Yeah I think the event was a fantastic idea even if people (myself included) just ended up mostly spamming Forest. I think all it really needs is some reward tweaks to further incentivize branching out a bit more, the idea of a community wide HBR is awesome so don't abandon that entirely for the future.
Yeah I think the event was a fantastic idea even if people (myself included) just ended up mostly spamming Forest. I think all it really needs is some reward tweaks to further incentivize branching out a bit more, the idea of a community wide HBR is awesome so don't abandon that entirely for the future.
Having separate reward tracks for each enemy TYPE (N,AB,M,D), rather than forcing people to go into specific areas, would get people out of Forest while still providing multiple options. Show all of the rewards of each enemy "track" except the last one to get people motivated. We don't need to be hiding the general rewards anymore because everyone understands the format now. Put all of the weaker rewards (ie. Meseta boosts) on the Native enemy track, with maybe just a small number of decent rewards at the end. Put all of the better rewards on AB, Machine, and Dark. Make the Machine track a bit easier since there's no Machine type enemies in Episode 4.
Going by enemy type would force people to play DIFFERENT areas without forcing them to play ALL areas, which was a mistake.
I had a blast this year and appreciate the event, but this format was too experimental, and I think we were destined to fail. Relying on the collective cooperation of a large group of people, when the task is too complicated, will likely fail. Changing this from "you must play this specific area" to enemy types, along with showing MOST of the rewards ahead of time, would mitigate most of the issues and motivate people. Going by enemy type would give players multiple choices for how to approach the goal, instead of feeling forced / shamed to play specific areas.
There will still be Forest spammers, but I think this would lessen it a lot. We need to show what is being offered to get people to try. There's no point in hiding the rewards since we all understand what they generally are now. It's not some huge reveal anymore.
Mostly I'd say Episodes 2 and 4 being a massive pain in the dick, especially Seabed and Desert. Not really sure what a good reward structure would be, obviously you don't want to just turn the whole economy upside down. I'm more incentivized by gobs of EXP than loot most of the time since I play a FOney and most of that gear is fairly easy to come by aside from a couple of outliers.
It's interesting, back in the days of Schtserv, we would get upset because none of the GMs or developers actually played the game. That is way different on Ephinea.
And sure, Matt never plays anymore, but he was a damn good player in his day, and still knows how to play. Ender, Ryan, Anime, Carnage, Gori, and Mew all still play, as well. So OVERALL it's very good that we have a staff who is "in touch" with the mechanics of the game. But maybe we needed to be careful about what we wished for. Because it is that thorough understanding of the game, from the perspective of being a good player, that may have caused the event goals to be set too high.
@Raine's post (see above) made me think of this. Thank you.
Should the freedom to achieve awesome boosts be contingent on being a sweatlord? The strong boosts of the Anniversary Event only happen once a year. Perhaps we've gotten too serious about this. Maybe Forest spam is only a problem because someone in a position of authority decided it is a problem. I personally think MAE Forest is one of the best of the series, and felt guilty the few times I ran it this year. (Which is no good.)
Life is tough. Sometimes you just want to kick some ass in a video game.
It's interesting, back in the days of Schtserv, we would get upset because none of the GMs or developers actually played the game. That is way different on Ephinea.
And sure, Matt never plays anymore, but he was a damn good player in his day, and still knows how to play. Ender, Ryan, Anime, Carnage, Gori, and Mew all still play, as well. So OVERALL it's very good that we have a staff who is "in touch" with the mechanics of the game. But maybe we needed to be careful about what we wished for. Because it is that thorough understanding of the game, from the perspective of being a good player, that may have caused the event goals to be set too high.
@Raine's post (see above) made me think of this. Thank you.
Should the freedom to achieve awesome boosts be contingent on being a sweatlord? The strong boosts of the Anniversary Event only happen once a year. Perhaps we've gotten too serious about this. Maybe Forest spam is only a problem because someone in a position of authority decided it is a problem. I personally think MAE Forest is one of the best of the series, and felt guilty the few times I ran it this year. (Which is no good.)
