Halloween Disappointing

[edmaster3]

Maybe its just me, or I am just tired. But this Halloween was disappointing. I have seen a nice trend where drop rates seem to be getting lower.
I thought Halloween was a place to have fun and get items you need, not work, trying to farm Amour from massive hp guys. Then they went and watered down cloaks dropping from enigma too.
I remember when drop rates for miys at mort borgs was high, while now you can spend an hour out there and only get a few pieces.
Recently farming stuff seems to be getting harder to get while they keep expanding the FC shop items.

It could all be my imagination though.

[Gimpynoob]

VP's in the item shop.


A good explanation for many things.

[Awikun]

I can not agree, but maybe its just me.
This year it was my best ever halloween. Maybe because I had a little more time than usual to play. Maybe because I had some luck with drops and rolls.

However there were few things worth mentioning.
1. I did not get a single "old time loot" from mission other than Str/sta pistols or multi range/melee pillows and I did for sure at least 150-200 missions.
2. There are still some people who have good manners and can behawe nicely even in 25% gas zone meeting players of other factions killing GUPHs
3. There is more morons who will attack and kill without any warning even players of their own faction 20+ levels lower. Some would even do it while multiboxing their little army.
4. I would not suggest any conspiracy theory about nerfing drop rates because as long as I remember rare items in AO were rare (or even extremely rare). I can understand that everybody would love to get phat loot from every boss mob 100% of the time but that would do more harm than good ...

[edmaster3]

I can not agree, but maybe its just me.
This year it was my best ever halloween. Maybe because I had a little more time than usual to play. Maybe because I had some luck with drops and rolls.

However there were few things worth mentioning.
1. I did not get a single "old time loot" from mission other than Str/sta pistols or multi range/melee pillows and I did for sure at least 150-200 missions.
2. There are still some people who have good manners and can behawe nicely even in 25% gas zone meeting players of other factions killing GUPHs
3. There is more morons who will attack and kill without any warning even players of their own faction 20+ levels lower. Some would even do it while multiboxing their little army.
4. I would not suggest any conspiracy theory about nerfing drop rates because as long as I remember rare items in AO were rare (or even extremely rare). I can understand that everybody would love to get phat loot from every boss mob 100% of the time but that would do more harm than good ...

Yeah its probably just me. Although i wouldn't consider lya's a rare drop. Under the rare category you can put a few pocket boss patterns, some symbs, and pretty much a lot things most professions need.
Was really hoping to lyas for my alts, but even lvl 300 tower sites have low uph's and personally with really low drop rates. Also I really dont think I should have to multibox just to get high ql, lyas or have to deal with AO trying to force people to pvp and/or give pvpers something to do.
Just glad many people enjoyed it, social items never interested me.

[Traderjill]

edmaster-

You don't have to go into PvP zones to get high ql lyas (or even midrange). I've gotten ql 220-300 lya's armor (all slots) from doing the Halloween instance. A typical drop (from the times I've done it) seems to include at least 6 pieces of lya's as well as cloaks of varying ql and rings. It is a 6 man instance but you can really farm it with as few people as you wish. I've found 4 to be optimal, personally.

As for low ql stuff, I've just gone to my org's tower sites and farmed or looked up a site using demoder's website. I got lya's armor off plain old Uncle Pumpkinheads and I'm pretty sure the sites were cold at the time.

Anyway, my opinion is that this has been one of the best Halloween events since I started AO. I've gotten quite a few cool things and done it on my own timetable and my own way with friends/orgmates.

[Ophiuchus]

Well the drop rate issue might have to do with the fact that due to accumulation of previous years' phats, the size of the loot tables is now HUGE! This isn't a bad thing, mind you. It means you can play catch up on newer characters or if you've not been around for a year or two. But it means that the thing you want might take a pile more kills to get unless they also increase the number of items that can drop per UPH kill.

I haven't had any time this year apart from a couple of hours yesterday - just long enough for me to realise how long it'd take me to get all of the stuff I missed and the new stuff on all my characters. Eh... next year (Assuming the various games I play don't all delay their halloween stuff together. Again... :tinfoil

[Le-Quack]

the dropprate in enigma kinda ruins the market a bit and contribute the weaker players to go buy creds from a cred seller service wich only helps ruin the market and the prices even more.
items sells for 3,5b+ bilions wich is ok, but there is no way a guy that playd for less than some years has a chanse to get such without useing a cred service.
if dropprate was increased on miy armor parts and rings like miy cloaks the prices would been more stable and it would support into a more balanced game to next years halloween.
the event in my eyes should be joyfull for evryone and not for the strongest ones who can multibox sevral accounts and gain so much profits of this event rather than joy. well i am sure they are the most joyfull ones with this multiboxed farm in enigma but it should be a event equal for evryone wich it isnt. the dropp on certain gear wich is needed for some barly dropps and supports as i said cred sellers and helps ruin the market.

