I haven’t really read other suggestions due to lack of time, sorry for repeats and sorry in advance for the rather long post.
When designing an event, you have to start at the back. The first questions should be “What is the goal of this event?”.
Your answer in this case basically was: “The event is supposed to be a way to welcome new (F2P) players to the game, to bring them into contact with veterans. Guilds will be recruiting and at the same time be able to lead their new members into the game. We want to show new players how amazing our community is.” I will be referring to this as “premise”.
This means, that the event was mostly aimed at new players.
With that premise, the next questions based on your past experience with events should have been (kind of in that order):
1. What can we do to make it enjoyable for the event’s target audience, in this case: new players?
2. Which rewards would be useful for new players?
3. How can we make these rewards rather easily attainable for people who are not yet really familiar with the game and its combat system?
4. How can we ensure that the event is casual enough to actually give veterans time to recruit, chat with newbies, show them the ropes? (see premise!)
5. (Down the list of priorities – see premise!): Which rewards can we additionally offer Veterans to give them an incentive to participate as well, without taking away from the event’s goal (—> without turning it into a mindless farm fest).
Suggestions regarding these points:
1.:
You have to consider who the target audience actually is.
Newbies are people unfamiliar with the game. For a map wide event you have to consider one simple thing: They don’t have waypoints unlocked. They also don’t know how tagging works, they are slower and worse equipped.
What could have worked?
For example starting at the zone entrance, you gather with a team of priory explorers. Gathering time 2 miuntes for everyone to arrive. You have to escort the team to a camp, which is then attacked by mordrem. Trash mobs are good to suggest numbers, but what’s important is champs and elites to make sure, newbies with blues and greens 20 lvls below them are able to get credit. Have them drop champ bags.
This was event one: gives one stack of the buff.
After that, escort the team further to discover maybe a cluster of 3 vine crawlers -> big fight ensues, but again, it’s one big event. Gives another stack of the buff.
And so on. Lead the players through the zone event by event. Again, they’re newbies and don’t have waypoints. Use your new Yak-escort mechanic to ensure credit for the escort parts. Have downtimes of 1-2 minutes after every event to make it casual and enable people to actually chat, recruit, answer questions (see premise!).
All of this ensures everyone can get full credit and the same rewards. No tagging, no selfishness, because events take long enough, can’t be started early and you’re forced to participate. No alternatives to just going along with the flow of the event chain.
After 5 or 10 or whatever number of these events, reward chest pops up, 1 currency per stack, bonus chest. Which brings us to
2.:
A newbie event needs newbie rewards. Yes, it’s nice to bring back some old stuff for veterans, whatever. Yes, it’s nice to use it to rebalance a part of the economy (in this case enameled dyes).
But there was NOTHING useful for new players, except maaaybe possible money from scarlets memory box in the form of enameled dyes which F2P players can’t sell on the TP.
Good rewards would have been account bound best in slot items for certain levels. Level 30 rares, level 40 and 50 exotics. And uh, maybe don’t have them cost additional 50s, because for a new player that’s really a lot of money. Especially if they’re unable to sell on the TP.
And (really important, has been said millions of times): experience, karma and drops. Champs need to drop champ bags, trash mobs need to drop loot or better yet: coin. Why coin instead of drops? Because F2P accounts (see premise, your target audience!) have less bag slots. It’s extremely frustrating to have to leave the event to vendor trash. Or have them drop a single stacking trash loot item. But give rewards for killing stuff.
3.: See above. Make it a clear event chain with a moderate pace.
4.: See above.
5.: See above.
See? By starting with a premise and constantly checking your ideas against that premise, you are able to craft a good event. Have an awesome idea that doesn’t fit the event’s premise? Scrap it! (and keep it in your notebook for a time where it maybe fits).
Good authors have to be able to scrap whole chapters they put a lot of work in and which they may love, because they don’t fit the narrative. Event designers need to be able to do the same.
And please please please look at the scaling issues. Veterans participate with buffed out Level 80 chars. Mobs need to be able to take a beating. If melee classes in the middle of the train aren’t able to properly tag anything, scaling needs to be improved. Spawn Champs that are true HP bags but don’t hit too hard. Weak AoE attacks, some CC, so that it feels like a fight, but doesn’t instadown everyone who’s not yet really accustomed to dodging.
To get back to the small downtimes between events mentioned above: This way you can draw out the event to 30-45 minutes and have the next one start maybe 10-15 minutes later.
Cheers.
