Event Feedback Thread

[Matt]

It's been just over a year since Ephinea came into being, and since then we've gone through a variety of changes and events to make PSOBB fresh and exciting for you, while keeping an overall vision for a fun version of a vanilla-like PSOBB.

Now, we'd like to ask the user-base what they've thought of the events that have gone by, those being:

• Halloween (Abuction/Rare Quests)
• Christmas (Fiasco/Present Drops)
• Easter (Easter Egg Drops)
• Summer/Anniversary (Maximum Attack Counter with Fiasco and Badge Drops)

We've tried our best to make them as fair and as balanced as possible, while rewarding the player for their efforts in playing them, but we've obviously made mistakes and errors along the way. Specifically, we'd like to know the following:

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)?
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?*
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?**
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them?

Plus any other comments you'd like to make.

Spoiler: Small Print

* "This event rewards people who only play actively" is not really a criticism of this, that's the point. The more you play, the more rewarded you are. Naturally though, the events should be balanced in a way that only playing every so often is worth it, but playing little should not reap huge rewards like playing a lot.
** Christmas, Easter and Anniversary are the major events of the year. Any other events are minor and not meant to dish out too much, please keep this in consideration.

Furthermore, we would like to ask for some specifics:

• Do you agree with the way ubers are handed out in Christmas/Summer?
  • Specifically, do you feel someone should be able to trip over an endgame item instead of working for it, even if the rate is something ridiculous like 1/1,000,000?

Nothing else as of current... will edit and mention if we think of anything.

Some things we are aware of:

• The Easter Event was somewhat flawed as it handed out ubers with hit and also promoted mass egg farming due to the rewards being too good and no direction to play, splitting people up somewhat.
• The Christmas Event should probably filter out junk items in the higher difficulties, so you always get something that's somewhat nice at least.
• Halloween needs something of a rework, stat. Feel free to comment with your own ideas; would be nice to keep a similar theme though.

With all that said, feel free to give your comments.

And please no mud-slinging or attacking other users for their opinions. I will be pro-actively removing posts and warning people who start drama in this thread, so you have been warned, thanks!

 

[falkenjeff]

• Halloween (Abuction/Rare Quests)

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? - Yes.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* - No, the status effects kind of screwed over people who couldn't find a FO (I guess this was kind of fixed when you let people remake the game and still have the quest in their list). People with crashing problems also kind of got screwed ("oh yay I found a party and..... FROZEN... No quest T_T"). As far as drops were concerned, though, it was fine.
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** - No, it was fair.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? - Instead of "saving the quest until you play it or log out" I would set a server flag or something and "save it until you play it" so you can: 1) Hold onto it until later if you want to, and 2) Don't get screwed if you crash upon joining/creating a room, and only REALLY lose the quest if you crash after the quest has started.

• Christmas (Fiasco/Present Drops)

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? - No. I only played long enough to find one present. One of the reasons for this was "rare drop noise/red box appearing on the map" not being a thing yet, so it felt like a chore to run around checking every drop (item clip distance in this game sucks ass). The TA thing also turned me off. I thought it was dumb, and I felt like I wouldn't be able to win anything.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* - No. Overpowered for TA players.
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** - Too strong. Ubers from this event should have been rarer. TA rewards were also kinda broken.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? - Make ubers from presents rarer, and make presents trigger "rare drop noise" as well as "red dot on map." If it's not possible (because it's not a "red box" but is a "special box" idk lol) I would actually change presents to a regular red box just to fix this. I don't know how that specific function works *shrug*. All I know is Luck Mats haven't been made to use the feature yet, so idk. Also: replace TA with something else so that casuals still have a chance at winning stuff and the community doesn't get divided.

• Easter (Easter Egg Drops)

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? - I actually didn't play this event at all, I was probably still turned off from Christmas/TA. Also: I'm not sure if redbox noise/red dot on map was implemented yet, but if it wasn't.... I would have hated this event for the same reason I hated Christmas (feeling like a chore running around checking every drop with shitty clip distance that can't be changed in the game settings)
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* - Nope, guaranteed hit ubers is dumb, and anime had to calm me down because I was considering not playing anymore.
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** - Way too strong.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? - No hit ubers. Ubers (hitless) from event should be rarer. Eggs should be triggering red box noise as well as a red dot on the map if they don't already, because checking every drop with 15-year-old item clip distance is a chore.

