Hallowed Be Thy Game Event - Featuring HALLOWED EDDIE!

[dragonmat89]

They're intended to be pretty rare, but it seems that because of that, people who are unlucky definitely come up way short compared to what we expect people to get across however many attempts.

You have to keep in mind that the closest equivalent to getting an event soul like this typically would cost 100 Ironite in the store. A single refill (which could do at least 5 or 6 runs) only costs 30 Ironite, and you can refill your Sands of Time for free by just waiting 2-3 times per day, so if anyone was expecting them to be raining from the sky after just a handful of battles, that was probably a bit optimistic. Nonetheless, we're considering doing something like having fragments drop (and making them consistent/guaranteed but with some variation in quantity) for future events we want to do in this manner, but it's something I'll investigate more with the team after looking at data across the entirety of the event to see how much players actually were engaging with Sacrifice and Brave New World to seek out the souls.

Just as an additional point to follow on from your comment - the costing of Halloween souls in the store is even higher than you point out. If you needed the 2 million gold to buy one of those souls then it would cost 1000 ironite to get the gold for each soul... Given that the cost from this perspective is 10x higher than a normal event soul there should be a much higher chance of getting a decent toon (I personally have used 10 Halloween souls and not had a single character above 3 star...).

[Dank Brew]

You don't get how long BNW takes for virtually no reward and no Hallowed Soul...

I've said it before and i'll say it again, you can't run a game without actually playing it. You guys obviously don't have any game testers at all, otherwise BNW wouldn't be so damn time consuming. They would have told you

"it's taking too long".

[Dank Brew]

Just as an additional point to follow on from your comment - the costing of Halloween souls in the store is even higher than you point out. If you needed the 2 million gold to buy one of those souls then it would cost 1000 ironite to get the gold for each soul... Given that the cost from this perspective is 10x higher than a normal event soul there should be a much higher chance of getting a decent toon (I personally have used 10 Halloween souls and not had a single character above 3 star...).

Good point. 1000 ironite for endless 3* characters. You thieves.

[zamasu]

The only exception is souls in the intro tutorial will override normal rewards and give you specific characters we intend you to start the game with, because we want to get players used to the idea of using the Book of Souls while still giving them the right characters to enjoy the beginning of the game.

Now that you mention "characters we intend you to start the game with", is the green harpy in the bos? Since I know that characters that are earned free through campaign are not in the bos (ex. Soldier Eddie, Wickerman Eddie, Holy Smoke...) If she's not, is the are any way for us who don't have her to get her?

[Tim28213]

I picked up a green harpy in the last 2 weeks from the BoS. I believe it was off a regular rare soul.

[Witkacy]

As Sparton mentioned, we are aware of the time and effort currently required to participate in some of these events and have already started work on features that will help improve this for some of next month's events. Our goal is to create clear reward tiers so that if you just want to play 5 matches of PvP or 10 runs of BNW during the event, you will be guaranteed a certain reward, with additional more valuable rewards at higher tiers beyond that.

-Kaz

Kaz

Oh, do you? Really? That's FANTASTIC! Yet you guys all seem to act like you're NOT... Trully... It seems that you set the location of this current event VICIOUSLY again at Brave New World - goddamn well knowing not since yesterday that hardly no-one would be playing there outside the events periods, due to:
1. VERY HIGH costs of playing
2. Waaay to much time consuming
3. Very poor droprates of ANYTHING VALUABLE compared to the time sacrified to obtain these items you want...
4. Crashing/Freezing etc. - LOTS of bugs still present...
5. And above this all - out of the sick mind of someone - the costs of reviving in case of ''fail'' in chase after those expensive prizes...

Almost all your ''events'' being rolled with the same scenario: HUGE amounts of time needed, playing at very hostile environment, where very very least depends of the player, and quite LOT of the unpredicable behaving game, for hardly impossible to get rewards...

That's great that you have a plan to change it, dear devs... So how about make ANY of your plans TRUE existed (and checked ones first) and only THEN start the events? It's really sad to watch that you learn nothing from your previous mistakes... For now I just have the feeling that your willing to make any positive changes being only depending and equal with yours users/customers ANGER...

Cheers,

W

[druid138]

I can really see both sides on this one. Overall, I really like the new Eddie (based on playing a few rounds with Trooper champs), and I like the event concept.

