Gorra Snell
The Unholy Legion Of DarkStar
DARKSTAR ARMY
107
   |
Posted - 2013.09.05 15:36:00 -
[1] - Quote
Before becoming a Dust addict, I was a Mass Effect 3 co-op multi-player addict for a few months. They had weekly (well, 'weekend') events that I completed (or tried to) almost every week. Some of them were fairly simple 'perform x revives', but the ones I think have the most potential here are those that encouraged you to give up your high-level gear for a few matches and run with what was that game's equivalent of militia gear. I should clarify you to had to use a specific weapon for each event...for example, militia shotguns...and I think that's a lot of fun. If you were to, say, add a militia HMG (wink wink, nudge nudge), then that week's event should be 'get x kills or assists using the militia HMG'.
I think this type of event has great tie-in potential with the recent occasions when a few copies of new AUR gear have been given to everyone. I think one was the "Mauler" suit? Say you're about to release an AUR CreoDron scout suit manufactured by CreoDron. The backstory of the event is that CreoDron needs field data for the suit before putting it into full production, and is asking us mercs to beta test it. We're all given 5 copies of the suit, and the following rewards are available:
- Deploy in the new suit 5 times - get 100k isk
- Get 10 kill assists wearing the new suit - get 20 copies of the CreoDron AUR shotgun (that's a thing that exists, right?)
- Earn 1000 WP while wearing the new suit - get 10 copies of the new suit
For more immersion (but probably a little dev work), put the new suit in the marketplace so everyone can see it, but keep it locked for the first week (during the 'beta test') until you've deployed all the ones you were gifted. That's not a very substantial barrier in reality...if you want to buy them, of course you're going to use the ones you were gifted...but the idea of 'unlocking' things is just fun.
The specific rewards aren't that important, but I think what is important is that this sort of event compels you to change your play style. I realize that's exactly what some prior posts in this thread have spoken out against, but as long as it doesn't take long to complete the event, and the rewards aren't so substantial that you feel you have to participate or you're missing out (as is the nature of SP events), this encourages us to explore new playstyles that we might like if we gave them a try. As an added bonus, it would shake up the FOTM a little bit during the events, and I think that's desirable.
Unless it's a sniper rifle event - never run one of those  |
Gorra Snell
The Unholy Legion Of DarkStar
DARKSTAR ARMY
108
|
Posted - 2013.09.05 17:43:00 -
[2] - Quote
CCP Eterne wrote:Are we overthinking this? Does making complex events fail to make them interesting and just make them... well... complex? Or are we doing complexity in them wrong?
Basically, yes, I think you're overthinking it. If the mechanic of the event is to increase SP gain, do that in the simplest way possible - a simple multiplier applied to SP gained, and to the weekly cap. Getting the extra SP at the end of each match is much more fun than getting it later...both because it's more visceral, and because the event 'pays out' many times (at the end of each match), rather than once. I may not even notice when I've receive my bonus SP afterwards...if I haven't logged on for a couple of days, I'll have forgotten how much I had when I logged off last time, and assume it's just accrued passive SP.
I'm very hesitant to say 'complexity is bad for events' in general, though...that's a pretty broad statement. Maybe 'variety' rather than 'complexity' should be the focus. |