• Summer/Anniversary (Maximum Attack Counter with Fiasco and Badge Drops THIS WAS BEST EVENT EVER

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? - Yes. Best event ever. Also: badges triggered "rare drop noise" and "red box on map" and this event did not feel like a chore. If a badge dropped, I would hear noise, notifying me to look at the map, and then I would run to red dot on map and pick up badge. Since the event did not feel like a chore, I had some sessions where I would play for 10 hours straight hunting lilies. Even half asleep I knew I would not miss any badges.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* - Yes. You got lots of badges for soloing and not finishing the quest. You also got lots of badges for partying and finishing quests. The fact that badges were not affected by DAR boosts and WERE affected by party size penalties also means this was balanced out even more (4 man parties of fully geared level 200s were not finding an unbalanced amount of badges because their drop rate was almost halved). It actually felt really balanced and fair to everyone, no matter how you chose to play. Also: rare drop noise, again, meant that you knew when a badge dropped and could pick it up without being left behind by your party (because checking all items without this feature takes a long time). So even if you were just tagging along and "getting carried" everything was fair.
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** - Platinum badge was too strong. It should have been at least 1/1 million, and not 1/500k. Possibly 1/1.5 million, but I don't know, finding the perfect balance is hard. EVERYTHING ELSE WAS FAIR AND BALANCED, and event was awesome.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? - Make platinum badge rarer (1/ 1 million minimum). That's about it! I would have MAYBE released all the event reward descriptions with 2 weeks remaining just to try and motivate the server, since we had no idea what we were working toward and everyone burnt out. But idk that may have made people mad too so idk EVENT WAS PERFECT. ty

Final notes:

Yes, I'm aware, I put a lot of emphasis on "rare drop noise" and "red dot on map". As someone who quit for a while and came back, this is actually the #1 reason I'm not completely burnt out again and am still playing. All events should utilize "rare drop noise" and "red dot on map" for special drops. If there is a bug preventing one of these 2 features from working, it should be fixed immediately before the event begins, even if that means something drastic such as removing a present/egg's special in game model and replacing it with a normal red box. This one feature alone makes this the best PSO server ever, and has made this game feel way less dated (well, and PSO2 drops I guess, but that was implemented right from the start).

Another thing: since summer event was so perfect, maybe a similar system should be implemented for Christmas and Easter? I don't know. However, I will note: bronze badges dropped a lot, so if Easter/Christmas also had a "collect these small tokens and trade them in for nice stuff" system, those "tokens" or "badges" should be at least as rare as silver badges. Bronze badges were fine - but only once a year. Red boxes with "very little value" dropping "like candy" would be annoying if it happened 3 times a year.

Oh and... If a future event uses timed quests, try to balance it out of the gate I guess? Summer Event wasn't balanced on release. Quests dropped too many badges for completion (was later nerfed, because parties were too strong) and enemies didn't drop enough badges (was later buffed, and solo players finally had a fair shot at badges). I know it's hard. I'm just saying "learn from the past" I guess. We now know that timed quests are going to be a problem for people who play at strange times and can't find a party, or don't WANT to find a party, so keep this in mind when designing future quests and make it balanced like Summer Event eventually was after the patch .

Also: releasing "drop rates" for ubers like platinum badge should be a thing that happens when the first one drops. It should be a thing that is planned to be released, and not a thing that 10 people on the forums have to ask. I also liked the clarification on "DAR boosts do not affect badge drop rates, but party DAR penalties do" and this should also be clarified in all future events right from the start. For us numbers people .

Wow wall of text. Good morning.

 

[Bliz]

I kinda wanted to make a post like this, so it's pretty convenient that you guys did! Here's my thoughts.

I didn't participate in Halloween or Easter, so I'll skip those.