I want to share my findings and thoughts so far, focused on BNW Soul drop rates and toon chances per Soul.

Sparton - I know your team has access to all this data, and you mentioned that you'll be analyzing it (probably from a similar perspective).

First, BNW Soul drop rates . . .

Day 1:
GoL V: 1 Soul from 21 Runs
GoL VI: 6 Souls from 57 Runs (+ 2 crashes)

Day 2:
GoL VI: 9 Souls from 47 Runs (+ 6 crashes)

Day 3:
GoL V: 2 Souls from 43 Runs
GoL VI: 0 Souls from 10 Runs (+ 3 crashes) *
* Gave up on GoL VI due to crashes

Day 4:
GoL V: 0 Souls from 8 Runs
GoL VI: 0 Souls from 2 Runs (+ 1 crash)
GoF VI: 1 Soul from 31 Runs (+ 1 crash)

Day 5 (in progress):
GoF VI: 2 Souls in 53 Runs (+ 2 crashes)

Total:
Floor V: 3 Souls in 72 Runs
Floor VI: 18 Souls in 200 Runs (+ 15 crashes)

At 12 SoT per floor, this works out to approximately:
Floor V: 3.4 Refills per Soul (100 ironite)
Floor VI (ignoring crashes): 1.6 Refills per Soul (50 ironite)
Floor VI (with crashes): 1.7 Refills per Soul (50 ironite)

So, on average over a large sample set, the Souls are costing between 50 and 100 Ironite (probably closer to 50), which is less than typical event souls. The challenge, though, is the variance in this figure day-to-day and probably player-to-player. Compare my Day 1 and 2 results against Day 4 and 5, for instance.

Sparton - I think you were alluding to this issue in a prior post, and I agree that a fragment-based system would mitigate this some.

Second, toon chances per Soul:

Between BNW farming, Store purchases, and some Sacrifices, I've redeemed 37 Souls. No HE or Gimp or any new toons for that matter, but 9 4* toons, which is as good if not better than most event Souls. I know others haven't been as fortunate, but I just wanted to give my own perspective.

So, the question is, is it worth it? 50-100 ironite for a Soul with pretty normal drop rates, except increased chances of HE and Prisoner?

I've been playing since Day 1. I have pretty much every character except for a handful. But, I happen to be missing all 5* Gunners. So, I'll take the deal for increased chances any day, knowing that an increase to something very small is still very small*. But, also knowing that if I don't get lucky this week, it could be another long wait for these toons.

* This fact does support a consolation prize concept for this type of event. Knowing that the vast majority of players are going to miss out on the key prizes, offering consolation prizes could help with the customer experience.

[Sparton_LOTB]

Events in all games gives something special to players. Here you give us only chances and don't blame rng for that because as a devs who cares about the game and players (mainly huge fans of the Iron Maiden) you should to come up with some ideas to keep us in game, give us what we want and what we expect, especially during event where some things should be easy to get or guaranteed, gifts etc.

There's RNG to get special Halloween Souls (Brave New World and Sacrifice), and there's guaranteed methods to gain new souls which pretty much anyone can easily capitalize on (souls in the Store).

How you can explain drop rates of these hollowed souls and rare talismans on high lvl BNW? I don't know how many runs I did (floor IX only) 30-40-50? and got absolutely nothing. Wasted so many ironite and the time. As said so many times that this is mobile phone game, game from definition should be fun and enjoyable and this game isn't.

I went over that in a recent post. EDIT: druid138 actually went over it with some actual data and comparison for a more clear picture in the post above this.

Every update adds more 3,4 stars toons to the rare soul pool and you don't increase the chance to get these souls and don't adjust drop rates etc.

We're constantly adding more ways you can get Rare-quality Souls. We recently added Satellite 15, which gives you fragments of souls for minimal effort. The revamp of Secret Locations into Skull Quests came with the ability to get Rare Souls more frequently. We've added more methods to get Rare Souls from the PVP Store and the Trooper Store.

Why you still haven't done anything yet about getting dupes? To get so many 3 stars toons maybe was fun about year ago, now is just boring, frustrating and just not fun/right.

That's what Sacrifice is for; turning dupes into materials to improve other characters, or a chance at getting fresh souls for a chance at getting new characters.

Focus on end game (PVP) and make this game more fair, get the easier access to all toons for all players so they can fight with anyone from the ladder.

