Varista
Qedit Cave Expert
- Gender
- Male
- Guildcard
- 42011136
The anniversary event has just come and gone and boy, it was an event for sure.
I played the anniversary event in 2023 when I decided to give Ephinea a second go around to see if I liked it, and I only caught the tail end of the event for the final week, so I didn't expect much. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play the 2024 event so I had to wait another year until 2025 to play. Finally, when the time came, I was so prepared and ready for anything. I was convinced this event was going to be the time of my life and an event for the ages.
I went into this event expecting to grind really hard and very hopefully get something I'd been wanting. My goals for this event were to get any one of the following either accomplished or working towards it:
1. Find Heaven Punisher
2. Obtain 5 Photon Filters (either via gold badges or PDs)
3. Obtain a Heart of SS/Swords weapon heart
I had very miniscule goals overall; I don't think my goals were too difficult or unrealistic. There were plenty of quests and IDs that provided me the opportunity at a Heaven Punisher drop and the boosts would help with that. On top of that, a lot of the skin and filter desires I had could be achieved through buying them with PDs and the event has a natural boost on finding PDs so aside from these things, my goals were relatively simple and I felt as though I could achieve them pretty easily.
I played an average 5 hours a day every single day since the event started, the event began on a Monday so its pretty easy to calculate that I played an average of 35 hours a week on PSO; this is an average as I said, so it doesn't count the couple of weekends where I played for a solid 8-10 hours or the occasional weekday where I played longer either. In the long run I'd say that 35 hours a week is fine for some one like me. I work a business with my wife at home so I have to prioritize that before PSO, as many people with jobs themselves understand, PSO is a hobby and takes a back seat to real life. But despite that, playing 5 hours a day on average is a pretty big deal and I'd say I wasn't a guy who grinded a TON but I did grind a good amount.
That being said, lets get into my feedback around the event.
I was very happy to find out that they clumped the milestones together and I was also very happy to see the badge rate nerfs and buffs depending on which were played, although the nerfs themselves mattered significantly less once we unlocked the 50% badge drop increase, which would put any quest that was nerfed back up to 125%. I would have liked to see this badge rate nerf eventually get bigger and bigger as time moved on. I really would like to have seen it go up to 100% reduction in badge depending on how many times the quest has been cleared above everything else. Granted, I don't think this would have "fixed" the "issue" of most of the community running MAE Forest for the majority of the event but it would have at least put a damper on people's abilities to make MAE Forest a best of both worlds considering that 50% bonus in badge drop rate milestone reward. MAE Forest wasn't the only offender, despite it being the biggest, CCA and Desert were also played significantly more than everything else and I would have also liked to see those quests get bigger badge nerfs next year as well.
What I was most surprised with was how much I would enjoy Temple, the changes to Love Rappy and Mil Lily were very welcoming changes and it seems as though the new addition of players has skyrocketed the value of items like Vivienne and Rambling May (RM already was seeing a resurgence months prior as well but it was still the primary focus for Temple). I'm kinda hoping the Vivienne craze dies down significantly since I've started to see reserve prices for 45H Vivienne's go for higher (almost double) the max price point for a 30H Heaven Striker so as a personal note that is kinda insane. I didn't realize just how much I'd like running Temple with various IDs, it was a fun quest and a fun experience; my favorite IDs were Purplenum and Whitill but I didn't mind running Pinkal either.
Another thing was the August Atrocity quests, these quests were surprisingly very fun and engaging. Even with not-so-good teams you could clear it in about 10 minutes, which I believe is still pretty fast. The monster density and variety was very good and there were several IDs I considered running with them although my favorite were Skyly for Ep.1 and Whitill for Ep.2.
Now what actually happened with me during the event.
I practically did not get anything of substantial value to drop this event. I hit none of my goals, the most important one of which, to me, was getting a Heaven Punisher. I spammed the ever living hell out of Central Control Area this event on both Skyly and Purplenum and not a single HP to my name. A lot of my friends around me did, which is wonderful for them and I'm very happy for them, but I got nothing.
The thing of note that I found was a Lv.30 Rabarta disk which ended up being my only banner item for the event. I found a 30H Yasminkov 9000M which I sold for 40 PDs, and all of the gold badges I inevitably obtained via silver badge conversion and just simply finding them alongside the PDs I found along the way. I ended up selling my gold badges for PDs and then buying a Photon Sphere and an Srank Berserk Needle and added a special to it as well.