[Oliveerz]

What made me most disappointed over this halloween is the fact that enigma was ONLY focused on lvl 220's.. First day of halloween patch i made a team for enigma only to realize it was not intended for us at all.. Why is that? Why focus, as always on the endgamers? Not everyone enjoys tl7, i enjoy tl5-tl6 more than any other title lvl.

Make enigma scaleable instead. Don't let low lvl cloaks drop off the high lvl raids, let the low lvl people get the low lvl cloaks if you are to drop them at all.

Not sure i made much sense tbh..

[Anonimofied]

Halloween is for babies

[BlockAndLode]

I found the event very frustrating as well. BS GUPHs took forever to solo (my main is currently a 213 Atrox Keeper) and I could not find anyone willing to take me into the Enigma area in a team. I picked up a few nifty items here and there, got some neat backpacks, but QL 300 armor, the treatment pistols, any of the rares or QL 300 oldschool items were impossible to get. It also doesn't help that I tried to kill some GUPHs in lowbie areas on my low level alts, and basically was reduced to looting scraps left over by level 220s that were farming the low level GUPHs relentlessly.

Perhaps next year you can set it up so that UPHs drop a token, and maybe GUPHs drop more than one token or a greater value token, that can be then traded in to an NPC for some of the more rare items, or even some of the regular items that are desired so that lower level characters have a chance at actually acquiring some of the loot from the event. It wouldn't be so bad if the 220s would let lowbies have the lowbie areas, but they just steamroll over the lower level players as if they own the zone. And we wonder why some new players don't stick around...

[gresh]

Yeah hearing this makes me glad I opt out of Halloween since genele screwed everybody over. All funcom ever do is strive to instill elitism from the offset. The enigma has always been a joke to any non endgame toons. Michi has a lot on his plate like with alotta balls in the air atm so its not like he's just being lazy/uncaring. I feel I did too many missions last year for no reward to bother wasting bits of life all over again but hopefully next year will bring a Halloween we can all enjoy.

The token idea sounds like a decent idea.

[Traderjill]

The enigma has always been a joke to any non endgame toons. Michi has a lot on his plate like with alotta balls in the air atm so its not like he's just being lazy/uncaring. I feel I did too many missions last year for no reward to bother wasting bits of life all over again but hopefully next year will bring a Halloween we can all enjoy.

The token idea sounds like a decent idea.

Yeah, my understanding from the words of the person that designed it (Michizure) was that it was meant for TL7's. He talks about it in a couple spots in this thread. I would imagine that if he wanted to change it, he's had 3 years to do so My guess is its working as intended.

People often use WoW as some sort of standard for special events as they do a really good job. Even WoW has an endgame instance for its holiday events that can only be accessed if you're maxlevel-1 or maxlevel.

As I stated in the 2011 thread, when the only loot was a t-shirt, I think it is a cool instance. The original idea of it just being an achievement type place has pretty much been ruined by the fact that people just farm the first 10 waves, break team and repeat. I think that's why no one can really appreciate its format or the fact that it doesn't scale.

If Michizure does decide to scale it in the future, I hope that he makes it level locked to enter. In other words, a level 220 shouldn't be able to go into a level 200 instance and steamroll the mobs and grab loot.

[gresh]

Yes Jill you're right, it was aimed at end game chars. Sorry I totally didn't make myself clear in the sense that I meant it a joke that end game was all that was catered for with no alternative for any toon not high enough for. The number of end game toons pales insignificantly to the number of non 220 toons I would imagine and alot of those toons will never reach end game. There isn't a single piece of Halloween that cant be enjoyed by a 220 but 220's get to enjoy something the others cant. Not that I'm too fussed. Just merely making a comment. I did the enigma grove a few times the year it came out and I remember it being different, fun and challenging but its been a while now since and tbh I cant really remember it too well. My decision of opting out of Halloween meant I didn't bother with enigma grove last year and I wont be doing it this either but saying that if there were lower alternative activities for lower alts I'd of missed that out to. Like I said I'm mot too fussed, don't mean to be seeming like I'm kicking and screaming, more just saying.