Life is tough. Sometimes you just want to kick some ass in a video game.
Granted we often Peaked with 550+players on weekends...we SHOULD'VE Pwned 'All' the goals set...However last year mew can't halp but imagine Soda-Samas staring at his screen with unblinking eyes like....."Omg.....WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!...." While milestone after milestone dropped like flies!! Someone HAD to set the bar HIGHER dammit~! Last year was BATSHYT CRAZY!!! <3!! Then again, if we complain 'too' much...the server gods might just put All the goals next time on quests we Gaze upon with Absolute LOATHING...whilst cackling "How You Like Me NOW Bi$hes!!!!?". *Shows herself out~!*
I just kept turning in low point quests, believing that milestones would be achieved.
Specifically, the Seabed, Tower, and AA series.
Progress on AA1 was particularly poor. I turned this quest around 130 times in order to break through. (I earned 1,000 pts = about 10% of the total from the rooms I built alone.)
The game was full of mechanical enemies, and I enjoyed the combination of enemies that I had never seen before.
However, the difficulty level was too high. Most of the wave required FT, and carrying a scape doll was a must. In addition, the springs that included epsilon made many players lose their ability to fight.
The difficulty level may be nothing to a GM, but for a new player, it was a quest that required a lot of skill.
(Personally, I feel it is on par with XRD REV2 in terms of difficulty.)
In the end, the milestone was never achieved.
It was expected to be unattainable after the 10,000 pt mark.
It was not until 2/3 of the event had passed that I turned to other quests in earnest.
However, when I averaged the accumulated points, the goal was attainable,
By September 3, 20,000 pts was expected to be achieved.
In other words, we had enough strength to achieve the goal.
The presence of RBR also hindered the achievement of milestones.
We saw quite a few players who did not earn milestones and play SU3.
What I learned from this event is that many people do not turn in quests that are not commensurate with the difficulty and rare items.
Fearing Epsilon and Delbiter, many avoided the Seabed, Tower, and AA series.
No, it wasn’t attainable because, once again, the inability of a large group of people to collectively attain a COMPLEX goal was not considered. Simple goals, yes. But not complex.
This isn’t a matter of, “Oh if everyone had dedicated themselves as much as I DID, we would have made it.” That has not ever happened, and never will. In terms of leisure activities, this happens literally nowhere in human existence. If you have a goal that involves 10+ moving parts and requires 400+ people to move in synchronicity over the course of multiple weeks, there is a 100% chance of failure. (Assuming this is a leisure activity and not a job / company with the fear of getting fired, where the chances of success are higher.)
Limitations of large-group human nature made this goal impossible.
Let’s turn off the masochism and the elitism and consider that most people are just Joe 6-pack wanting to hit things with a sword.
Mostly I'd say Episodes 2 and 4 being a massive pain in the dick, especially Seabed and Desert. Not really sure what a good reward structure would be, obviously you don't want to just turn the whole economy upside down. I'm more incentivized by gobs of EXP than loot most of the time since I play a FOney and most of that gear is fairly easy to come by aside from a couple of outliers.
Episode 2: Temple and Spaceship are easier than Mines and Ruins. Even in CCA you can do a lot with just a Hell Raygun.
Episode 4: Is hard if you're not playing FO, but has gobs of EXP.
Anyway, this just confirms that the Forest Frenzy is a comfort thing and related more to how people feel about the different Episodes more than the event incentives.
GreenMaker said:
The presence of RBR also hindered the achievement of milestones.
We saw quite a few players who did not earn milestones and play SU3.
Like you, I also focused on milestones for the first half of the event, but then I saw the server as a whole wasn't doing the same. And as you say, the RBR boosts were really great, eg. for oran WoL1 - too good to pass up.
Ade said:
Let’s turn off the masochism and the elitism and consider that most people are just Joe 6-pack wanting to hit things with a sword.