I didn't walk away empty handed thankfully, I did have something to look back on and be fond of finding and outside of the Level 200 banner I got; I was glad I even managed to get a single item banner at all (even if its not really something I wanted or was hunting, beggars cant be choosers).
What this post is mainly for is to try to paint a picture with the reader(s). That despite the fact that I spent over a hundred hours on this event in play time alone, despite the fact that I didn't really achieve any of the goals I set for myself, despite the fact that I did not get a single item banner that warranted any sort of bragging rights for myself and my friends, I still managed to walk away with something in the end and I got to meet and become friends with many wonderful people along the way. You see, despite my version of the Anniversary event not going the way I wanted I can still stand here and appreciate the play time, the friends, the money I made along the way. PSO is not just about finding things, its also about finding people, finding moments of glory and hilarity. I had a lot of great funny moments over voice comms talking to people like Pentel and Meecho. I had plenty of awesome congratulatory moments to my team mates for finding some insane items, one of which finding a coveted 100H Vise. I'm proud of all my team mates and friends that found things that made their event worth it; even if my event was not nearly as profitable, I don't care because I play PSO for the game play, the people, and the moments.
I realize other people don't play the game for the same reasons I do, and other people may be very angry or upset about their findings or their time spent. I've met plenty of people that are very unhappy with the way the event went, with the way that others found the things they were looking for while they received nothing in return. I know plenty of people that think their event play time was a huge waste of time and energy. But to those feeling bewildered about the Anniversary event and their participation, let me remind you, from one player that "got nothing" to another player that "got nothing": You didn't get nothing. Nobody got *nothing*.
PSO continues on and there will always be more RBRs around the corner and more opportunities to get awesome gear with them. New quests are releasing commonly and there is always a surge of new things to do. Halloween is right around the corner, giving you new opportunities to farm for some very useful (and expensive) event currency to bolster your in game wealth. Then right after that is one short month to savor your time before the famous Christmas event where we'll be doing this whole adventure all over again, except with Ender Claus to blame for when you get an Addslot out of an Ult present for the hundredth time.
Thanks for reading everybody, and for those that didn't, thanks for playing with me and around me.
I played the anniversary event in 2023 when I decided to give Ephinea a second go around to see if I liked it, and I only caught the tail end of the event for the final week, so I didn't expect much. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play the 2024 event so I had to wait another year until 2025 to play. Finally, when the time came, I was so prepared and ready for anything. I was convinced this event was going to be the time of my life and an event for the ages.
I went into this event expecting to grind really hard and very hopefully get something I'd been wanting. My goals for this event were to get any one of the following either accomplished or working towards it:
1. Find Heaven Punisher
2. Obtain 5 Photon Filters (either via gold badges or PDs)
3. Obtain a Heart of SS/Swords weapon heart
I had very miniscule goals overall; I don't think my goals were too difficult or unrealistic. There were plenty of quests and IDs that provided me the opportunity at a Heaven Punisher drop and the boosts would help with that. On top of that, a lot of the skin and filter desires I had could be achieved through buying them with PDs and the event has a natural boost on finding PDs so aside from these things, my goals were relatively simple and I felt as though I could achieve them pretty easily.
I played an average 5 hours a day every single day since the event started, the event began on a Monday so its pretty easy to calculate that I played an average of 35 hours a week on PSO; this is an average as I said, so it doesn't count the couple of weekends where I played for a solid 8-10 hours or the occasional weekday where I played longer either. In the long run I'd say that 35 hours a week is fine for some one like me. I work a business with my wife at home so I have to prioritize that before PSO, as many people with jobs themselves understand, PSO is a hobby and takes a back seat to real life. But despite that, playing 5 hours a day on average is a pretty big deal and I'd say I wasn't a guy who grinded a TON but I did grind a good amount.
That being said, lets get into my feedback around the event.
