Halloween Event Design

[gbwead]

I'm creating this thread to discuss the different features exclusive to the Halloween event and how these features interact with each other. So far in PokeMMO history, we had 8 iterations of the Halloween event.

 

At first, the event was simple with few features and now much more developped with a lot to do:

• Beating Up Children for
  • Goodie Bags
• Catching Halloween Exclusive Swarms Pokemon for:
  • Particles 
  • Cookies
• Doing the Wisp & Cat quests for:
  • High Ivs Pokemon with Hidden Ability
  • Alpha Halloween Exclusive Pokemon
• Beating Up Pumpking Minibosses for:
  • Special Candy
• Beating Up the Pumpking Boss Easy Mode for:
  • 5 Goodie Bags
• Beating Up the Pumpking Boss Hard Mode for:
  • 5 Pumpking Goodie Bags
  • Boss Particles
  • Shiny Boss Particles

I personally think staff has done a good job adding on more features to this event each year. There is a lot to do and that's good. However, I think there are some important flaws when some of the added features completly invalidate previous features. I'm obviously talking about Beating Up Children for Goodie Bags. This was the first feature ever added to the event and goes back to the first Halloween event in 2015. Sadly, in the past 2 years, Beating Up Children for Goodie Bags has become completly pointless. It takes significantly more time and effort to farm 5 Goodie Bags by Beating Up Children than simply beating up the Boss in Easy Mode. Even players not interrested in the Boss fight will earn more by Beating Up Minibosses and selling the Special Candies on the GTL. No one calls out kids locations in the Global Chat anymore because the only thing players want to farm is the Minibosses.

 

Beating Up Children was the core of our previous Halloween Event and it's a shame this feature is now completly irrelevant. Imo, the reward structure of each feature should be changed. If it were up to me, the Pumpking Boss Easy Mode should not reward players with Goodie Bags, but instead with a large portion of different Cookies and consumable necessary to beat the Pumpking Boss in Hard Mode. Goodie Bags should remain a Beating Up Children Exclusive Reward. So I'm proposing the following reward structure:

• Beating Up Children for
  • Goodie Bags
• Catching Halloween Exclusive Swarms Pokemon for:
  • Particles 
  • Cookies
• Doing the Wisp & Cat quests for:
  • High Ivs Pokemon with Hidden Ability
  • Alpha Halloween Exclusive Pokemon
  • Cookies
• Beating Up Pumpking Minibosses for:
  • Special Candy
• Beating Up the Pumpking Boss Easy Mode for:
  • 5 Goodie Bags
  • Cookies
  • Consumables (X+ items, Potions, Full Heals, etc.)
• Beating Up the Pumpking Boss Hard Mode for:
  • 5 Pumpking Goodie Bags
  • Boss Particles
  • Shiny Boss Particles

Anyhow, this is what I think of the Halloween event. What do you guys think could be improved or changed?

Edited November 7, 2023 by gbwead

[Shadow]

One of the most important things is probably the fact that the kids became useless, they're worthless to farm since they don't give special candies anymore, maybe they should be reworked into something more useful/worthy since the players who farm the event completely ignore them.

Other fact I'd like to consider are the swarms. Other than appearing in unusual places, they carried particles in the past which could also be obtained via pumpking bags. Now they're useless, once more, they just serve as check for a possible rare shiny.

[Imperial]

Having been around since the first Halloween Event, I noticed a few significant changes:

• Special Candies used to have a rare chance of being obtained when defeating the kids (before the mini-bosses were implemented) - there was a time when the prices for a special candy rose to 250k, but now they're currently too low/easy to obtain. I think there needs to be a middle-ground around this so that they're worth the effort and rewards (currently 10k as I speak)
• The boss fight becoming so predictable that strategies are easy to figure out, alongside the continuous nerfs by devs making the fight not only predictable, but even easier to complete (the easy mode boss can literally be completed in 3 minutes)
• The community is just generally really dumb economically - they complain about the rich players but enable them to get richer by stocking up on the bags due to their incredibly low prices (I've never seen the pumpking goodie bags this low, even in 2022 they dropped no lower than 40-45k)

I would propose the following:

• Making the special canidies harder to obtain but in a more creative way, finding a way for the prices to be worth around 50-100k instead of the incredibly high prices (e.g. 250k) or the current low prices we have now
• Implement more attractive and a wider variety of prizes in the bags - I know it's a risk but this year there are no attractive items, not even the Ghostly Lantern is desirable (especially compared to the Shadow Bone Club)
• Make the boss itself different or implement an additional boss fight for even greater rewards

Also, I feel this event has dragged on so long, I don't know why we needed almost 2 weeks for this when other games only had a Halloween event for a few days. The event is cool, but from a player and economic side of view, this year didn't seem like a success, and the same will follow with the CNY/Xmas events.

 

[Jgaw]

And here s a useful thread of this haloween

I can agree that Kids are no more being beaten, everybody in a hustle for mini bosses locations only.

I always claim that the reward system is the only system that can deviate players

Beating Kids gives 1 spooky candy

5 spooky candies gives 1 goodie bags

Beating 5 Kids takes time 

Better beat easy mode for 5 goodie bags Instead

What i don't agree in this thread is canceling the 5 goodie bags from easy mode

This will affact the main idea of this halloween "grindin, farming" 

Many players rely on goodie bags 

I can even guarantee that players consumes lot of cash to buy stacks of goodie bags for 5.5k each

Otherwise the idea of enhancing the reward system of Kids is necessary

[Johnwaynee]

Next Halloween is worth less than gym reruns, it partially already is.