Both Events

Do you agree with the way ubers are handed out in Christmas/Summer? Yes. Honestly, this is one of my biggest motivations to play during events - I can go participate in whatever fun, varied content the event is hosting and still have a chance to get that one item I've been grinding so much for outside of events. It's a good feeling to get away from the same-old without losing all of your chance of reaching one of your biggest goals.

Summer Event

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? It had ups and downs but overall I very much enjoyed it.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* Mostly, I'll elaborate below.
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** Not really.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? A few things, I'll elaborate below.

So, first, I'm gonna repeat a concern I had near the start of the event that my opinion hasn't changed on, although I've found new reasons to be steadfast in this opinion. I don't think the badge shops should have been milestones; thief, scavenger, hunter and shop upgrade should've been in effect from the start. I enjoyed the milestones very much, but I think they should've stuck to items, bonuses, killgates, quests, etc. There are two big reasons for this, the first being that it encourages you to not spend any badges since you don't know if something you want to spend those badges on even more will become available later. I thought that was a good enough reason by itself, but then it segued into a second reason that didn't become apparent until later in the event: You get so many badges. They only stack up to 99, and I have hundreds and hundreds of them - I've had to mule them across both characters and accounts because I'm just overflowing with them, and I couldn't even spend them to clear them up because I had that lingering thought of "what if there's a great new shop right around the corner" above my head the entire event. Having to transfer so much is kinda frustrating and I think it would've just been flat-out more fun to be able to be rewarded mid-event instead of having to wait anyway.

I don't know whether combining the event with HBR was a good idea or not - MA is one of the most varied quests and was quite enjoyable, but at the same time, I felt pretty pressured into it. I love the Fiasco quests and wish I could've done them more; while I know they did add to your killcount, we didn't unlock it until everyone had already been working on HBR rank for awhile, so most parties preferred to stick with MA simply for the drop bonuses that we had accrued and that were still growing. The killcount only counting for MA/Fiasco also discouraged hunting certain area-specific drops that do not appear in those quests, like Frozen Shooter (I still need one with hit...).

Okay now for some positive stuff, because really, I loved this event. Let's start with the badges. What a good idea! The different tiers of badges allow for lower level players to still get some decent rewards with work, while higher level players still have enough motivation to stick to Ultimate. It was also really great to get to choose your reward after lots of hunting and badge-collecting rather than it being completely random like the Christmas presents, although I think that both of those are fun in their own right (surprises are nice!), and it's more fitting for Christmas to surprise you with an unknown reward anyway.

I think maybe the Thief's unit rewards should've been a little better, but otherwise I thought the shops were very nice. There are some nice choices of items that people want, and obvious badge sinks (like the gambling NPCs, photon crystals/spheres, etc.) for people who don't like the solid rewards offered. And time for a little freakout like promised, THE SCAVENGER WAS SO GOOD. GETTING AN EASY OPPORTUNITY FOR HIGH HIT, GOOD SPECIAL NON-RARE WEAPONS OF A COLOR OF YOUR CHOICE, WHEN THAT'S PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE OTHERWISE BUT NOT IMBALANCED? I GOT A FULL SET OF BLUE WEAPONS, I LOVE IT, AND I LOVE WHOEVER'S IDEA IT WAS. SCAVENGER = BEST PART OF EVENT. Okay the whole badge system is pretty awesome too.


Christmas Event (My memory is kinda bad so bare with my curtness on this one)

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? Yes.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* I can't really say for sure but I think so?
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** I thought this one was fine.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? I think it was fine as-is, but I agree with your idea for Ultimate having a bit less junk.

I guess that's it! About you asking for opinions on the Halloween event rework - I literally have no idea what the event was, care to fill me in?

