Rakghoul Event Feedback - What was good, What was bad

[Agathorn]

I was excited to finally see a dynamic event happen in the game, something outside the norm, but I think this event could have been done a lot better and hopefully feedback will make future events more fun.

 

What I liked about it:

I enjoyed the fact that there WAS an event. Getting together with guildies and taking down the bosses on Tattooine was a lot of fun. The outbreak virus mechanic was pretty cool except for one major exploit which I will cover in the BAD section. I would have liked to see this be something more than just a way to slip in yet more dailies, but overall it was cool.

 

What I didn't like about it:

This event was a wet dream for griefers, and outright punished the more casual players.

 

On the griefing side, we have a virus that can be used to flag people for PvP even if they don't want to PvP, plus bosses that can be force taunted then run off, resetting them on an entire group. At one point I was in a group doing the patient zero guy by the sarlac pitt and there was a couple assassins who kept force taunting then force speeding past some point and instantly resetting the boss so we had to summon him again. He kept doing this over and over and we finally managed to defeat the boss only because we had like 4 tanks who kept force taunting as much as possible. It was very annoying and made the fight not a lot of fun.

 

The event also punished casual players because of one mechanic, and that is the progressive dailies thing. There are 6 pieces of armor you can get, but if takes 6 days to do all of them. You can't do them all in one or two days because the game won't let you. You have to do the first one, then come back the next day before the second one will unlock, and so forth. This doesn't sound to bad, but the first one unlocked on the 15th if the internets are correct, and it ends on the 24th. You can't do a daily on the 24th though, so you essentially had between the 15th and 23rd to do them. That is 9 days, so if you started doing dailies a tad late, or missed a couple days here and there, it is impossible to finish the set of armor. Not a problem for people who can log in and play for an hour or two every single day, but not everyone can do that. This is why casual players are hurt by this mechanic. Personally, I generally work 12ish hours a day during the week so I don't really get to play except on the weekends. At best I would have had 3 days to do the dailies.

 

I'm not whining about not getting the armor, though I am very disappointed, but instead i'm just trying to point out how it is a bad mechanic that punished casual players, whom I bet are a large portion of the player base.

 

On a side note about special event rewards in the future -- If you are going to do color crystals again please consider adding some that are NOT the horribly ugly black core ones. Not everyone likes those, and since those were the major rewards a lot of us felt that the event rewards were pretty useless. I really just did the event to do the event.

[Calsetes]

I liked that Tatooine actually, for the first time in a long time on my server, "felt" like a community. I see the same peopel, the same people see me, we joke around, and there's a form of camaraderie there. People let my low-level characters in on World Boss events, there's a sense of discovery and "how do we do this now? What triggers this?"

 

What I do not like about the event is one big thing - the infection flagging other non-flagged players on a PvE server. If you explode on or get exploded on by a flagged player, it flags you automatically as well as giving you the infection. The infection should be separate from PvP flagging. Just because a coworker gave you a cold doesn't mean you now share the same tastes in music as him. Vaccines can be used to prevent this frmo happening, however it also costs money and prevents you from being infected. If you want to be infected, but not PvP, then what can you do other than eat the cost of the vaccine or risk getting ganked by a higher-level player, even on a PvE server?

[geulsae]

Progressive quest unlock for the social gear set was a complete goof up.

Whoever came up with that idea needs to be reprimanded.

I understand the logic behind it, you want players to keep coming back through out the duration of the event.

But don't force us to do this. There isn't a whole lot to see anyways.

Also, I refuse to do the repeatable grind, I mean dailies. Because in my mind the moment you do them, it becomes a chore/work and no longer a game.

Edited April 20, 2012 by geulsae

[chrisftw]

Progressive quest unlock for the social gear set was a complete goof up.

Whoever came up with that idea needs to be reprimanded.

I understand the logic behind it, you want players to keep coming back through out the duration of the event.

But don't force us to do this. I refuse to do the repeatable grind, I mean dailies, because in my mind the moment you do them, it becomes a chore/work and no longer a game.

 

so basically this was you saying

 

i want it all now not later. /signed

 

amiright?

[LastArgument]

Progressive quest unlock for the social gear set was a complete goof up.

Whoever came up with that idea needs to be reprimanded.

I understand the logic behind it, you want players to keep coming back through out the duration of the event.

But don't force us to do this. There isn't a whole lot to see anyways.

Also, I refuse to do the repeatable grind, I mean dailies. Because in my mind the moment you do them, it becomes a chore/work and no longer a game.

 

I loved the gated dailies - felt like I was discovering something new about the event every day. I think it was just the right amount of stuff to do.