That's why our updates always have a component about fixing bugs, tuning characters to make more interesting teams viable (in PVP and elsewhere), and why we often have events where different activities can reward you with even more high-quality Souls than said activities would normally provide.

We're not going to just give everyone the best characters for free, though. We've had a lot of complaints about PVP feeling boring because they feel that everyone does have the same characters. Thus our continued focus on adding more and being careful about how easy they are to get (while still wanting to make sure that some people get them, and that anyone can get them with enough time and dedication).

as mentioned before, the bread and butter talisman droprates shouldn't be that rare. 100 runs level x gave me 2 immunity and 145 level 8 gave me 2 immunity too.
this is something you should adjust i think.

That's rarer than we expect, I can say that. Sadly, we don't have a way of doing fragments of talismans to make those rare drops not as potentially rare, so that swinginess can definitely occur. For every person who takes 100 Floor X runs to get a set, someone else is probably only taking 30 runs, but no one ever talks about how lucky they are with talisman drops.

the ultra rare ones which are pretty useless too imo shouldn't be that rare neither if you ask me. sure if you give them away too lightly noone would play bnw anymore, but that's the logic of BNW. once you have your main toons equipped with the crucial talismans there is no need to grind for more....

So you're saying they shouldn't be rare, but if they weren't a long term rare drop to work towards, you wouldn't be interested in going there?

Hm...

EDIT: and i really hope we will see the FOTD level again, any word on that maybe?

We had a lot of technical issues and knock-ons from it last year, sadly. We will revisit that kind of idea again in the future, but we need to put time towards making it so we can more easily add the levels and do it with less tech problems.

Now that you mention "characters we intend you to start the game with", is the green harpy in the bos? Since I know that characters that are earned free through campaign are not in the bos (ex. Soldier Eddie, Wickerman Eddie, Holy Smoke...) If she's not, is the are any way for us who don't have her to get her?

Because there's more use with getting multiples of some allies, when we released her, we did add her as a normal drop from souls (anything that can reward 4 star Sentinels).

I've been playing since Day 1. I have pretty much every character except for a handful. But, I happen to be missing all 5* Gunners. So, I'll take the deal for increased chances any day, knowing that an increase to something very small is still very small*. But, also knowing that if I don't get lucky this week, it could be another long wait for these toons.

* This fact does support a consolation prize concept for this type of event. Knowing that the vast majority of players are going to miss out on the key prizes, offering consolation prizes could help with the customer experience.

That's definitely something we on the development team agree with, which is what Kaz also reiterated; we do want to improve the accessibility and feeling of reward from these events, and are looking at different ways of doing that. This event we tried making it so the special souls were available from a wide variety of different features, and we've definitely had a mixed response.

That said, it's pretty clear that some people will never be pleased if the only thing that will make the event worth it to them is getting the new natural 5 star Gunner, but oh well. If there's some consolation prize someone has in mind that isn't just handing out a nat 5 every event, we're all ears (eyes?).

(Sorry about all the edits; need my morning tea.)

[JJJ428]

I think what would make people happy is tiered events like the Sparton 300 and 500. You knew exactly what you were going to get for a set amount of effort. Also because it was tiered if you could only do 50 or 100 you didn't feel like you missed out. I agree some people won't be happy unless they get the best prize for minimal effort which there is no pleasing those people. I think this month has been awesome with all these events and look forward to what next month will have. Hoping we get a calendar graphic for November as well.

I always say an event doesn't hurt you. I didn't see the reward being that high for one character I don't have yet so I am saving my sacrifice fodder for another event. There is no need for people to get this upset over missing a 5 star character right when it comes out.

[Amarthir]

Our goal is to create clear reward tiers so that if you just want to play 5 matches of PvP or 10 runs of BNW during the event, you will be guaranteed a certain reward, with additional more valuable rewards at higher tiers beyond that.

-Kaz

I think what would make people happy is tiered events like the Sparton 300 and 500. You knew exactly what you were going to get for a set amount of effort. Also because it was tiered if you could only do 50 or 100 you didn't feel like you missed out.

I heavily support this idea. Personally, I've always liked tier reward events especially in PvP because you work toward a high tier goal in addition to making a ton of iron coins in the process. The whole "get a reward just for playing" idea is good because it makes more people enjoy doing it without worrying about wasted resources. And if there's going to be another event like that soon, I'll be more than happy to participate.