Thanks to the entire staff team, @Harborer of Hope@Ender@Sodaboy@Ryan@Matt, made it possible for the ephinea server to celebrate another anniversary event, more than grateful, 0 complains I enjoyed it quite a bit, congratulations to everyone, for my part I have nothing to criticize; When we enjoy something, we spend time looking for errors or flaws, i remanding this quote; situational awareness is the currency that buys you the time and opportunity to solve the problem. In my conscience, an excellent memory of this event for this game in this server.
Honestly it's really only a handful of problematic enemies (Delbiter, Epsilon, Sinows that hit for nine billion damage, Girtablublu) that make the game unfun sometimes, pretty much everything else is fine to deal with.
No, it wasn’t attainable because, once again, the inability of a large group of people to collectively attain a COMPLEX goal was not considered. Simple goals, yes. But not complex.
Limitations of large-group human nature made this goal impossible.
My point was that there were enough players who could have achieved their goals. Maybe the rules were not appropriate.
Of course, what you mentioned is probably one of the reasons why the goal was not achieved.
I have experienced this tournament and undersood large-group human nature. However, I think I will do the same next year.
The main reason people run forest is for the consistent fast silver farm (or any other fast stage). Why should I do a single AA when I could farm 3 silver in that time in forest, cave, etc?
The RER + the RDR boost is also really good. You can farm 2 Ubers in forest on various IDs and the addictive properties of “just one more run bro maybe a torr” is strong lol. Unfortunately a lot of the areas are simply not as good as other areas as far as drops go as well. Why play tower when I can farm a similar chance of gie gue AND have a good chance at Heavens Punisher as well in CCA?
I have compiled a list of adjusted points based on time and factoring in OP areas that will be run a lot as-is for drops. As well as areas having mediocre drops, these being ran much less.
These numbers are very rough estimations:
Forest - 5 min - 4pts (baseline)
Cave - 5 min - 4pts (baseline)
Temple - 5 min - 8pts (adjusted for mediocre drops)
Space - 5 min - 8pts (adjusted for mediocre drops)
Mines - 6 min - 5pts (adjusted for time)
CCA - 6 min - 4pts (not adjusted because good drops)
Crater - 6 min - 5pts (adjusted for time)
Desert - 6 min - 4pts (not adjusted because good drops)
Seabed - 7 min - 10pts (adjusted for mediocre drops, difficulty)
Ruins - 7 min - 4 (not adjusted because good drops)
Tower - 10 min - 12 pts (adjusted for mediocre drops, time, difficulty)
AA1 - 15min - 12 pts (adjusted for time, difficulty)
AA2 - 15min - 12 pts (adjusted for time, difficulty)
Using this spread every achievement would have been reached. However the players that are doing AA are still taking a sacrifice for the team. They are farming 1 silver in the time 3 could be farmed. Of course quests can always be finished fast by high level players so having it award 3 silver would probably be broken. But I think if the AA series and Tower awarded 2 silver it would have been played twice as much.
The main reason people run forest is for the consistent fast silver farm (or any other fast stage). Why should I do a single AA when I could farm 3 silver in that time in forest, cave, etc?
The RER + the RDR boost is also really good. You can farm 2 Ubers in forest on various IDs and the addictive properties of “just one more run bro maybe a torr” is strong lol. Unfortunately a lot of the areas are simply not as good as other areas as far as drops go as well. Why play tower when I can farm a similar chance of gie gue AND have a good chance at Heavens Punisher as well in CCA?
I have compiled a list of adjusted points based on time and factoring in OP areas that will be run a lot as-is for drops. As well as areas having mediocre drops, these being ran much less.