 

Loved the rewards.

 

My ONLY complaint is that the infected customization thing needed more thought. It shouldn't have been random - just increase the price to 50 and let us buy individuals. I don't need triples of Corso, thanks.

[Gokkus]

Progressive quest unlock for the social gear set was a complete goof up.

Whoever came up with that idea needs to be reprimanded.

I understand the logic behind it, you want players to keep coming back through out the duration of the event.

But don't force us to do this. There isn't a whole lot to see anyways.

Also, I refuse to do the repeatable grind, I mean dailies. Because in my mind the moment you do them, it becomes a chore/work and no longer a game.

 

You can just wait till the last day to do the quests if you want the oranges. Two days tops and you have enough for the green crystal. At least this way they make it more interesting to come back.

 

Casual players should have no problem as they can just get the vaccine and be left alone for 6 houres. After you find that out, there really isnt a problem. If you ask in general chat if you can have a vaccine on my server, you'll have 20 of them within 5 minutes so it doesnt even cost any money.

[Agathorn]

You can just wait till the last day to do the quests if you want the oranges. Two days tops and you have enough for the green crystal. At least this way they make it more interesting to come back

 

No, you can't. You have to do one each day to unlock the next. They are progressive. To get the entire set of oranges takes 6 days minimum if my math is right.

[Agathorn]

so basically this was you saying

 

i want it all now not later. /signed

 

amiright?

 

No, you are wrong.

 

I don't mind doing the dailies (though I think dailies in and of themselves are an unimaginative mechanic that needs to die), the problem with the dailies in this event is that if you started late, or missed a few days, you absolutely can not get all the quests and armor since they are progressive over 6 or 7 days. Many people play MMOs on the weekends only and that should have been taken into account.

[Gokkus]

No, you can't. You have to do one each day to unlock the next. They are progressive. To get the entire set of oranges takes 6 days minimum if my math is right.

 

Are you sure about that? That would mean that if you missed a few days it would be impossible to get the whole set...I doubt thats true.

[Lazuris]

That is correct - you can't just wait until the last day to do them all. Meaning if you are not at least on the Legs daily today then you will not get the complete set when the event is over.

 

I agree that this is kind of unfair to those who joined the event late. I am on the legs daily myself so basically as long as I don't miss a day I will get the set, but I don't understand the reasoning behind it.

[Skolops]

Are you sure about that? That would mean that if you missed a few days it would be impossible to get the whole set...I doubt thats true.

 

As far as anyone can tell, it is. Each time you do the most advanced daily in the list, it unlocks the next one for the next day. It won't let you start it until the next day has come around.

[Calsetes]

Are you sure about that? That would mean that if you missed a few days it would be impossible to get the whole set...I doubt thats true.

 

That's how it's been up until now. From the sound of it, if you didn't start yesterday, then you probably can't get the whole set going off an implication of a Dev post I saw floating around here. Yesterday was the last mission, but it gave you a choice of a belt or a chestpiece.

[Agathorn]

Are you sure about that? That would mean that if you missed a few days it would be impossible to get the whole set...I doubt thats true.

 

And hence the complaint and why I listed it in the Whats Bad section. This is confirmed. They are progressive.

[Gokkus]

That's how it's been up until now. From the sound of it, if you didn't start yesterday, then you probably can't get the whole set going off an implication of a Dev post I saw floating around here. Yesterday was the last mission, but it gave you a choice of a belt or a chestpiece.

 

Oh...well thats silly, they should change that. I agree that weekend players should be able to get the whole set as well. Wonder why they would do it that way...

[Journeyer]

I think they handled the gear well. If you couldn't log in for 1-2 hrs on 6/9 days, then you don't get the whole set from mission rewards...but you could still get the set, if you played for a decent chunk of time and bought bags from the vendor. So, to me, they've given a way to get the set as long as you put in some decent time on the event either way, and if you don't want to put in the time, you don't get the special set.

 

I thought the mix of content was fantastic too: a scavenger hunt to at least give people a pet, if they didn't have time to do *any* other things. And 3 world bosses for a high-level challenge, that aren't a required part of the daily line. And they made the explodey mechanic a reward instead of a detriment (gives event currency, doesn't affect armor durability, and fairly easy to get 6 hour immunity). And scaleable enemies! All in all, it felt to me like they really thought hard about something for everyone here, and hit as many player possibilities as they could--and got quite a lot of them!

 

Only thing I saw as a big oversight, as pointed out by OP, was the PvP thing. I was mortified to have accidentally tagged 2 people for PvP by exploding on them at a mission turn-in. :\ Oops.