I was very happy to find out that they clumped the milestones together and I was also very happy to see the badge rate nerfs and buffs depending on which were played, although the nerfs themselves mattered significantly less once we unlocked the 50% badge drop increase, which would put any quest that was nerfed back up to 125%. I would have liked to see this badge rate nerf eventually get bigger and bigger as time moved on. I really would like to have seen it go up to 100% reduction in badge depending on how many times the quest has been cleared above everything else. Granted, I don't think this would have "fixed" the "issue" of most of the community running MAE Forest for the majority of the event but it would have at least put a damper on people's abilities to make MAE Forest a best of both worlds considering that 50% bonus in badge drop rate milestone reward. MAE Forest wasn't the only offender, despite it being the biggest, CCA and Desert were also played significantly more than everything else and I would have also liked to see those quests get bigger badge nerfs next year as well.
What I was most surprised with was how much I would enjoy Temple, the changes to Love Rappy and Mil Lily were very welcoming changes and it seems as though the new addition of players has skyrocketed the value of items like Vivienne and Rambling May (RM already was seeing a resurgence months prior as well but it was still the primary focus for Temple). I'm kinda hoping the Vivienne craze dies down significantly since I've started to see reserve prices for 45H Vivienne's go for higher (almost double) the max price point for a 30H Heaven Striker so as a personal note that is kinda insane. I didn't realize just how much I'd like running Temple with various IDs, it was a fun quest and a fun experience; my favorite IDs were Purplenum and Whitill but I didn't mind running Pinkal either.
Another thing was the August Atrocity quests, these quests were surprisingly very fun and engaging. Even with not-so-good teams you could clear it in about 10 minutes, which I believe is still pretty fast. The monster density and variety was very good and there were several IDs I considered running with them although my favorite were Skyly for Ep.1 and Whitill for Ep.2.
Now what actually happened with me during the event.
I practically did not get anything of substantial value to drop this event. I hit none of my goals, the most important one of which, to me, was getting a Heaven Punisher. I spammed the ever living hell out of Central Control Area this event on both Skyly and Purplenum and not a single HP to my name. A lot of my friends around me did, which is wonderful for them and I'm very happy for them, but I got nothing.
The thing of note that I found was a Lv.30 Rabarta disk which ended up being my only banner item for the event. I found a 30H Yasminkov 9000M which I sold for 40 PDs, and all of the gold badges I inevitably obtained via silver badge conversion and just simply finding them alongside the PDs I found along the way. I ended up selling my gold badges for PDs and then buying a Photon Sphere and an Srank Berserk Needle and added a special to it as well.
I didn't walk away empty handed thankfully, I did have something to look back on and be fond of finding and outside of the Level 200 banner I got; I was glad I even managed to get a single item banner at all (even if its not really something I wanted or was hunting, beggars cant be choosers).
What this post is mainly for is to try to paint a picture with the reader(s). That despite the fact that I spent over a hundred hours on this event in play time alone, despite the fact that I didn't really achieve any of the goals I set for myself, despite the fact that I did not get a single item banner that warranted any sort of bragging rights for myself and my friends, I still managed to walk away with something in the end and I got to meet and become friends with many wonderful people along the way. You see, despite my version of the Anniversary event not going the way I wanted I can still stand here and appreciate the play time, the friends, the money I made along the way. PSO is not just about finding things, its also about finding people, finding moments of glory and hilarity. I had a lot of great funny moments over voice comms talking to people like Pentel and Meecho. I had plenty of awesome congratulatory moments to my team mates for finding some insane items, one of which finding a coveted 100H Vise. I'm proud of all my team mates and friends that found things that made their event worth it; even if my event was not nearly as profitable, I don't care because I play PSO for the game play, the people, and the moments.
I realize other people don't play the game for the same reasons I do, and other people may be very angry or upset about their findings or their time spent. I've met plenty of people that are very unhappy with the way the event went, with the way that others found the things they were looking for while they received nothing in return. I know plenty of people that think their event play time was a huge waste of time and energy. But to those feeling bewildered about the Anniversary event and their participation, let me remind you, from one player that "got nothing" to another player that "got nothing": You didn't get nothing. Nobody got *nothing*.
PSO continues on and there will always be more RBRs around the corner and more opportunities to get awesome gear with them. New quests are releasing commonly and there is always a surge of new things to do. Halloween is right around the corner, giving you new opportunities to farm for some very useful (and expensive) event currency to bolster your in game wealth. Then right after that is one short month to savor your time before the famous Christmas event where we'll be doing this whole adventure all over again, except with Ender Claus to blame for when you get an Addslot out of an Ult present for the hundredth time.
Thanks for reading everybody, and for those that didn't, thanks for playing with me and around me.
