The May Celebration Event Discussion

[Alpha Lyrae]

I started a brand new city in the middle of this event, and let me tell you, even with multiple cities, I still forget what it is like in the very early stages. I am stuck on a quest requiring 2 enchantment items. Two enchantment items!!! I would never even blink at this quest in my other cities, it's so easy. I rushed to get an MA built, but each enchantment takes 16 hours. I don't get any from neighborly visits (or at least, I haven't been lucky enough), I have one province available for tourney, so that's not very helpful. No timer instants, not enough goods to complete more provinces. It is really a good lesson in humility.

I'll get through it, but sitting for 2 days on it while the event timer ticks down is enlightening in its frustration.

Yes! This is a big reason why I've been kind toward this event when others are very frustrated or bored or whatever (for reasons I certainly understand). But for a small town? It's challenging and I'm thankful that my small ones will complete it. One relic makes me happy there. LOL. As I read the comments, I keep thinking that maybe this events is geared toward smaller towns. Harder events can be demoralizing in the beginning. I bet making an event that pleases every level of player is difficult.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

As I read the comments, I keep thinking that maybe this events is geared toward smaller towns. Harder events can be demoralizing in the beginning. I bet making an event that pleases every level of player is difficult.

It seems for a while the event rewards seem to be aimed more at early to mid-chapter players. Inno knows a lot of the older players who were big spenders have quit or stopped spending, so they need to go after the newer players to make their money. And I think the last time an event was truly for players of all chapters was maybe back before sentient goods and chapters 12+ were added to the game.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

...so they need to go after the newer players to make their money.

I am not sure how giving pretty much the max prizes for almost no effort cajoles newer players to pay up Unless, again, they're fishing for people who would want to complete the second one. But that's a big stretch IMO.

 

[CJLN]

I agree

 

[T6583]

I bet making an event that pleases every level of player is difficult.

I fully agree with the statement however maybe as an alternative the prizes can scale with the chapter a player is in for some of these filler prizes. I have no knowledge of computers and coding so I don't even know how difficult that would be but if the amount of goods. coins, units, etc can be scales then why not other things. Or have some prizes only available to lower level cities. While some players find 1 relic a joy, for me it feels like a slap in the face to win as a prize because it's not something I need and I feel like I've done alot of work and put in effort. While it can be demoralizing for small players to do harder events it can be just as demoralizing for some players to feel like they are putting in the work and not getting any reward for it. For example while most of the quests are easily doable for my city, quests with research or scout a province can take me days to a week to complete depending on how the quests fall and if there's no alternate. Yes I can try to pre-plan the scouting to line up with the quests but I'm human and mistakes ar sometimes made mathmatically or I might not get on in time to collect the previous quest and the scout finishes up. Upgrade a building is also difficult at times too requiring me to build unnecessary buildings to then either teleport into inventory or just destroy. I remember when I first started playing Elvenar, the 2017 Valentine event was just starting. I remember getting a quest to gain a power of provision spell and having no idea how to even get one. But I figured it out, worked hard, and even managed to complete the event. And that prize felt great to get. Other events after that had up to 3 grand prizes you could win. I was always able to get the 1st grand prize and on the rare occassion the 2nd grand prize. Again things were different but it felt worth my effort and I felt engaged in the event. I wasn't even aware of Elven Gems at that time or the forum. Now I don't even feel engaged in alot of the events. They don't feel worth the effort being put in and they feel more like the luck of the draw. The last event that I actually can honestly say that I really kinda enjoyed was the 2019 Halloween Mini-event which felt great after the endless quest events that were randomized. I didn't like those at all. I felt that endless quests was good in theory and poorly implemented. There was lots of feedback here on the forums on how to improve them that seemed to have been ignored by the developers. There was also issues in how the prizes were handled there too but that's a topic that's been discussed many times before and again feedback was given on how to solve the problem and it likewise appears to have been ignored by the developers for whatever reason. Anyway I guess my point is that there needs to be some sort of middle ground where beginners aren't getting discouraged because events are too hard and end game players aren't getting discourage because the prizes aren't worth the effort. New players today have alot of things available to them that alot of us older players didn't have to give them some advantages in being able to catch up per say. Also most likely unpopular opinion here: I think that RR spells may have done some harm and maybe should only be able to be used on certain types of event buildings like extremely rare buildings or evolving buildings or even sets for those that love the sets. Part of the reason to play events in my opinion is to replace past event buildings with better ones based on your city's growth. That doesn't seem neccessary anymore and maybe that's why alot of the prizes might also not seem that great to us anymore.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I am not sure how giving pretty much the max prizes for almost no effort cajoles newer players to pay up Unless, again, they're fishing for people who would want to complete the second one. But that's a big stretch IMO.