 

[Ducks]

tfw i agree with skylar on most points
also agree with bunlord
im mostly gonna focus on negative shit since thats how my brain works

halloween was unpolished and the status shit sucked ass
was good having a reason to push through to finish, and it was actually exciting to play sometimes if you didn't just get cucked
i hope that some of the ideas get implemented in future quests/events

xmas was good just gotta be careful with giving out ubers, and music discs made me cry when i got them

easter was pretty bad in the sense it gave out too much amazing shit and ubers etc
the ta thing was kinda bad the way it was handled
it didnt jump start TA whatsoever as intended, as it's still unplayed, and alienated much of the playerbase
attitude about it seemed to be if you dont like it fuck yourself, not so good for an event
rewards should have been capped somehow to keep the boards from having the same people getting 2+ rewards per quest

summer seemed well thought out, well executed, and being combined with the hbr was cool too
my (minor) gripes about it is forcing people to stick to a couple of quests for so long takes some of the fun out of it, makes it more like a chore/grindy to get the kill count or w/e
i was hoping this event was gonna help get my material count up but 20 bronze/2 silver per pow mat when i want a thousand+ makes it seem like a massive grind, luck mats are too expensive to be worth buying with badges imo
again minor gripes

lag made it take like 20 minutes to post ;-;

 

[Mizalie]

All comments are based solely on the Summer event as I was late to the party on Ephinea, but...

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)?
   Eeeeeeeh... as much as I want to say yes, every single thing for me led to disappointment, including last night where the game finally decided to spit in my face and drop the item I've spent so long looking for... to someone else. I busted my ass the entirety of the event, and in the end it feels like I'm one of the unlucky few who got nothing out of it.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?*
   No. Some people did near nothing and got up to TWO ubers, while some people ground themselves into dust and got absolutely nothing to show about it. It doesn't reward hard work - just dumb luck. And when you have no luck, this happens. I know one of the guys who REALLY put his face against the grindstone only got, like, one or two things of any value as well.
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?**
   It's hard to make the call of whether it was too weak or too strong because of the nature of it - every single bit of it was up to luck, and for some, it was far too strong, and for some, it was far too weak. Granted, that's the nature of RNG and debatably PSO as a whole, but hey.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them?
   There needs to be some sort of solid reward that isn't just a minor little thing for those who really, REALLY worked themselves to the bone. I actually had an idea when I was bored during a few runs and thought about what could be added or expect as a milestone or whatnot.
   
   When I saw that the Summer Event involved HBR, part of me was wondering if maybe there would be a reward for those who achieved the highest HBR scores out of the userbase, to show that they have actually put a huge chunk of time in, and to actually give them a solid reward for participating more than their fellow players. While I'd say it's fairly obvious there's no HBR coming for the Halloween event (but maybe one for Christmas time? who knows?) I think if another event that involves HBR happens, a bonus for those players at the top ten (top five?) of the HBR leaderboard should also receive a special reward for being so dedicated to both the game and the event.
   

Aside from that (and having been spit in my face on the last proper day of the event) I still did like the badge system (shoutout to PSO2) being able to be used for either solid rewards or gamble at some better stuff. I feel like mmmmmaybe we should have allowed 99 Golds to be traded for a Platinum but that's just me (2 PDs to 1 Gold means this is actually near value!) The actual milestone boosts helped folk with their other hunts as well as stuff during the actual event quests, and had I not blown all my silver badges on the Scavenger I coulda saved myself a ton 'o PD getting Heart Keys from the Gold Shop (I'm blind and didn't notice them, oops). I think literally all I could have asked for was a way to help those getting 100% shafted by RNG.

 

[Mome Chomsky]

The only one I was around for was this recent summer one. The only thing I could think of would have been to maybe add fiasco as part of HBR, kinda seemed like no one really wanted to play it. Although that might have been asking a bit too much. I had fun playing the event and I think the prizes were good/fair, can't really complain.

 

[Nikki]

@Mizalie The problem with trading golds for a platinum is the fact that vanilla PSO has a sort of short endgame, once you have those items it's pretty much done, the hunts over and you're left with less playtime invested aside sphering. Having it left to chance is the only thing that keeps people hunting. The previous events handing ubers was definitely a mistake, but you have to have some nice things offered to players for incentive to make the event fun and to have a end goal so it leaves a balancing quandary for the staff. Thats why I was fine with the gold trades having a chance at hit, and other trade items being included for fun like the bunny ears or chuchu fever. A prize for the HBR effort would be nice though, I agree there. It's a lot of work to grind out that many max attacks.

