Rewards?
If you still enjoy mordrem invasion after you did it 30 times, or if you still enjoy personal story for the 10th time, or if you still enjoy doing LS2 for the 30th time, or if you still enjoy doing map completion for the 13th time, or if you still enjoy a jumping puzzle for the 50th time…
Well than lucky for you, but after I did everything a couple times I usually stop doing it or do it only for reward.
IGN: Euer Verderben
[RUC] Riverside United Corps! For Riverside!
[RUC] Riverside United Corps! For Riverside!
I didn’t mind the event itself really. If it was geared up to be a small introduction to LS events for newer players, then it would have been perfect.
However, the rewards chosen (hugely enticing, limited availability and gem-store items) along with their ridiculous price-tags didn’t allow the whole thing to be a “dip-in, dip-out” sort of thing, it meant that people felt forced to farm it. If you were aiming for one of the skins, you’d be pushed to get the second to complete the set.
We have seen other farming in-game, but it has been far healthier as the player has more control on when to stop as there isn’t a huge goal fixed in place for them with a very short dead-line (for example, champ farming and chest farming).
Moreover, the low-price-tag items in the vendor are a bit of a joke and there’s a pretty big jump from the cheaper items to the more enticing ones, without much of a middle-ground. (The watchwork moa can be purchased from the TP, but the mini pack is reasonable value).
People are also upset because it’s a blatant rehash of one of the LS1 events with the toxic offshoot events, where there were also 3 different methods of attack. However, the tokens dropped in these events (Pristine Toxic Spore Samples) could be obtained through other methods aside from the events and would be earned from finishing each single event, having to be harvested from the ground where the offshoot stood.
Moreover, the foes didn’t offer anything themselves- no drops, no exp, no gold. The events didn’t even award anything, as far as I recall. So, the only thing you actually get from spending 30 minutes in a map doing a fairly repetitive task is a few tokens, in which you need a rather large amount of to afford anything truly worthwhile.
This all being said, I enjoyed the frantic run around- it was getting a little on the tedious side towards the end, but that was to be expected. I did farm it a heck of a lot to afford 3 skins. I certainly wouldn’t have done it for as long as I did (which was an unhealthy amount) if the rewards weren’t what they were, if they were currently available in the gem-store, if the event was more rewarding or if the items were cheaper.
You are right, most people want instant gratification… but, there is no doubt that Arenanet designed these particular events really badly. The few event mechanics themselves were not bad but the rewards were just awful. I don’t even mean the amount of blooms that dropped, i mean the items you could get with blooms.
Then there is the fact that you just had to tag, waypoint, tag, stack 20 and sit afk for maximum blooms.
This recent event had 2 issues with it:
1 – The reward system (especially it being to be most efficient people had to just tag and run to the next event).
2 – The event itself had NO effect or consequences. It could NOT suceed. Even if ZERO people went to the map and no one did the event it would have failed as when the time ran out it was over either way. This was the biggest issue I had with the whole thing. It was nothing more than a time limit to beat up as many bad guys for fun or just go on a tagging spree for more rewards.
Drops or no drops aside it was just not implemented well at all. Your post seems to be all about the event side of things, the effect of it, the lore, the immersion which I too am all for. Sadly that can’t be applied to this event as Anet simply dropped the ball on it imo.
Edit:
For me this event was not very fun for a few reasons. One, you could not simply do it when you felt like it. It was on a strict schedule and at a very short limited one at that. Turn up and do it for 30 mins, wait x amount of time and travel to new map until you could continue to do it. Repeat and then wait for an hour and a half to repeat the whole thing over again. That to me is not very fun.
Add to that you were getting no drops for actually repelling the invaders it just felt pointless. Sure helping out made the event succeed but what did that achieve really if we were to be honest? All it did was put a notch on our buff to increase our rewards as well as clear the event so it could simply appear again in the exact spot so we could clear it again a little later for another notch on our buff. Again it just felt pointless.
Now to the events themselves, the mobs died rather fast, again had no drops. The spawns were endless until the event was done and they did very little besides attack the nearest player to them. They just had little direction. They were not invading anything except for patches of land it seemed. From what I recall they were not taking over villages, camps or anything we would really care about. We were saving a patch of grass and that’s pretty much it.
I would have had more fun if a lot of these things were not so. It would have been more fun if it felt like it was worth my time. As it was all I did was go for my daily 20 per map tbh. I did not do what most others did and run from event to event trying to get 20 stacks. To me that was just farming which I don’t do unless I find it terribly fun. No I stayed at the events and helped to clear them, my goal was merely 5 stacks so I could get something on top of my daily 20.
But even doing that felt boring fast. As I would get it easily within 10 mins, so I had to kill time for the next 20 mins or so. At first I helped finish other events but I soon got bored of this. Why? It was just mindless killing for nothing tbh. No rewards and with what I mentioned above it felt pointless, I was not saving anything (except a piece of grass) and helping no one except for other players who were being downed. Which I would do gladly but in the end I just gave up running to the next event and decided to just gather from nodes or complete normal events I came across. I also just went around killing normal mobs because shock horror sometimes they actually gave a reward, imagine that! O.O
Okay I think I have said enough now lol. I just did not find much fun in these events basically because of the mechanics, how it all seemed pointless and nothing more than a race to build up your buff stack and saving a piece of grass or a hill. If you OP managed to still find the fun/immersion from all this then grats, more power to you, but for myself I just could not.
Since when did this business of being a hero become being a business?
(edited by Paulytnz.7619)
Rewards is one aspect that makes these events fun. It’s a part of looking forward to what new item you will be able to buy with them. At least for me, I’ll play the events already giddy about what I’ll be able to choose from the vendor or wondering what I might get as loot.
Do I enjoy lore and gameplay? Absolutely, but I also enjoy collecting things. It’s another way of fun in the game for me. And if the event cannot combine fun gameplay and being able to collect stuff, I’ll have to choose one over the other. I can get fun gameplay anytime else, but those rewards are only available for a limited time, so of course I’ll choose the rewards. This is not so much about instant gratification for me, but long term. I’ll have those items and will look fondly back to the events that gave them, even if they were a bit of a mess (looking at you, Karka event).