I am referring to months and months of stuff, not just this one event.

 

[Darielle]

What, in my opinion, is worse than the shuffle is the "reveal two prizes" -- I don't care what the two prizes are because I can no longer get them because the system just wasted my 10 points! I feel cheated every time I reveal this "prize".

Exactly. When I only have 10 points left, it drives me crazy when I get that and I won't be able to get another 10 points before the new day's quest and the shuffleboard change. I've just lost 10 points and I don't even get a stupid relic. At least with the shuffle, you get your 10 points back.

 

[Darielle]

That's actually one of my favorites.
Often it shows me two prizes to avoid thus upping my odds of getting something semi useful.
Sometimes it reveals a real bonanza like the " X2 " and a " kp " prize

That's good if you have extra seeds. But if you're on your last 10 and the board is going to change before you can get 10 more, it sucks.

 

[CJLN]

Yes.

 

[Crow Last Elf]

I play with a chpt 7 city and a chpt 3 city. Knowing what is coming, a relic does not seem like much of a prize to my chpt. 3 city. Chpt. 3 also requires you to open 25 provinces or so, I am getting far more relic activity from that than the event.

Looking at the shuffleboard prizes, I have the same reaction to the relics, small kp, and return 10 seeds -- they are Inno's way of saying "try again" on half the board without exactly saying it. Nobody wants to see "try again", ever.

 

[sam767]

I mentioned this already but I just stopped trying to build the May Tree in one of my minor cities. IIRC, the last time we saw this event format the complaints were so loud that Inno did a post event survey. If anything, this event is even more annoying in the time and tedium required to build the evolving building. Somebody had a great a suggestion - play 5 or 10 at a time. You can keep the cool graphics but still finish building in a moderate amount of time. I would really like to get inside the heads of the user experience team that decided it was a good idea to inflict this miserable experience on us again. I don't love the shuffleboard. The prizes are OK. The May Tree should be chopped down and burnt.

 

[Deborah M]

Sorry I don't have time to read all posts. This event turned out better for me than I thought it would. I still hate the reshuffle!!! I cannot count how many times I hit 2x just to get reshuffle next or 1 stupid relic. I cussed at Inno every time! In my smaller city some of the guess board prizes were nice and in my big city I do like the troop instants. I really hate the stupid way the blossoms work. That is the biggest waste of time in any event I've ever seen. Just click & have 1, 2 or 3 show up. The spinning thing is stupid & tedious. I didn't have any problem getting the tree leveled all the way up in my small city and neither did most of the FS members in that small FS who wanted to put in the effort. In my big city it was no problem but I did spend.

I have one big disappointment all around. None of my family nor I got the 1st building because either we didn't have enough to win it or we had not decided whether we were going to do the event. We used to get the 1st day prize offered again at the end. Not this time With the email not working the little cities didn't have enough seeds anyway. That turned an otherwise pretty good event into a disappointment for a several players I know.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I finally took a look at one of the filler prizes I had won, the Pond of Autumn, and I had not realized it has the same seed-per-square production as the Festival Merchant. I am surprised they tossed something so good in as just a filler.