As far as my own feedback, I can only complain about easter. not because of the egg system but moreso the way the items were offered. It just need reworking in the future. =p Everything else has been handled relatively well. Christmas presents were christmas presents handled as they should be, halloween Halo10 areas or w/e it was were a neat addition, summer badges and the badge shop were constructed nicely (thanks for the team effort on that guys). They've gotten better as we've gone on with just one oversight that I listed above.

 

[Melirei]

My opinion:

1. I enjoyed them, especially Summer Event and Christmas Event. It was nice, and exciting, to see what will come up next in the event shop and milestone. Easter was good, but a bit boring in comparison, since it encouraged mindless kill grinding. Halloween was pretty nice.

2. Regarding unfairness, what comes to mind is the Christmas TA event, which ended in rewarding TA-oriented players multiple, better present items of their choices. In my opinion, one or two rewards at most, or having them tone down, would have been better. Just PS or random reward instead of choices, or having the rewards same as ultimate presents, would be more fair and still gives the good competitors an advantage.

3. Some parts are good, some parts are too strong. A lot of good hit rares, like 30h SoF/FS/Zanba, was given out, which made SoF and FS hunt not as worthwhile. Easter didn't seem as bad in this regard since the Tier 2 pool was pretty diluted. Having the same rate for 5%~50% hit is a bit overpowered. Summer Event was not bad in this regard, since most of the gambles usually end with hitless weapon of not too much value. With the present reward from this event however, I expect another group of 30h FS/SoF/Zanba to surge into the market.

Other part that seemed too strong is the distributed ubers. It was distributed in every big event, and while it was pretty cool in a way, we ended up with a bit too many of them. Platinum was also too strong in that it allows choosing the uber.

Yet another part that seemed too powerful to me: MA4 HBR. It's kind of justified since it's the first anniversary, and it has its merits in that it made the players learn of the MA4 series. I don't know how HBR works on PSU, but when it's combined with PSO2 drops, essentially drops are boosted so many folds that it seems quite overpowered. 54% boosted to 150% or 180% makes doing one run essentially doing three runs; though I guess this is not bad if the quest is bad for hunting to begin with.

I think it would be appropriate to include normal Milestone event in the feedback too. It's a bit easy to hit all the boosts and have it go for multiple weeks, and item distribution is a bit strong when someone has multiple accounts.

4. In retrospect I think I would prefer not having the ubers given out, and maybe reduced hit on event items to better encourage hunts. Easter Event Egg leaderboard had some problems, where some people grinded WoF for one day and got on the leaderboard. Some people mentioned that grinding MA4X for 2 months gets stale, maybe it would be good to have multiple quest series in rotation, for events. There was a suggestion about having a featured quest for very short time, which could be included in future events, might make things more interesting.

For competitions, perhaps it would be more appropriate to have a proper sign up process on the forums, in solo or in teams, to avoid domination by a selected few. This is not perfect and there are those that do not use forums, but it might increase the difficulties of exploitation of the competition. Just throwing ideas here.



Overall I pointed out mostly faults my eyes see in the events, but there are also a lot of good parts of the event I didn't write down, and they are definitely there. And a lot of faults I picked out is not easily fixable or hard to see beforehand. Thank you to all who participated in creating the events.

 

[Nina]

While i can't comment much on the past events. i played summer alot and well.

At the start i was a scrub and it sucked, having to be boosted in ult or not get close to clearing when with friends, with the way the badges were designed to drop (Ie on quest clear then farming) kinda felt like a kick in the teeth, hell im ok farming so long as it drops something xD. im not sure what rates where changed on the badges, but post update i found it alot better with drops both in and out of MA4 quests.

I think the tipping point for the dar bonus was when we unlocked the event DAR bonus and had the milestone DAR bonus on top of the HBR DAR bonus, i feel like it was still pretty balanced (outside of a double 25% bonus) and more importantly rewarding for grinding the quests for as long as people did, not so much a complant, just feel like pointing it out.

