[Feedback] Easter Event 2017

[Suts]

To BB team,

I think you did a good job on the 3x loot option for some Coop adventures and some other adventures that were not getting a lot of attention. The change made them more attractive to run.

Hopefully, this is constructive criticism on what to address for the next event. This post is about the Easter event, but pertains to all of them.

I think it is safe to say that the Easter event is all about collecting eggs. Everything revolves around that.

Player excitement is driven by collecting eggs while doing adventures. And nothing kills the momentum more than receiving zero eggs after running an adventure. Please eliminate this option.

Personally I had five loot drops in a row that delivered zero eggs. This causes a lot of frustration with the game and concern that the game is broken somehow. This increases complaints and tickets to the support team. Nobody wants this to happen.

There a few ways to deal with the zero egg drop problem. The easiest for the development team is probably to keep the existing three tiers of 25% = zero, 55% = current base rate and 20% = bonus rate and simply change the drops in those tiers. A suggested drop rate is 25% = 1/2 the current base rate, 55% = current base rate and 20% = double the current base rate.

Example is as follows, Witch of the Swamp is currently 0, 30, 50. Change this to 15, 30 , 60.

Doing this would make the event more enjoyable for everyone and it is not a difficult thing to do. There are of course other options for changing the drop rate, but I find them more complicated and the simplest solution is usually a very good one even if it is not the best.

There are some adventures where the bonus is more than 2x the base rate. I am not suggesting that this be lowered to 2x, but I do understand that it might be necessary. Maybe the bonus could be 2.2x or 2.5 times. Or, perhaps simply change the minimum drop to be 1/2x and not make any other changes.

If overall egg inflation is a worry to BB, then the spoiler will explain how to do what I am proposing without increasing the total egg count.

Spoiler

I realize this could be a concern on your end. But I do think that more eggs is a good thing. However I realize you may be concerned that the overall affect of changing this would be to increase the total amount of eggs on the server by 25% * 50% of the base value. So below you will find the calculation to do what I propose above without increasing the total eggs dropped per adventure server wide.

A couple of calculations are needed to make this happen. We need the current average payout per adventure and we need to compute what the new base number should be considering that the three tiers will now be paying 1/2 base, base, and 2x base.

This is fairly straight forward although it takes a lot of words to describe what the numbers are.

Current average payout... Base * .55 + Bonus * .2 = P

Then we need the new base payout value. This comes from the current average payout divided by a constant. This has to be done for each adventure. You are probably using a table with 3 entries for each adventure.

So the entry for Black Knight might look something like
BK 0, 45, 90.

The average payout for BK is currently 45*.55 + 90*.2 = 42.75
We need to spread this average into the same three tiers as before but with a non-zero value in the lowest tier. The equation for that is

.5x + x + 2x = 42.75
x = 12.2

We then need to scale (adjust if you prefer) this number to the current average payout equation.

(.25*.5*12.2) + (.55*12.2) + (.2*.2*12.2) = 13.115
13.115/12.2 = 1.075

This 1.075 is a constant that represents the ratio between the old payout method and the new one and so we can shortcut some of the above calculations for each adventure.

42.75 is the current average payout. The new base is determined by the current average payout divided by a constant 1.075. So 42.75 / 1.075 = new base = 39.77. We will call that 40.

The constant is determined from the current probability tiers and the desire to have the new payouts conform to the 1/2x base, base and 2x base values.
The equation for that is (.5x *.25) + .55x + (.2x * 2) X = 1.075

So the new base is 40. The BK table entry will look like
BK: 20, 40, 80

If we calculate the new average payout based on these number we get .25*.25 + .55*40 + .2*80 = 43 Compare to the original average payout number of 42.75.

Doing one more example using Witch of the Swamp numbers,
WotS 0, 30, 50 --- the average is 26.5
26.5 / 1.075 = 24.65 rounds to 25. So 25 is the new base.

WotS 13, 25, 50 --- the new average is 27

I think these numbers are close enough that it will not cause any server egg inflation and players get eggs everytime they run an adventure.

It should be noted that by removing the zero egg drops from the adventures, you may be causing an increase of players running more adventures. This will increase the overall egg count on the server. But this should be a positive outcome and a measurement of a successful change to the game.

Please consider making these changes for future events that drop special loot when running adventures.