@Deborah M regarding the email newsletter, the first one sent out had some sort of issues, so none of them worked for anyone, but they sent out a replacement newsletter to everyone who got the first one. Also, unless those little cities were all on different accounts, with different email addresses registered, you would not have been able to get the free seeds for each of them anyway, since any bonus item sent out has automatically gone to the first city on your account that you log into.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

And to follow up on all the "fun" talk of the Shuffle mechanic, I saved a little over 300 seeds for today to try for the daily prize. I did get two of the Market, but it cold have been more. The first two rounds of the flowers, it took me all 15 of the 16 before I got the shuffle and could move on to the next batch. It could have just taken 14 each time, but the "reveal 2" each time showed me a prize I was alright with. So that means each time there was one other item revealed I did not want and the shuffle was the very last flower left of the 16. Two times in a row. So minus the two 10-seed prizes and the 10 seeds back from each shuffle, I had to use 260 seeds to get two of the daily prize. And then the next two rounds were just the opposite. On the third go, the third flower was the shuffle and on the fourth go, the first flower was the shuffle. And with the remaining free 10 daily seeds at midnight and another 15-20 picked up around the city, I will have another 3 or 4 shots at one more of the daily prize.

Overall, I guess I cannot complain too much, as I only went for four of the daily prizes and got 13 total between them. Plus a few filler prizes that I will actually use, like the Pond of Autumn. Also, I ended up with 10 artifacts from the grand prizes, 19 grand prizes overall, so 14 total with the ones from the bonus bar. If this building were more useful for someone in chapter 16, I would consider putting out a level 10 and 6, or two level 8, since there is the extra base from the grand prizes also. I will likely put out one of them at max, more for the looks than for the bonuses.

 

[mucksterme]

, I saved a little over 300 seeds for today to try for the daily prize.

You know what I realized when I read this. Burning off 300 seeds on the shuffle wouldn't bother me much.
But then doing over 30 spins on the tree would be a pain in the donkey.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

You know what I realized when I read this. Burning off 300 seeds on the shuffle wouldn't bother me much.
But then doing over 30 spins on the tree would be a pain in the donkey.

Ha, 300. I just dumped 1000+ seeds the other day, and was seriously considering just not to spin for the tree. It is a major pain, and there was nothing there that I really wanted - except a couple of AWKPs and KPs.

 

[Pheryll]

You know what I realized when I read this. Burning off 300 seeds on the shuffle wouldn't bother me much.
But then doing over 30 spins on the tree would be a pain in the donkey.

This is the aspect of the shuffleboard set up I like the least. If they are wanting people to spend diamonds, then the spenders will also have to spend time doing a meaningless repetitive action to finally claim their artifacts. Most diamond spenders do so to remove hassle not for more added hassle.

 

[Alpha Lyrae]

I fully agree with the statement however maybe as an alternative the prizes can scale with the chapter a player is in for some of these filler prizes. I have no knowledge of computers and coding so I don't even know how difficult that would be but if the amount of goods. coins, units, etc can be scales then why not other things.

I'm not sure how difficult it would be either, but sounds like a good solution to me!

 

[CJLN]

Yes, I think that would work.

 

[Deborah M]

@Deborah M regarding the email newsletter, the first one sent out had some sort of issues, so none of them worked for anyone, but they sent out a replacement newsletter to everyone who got the first one. Also, unless those little cities were all on different accounts, with different email addresses registered, you would not have been able to get the free seeds for each of them anyway, since any bonus item sent out has automatically gone to the first city on your account that you log into.

Just to be clear, I did indicate that I was talking about an entire Fellowship with small accounts so not sure where you are coming from. And, since I was here before the first event in this game, I do know how the newsletters work after well over 4 years and very close to 1.5M ranking points. The whole point was that since the email did not work for the first day of this event very few small cities in the small Fellowship got the 1st daily prize. I, in my baby city, and they still find that disappointing since it was a nice one and unlike in the past it was not offered again at the end. FYI this is a small FS that I enjoy advising newbies just starting out. I completely get the rationale they have fixed on not offering the 1st day prize a second time. It's just that this time it was Elvenar's fault that those small cities couldn't get it. Anyway, I am happy to have gotten my May tree up to 10 in my main city because of my Birthday. Silly but that's the primary reason I chose this event to fully participate

Adding that I didn't get day 1 prize in my big city either because I hadn't decided whether to do the event. Disappointing but where would I put it until Lord knows how long chapter 16 will take?