Ephinea's Christmas Event

I guess if the last 3 Special Presents aren't found this week, we'll probably reveal what they are next week so everybody can work harder to get more Presents in the final week. ;)

For now, all I'll say is that they're very much worth the effort put in to get them. You still need a bit of luck, but it is what it is.
 
Sodaboy said:
I guess if the last 3 Special Presents aren't found this week, we'll probably reveal what they are next week so everybody can work harder to get more Presents in the final week. ;)

For now, all I'll say is that they're very much worth the effort put in to get them. You still need a bit of luck, but it is what it is.
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I bet Psycho Wand and TJS/SJS are two of them. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a single present yet. Another event for full-tme PSO-ers! x)
 
To be completely fair, you can spin the entire game as "something for full time PSO-ers", as you'll always get more of everything if you play more. There's still the event quest up of course, and the existence of presents throws items into the economy for you to trade for later on, though, so it's not like the event does nothing for you!

I mean, I'm not really sure what could be done except make everything a bit too accessible, which would then be complained about because "people who play too much get too far ahead", etc.
 
Double post, but we probably should have mentioned that:

Christmas Eve has a +10% present drop rate and Christmas Day has a +20% present drop rate from 00:00 to 23:59 on each day, UTC (check /time to see).
 
Matt said:
To be completely fair, you can spin the entire game as "something for full time PSO-ers", as you'll always get more of everything if you play more. There's still the event quest up of course, and the existence of presents throws items into the economy for you to trade for later on, though, so it's not like the event does nothing for you!

I mean, I'm not really sure what could be done except make everything a bit too accessible, which would then be complained about because "people who play too much get too far ahead", etc.
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Oh, I mostly agree. The problem is moreso the full-time PSO-ers (which I've been in the past) rather than the event/game itself. With my habits being more moderate, I tend not to notice much of a difference between event and non-time events, except that I find a lot more non-rare rares (e.g. L&K14). But hey, I at least have somewhat more going on irl than I did back when I played 5-10 hours a day, so that's probably worthwhile.

I do think the Halloween event could have been done in a way so as to be less dependent on spamming and play-time. If there had been a much higher activation rate for the Event quests, but a long cool-down time after its activation, the quest-spammers wouldn't have benefited more, but the non-spammers would have (I realize this would require some modification, e.g. the cooldown time would need to apply to your whole account and to all characters in a party). Perhaps similar methods, by means of which the distribution of rewards is less dependent on playtime could be implemented in the future...
 
I think it's a little unfair to "blame" people for playing a lot. The point of an event is to encourage people to play more, and if there's no system in place which rewards you for playing more, it's not really much of an event moreso than "free stuff for logging on".

Of course, I'm sure there's systems which could be implemented that would benefit everyone, but there must always be that incentive to spend your free time on PSO during an event, so this problem is *always* going to exist, so to speak. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
 
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So PSO servers are clubs of enablers for a potentially crippling addiction - I knew it! ;)

Also, feel free to relativize my comments. By the same token that I don't care enough anymore about PSO to play a shitload, I also don't care that much that I'm not getting much out of the events, so it's probably fine as is. I used to effortlessly play several hours on end, wondering where the time went. Now, anything more than 40 min-1 hour feels excessive.
 
To be fair, with the size of our playerbase, there isn't a very easily obtained happy medium. Presents will either be too rare for the people who solo or they'll be too common for the hardcore farmers. 1/2000 is absolute overkill for solo mode, so it's an attempt to encourage you to play with others and go hard on spamming.

If we had like 100 players or so then we'd be seeing a lot more at the 1/2k rate, but considering that we still don't know what three of the special presents are, it should be a pretty good indication that the base scaling of 1/2k probably isn't working very well for the rate of special presents. The music disk thing isn't really helping, either, since not every ultimate present that drops actually is an ultimate present.

It's still a far better event than anything Scht did though because it doesn't punish you for being alone by making the game unplayable for a month and isn't demanding us to kill ten million enemies with a hundred players just so we can maybe have a chance of finding a 20 native Laser in a present.

I don't really have room to complain though, considering I've found the Lavis, FS, Zanba, and CMechs along with another SParts due to the DAR boost, so I'm more just an exception than the rule.

Oh yeah, and another thing that's slowing down the ult present rate right now is everybody's grinding up alts to be in ult due to the doubled experience, so the boost to special presents right now is mostly unnoticed.
 