These numbers are very rough estimations:
Forest - 5 min - 4pts (baseline)
Cave - 5 min - 4pts (baseline)
Temple - 5 min - 8pts (adjusted for mediocre drops)
Space - 5 min - 8pts (adjusted for mediocre drops)
Mines - 6 min - 5pts (adjusted for time)
CCA - 6 min - 4pts (not adjusted because good drops)
Crater - 6 min - 5pts (adjusted for time)
Desert - 6 min - 4pts (not adjusted because good drops)
Seabed - 7 min - 10pts (adjusted for mediocre drops, difficulty)
Ruins - 7 min - 4 (not adjusted because good drops)
Tower - 10 min - 12 pts (adjusted for mediocre drops, time, difficulty)
AA1 - 15min - 12 pts (adjusted for time, difficulty)
AA2 - 15min - 12 pts (adjusted for time, difficulty)
Using this spread every achievement would have been reached. However the players that are doing AA are still taking a sacrifice for the team. They are farming 1 silver in the time 3 could be farmed. Of course quests can always be finished fast by high level players so having it award 3 silver would probably be broken. But I think if the AA series and Tower awarded 2 silver it would have been played twice as much.
The AA series *did* award two silver badges, though I think this adjustment was made a few days into the event. I guess you'd stopped playing it by then.
What constitutes an area with mediocre drops is somewhat subjective and I would say that
a) There are generally good IDs for every area. Of the ones you called mediocre, I'd say Temple and Spaceship are very good with Pink/Purple/Red and Sky/Red respectively.
b) Froozer and HP hunts are overrated. The former is only valuable with very high hit and the latter can be better hunted on CCA Purple.
c) Many players, like Raine, aren't making these kinds of calculations and are just comfortable in Forest.
I know this wasn't directed at me but I wanted to chime in as somebody who did spam quite a bit of forest (mostly yellow mines but a lot of forest as well).
A lot of people, myself included, take breaks and come back sometimes after a year or more. I often forget mechanics, what weapons to use, spawns, etc. and I know this is the case for others. Forest is just comfortable and familiar and you know nobody is upset that you're making things more difficult by not knowing what to do. In some maps it's important to have very specific items as well, certain ES weapons for example, that not everybody has. Actually that is what stopped me from doing more episode 2 stuff.
I also imagine a lot of people that are lower level feel more comfortable with some of the easier maps and I would guess a lot of people are leveling new characters during the event.
as for getting out...just taking the initiative. taking "risk". buying items (if you can afford them) that are helpful. If I knew exactly what ES weapons one of my rangers needed for episode 2 I'd be more likely to try.
I know this wasn't directed at me but I wanted to chime in as somebody who did spam quite a bit of forest (mostly yellow mines but a lot of forest as well).
A lot of people, myself included, take breaks and come back sometimes after a year or more. I often forget mechanics, what weapons to use, spawns, etc. and I know this is the case for others. Forest is just comfortable and familiar and you know nobody is upset that you're making things more difficult by not knowing what to do. In some maps it's important to have very specific items as well, certain ES weapons for example, that not everybody has. Actually that is what stopped me from doing more episode 2 stuff.
I also imagine a lot of people that are lower level feel more comfortable with some of the easier maps and I would guess a lot of people are leveling new characters during the event.
as for getting out...just taking the initiative. taking "risk". buying items (if you can afford them) that are helpful. If I knew exactly what ES weapons one of my rangers needed for episode 2 I'd be more likely to try.
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of elitism. I suggest joining different rooms, finding players you get along with and then running stuff with them. I don't do long hunts with people who don't chat, for example- I'd rather just play one-person-mode.
Nobody asked for my opinion but seeing as we're all still sharing ours...Matt sucks.
Now that we got that out of the way, the milestone change was mostly made with the intention of helping people get games in other MAE quests. I'd say that succeeded for about a week and half; unfortunately it seems most dropped the effort after this point for whatever reason. I'm sure Ender could run some analysis on that if he wanted to but...I think a better solution to the Forest 'problem' is to dump the original MAE quests for the 10th anniversary. We've had it a number of years, it is kind of disconnected from the spirit of Maximum Attack (if that makes sense), and the reward system is extremely...sterile in some aspects, for lack of a better word.
