How I would design these events

[bushkanaka86]

I hate any free-to-play (F2P) model that intentionally places beneficial game items out of reach and requires a cash transaction (I'm looking at you Grand Prize 3). I believe any F2P game should only use cash transactions for cosmetic items, impatient players, and possibly convenience, but that only to a certain extent. It should be completely possible for 2 players to be an equal footing where 1 spent nothing and the other spent $1000. Perhaps the first has been playing 3 years and the latter only 1 month, so he paid for his impatience. I'm fine with that.

That being said, here is how I would have designed the event:

1) Get rid of the daily buildings and the chests. Instead, make the event into a sort of store. Every daily building is listed in the store for a certain price of event currency. You can buy whichever building you want, once you have enough moon shards, but limit the number of each building that you can own, possibly 1 for the best ones and 5 for the worst buildings.

2) Unlimited quests available ranging in difficulty with the most difficult giving the most event currency. You can skip the quests, but probably need to complete the hardest ones to afford the best buildings. Higher tier players have an easier time completing the hardest quests. Or perhaps you can choose your daily quest from a list so you know the difficulty and the payoff.

3) Use your event currency to buy the building of your choice and every one spent fills a bar which goes toward unlocking best buildings. The grand prize probably requires you to unlock every single other building, or at least very close. Example: 15 possible event buildings require a total of 1000 currency (remember there are limits on how many buildings you can buy). The grand prize may require 950 currency spent, so you have to unlock almost everything.

4) To keep some random fun in the event, every building you unlock gives you a chest to open. Inside the chest are the current random rewards (minus daily buildings) but in addition, they add a few VERY nice but VERY rare building prizes that you have a slim chance of receiving, perhaps cosmetic variations of current buildings that you can't get any other way.

5) For those that don't have time or desire to diligently work on quests, they can buy event currency at a reasonable price so that the total cost of buildings is similar to other premium buildings. I probably wouldn't allow the grand prize to be bought outright but if someone had the desire and money, they could buy all the other buildings to unlock the grand prize. You could also probably buy various packs of chests for those that wanted to play the lottery for the super rare buildings. Maybe even allow you to use event currency to buy chests if you didn't care about the other buildings available or if you had completed the grand prize already.

(Side note, I would also create a way for players to slowly earn diamonds so the premium buildings weren't cash only but could also be earned slowly by patient players.)

The way I see it, this event would reward the players who have worked hard to get to a higher tier (not me) as well as those who were willing to login regularly. It would also reward those with excess cash laying around (also not me) as it should in any F2P game. My favorite F2P games are ones where it is possible to achieve the same thing with paying or not paying as long as you put in the effort. Paying should always be the lazy way out....not always faster, but some cases are okay. At the same time, EVERYONE could get every prize, some easier than others, and the rewards would be equal across all tiers. A brand new player starting out may be able to work super hard all event and just barely earn the Glossy Garden but nothing else. Sure it is a HUGE boost for them, but good for them for earning it. Some one else may earn every building with 5 days to go and just blow shards on chests. The random chests would still add fun and occasionally the fellowship could rejoice together as 1 person got the rare building and Inno would still get their money as people played the lottery or were lazy.

Just my thoughts.

 

[SoggyShorts]

1) Get rid of the daily buildings and the chests. Instead, make the event into a sort of store. Every daily building is listed in the store for a certain price of event currency. You can buy whichever building you want, once you have enough moon shards, but limit the number of each building that you can own, possibly 1 for the best ones and 5 for the worst buildings.

Even if Inno balanced the buildings a little more evenly, some will always be better than others, especially for players at different stages of the game. I'd hate to be both limited in the number of "good" prizes I could buy and forced to buy prizes I'll never take out of my inventory.

2) Unlimited quests available ranging in difficulty with the most difficult giving the most event currency. You can skip the quests, but probably need to complete the hardest ones to afford the best buildings. Higher tier players have an easier time completing the hardest quests. Or perhaps you can choose your daily quest from a list so you know the difficulty and the payoff.

I feel this would remove any feeling of having "finished" the event which is a big part for me--the challenge of completing all the quests in the time alloted is a big draw.

3) Use your event currency to buy the building of your choice and every one spent fills a bar which goes toward unlocking best buildings. The grand prize probably requires you to unlock every single other building, or at least very close. Example: 15 possible event buildings require a total of 1000 currency (remember there are limits on how many buildings you can buy). The grand prize may require 950 currency spent, so you have to unlock almost everything.

See above

4) To keep some random fun in the event, every building you unlock gives you a chest to open. Inside the chest are the current random rewards (minus daily buildings) but in addition, they add a few VERY nice but VERY rare building prizes that you have a slim chance of receiving, perhaps cosmetic variations of current buildings that you can't get any other way.

Players already complain about the random factor, adding in anything "very rare" would compound this.