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could just give each guildcard, that signed on during the event and got x amount of kills or time played, an ult tier present
i doubt that would satisfy everyone but w/e
santa mode B)
 
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I don't want to come across as self entitled here. As a matter of fact, I don't think I even care that I can't log in during either of the boost days, because I'm going to be visiting family all of today and most of tomorrow and I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't want exactly that for the holidays. But I'm sure I'm not the only one with plans, and I have to wonder if the present boost being exclusively on the two worst days of the month to expect people to log in and play PSO for hours on end is a good idea. Especially when the server runs on +0 GMT, meaning the boost will presumably end at 4~8 PM in North and South America.

Don't get me wrong. The idea is rad, and it's a modest enough boost that most people won't be bothered by missing it (I think?). But it seems like it would make more sense for the active player base if it got extended into Boxing Day or something. At the very least, have it end in the morning on Boxing Day so the late-nighters in the states can have until Midnight to participate.

For what it's worth, just having an event with excellent hunting quests and periodic special item finds is already going above and beyond for the people who feel slighted. The present boost period is just icing on the cake. Take this more as my two cents than some sort of ridiculous demand. I'm just spitballing over here.

PS: Foot in my mouth if the active player numbers don't change, lol. I know I'm making broad assumptions in this post. Still felt like posting. Cheers.



Happy Holidays, Ephinea.
 
XII said:
I don't want to come across as self entitled here. As a matter of fact, I don't think I even care that I can't log in during either of the boost days, because I'm going to be visiting family all of today and most of tomorrow and I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't want exactly that for the holidays. But I'm sure I'm not the only one with plans, and I have to wonder if the present boost being exclusively on the two worst days of the month to expect people to log in and play PSO for hours on end is a good idea. Especially when the server runs on +0 GMT, meaning the boost will presumably end at 4~8 PM in North and South America.

Don't get me wrong. The idea is rad, and it's a modest enough boost that most people won't be bothered by missing it (I think?). But it seems like it would make more sense for the active player base if it got extended into Boxing Day or something. At the very least, have it end in the morning on Boxing Day so the late-nighters in the states can have until Midnight to participate.

For what it's worth, just having an event with excellent hunting quests and periodic special item finds is already going above and beyond for the people who feel slighted. The present boost period is just icing on the cake. Take this more as my two cents than some sort of ridiculous demand. I'm just spitballing over here.

PS: Foot in my mouth if the active player numbers don't change, lol. I know I'm making broad assumptions in this post. Still felt like posting. Cheers.



Happy Holidays, Ephinea.
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I personally thought the same thing, because while I don't have plans for either day (don't really do Christmas, not for any special reason, just not that special to me), I know a lot of people do since it's the time of the year to catch up with the family, so it's a boost that would be missed out on by quite a few people. However, we didn't want to do the boost for an entire week, so it ended up being settled for Christmas Eve and Day, although I personally would have liked to see Boxing Day as well.

WE'LL SEE. Was no need to apologise for "seeming" self-entitled either, people are entitled to their opinions as long as you're not jackasses about it. The GMs aren't going to bite your head off here, we're not Lee.
 
10% boost isn't gonna break anything
i dont see any problem with having it for 5-7 days

then the 20% for xmas eve and xmas day
that would give everyone all the time they need to find a couple pres

i mean... it IS the time of sharing
more pres for me mu hu hahahaha c:<
 
Ducks said:
10% boost isn't gonna break anything
i dont see any problem with having it for 5-7 days

then the 20% for xmas eve and xmas day
that would give everyone all the time they need to find a couple pres

i mean... it IS the time of sharing
more pres for me mu hu hahahaha c:<
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+1 for this.
 
I'm enjoying the game in moderation. The music that plays during Christmas fiaco is a nice touch.
I just want to see the game for what it is.

Are you guys taking recommendation on music that can play in Christmas Fiaco?
I love listening to a ost from tales of symphonia as I work my way through the caves and mines.
 
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i dont think there's any controversy?
everyone just giving ideas for potential future events imo

i feel like it's been a really well received event
gd presents r the best
 
If you want to avoid the problem of people not being able to play on Christmas for the rate boosts, do another rate boost on the twelfth day of Christmas. People ought to be home again by January 5. :p
 
I don't see the issue of having a boost run for the last week either. At this point I'd probably say we're split between casual players and hardcore anyway, so it'd make most people happy... right?
 
Surprised this wasn't posted about...

[12-25-2015, 08:20:01] Rare announcement: US/Fodra - Block 01 - Nikki opened a Present and received Sealed J-Sword! Merry Christmas!
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This person also found a Lavis Cannon from a Present the day before.

Some people have all the luck!
 
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