I believe a cool way to celebrate 10 years would be to incorporate some of the grandeur found with previous Maximum Attacks while improving on such concepts. Quest-wise, creating a successor to MA2 for each episode seems ideal - the multiple route system is very cool. To prevent the common complaint of "buh i cant get the drops", players would be able to access a quest item that warps them to the specified area or Pioneer 2 once badges are distributed.
Ideally a strong (hunting-wise) mix of different enemies would be available in each route. While every area would be traversable, bosses would be optional (or even hidden) on certain routes. Episode 4 would probably a bit different to make up for the fact it only has one boss but a rather large amount of space to work with on routes. Omnispawn could be used to inject some interesting themed routes on unused maps like Temple/Space/Seaside Night/Cave 2.
Mentioned earlier, badges. I like badges but I think Ephinea should move away from dropping them everywhere. They would drop exclusively in these quests (including the Plat badge) while these quests would award a number of badges based on the party's kill count that run.
Speaking of rewards, our milestones have been rather tame compared to Sonic Team's for a very long time. I don't necessarily disagree with that in hindsight...but I think we could at least meet their "minimum" rewards when everything is capped out. Ditch the meseta boost entirely. Maximum EXP boost is good at 200% since we have virtually no death penalty, but I believe DAR, Rare Enemy, and Rare Drop should receive an additional 50% to their current maximum. I would rather someone with analytics take a stab at the badge rate boost, but I do not think it needs to be boosted from previous rates. While it is true that Sonic Team did not boost the DAR, there is really no question that the 5x and 10x rare drop rate rewards still dwarf these pretty hard even at 2 weeks length.
As for how milestones would be calculated...you may have guessed that I would like to go back to total kills. Nothing super fancy there.
But a system to promote play of the least played episiode would be ideal. I'd suggest a supplementary badge boost: 20% to the least cleared, 10% to the middleman, and 0% to the current leader (probably gonna be Episode 1...)
Then consider bringing back indiviudal rewards for those with the highest amount of kills and teams with quickest clears. The cut off should probably be 1/8th of our last high for kills, so about 75-100 people for kills and 25 teams for time. Something unique but not exactly meta defying.
IE: Great Bouquet with 50H for kills and Star Song with 25H for time. Maybe a Star Song 0H for everyone who achieved 1000 kills.
Finally...I think the Scavenger should be reintroduced to the badge quest with some changes.
- only accepts 1 Gold Badge
- unable to provide Tier 5 (Yellow) weapons
Or we could just adjust the badge rewards and tweak the milestones to appease the unwashed heathens. Doubt I'm gonna be able to take a stab at my quest idea before next anniversary rolls around and nobody's getting paid to listen to my bullshit.
Thanks for reading to the end anyway! My final post........unless I wander into tech support or trading
P.S. I extend my hearts to Sodaboy, Ender, and I guess Matt for his past contributions since he won't play PSO with me
yes im calling you out ryan
Dunno if it'd be possible, but perhaps a rotating system of boosts, where Episode 1 is getting boosts one week, then Episode 2 another week, ect. Just spitballing here.
As for how milestones would be calculated...you may have guessed that I would like to go back to total kills. Nothing super fancy there.
But a system to promote play of the least played episiode would be ideal. I'd suggest a supplementary badge boost: 20% to the least cleared, 10% to the middleman, and 0% to the current leader (probably gonna be Episode 1...)
yeah one nice thing about the total kills system is that you always feel like you're contributing. not to say what they tried this year isn't good...there are pros and cons to each.
Now that we got that out of the way, the milestone change was mostly made with the intention of helping people get games in other MAE quests. I'd say that succeeded for about a week and half;
yeah, I also feel towards the end people realized it just wasn't going to happen and that we were in a 'good enough' spot. I had my doubts pretty early on while some people were more optimistic thinking we could push to the last milestones. once it took 2000 points to get the next milestone is probably when most realized it wasn't going to be close.