The only way of making money on those events is cheesing around with stuff such as selling mons required for the boss fights or grinding particles, hoping that in 5-10 years, they double in price lol.

 

 

No, seriously, this game is seriously (over)grinded by too many players with SO many vanities and stuff alike beeing thrown at us recently that no one has demand either. Causing even older vanities to drop more and more towards rock bottom with each day. Thanks, btw.

Bags and crap is just stacking up and wont raise in price even after multiple years. 

 

They need to seriously take a look at this because it wont get any better, just worse with each event/year. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Johnwaynee

[Solsoul]

Halloween is becoming stuffy. Players with enough experience farms Hard Mode Pumpking , for those new players with less experience and money ,they have to farm on kids ,mini bosses and easy mode Pumpking or just give up the fantastic event.

 

Also ,idk why this Halloween lasts 2 weeks .Time is too enough to make the price of Goodie Bags lower ,farming Pumpking is becoming more and more boring and profitless ,and especially kids ,spend much time in finding them ,battle with them to get tiny reward ,those useless functions should be changed.

 

As for BOSS particles ,make a shiny one and get it from farming Hard Mode Pumpking or from Goodie Bags is an interesting change .But those swarms with particles just disappeared.

 

So ,I think we can make candies from kids become the key of Easy Mode and lower the difficulty of easy mode ,when we beat it we can get more candies(for hard mode) ,cookies ,X items even some BP for rewards .Shorten the Halloween for less Goodie Bags in GTL to balance its price .Also we can change the pokemon we encounter from wisp.Hope the following events could be better for players.

[Poufilou]

Make Special Candy non-necessary for Easy mode so everyone can test random stuff as they please even noobs without spending too many resources. 

 

Find another way to obtain Special Candy (remove miniboss) and buff kids. 

 

I disagree with gb's idea for easy mode. Keep bag reward if kids are buffed so you have 2 ways to get them that are more or less equal.

 

Cookie prizes can be an idea to buff kids alongside changing atrocious 5:1 ratio or removing completely the trade thing and give beating up kids a different reward system. 

[Quakkz]

Finally a sensible Feedback with improvements for the event

[Raichuforyou]

I disagree for cookies being rewarded for beating the boss as it turns into a feedback loop of Beating the boss > Getting rewards to help beat the boss > Beat the boss...... and so on. There are some comps in easy mode that still rely on the usage of cookies because we do not have the resources to blow money on incredibly specific comps to beat it with no items. I think they should be distributed pretty liberally for players of all skill levels to obtain them, and be able to use them in both easy and hard mode. But this can be entirely moot if it goes onto my second point:

 

It is getting frankly boring and annoying of having these bosses only attemptable by incredibly specific comps with very specific strategies. When people like me talk about the "difficulty" of the bosses, we're usually given a rebuttal of "It's not hard, just use 3 incredibly specific mons and look at this YouTube guide that shows you every exact moment when to use every specific move, item, and mon", and this regurgitated statement seems to be missing the point. It's frankly difficulty done wrong if it winds up on a community discovered strategy to solve the boss. In the end, it really comes across that the boss is really this inaccessible part of the event that can only be attempted by players who have the resources, and participate in places like the forums or are in a team.

[BuurmanJuan]

I think they should ditch the whole pumpking next year. Instead create coop event where you play through a minigame and do a bossfight against Darkrai at the end.

 

That would be 1000x times more fun IMO.

Edited November 8, 2023 by BuurmanJuan

[caioxlive13]

My idea to rework the reward system

• Beating Up Children for
  • Goodie Bags
  • Cookies(thematic, right? Trick or Treat.)
• Catching Halloween Exclusive Swarms Pokemon for:
  • Particles 
  • Cookies
• Doing the Wisp & Cat quests for:
  • High Ivs Pokemon with Hidden Ability
  • Alpha Halloween Exclusive Pokemon
• Beating Up Pumpking Minibosses for:
  • Special Candy (100% ---> 20%)
  • Goodie Bags (80%)
• Beating Up the Pumpking Boss Easy Mode for:
  • 5 Goodie Bags
  • Consumable Items : Max Potions, X items, etc...
• Beating Up the Pumpking Boss Hard Mode for:
  • 5 Pumpking Goodie Bags
  • Boss Particles
  • Shiny Boss Particles

[Darkoure]

I had an Idea in my head after not getting shiny particles.. 

 

A low % chance that the 3rd phase Pumpking Boss being a shiny or special one (no need to be stronger) that either drops a guarantee shiny particle on your pokemon(s) or giving a little bit more loot in this one run.

 

Just to have a "happy" moment-  cause hoping for a shiny particle, run after run hella hurts xD

[MightyMichele]

I also agree that staff has done a good job with the 8 iterations of halloween event and my favorite part is Beating Up Pumpking Minibosses for special candies. 

 

Anyhow, this is what I think of the Halloween event. What do you guys think could be improved or changed?

 

Looking for more variety of activities, how about introducing periodic downtime for the boss to recharge for new/alternative activities to take place? During these intervals, there could happen the emergence of Pumpking's Henchmen swarms throughout the entire region. These swarms could present a new challenge for players to defeat. In return, victorious players could be rewarded with valuable items such as medicines or cookies. This dynamic would help players to put medicines back in the bag (drained by the boss) and also add a extra layer of excitement to the event. This sets itself apart from the Halloween spirit spawn as it introduces numerous extra swarms that have the potential to drop medicines instead of special candy.

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by MightyMichele