Part of my job here on MMO Fallout is to point out the flaws in developers, and in today’s case: Cryptic’s major issue is that, for how much they hype up their player communication, they do not listen to players. I said this several months ago (You Have Public Tests, USE THEM) after problems arose concerning easily fixed issues with the Halloween event.
The issues that arose out of the Halloween event were easily fixed, and many of them were fixed that night. The most ridiculous, however, was the two hour countdown that each portal had on it until the next opportunity to participate in the event, meaning players spent more time hopping instances hoping that their portal of choice wasn’t taken. Issues also arose with perks not being handed out correctly; I myself missed half of the Halloween perks, despite several attempts at the undead heroes, because the system simply refused to acknowledge my participation in the fight.
And here comes the Christmas event, after the break.
The Christmas event was particularly reminiscent of City of Heroes, what with the opening of random presents to find items or misfit toys carrying items. The event itself was a major grind, both for the perks and the rewards. One thousand misfit toys (who spawn 1-3 per toy box, when they spawn), and probably more to gain the entire set of action figures. Each action figure (5 action figures total) comes in three parts, whose drops are random. After playing the event for three hours a day every day of the event, I managed to build two action figures, with two more parts for another action figure. By the end of the event, I had collected enough cookies to fill my inventory.
Killing Clarence (a giant teddy bear) was just another pain to be had. Fighting was just one part of the battle, getting the system to acknowledge that you actually participated in the battle, to get rewards, was another. So assuming you got around the timer for Clarence to respawn, found an instance where he was about to/just spawned in, and managed to get the system to acknowledge your presence and participation in the fight, you were likely to come out with a cookie, and possibly a toy.
So Cryptic wants your three most favorite parts of the holiday event, and three least favorite, which you can post here if you’re a subscriber, and here in the comments box if you are not.
My list?
- The Toys: I still have a few of the transmogrification toys, and they are a charming addition. Using these items, they change you into a tiny clockwork soldier, a bear, a tin soldier, or another toy for a short period of time. Using them doesn’t de-buff you, so you fight as you normally would.
- Great Rewards: 20-slot bags? Very nice. The action figures themselves were a very nice addition, despite being a pain just to get two or three of them.
- Creative: The present bit may be City of Heroes-esque, but the lore behind the event was top notch, as usual. Both Clarence and Black Harlequin are great characters, that I hope to see expanded upon in the future with missions.
Least favorite:
- Luck, luck, luck: Holiday events, particularly their rewards, shouldn’t be based on who gets lucky drops and who doesn’t. It was completely possible to farm Clarence during the length of the event and not gain a single costume piece. Costume pieces and action figure drops, the staple of the event, should be rewards for completing perks, not random rare drops you may or may not come across in the short time allotted by the developers.
- Long Respawn Timers: Someone at Cryptic must have a two hour fetish, because this isn’t the first time ridiculous respawn timers has come up. This only results in insane amounts of instance hopping, and players from all instances swarming in one area, resulting in everyone getting little to nothing in terms of rewards.
- Exclusion from rewards: Champions Online was advertised as more of a casual-friendly superhero title, which makes no sense that someone (like myself) playing several hours a day still wasn’t able to get all of the rewards by the end of the event. Grinding one thousand misfit toys isn’t casual friendly, nor is an insanely low drop rate for action figures, nor is a boss that gives no rewards for melee heroes or support heroes (healers). How about people who received ten or more of one costume piece, and not a single one of the other piece?
Gameplay features you’d like to see in future events:
I would like Cryptic to stop pretending that it listens to its players. Three invasion-style events now, and the same mistakes are still being made in terms of execution and control. More importantly, I will say what I said back in November: You have a test realm, USE IT. Stop allowing people to test your updates for the sole purpose of getting feedback, if you are going to ignore that feedback each and every time.
The Christmas event was a boring grindfest once the flair died out, which only took a couple of hours. The grind is not the issue, but the fact that once again Cryptic is calling for player feedback to an event, where once again the feedback (and even changes made to previous events) will be completely forgotten or ignored by the time the next event or expansion comes out this spring.
I enjoy playing Champions Online, and that is fairly unlikely to change in the near future, but Cryptic has some very serious communication issues it needs to work out between its players.
MMO Fallout 