I'm not complaining though just fun to analyze things. In the end people were just complacent to their own detriment, heh. as for me I was staying in my comfort zone as well. I did try the new quests and I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. I know that's not a good attitude to have though since the game isn't that hard and you always push through in the end.
Nobody asked for my opinion but seeing as we're all still sharing ours...Matt sucks.
Now that we got that out of the way, the milestone change was mostly made with the intention of helping people get games in other MAE quests. I'd say that succeeded for about a week and half; unfortunately it seems most dropped the effort after this point for whatever reason. I'm sure Ender could run some analysis on that if he wanted to but...I think a better solution to the Forest 'problem' is to dump the original MAE quests for the 10th anniversary. We've had it a number of years, it is kind of disconnected from the spirit of Maximum Attack (if that makes sense), and the reward system is extremely...sterile in some aspects, for lack of a better word.
I believe a cool way to celebrate 10 years would be to incorporate some of the grandeur found with previous Maximum Attacks while improving on such concepts. Quest-wise, creating a successor to MA2 for each episode seems ideal - the multiple route system is very cool. To prevent the common complaint of "buh i cant get the drops", players would be able to access a quest item that warps them to the specified area or Pioneer 2 once badges are distributed.
Ideally a strong (hunting-wise) mix of different enemies would be available in each route. While every area would be traversable, bosses would be optional (or even hidden) on certain routes. Episode 4 would probably a bit different to make up for the fact it only has one boss but a rather large amount of space to work with on routes. Omnispawn could be used to inject some interesting themed routes on unused maps like Temple/Space/Seaside Night/Cave 2.
Mentioned earlier, badges. I like badges but I think Ephinea should move away from dropping them everywhere. They would drop exclusively in these quests (including the Plat badge) while these quests would award a number of badges based on the party's kill count that run.
Speaking of rewards, our milestones have been rather tame compared to Sonic Team's for a very long time. I don't necessarily disagree with that in hindsight...but I think we could at least meet their "minimum" rewards when everything is capped out. Ditch the meseta boost entirely. Maximum EXP boost is good at 200% since we have virtually no death penalty, but I believe DAR, Rare Enemy, and Rare Drop should receive an additional 50% to their current maximum. I would rather someone with analytics take a stab at the badge rate boost, but I do not think it needs to be boosted from previous rates. While it is true that Sonic Team did not boost the DAR, there is really no question that the 5x and 10x rare drop rate rewards still dwarf these pretty hard even at 2 weeks length.
As for how milestones would be calculated...you may have guessed that I would like to go back to total kills. Nothing super fancy there.
But a system to promote play of the least played episiode would be ideal. I'd suggest a supplementary badge boost: 20% to the least cleared, 10% to the middleman, and 0% to the current leader (probably gonna be Episode 1...)
Then consider bringing back indiviudal rewards for those with the highest amount of kills and teams with quickest clears. The cut off should probably be 1/8th of our last high for kills, so about 75-100 people for kills and 25 teams for time. Something unique but not exactly meta defying.
IE: Great Bouquet with 50H for kills and Star Song with 25H for time. Maybe a Star Song 0H for everyone who achieved 1000 kills.
Finally...I think the Scavenger should be reintroduced to the badge quest with some changes.
- only accepts 1 Gold Badge
- unable to provide Tier 5 (Yellow) weapons
Or we could just adjust the badge rewards and tweak the milestones to appease the unwashed heathens. Doubt I'm gonna be able to take a stab at my quest idea before next anniversary rolls around and nobody's getting paid to listen to my bullshit.
Thanks for reading to the end anyway! My final post........unless I wander into tech support or trading
P.S. I extend my hearts to Sodaboy, Ender, and I guess Matt for his past contributions since he won't play PSO with me
yes im calling you out ryan
Nobody asked for my opinion but seeing as we're all still sharing ours...Matt sucks.
SHOTS FIRED!!! XD!... But then again, When WAS the last time anyone saw Matt Matt-Sama haunting the lobbies? Mew pounces Ryan-Dono and anime-Dono out in lobby happily and often enuff tho~!♡
