event Discussion for Falling Star Event

[brilliance 6]

Yup. From mobs.

[k0ntra 11]

12 hours ago, Emca said:

It's a LONG list. In fact it's 3 different lists because there are 3 colors  I think it's enough to say you can get B, A, S and S80 (!) grade gear from red and green fragments and LOT of different cosmetics from the blue ones.

S80 items with less chance than dropping them from mobs i suppose ?  

[Ryno 1]

how can u see the items guyz? event items

 

nvm, isee tem atm.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Ryno

[Emca 306]

1 hour ago, k0ntra said:

S80 items with less chance than dropping them from mobs i suppose ?  

No, it's higher

[brilliance 6]

I got a majestic ring for a high grade red. Is A grade jewelry a reward for high grades?

[Emca 306]

16 minutes ago, brilliance said:

I got a majestic ring for a high grade red. Is A grade jewelry a reward for high grades?

For mid too

[brilliance 6]

ok, i get for mid, but for high grade? I mean I thought S and S80 are rewards for high

[Emca 306]

18 minutes ago, brilliance said:

ok, i get for mid, but for high grade? I mean I thought S and S80 are rewards for high

mid = low + something added
high = mid + something added

[Lokegr 0]

How i use the extraction tool? I can;t locate any star shards...

[Emca 306]

Go to Aden, you'll see them on the sky

[Emca 306]

FYI we've increased Star Fragment Extraction Tool Piece drop chance (from 5 % to 13 %)

[Jella 0]

Yep yesterday was a restart, and since this time, i just noticed i got many tool piece, with few hours farm. So i just checked the forum maybe have some info about this, and yep its true

Edited October 31, 2017 by Jella

[Deathwing 23]

On 25. 10. 2017 at 12:18 PM, Emca said:

mid = low + something added
high = mid + something added

That is problem and its very annoying

If i compare this with rabbit event (on fantasy island). When you got lvl 1 treasure sack you got S armor or element stone (top reward), from lvl 6 you got only cocktails (low reward).

But here you got High star shard (supposed to be top) and you can still got cocktail.

 

Better distribution of rewards will be like in rabbits.

High (maybe top) star shard, with chance about 1% and from that only dynasty weapons, jewels, element stones and top enchants, with low change on weapons and high on stones). So when you got top you know you will get high reward, not 1 ead.

 

[k0ntra 11]

I don't know the chances of the event. All I can give you as information is what I had as a reward:

- 45 Star Fragment Extraction Tools

Reward:

34 Fresh Fruit cocktails

38 Sweet Fruit cocktails

2 EWD

3 BEWD

3 BEAD

8 EAD

1 EWC

1 EAC

1 BEAC

2 BEWC

2 BEAB

 

 

[Jella 0]

Depends on luck, just heard a guy with few try got s weapons already, so.

If you are lucky you need just few tool, if not than doesn't matter how many tool you use.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Jella

[SexSlayer 32]

korean random luck logic

[Emca 306]

30 minutes ago, SexSlayer said:

korean random luck logic

Thanks for appreciation

[mirage 13]

Two minor bugs I found (last week, haven't checked since today's restart):

- if you use the extraction tool while having over 80% full inventory, casting goes off as usual but nothing happens afterwards. No item extracted, no message telling you what's wrong

- extraction tool piece tooltip says its weight is 0, but it's actually 20

 

[Jella 0]

Yep, hopefully its fixed now.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Jella

[Emca 306]

Both fixed now

[mirage 13]

Now my impressions of this event. I'll start with the positives, but it will go downhill. You've been warned.

 

The basic idea of the event is great. Using mechanics that are in the game and combining them in a way that's never been done by NCsoft... brilliant. You're even using their mechanics better than they do. Just compare gathering star shards above Aden to collecting star stones over Gracia (also known as "Vast Dumpbin of Unfinished and Glitchy Mechanics" area). In Aurabird form you have huge collision cylinder, most of the time you can't extract the stone from below, you need to be right on top of it; some stones spawn too close to the floating seeds that you cannot approach at all. It's a mess. Collecting on a wyvern over Aden is way smoother. Although it looks pretty bad when it plunges its head (or the rider!) right into the star shard, given the limitations of the game engine, I think it's better to favor playability over visuals (stuff clipping into other stuff is just so common in L2 that it's not worth trying to avoid).

 

Extraction Tool crafting is good. A clever way of pulling some crap mats out of warehouses. Sure, varnish and iron ore are not exactly crap mats, but they're still very easy to get (you can snatch literally thousands of those from low-level manor each day). But to shut the complaints about this next time, maybe you can make the crafting a bit more involved, with more event-only mats. Make mobs drop star dust, sulfur, apple pie pieces, whatever. Combine these with small amounts of regular mats to make tools. I know it's more difficult to balance, but look at other events and quests involving multiple item kinds -- NCsoft also didn't bother balancing those, there's always one under-supplied and the rest abundant. Next, I think recipes dropping from mobs don't work well -- the drop rate must not be too low because that'd be a participation barrier, but also not too high because you only need one -- it'd be better if you could either buy a recipe for some mats (c.f. Summer Squash event), or the tools were crafted by the town's Blacksmith NPC (because such specialized tools should only be crafted by experts).

