I probably have a complete opposite opinion as a lot of the posts I'm reading but I felt this event was perfect aside from the mid slight nerf. I played through out all of 2018 events and the xmas event was very unexpectedly well done. I was planning on skipping the event originally. I guess I'll explain my stance starting with the beginning.
I played during the seasons event and felt like that was the biggest waste of time personally. That's not to say the event was terrible altogether, it was well thought out, with the certain achievements to accomplish, check off, and then move on to the next, it was a bit new and exciting. It just wasn't executed well in my opinion. A big issue was that the reward information was never released until after event, so you never truly knew what you were getting out of it besides spheres. To dedicate that amount of time just to find out you barely get rewarded would be disheartening in my opinion. I remember I got to around lvl150 with fonewm until I got bored of it and stopped, think I made 3 spheres from rewards and a skin. But the seasons skin shop has never been updated so I can't even use that reward either which is further insult to time spent on that. Along with the divide in community that event made, half of the players played regular mode and the other half seasons so a small community was being split in two. The event would've been better had it been perhaps a month instead of 3 months time. Items and PDs were so scarce and the was the biggest deflation I've seen on this server. Would've been better to skip this event but I was so addicted to playing pso that I just played through it. Oh and the season rewards(mostly spheres) didnt get passed out until like a month later so the econ was hurting for quite awhile.
After seasons, I just remember auctions and trade forums were rough to deal with, could barely get any pds out of it. I would say if you want to make players continue playing after events then just consider adjusting hbrs during the non events. Some are a complete waste of time with hunts that aren't worth playing for. I remember playing an HBR EN1-EN4 with aizen and government for about a solid month, reached S rank and the goal was to hunt a 60h+ cvulc with en4 purplenum. This hunt is pretty damn brutal if you've ever tried it, not many people play this hbr so you are solo grinding it for the most part so it is not likely to get SS rank party, the most you can really hope for is a few S ranks to build hbr rate. Anyways, there is nothing in this hunt that is worth hunting besides cvulc and the rate of finding it is damn near impossible. I think governnment found 60h from this(which he then sold to aizen), and aizen and I kind of just wasted time hunting it. Cvulc is such an essential weapon to have, hunting for a 60h+ cvulc feels harder than hunting a 30h HS/excal. There aren't great hbrs for it and its not a rare enemy drop so there is no true way to hunt this item other than en4 hbr. This hunt is simply aids, I was very thankful that 75h cvulc was offered as a present during xmas.
Think I played easter event but not too much, got a 40h sn from gamble which was decent but remember it was hard to get anything out of the items and my initial impression was that it wasn't that great of an event so I don't remember putting much time into it to even give a lengthy explanation of my thoughts of it. I think it was during seasons as well? That was also an issue.
So now moving on to summer event, I had mixed feelings with this. The gold badges got nerfed so hard that it wasn't worth gambling, the meta was to just turn them into spheres. Couple that with spheres being a reward and now you just are hyper inflating the amount of pds/spheres in the economy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, as said before there was a huge deflation period and the server desperately needed this to an extent. There should've been balance, the gold badge rate should've been the same as the previous year(2017) after the nerf(or perhaps before that nerf?) I was just starting back then so I didn't know what they were used for until the event ended. I remember the rate being ok/acceptable, think I found 30h fs, 30h sn, and 35h musashi from spinning about 50-60 gold badges. But I do remember that those more familiar with gold badges were able to attain 60h fs, 55h fs, 60h sn, 50h sn, and some 50h+ flowens. It seems unfair to me that the likelihood of getting uber weapons drastically changed and those unfamiliar with the system got the bad hand of the deal. I don't know at what rate these ubers were given out from gambles as I didn't get a chance to gamble during it, but after the nerf, I felt that it was fine, just salty knowing that the chance of getting a better item with easier rates could've been attained, but if the rate was that easy then it makes sense to nerf it to that degree so I agree with the initial nerf.) I think during 18' everyone told me to not gamble but after accumulating a lot of spheres I decided to go against those precautions and try my luck hoping for a 50h+ SN(oh and it sucked that FS wasn't offered this year). Think I spent around 80-85 badges and got 30h SN from like my 5th spin and then junk the next 80 spins or whatever, needless to say I was a bit salty that the gamble rates were actually that hard nerfed, harder than the previous years nerf.
A sweet spot would've been the sphere introduction and gold badge gambles with a moderate drop chance to make it worth gambling for instead of using them solely to pump more spheres. I remember all the spheres introduced inflated the economy quite a bit which could be a good thing. But I do remember auctions selling items for ridiculous amount by buyers that were relatively new that got rich quick from pd inflation and just simply used them for the sake of using them. I felt that 17' summer event was much better as there was actually a reason to use these spheres/pds on items that were worthy of being sphered rather than just using them as liquidity. I still enjoyed the hbr summer event as usual and that was the high point of that event.
Then moving on to cookie event, was slightly disappointing that this got nerfed, but it was a very slight nerf that it's not the biggest issue in the world. The hunt was now for excal rather than excal+v101. Also cookie boosts couldn't be combined with events so the rate wasn't as good as before. But I played through out that whole event, my friends were lucky to find good excals, its a nice event to hold you till xmas pretty much.
Moving on to xmas event. I was surprised just how good the item list was. I give huge props to whoever came up with that list. I remember joking that 75h cvulc would be a prize and that would be my motivator to play and sure enough it actually was. I was under the impression that the xmas event would just be a watered down version of last years xmas event, similar to how summer event was a watered down version but I couldn't have been more wrong. So I played constantly through this event. However all I found was 50h BL, 50h guard, 85h stick, two type/j-swords and v502. The "slight nerf" midway was disappointing, and after that it only really felt worth playing during the new years boost. I think I stopped on the 12th when it was scheduled to be finished with, although it was up for a few days more I couldn't find it in myself to keep playing as I had nothing really to show for it, getting only item tickets and hp mats/tp mats was cancer and it wasn't like you could use hbr to make your own success for hunts. The only people that seem to complain about the rate being too easy are those ones who actually found those uber items which is odd to me. I do think that perhaps there might of been slightly too many RMs/ast belt/guard but not by very much. I think guard price fell the sharpest but everything else seems to hold up well. So yeah all in all I was happy that ubers were pumped into the event, because now there is actually a purpose to use those spheres on items that actually demand it.
So yeah this is my input, it's a bit long but that's just because I've enjoyed playing here the past year so much. I might be a bit critical of staff at times, but really appreciate the work they put in and with an xmas event like this it shows. Critiques and responses from community is also good for an honest review. New fresh ideas and item lists are what make me come back personally as playing down nerfed watered down versions of past years things just feels like boring repetition that are less enticing. Oh and improved hbr month quest picks(or change? Usually they are just repetitions of the past picks as well) would probably make the scene more steady instead of feeling like only events are worth playing for. Thanks for all of your work, and hope this helps?