As for plat badge. 1/500k seems rare enough, it is an uber with 0%'s, 1/1mill or even higher wouldnt seem that fair even if you could choose.

The event prize tiering was pretty consistant and well put together. You have a metric ton of things to save and use badges for and espically for a group of leveling people like me and my friends where, it was nice having alot of minigoals to work towards.

Although i will say, for the summer event, what was the reasoning behind not having a rare rate bonus as one of the highest tiers of rewards?

 

[fishhao]

Cant say much about halloween or easter, didnt really actively play.

Xmas
1. Yes, i spent countless hours hunting mosquitoes like a good hunter
2. Yes, i got a Guld :^)
3. No, you had plenty of junk presents which was fun to see
4. Not much.

Summer
1. Yeah, i enjoyed it a bit
2. . The EXP boost was nice for relatively new players to catch up, at least in levels. Dont care much about drop aspect, RNG just doing its thing.
3. No, Gambling had fair rates, badge prices seemed pretty fair.
4. Shorten the event. Thought it was a bit too long to keep up the initial hype.

 

[Apples]

Since this was the only event I took part of, I will just give my two cents on the summer event.

+ Love the badges! bronze, silver & gold all were fun to find. Prizes for these three were very good.
+ Questing was fun. Brought lots of people together to hunt badges and earn them by finishing the quest.
- for Platinum Badge. Personally I don't think every event should have uber rewards or any uber rewards at all.
End game content should be found, it's what keeps people playing. (if I had found one, I would have stored it forever as a trophy. I want to find my own ubers or buy it from someone who found it.)
- Length. This lasted way too long, has it been more than a month now? this event should have ended weeks ago.

 

[Ryan]

• Halloween (Abduction/Rare Quests)
  1. yeah!!! second favorite one
     
  2. uh, mostly? i can see people complaining about not having a FO, but if people are actually putting parties together to run quests, then shouldn't they have forces anyway? sorry if that sounds too elitist or whatever...
  3. not really. it was a "minor event" and the boosts to rare(?) rates were appropriately minor. also, it was HARD, which made it more minor. it wasn't really a reliable way to farm items until choosing a quest became an option, after which it became too strong imo. another reason to get rid of that! 8)
  4. it's time for ryan's unpopular opinion where he suggests bringing back the spontaneity of the event quests. it was really cool and anime, some other guys, and i affectionately referred to it as "getting spooked." also, bring the ep2 event music back, that shit was LIT
     honestly if we just redid this for halloween with different quests to run but same music/concept i'd be happy and it wouldn't be too broken, and it wouldn't feel like the server was saturated with OP events or whatever
• Christmas (Fiasco/Present Drops) -- n/a, didn't really play this one since i was on my legendary pso break
• Easter (Easter Egg Drops)
  1. sort of? i got a tension blaster which was nice, but everything else was meh. it felt way, WAY too grindy
  2. no, people who didn't constantly spam pts/wof didn't get as much as people who played normally lmao
  3. too strong!!! hit ubers are bad to give out in events please don't do that anymore ;;
     
  4. no hit ubers and MAYBE a nonexistent chance to get ubers at all? throwing this in super nerfs the egg doubler too
• Summer/Anniversary (Maximum Attack Counter with Fiasco and Badge Drops)
  1. yes, obviously (i played it a ton), and for anyone who asks, yes i was having fun BEFORE plat badge dropped <_< despite it being ma4-centric, it didn't feel like too much of a grind since there were nine whole quests to play/get good at
  2. i guess? i played it a lot though and don't really know anyone who didn't, so i haven't heard arguments from the other side.
  3. maybe a LITTLE too weak? i agree with Mizalie on giving the joke items hit since they seem kinda pointless to get otherwise... i don't want good items having hit obviously but like... a daisy chain or whatever? who even is gonna want that honestly and it's so prettyyyyy @_@
  4. make it SHORTER and EARLIER, that's about it (thanks Matt for the delay ;; )

that's all really... summer and halloween were super fun and easter was less fun but still ok. hit ubers are bad

 

[Vmufan]

This was my first event, and it was great.
As someone who played on the original psobb server I can say, this event felt like something that ST would have created.