Yeah I'm not saying id want it to scale(although I wouldn't be opposed) Maybe come up with something else for the lowbies. I like that things get separated and aimed at specific lvl ranges in ao cos if I get bored/annoyed/fed up of something in doing on one char... It's nice to be able to switch out and have a different series of objectives for a change. Either way tho its a non issue for me.

I'm trying not to get too much expectations up of michi cos he has a lot to sort out I imagine and he seems to be trying to get out a lot of stuff so no expectations means no upset either way. He seems to have made more happy (vocal) players than gds that had a higher playerbase to gleam happiness from so gj michi. Hope things go smoothly for ya with upcoming changes.

Jill yes I agree... I cant stress how much i feel it should be level locked or maybe the mobs be the level of the highest or at least so many levels higher than the highest or what ever or even like ai city raids where it calculates the levels of the people in team and spits out appropriate mobs. 220 being able to walk through lower level instances would make it pointless. Might as well just allow lower lvls in now.

[Lheann]

I still think that any design that targets endgame only for a content feature is bad design. If the game was completely free to play then maybe but because people pay to play the game there is content that they cannot access for a special event and there is no guarantee they will pay to keep grinding so that next year they can do the content. Considering some of the better twinking armor drops in its max QL from the content just makes it more insulting to people who are paying to play. So not only does someone miss the social experience they miss the twinking items and as such their grinding/gear up is just a bit harder. Personally I am more pissed about the social aspect of the halloween content than the armor but only because I have my Lya's armor already.

I went the rounds with Means about Xan and having paid expansion with a min level req. Even WoW makes sure there is content in some form for lower levels when it adds expansions that extend endgame. After all it is the new people who are by definition low level that bring new revenue streams into the game. Of course FC will do what FC does.

But on the topic of the Enigma instance and likewise the Desert Rider encounter I think they are poor executions of good ideas. Just to point out that my main has yet to loot from the birthday encounter because of kill stealing and loot deleting jerks the last couple of years. Yes a team of jerks has been present the last few times I tried to do Desert Rider that OD'd everyone for the kill and then deleted the loot and bragged about it. Reporting it did nothing for us and apparent nothing happened to them because they did it the next time the rider was spawned that day as well. For the Enigma encounter I think it is the farming aspect that everyone wants to do now that kills it for me. So I have no love for these special even instances/encounter at all.

Sorry to rant, but I really hate all these special event content that cater to endgame and basically tell anyone not endgame that they are a lesser players and have no place in these special events.

[jorricane]

I still think that any design that targets endgame only for a content feature is bad design. If the game was completely free to play then maybe but because people pay to play the game there is content that they cannot access for a special event and there is no guarantee they will pay to keep grinding so that next year they can do the content. Considering some of the better twinking armor drops in its max QL from the content just makes it more insulting to people who are paying to play. So not only does someone miss the social experience they miss the twinking items and as such their grinding/gear up is just a bit harder. Personally I am more pissed about the social aspect of the halloween content than the armor but only because I have my Lya's armor already.

I went the rounds with Means about Xan and having paid expansion with a min level req. Even WoW makes sure there is content in some form for lower levels when it adds expansions that extend endgame. After all it is the new people who are by definition low level that bring new revenue streams into the game. Of course FC will do what FC does.

But on the topic of the Enigma instance and likewise the Desert Rider encounter I think they are poor executions of good ideas. Just to point out that my main has yet to loot from the birthday encounter because of kill stealing and loot deleting jerks the last couple of years. Yes a team of jerks has been present the last few times I tried to do Desert Rider that OD'd everyone for the kill and then deleted the loot and bragged about it. Reporting it did nothing for us and apparent nothing happened to them because they did it the next time the rider was spawned that day as well. For the Enigma encounter I think it is the farming aspect that everyone wants to do now that kills it for me. So I have no love for these special even instances/encounter at all.

Sorry to rant, but I really hate all these special event content that cater to endgame and basically tell anyone not endgame that they are a lesser players and have no place in these special events.

AO's top-heavy design is caused by a succession of dev teams that had no understanding of the long term consequences of their design decisions. With the size of the current team, they really are forced to roll with those decisions - to actually target lower level ranges with acceptable content and items would probably require that the current team work year-round just to prepare for holiday events.

I agree that end game specific events suck. Long and hard. But there really isn't an option without an actual budget and an actual large team of experienced people. Nothing against the current team AT ALL - right now I feel they are doing a freaking phenomenal jobs at doing REAL life support on AO. I just don't think they have the resources to do any more than just that, life support QoL improvements.