5) For those that don't have time or desire to diligently work on quests, they can buy event currency at a reasonable price so that the total cost of buildings is similar to other premium buildings. I probably wouldn't allow the grand prize to be bought outright but if someone had the desire and money, they could buy all the other buildings to unlock the grand prize. You could also probably buy various packs of chests for those that wanted to play the lottery for the super rare buildings. Maybe even allow you to use event currency to buy chests if you didn't care about the other buildings available or if you had completed the grand prize already.

If there were unlimited quests, then the big spenders would never need to buy currency, likewise they would rail against being forced to buy buildings they don't want to unlock the grand prize.

During the winter event you had about a 2% chance of getting the 3rd prize, and that means that many of the ones you see were bought and paid for-- I doubt INNO would change this.

While I agree in general that all prizes should be winable for free with a high degree of effort, I try to look at it from the perspective that in the winter event some of the daily prizes were better even than the premium only buildings that are available, so I basically got 15+ free premium diamond buildings without spending a cent.

 

[DeletedUser1996]

I hate any free-to-play (F2P) model that intentionally places beneficial game items out of reach and requires a cash transaction (I'm looking at you Grand Prize 3). I believe any F2P game should only use cash transactions for cosmetic items, impatient players, and possibly convenience, but that only to a certain extent. It should be completely possible for 2 players to be an equal footing where 1 spent nothing and the other spent $1000. Perhaps the first has been playing 3 years and the latter only 1 month, so he paid for his impatience. I'm fine with that.

Like yer opening statement thumbs up!! - As for the other stuff ---i see some good ideas -maybe just not the way you state them --but, not bad at all ! ... - @SoggyShorts has a few good points of view as well

 

[SoggyShorts]

I hope I didn't come off too harsh. I applaud your efforts, and as @ruffe said there are some good ideas in there.
The buisness model of this game (unfortunately) seems to be based on getting a large portion of its revenues from players willing to dump huge amounts of cash to stay out of a free players range. I think that an entirely new system where cash purchases were only for convenience and cosmetics could work in a new game (see path of exile model) but making the switch in an existing game would cost literally millions in profits.

 

[bushkanaka86]

Even if Inno balanced the buildings a little more evenly, some will always be better than others, especially for players at different stages of the game. I'd hate to be both limited in the number of "good" prizes I could buy and forced to buy prizes I'll never take out of my inventory.

That's a good point about being forced to buy buildings you would never use, but this was just a quick brainstorm over making the events more enjoyable. The implementation could be tweaked but the underlying principle is the same: Grand Prize is very difficult, but achievable for everyone without spending cash, if they work hard enough.

I feel this would remove any feeling of having "finished" the event which is a big part for me--the challenge of completing all the quests in the time alloted is a big draw.

Yeah, I've played many other online games with many other events and you can still get a great sense of achievement by earning every prize you desire before the event date ends. Let's say there are 10 buildings you really like but they are expensive and will take great effort on your part to complete enough quests to earn the buildings. You work really hard and in a 20 day event, you finish in day 17. Congrats, you got everything you wanted out of this event and therefore "completed" it! Now you can spend 3 days completing more quests, if you desire, to play for some of the random chest rewards. It definitely works in other games and could here as well.

Players already complain about the random factor, adding in anything "very rare" would compound this.

Players complain about random in every game, every where, and all times. If they don't want random, they can play chess. There are very few games, virtual or physical, that don't have an element of random. I have no problem with super rare random rewards as long as the rewards don't give someone an advantage in the game. A rare portrait, perhaps a rare city appearance on the world map, a permanent decoration in your forest or valley that others see when they visit, or maybe the option to add a large mystical creature that walks around your roads or being able to add music or weather to your city. These are all great rewards that could be awarded during every event, rarely, to add excitement and continued value for those players that have already "completed" the event.

If there were unlimited quests, then the big spenders would never need to buy currency, likewise they would rail against being forced to buy buildings they don't want to unlock the grand prize.

This is true. The big spenders wouldn't spend as much and so it comes down to Inno and where they place value - making money or having a fun event. Ideally, they should try to do both. The events are fun enough that I participate, but I can't say that I look forward to the next one because it was the greatest thing ever. Nor would I recommend this game to a friend based on the events. They could at least double my opinion of the even if they made the 3rd grand prize obtainable.

During the winter event you had about a 2% chance of getting the 3rd prize, and that means that many of the ones you see were bought and paid for-- I doubt INNO would change this.

Yes, I played this event diligently and completed everything and collected plenty of snowflakes. I figured out at the end that it would cost me $70 to buy the Grand Prize with diamonds. For a virtual building that would become obsolete in a couple of months. No thanks.

While I agree in general that all prizes should be winable for free with a high degree of effort, I try to look at it from the perspective that in the winter event some of the daily prizes were better even than the premium only buildings that are available, so I basically got 15+ free premium diamond buildings without spending a cent.

Yeah, I liked getting the nice buildings but I just think these events could be done better - more fair (none of this 20% chance at the building), more fun, and less greedy (on Inno's part).