I got a chance to grab some bronce and silver loot, and hope next event I will be able to do more Ult.

The reason I chose to stick with this server is because not all is handed to you, but with enough work, you have a good chance to get it.

And btw on the vanilla server they also had exp and drop events, and those were also great!

 

[Powder Keg]

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)?
   Yeah, definitely. I didn't get as lucky as some, but that's how it works. I feel the structure of it promoted open games.
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?*
   Yes, just make sure quests/items involved stay balanced with classes
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?**
   I'd say it was just fine.
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them?
   Continue rewarding players for the more they do--similar to the badges for completing quests. RNG is RNG, but if you continue to reward run after run it'll motivate.

Also, continue with the funny stuff like the Gold Badge hunter. His comments and descriptions of weapons were great. Kudos to who did that.

 

[Vmufan]

Just rate up as I remember, check this blast from the past news from pso-word.com, they should do this to be more vanilla

10x Droprates for JP BB
by Ryna Published on Aug 23, 2006 07:55 PM
Starting on September 1st, Japanese Blue Burst players will receive 10x droprates as a reward for gaining 200 million points in Maximum Attack 4. The increased droprate period is set to run until September 4th. If you ever wanted go to hunting for a super-rare like the Yasha, Sealed J-Sword, or Real Nei's Claw, now is the time. Credit goes to Nites for spotting this news.

 

[Nina]

3 days of 10x drop-rates? lmfao oh dear

 

[Matt]

I'll admit that the length of the Summer Event was definitely too long, although we only realised that once the extension got unlocked. People were burnt-out already, more of the event was probably not a good idea.

We'll probably make it 3-4 weeks next time, though not sure about adding extensions again. Maybe they should be saved for events that are naturally short anyway, if there seems to be a large amount of interest in them that people would break any sort of stretch goals (if included).

 

[Apotos]

1. Did you enjoy the event(s)? - Yes! Was a great event, for me the quests with the big killfests are the most fun and this event, focusing on Max Attacks and Fiasco, scratched that itch very well.
   
2. Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?* - Yes, a good amount of open parties and teamplay was required in going for HBR or just trying to hunt something.
   
3. Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?** - Haven't played the others, but enjoyed the structure of this one very much as explained.
   
4. What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them? - Can't come up with anything right away, but if I sat down and really thought about I could come up with things.

I have only been playing on Ephinea for a few weeks, but what I took the most from the event was the boosts, both from the milestone rewards and the weekly kill counts. I really enjoyed the stacked meseta and rare enemy encounters, 3x exp for 2 weeks, and boosted drop rates all around since in all my years of playing this game, things rarely drop for me so I'm left with bartering and trading with others. I will admit I haven't played much though in the last week or so because I've managed to get my hands on satisfactory equips and am a good level for any future events. Its nothing against the server or events, just me, but PSO isn't the type of game I can play religiously for months or years without uncommon breaks throughout. As others have said, the heart of this game is the hunt; you can only go for something so long without getting nothing before you know...you get tired of it. PSU and all future Phantasy Star games were better about this, having more side activities and content to do besides praying to RNGesus.

I suppose I'm rambling now so I'll stop! In short, while I don't have previous Ephinea events to compare it against, this summer/anniversary event was exciting, well managed, and structurally sound. Its biggest flaw I'd say was that it went on perhaps a bit to long. And like Powder Keg said, the dialogue written for the badge shop guys was awesome, loved that red Hucast and his commentary on each weapon.

 

[Ray Shaw]

Speaking as someone who only joined during the last few weeks of the event, I'm glad it lasted as long as it did! I was actually wishing for another day, because I just didn't have time to make the 15k kill gate. But I made the 12k, and got some stuff out of it (and from level 1 to 82). I'm sure long-time players were probably burnt out on it, though, which is why I saw so few games for ma4/fiasco.