 

A note regarding mid-event drop rate increase. In my opinion that actually hurt the event you created. It was like pouring more water into a leaky bucket; it didn't address the reward system's issues. Before the increase, there was a bit of a market, people could choose whether they wanted to try their luck or sell the pieces to others. After the increase they're just too abundant. Whoever wants to spend hours collecting shards can do that with just the tools they farm themselves, and the rest throws them away because they're unsellable.

 

Now I'm getting to the reward system, and that's something I'd completely overhaul.

Remember that event in which you play rock-paper-scissors with a cat, and get rewards depending on how many consecutive wins you get? One of the dumbest events. You talk to an NPC and click through the same dialogue over and over and over.

I've gathered roughly 600 low, 100 mid, 30 high star shards over the past week (I didn't keep records so take those as coarse estimates). Clicking through that was such a pain that if I had the option to sell the low shards to shop for adena, I'd do that (the scrolls they yielded were worth a few million to shop). I got 2 A-grade weapons and 2 A-grade jewels from mid, so I shouldn't be complaining about the rewards themselves, but I will. Potions: Why can't I use them on a character I'll start next month? Why can't I trade blue cocktails for red, or give/sell them to someone who needs warrior buffs? Enchants: D/C-grade enchants, really? Don't even start with newcomers; at best they'll be able to sell EWD/EWC to someone who wants a red-glowing walking stick, the rest is either easily obtainable from solo kamaloka (EAD/EAC) or garbage nobody would use (blessed D/C enchants). More tool pieces: just no. When a tool breaks upon use and you get some pieces back, that's fine. It's a clever (or wicked, depending on how you look at it) trick to keep people in the game. But getting a not-so-small amount of pieces as the final reward feels too much like there's no end to it.

 

As others have mentioned, getting the same junk from high-grade shards is stupid. I understand that you didn't want to overshoot with the rewards, or that you wanted to keep them in the spirit of L2 (c.f. Life Stones, Summer Squash etc. where so-called high-grades give the same junk low-grades do). But I think it'd be better to abandon NCsoft standards in this regard. You could make higher grades yield better rewards, and tweak the low:mid:high ratio accordingly.

Which leads me back to the crafting system. When I spoke about making it more involved, I actually had two parts in mind. The first part is crafting the extraction tool. The second would follow star shard extraction. I'd make the shards mere materials -- only the 3 colors, no grades. After gathering a bunch you'd combine them with some Varnish and Suede and get a few low/mid/high-grade star crystals. There'd be fewer reward-items in total, so each could be more rewarding. And make them capsule items, click to unwrap.

 

You could also make the extraction phase a little bit more attractive. (In addition to somehow avoiding multiple shards spawning in one place. I know NCsoft didn't bother to fix this, but they don't have different colors in one place). Imagine if there was a chance to extract something more valuable directly from the shard, a firework would go off so others would see and ask what it was? Soul crystal? Attribute crystal? S80 recipe? (I'm not a fan of full weapons/armors as event rewards)

 

Alright, that was a bit longer than I anticipated, so to sum it up: hats off for the guts to serve a custom event. Looking forward to the next.

 

[Emca 306]

36 minutes ago, mirage said:

Now my impressions of this event. I'll start with the positives, but it will go downhill. You've been warned.

...

In other words not bad for a programmer without any product manager skills  Thanks for feedback, we'll try to make it even better next time

[SexSlayer 32]

Hunt for Pirate Captain Uthanka's Treasure

Rabbits to Riches Plus

Summer Squash Event

 

I enjoy this event for the most. Better as try new home-made event without any test. Why not repeat them with different prizes? I believe player still keep event items in their WH, like me with hope it come one day again.

[mirage 13]

On 11/6/2017 at 3:16 PM, Emca said:

Both fixed now

Haven't tried full inv until now. Popup box after cancelled extraction makes it clear, but `op_encumbered` on skill might've been better

[Emca 306]

1 hour ago, mirage said:

Haven't tried full inv until now. Popup box after cancelled extraction makes it clear, but `op_encumbered` on skill might've been better

You're right but I was fixing that on running server - you can't reload skilldata.txt, but you can reload AI

EDIT: Also, did you figure out params for it? Which one is count and which one is weight? I really don't want to end up with check in quest for 80 % inventory and 90 % weight and check in skill with 90 % inventory and 80 % height