop are rightfully shamed.

@Dante.1763 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...

When it comes to the player rules bit, i snapped finally when i went to do dailies on a map that

didnt

have a commander, and after doing my 2nd door, a commander tag appeared and began crying in map chat about people opening doors without the zerg she had being there(5 people), and wouldnt

stop

sending me squad invites...that was it for me, i didnt go back after that(thankfully there was no point as it was the last time frame i could get the 5 days achievement done).

I feel you on the squad invite spam... There really are people who believe you're on some rogue mission to sabotage them if you're not inside the squad. I noticed this first in Istan, where some people will trash talk you for weeks or even months if you for whatever reason (like coming from a bugged map and having half a squad or map closing, pushing me and my squad on an already populated map) have a second tag up, despite the first squad being at 50/50... I'm doing the same thing as everybody else there, why do they need to insult me for having a squad when we can't join or merge with his anyway? Stuff like that really triggers me. Forgive my rambling, had to get it out.

[Randulf.7614]

@Blocki.4931 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...
• clocktower lobby. I don't mind being unable to do the jp. I mind waiting more than trying though
  Improvements :
• better designed beetle track
• less emphasis on excessive grinding and farming

I understand what your thoughts are about these. But the player rules are exactly that.

Player

rules, you are in no obligation to follow them and there are plenty of maps out there with tons of commanders that farm different ways. In general though, there are reasons for the rules. Mounts hit too hard and prevent everyone from achieving tag credit. The same goes for trinkets, they push the dps too much and you end up killing the creatures before everyone can tag. Bosses take too much time when you are prioritizing number of bags versus time. The commander is exactly that, a commander. If you don't want to follow them, then why are you in the squad? It's a map for farming, I see nothing wrong with squads prioritizing farming and telling people what the best way is for everyone.

The no mounts "rule" is really sensible for the lab at least. The mobs are so frail, they die in 10 hits. A mount engage skill deals like 8k damage, meaning only a couple hits remain. It's simply extremely rude and people who were shamed for doing it all the time after being asked to stop are rightfully shamed.

@Dante.1763 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

The things I disliked the most;

• silly player rules in the labyrinth like no mounts, no bosses, do as comm says etc etc. it's festival content...

When it comes to the player rules bit, i snapped finally when i went to do dailies on a map that

didnt

have a commander, and after doing my 2nd door, a commander tag appeared and began crying in map chat about people opening doors without the zerg she had being there(5 people), and wouldnt

stop

sending me squad invites...that was it for me, i didnt go back after that(thankfully there was no point as it was the last time frame i could get the 5 days achievement done).

I feel you on the squad invite spam... There really are people who believe you're on some rogue mission to sabotage them if you're not inside the squad. I noticed this first in Istan, where some people will trash talk you for weeks or even months if you for whatever reason (like coming from a bugged map and having half a squad or map closing, pushing me and my squad on an already populated map) have a second tag up, despite the first squad being at 50/50... I'm doing the same thing as everybody else there, why do they need to insult me for having a squad when we can't join or merge with his anyway? Stuff like that really triggers me. Forgive my rambling, had to get it out.

I get the idea behind the no mounts thing and yes players should be respectful, but given that when no mounts are in force, comms go in front with a few others and burst the mobs down before others can tag them. I know not every comm does this and it isnt always deliberate, but i dont really think it makes much difference ultimately.

If it was constant mount spamming, maybe id be more agreeable, but such griefing is extremely rare and i just hate festival content being given rules (i guess it counts as my own personal trigger!)