 

[Cyb3r_ZER0]

I wasn't originally going to make this post out of laziness but since I did anyway, I summarized some issues only briefly. I will not be covering criticism on the Easter event as I feel what needs to be said, has already been relayed. All of this is purely my own opinion so whether you agree or disagree; take it as a grain of salt. I also didn’t really proofread much, tear it apart if you so please.

Did you enjoy the event(s)?

Spoiler

I have only been around to participate in the Christmas, Easter, and recently Summer Events. Out of these, I enjoyed the Christmas one the most. At the time, players were not as geared or leveled. The 1/2k drop rate (or whatever it was) at the time felt uncommon enough to be excited to see drop, but not common enough to become numb to it. Whether it was a nice piece of gear with hit or vanity, it was at least somewhat decent enough to look forward to with some RNG. While I enjoyed the Summer Event, I felt that it lost some of that charm. Badge drops are so common that I’ve became numb to it. It’s tedious to go out of my way for them during the quest and also a little disappointing when you see so many red box drops that would have been PDs or something good that it would have dropped. I’d much rather prefer a cheaper badge shop with a rarer badge drop rate. As nice as the shops and milestone incentives were, it felt like the event was extremely grindy to squeeze out as many badges as possible to directly buy what you want. All I did was played enough MA to get the bare minimum of what I need from the shop and it was over to me after the first week. I didn’t see enough dangling bait to convince myself to sit through the rest of the event. If you gambled, you either got no hit garbage or something amazing. It’s probably a matter of preference but at least getting “something” from presents felt much more satisfying than 20 hitless SQs and BKBs cluttering the bank. Despite all that I said, I still liked the Summer Event because I saw that it had potential. I very much enjoyed the Scavenger and dumped all the rest of my silvers towards that service. However, I do think that it is ok to let each event have its own unique quirk. I just hope that it eventually evolves to become as satisfying as I had with Christmas.

Do you think the events were fair to everyone involved?*

Spoiler

Mostly I would say it does for the summer event at least. The TA event however seemed less so. It was already so obvious to me who the winners were from their past relations and experience with teamwork. Nobody else besides the same folks was interested in the event. Literally all I did was “complete” the quest and I was already placed on the list to receive a Heart of Morolian. There wasn’t any competition. If you knew how to TA, you already won. There weren’t enough TA competitors to boot people off the lists. It also inserted 40 hit gear at a time when most were in rags.

Do you think the events were possibly too weak or too strong?**

Spoiler

I’d definitely say that it is too strong. The items in the major events pass out hit gear like its candy. The market seems so saturated with 30 hit gear (essentials like SoF/FS/Zanba) that finally finding one on the ground feels significantly less rewarding. The events seemed to oversaturate and lean player interest towards exceptional gear over acceptable. Why bother hunting anything when the events hand me things simply by participating in the event? There didn’t seem to be enough “kind of” good items to dilute the pool.

What would you do to possibly improve the events if you had control over them?

Spoiler

Lower the “good” hit items to 20-25 and gambling only up to 40 at most. Make event ubers astronomically low to not devalue legitimate ones. Events should not be an alternative, only a supplement.

Do you agree with the way ubers are handed out in Christmas/Summer? Specifically, do you feel someone should be able to trip over an endgame item instead of working for it, even if the rate is something ridiculous like 1/1,000,000?

Spoiler

Absolutely not. While the ubers aren’t as good for how rare they are, they are pretty fun toys to play with. It’s no trophy when everyone and their mom has one. Personally, I’m not a fan of ubers even being a reward in events but I’ll be a little bit more lenient. Events should not trivialize players who have hunted them or received exceptional luck through a fun clear. When somebody finds a Platinum Badge or two from rappies while box hunting for barriers, that is just absolutely stupid. I think Platinum Badge should be unrealistically low. You *shouldn’t* find one, but you’d be super lucky if you did. The way I see it now is not of that notion. It is more like, *who* is going to find one. There sure are an awful lot of ubers floating around for how little players we have. Probably less than a third of those are real drops.