Regarding the 3x loot for some adventures. I think this was a great idea and a good approach. I think it should apply to all the COOP adventures. Also, not sure what happened to Sons of the Veld, but this adventure needs the 3x loot bonus applied to it as well.


Thank you for your time BB and thanks for the game.

[Bac0n]

Great idea Suts!

[Gotham_Resident]

Yes, zero drops is very frustrating and "feels" that it happen more often than that. I work full time and so when I do an adventure that takes an hour - and get nothing for it, it's very frustrating. Sometimes that's my game time for the day.

[Perwyn]

Yep. But not anymore... they nerfed her.

Au contraire mon ami........ sent my Courageous Explorer out on an artifact search and she came back with 2, count 'em, 2 artifacts. A solid sammich and a rainbow snow. So obviously she hasn't been nerfed.

[AlliNel]

Will we still be able to drop the truces & bribes on the mayors house for a refund of resources , after the event, like we have in the past?
There's nothing in Dev's Diary about it.

[Raubhautz]

Au contraire mon ami........ sent my Courageous Explorer out on an artifact search and she came back with 2, count 'em, 2 artifacts. A solid sammich and a rainbow snow. So obviously she hasn't been nerfed.

Very good to hear. ty. She is out now on her first Artifact Search...

[supermind]

+1 to a changing 0 egg drop to at least something. Nothing more frustrating than seeing no eggs after you spend lots of time adventuring. Overall I think this event was eggcellent. So many goodies in the shop to buy with them. Just wondering if some people realize this is just a game and gold coins here are not real money, so gauging prices gets them nowhere. Even try to sell eggs last minute for outrageous amount of resources

[TboneX]

Please get rid of the zero drops for event currencies.

It's very annoying/disheartening/frustrating to deal with and while the 'jackpot' large rewards are supposed to offset it, this is putting too much RNG into the picture for a rewarding player experience.

Having Horseback drop triple was the single best offset for the zero drops in this year's event.

I believe that the numbers will show that the co-op maps STILL are unplayable at triple loot. Maybe 10x loot?

The selection of products available from the shop was varied and broad. Very nice.

The 'go find the 9 eggs on this island' adventures remain boring as hell. Howsabout ditching those in favor of some content that's fun? I'd like to see some new adventure maps introduced during events. Perhaps those can get the 3x loot bonus to give them an initial popularity bump.

This event was generally not broken re: login issues, servers down and such. Well, a little. But not too horribly. Good job. Keep doing better in this department cause it matters a lot.

Party Crashers are annoying after the first couple of days. I don't suppose party crashers would be anything BUT annoying by definition but maybe something could be done to make this element a little less meh?

Overall, I give this event a very positive rating. On a scale of 1-100, 85%.

[Stirbei]

I don't like the current way that the delayed release of event segments works. (Like how one quest chain part starts on the first day, then next is released 5 days later, etc.) I feel like this would be okay for a player that starts the event on the first day, but if a player begins late, I feel like the next segments of the Event chain should start whenever they complete the previous segment. The player shouldn't be forced to sit there for 5 days, unable to progress, while all the players around them who didn't miss a few days at the beginning get to move on, only to meet the end of the event missing a segment where a timer simply didn't expire and let the player begin that final segment.

Also, I didn't appreciate doing adventures and not receiving any eggs as a reward. It'd be nice if there's a guaranteed amount with a chance of bonus event items added on.

And, being unable to use the Modest Truces on anyone because everyone had advanced beyond the initial stage before I started the event...that's annoying. It would be nice if there was a way to still get to use those earlier truces, without missing out on the event achievements.

[Kadidile]

I agree with Suts, and the others that posted about the egg drops, my first two days of event running 4 of my own BK runs a Day and accepting loot spot for several more, I had 0 eggs from Adventures and on second day I had 90, almost felt like quitting at that point, I was so disappointed, on the 3rd day I started to average a 0 drop every other adventure, but the bonus and regular eggs dropped alternately between the 0 egg drop. I am not sure if it was because I was on Premium? but the whole event I averaged very close to 50% of the time 0 eggs, I may not do Adventures next year, just sell materials for eggs if that system is in Place next year, as I was exhausted by the end of event, I ran close to 90 of my own Bk runs and was in 30 to 50 Loot spots on other adventures; and I did not get enough eggs to purchase all the generals and buildings I had planned without buying eggs. Please consider changing the 0 eggs to at least some amount, so people don't get disappointed, at one point I was close to quitting the game.