[Tremain]

The armour is a nice set, at least on the Republic side, but thats just personal preference. What WOULD be nice is for it to be Bound to Legacy rather than just Bound. As light armour, it's only really usable by 2 classes (social armour or not). It'd be nice to be able to mail it between my alts at a later stage.

[Muertepk]

i am sorry i like the progressive, if you dont want to goto tatooine and do the missions using the system of new daily each day, then you dont deserve the set.

 

having random skins is great it gives incentive to come back and try again.

i loved the fact that the community was responsible for getting the info out, just like its been in every other mmorpg ive played that released dynamic events. they tell us where and when we figure out the how and why.

 

thats what spawns wikis and guides....... i do think personally that the containment armor set should be for those who spent the time and came back daily to earn it. theres no way this armor should be just tossed out there for everyone. we already have a gift for everyone in the pipeline. i am sad to say this but ive seen communities of mmo players devolve from mmorpg players into twitchers who want everything and dont want to work for it, the same type of player who the credit(gold) farmers depend on those who refuse to work for it.

 

thats why i double enjoy this event. the prizes are for those who wish to work for it, cant be traded , cant be sold, if you want it work for it.

 

other than that the social aspects and the pick up groups for bosses...... absolutely fun!

 

here is where i agree with the OP a couple of things could have been done better or different.

 

but i am totally pleased with what i have experienced so far.

[Rypht]

I think they handled the gear well. If you couldn't log in for 1-2 hrs on 6/9 days, then you don't get the whole set from mission rewards...but you could still get the set, if you played for a decent chunk of time and bought bags from the vendor.

 

Was there a second vendor other than the jawa? I didn't see any bags that you could outright buy to get the gear from.

[Jalden]

Pretty sure you can't get them from a vendor.

[Crawfishies]

What I would loved to have seen is to let

whoever is not infected to attack/kill the people who are infected.

 

And who is infected to infect other people a bit easier.

Both have a way of obtaining dna samples.

 

Wouldn't it be funny group of infected vs non infected killing each other.

 

About the fleet, it would be too much of a mess,

with the current npcs that kill any infected person entering the fleet,

put another set of guards where people spawn from fleet passes.

 

although this wouldn't be good on a pve server.

[Agathorn]

Was there a second vendor other than the jawa? I didn't see any bags that you could outright buy to get the gear from.

 

i did not see one

[Exilim]

I don't like the Title tied to the world bosses achievments. Wish it were more easily acquired. That's my beef, and it's pretty minor, just a title after all. Having to wait a day to unlock the next daily is a pretty unfavorable idea imo.

 

All in all this event is pretty dang sweet.

[Sunjammer]

TL;DR

 

As SWTOR's first Dynamic World Event the Rakghoul Plague Epidemic was definitely a good start with lots of new to do and see and, I think it is safe to say, the majority of Players are having fun with it. However there is always room for improvement in terms of its immediate and ongoing impact on story; the variety and depth of quests; and gameplay or reward imbalances between different groups. We want more events and we want better events (please)!

 

FULL POST

 

SWTOR attracts a wide variety of players and play styles so it is difficult for BioWare to please everyone all the time. So while the majority players have welcomed the Rakghoul Plague Event and are having a lot of fun with it, there are some players who are not enjoying parts of it, some of it side-effects, and/or some of emergent gameplay.

 

So what can BioWare take from this event to ensure that in future more people can enjoy an event; to ensure people an enjoy more of an event; and/or to ensure that fewer people are negatively affected by an event?

 

As I see it the event created three groups: The Infected Faction (those trying to spread the plague) and The Containment Faction (those trying to eradicate the plague) and Nonparticipants so I will refer to them with these labels rather than some of the more, um, emotive names that have been attached to them.

 

Positives

 

On the whole I have enjoyed the Rakghoul Plague Event. I was certainly busy enough with it to have put off finishing the final chapter in my class story (and I was loving that).

 

I loved the way the event was introduced using story driven elements (announcements and news probes on the fleet; emergency notice on Tatooine) instead of, for example, a new courier droid with a mission marker on the mini-map. My guild mates were off doing their own thing so after I arrived on Tatooine and realised something special was going on I put out the call and we set off to investigate with a palpable since of excitement.

 

I also like the initial daily and area quests and the encounter scaling mechanic is elegant (simple but effective) and allows a wide range of levels to participate. The daily addition of a new daily means there was something new to look forward to tomorrow.

 

The event encouraged us to participate in more group activities I even joined a couple of teams to take down the World Boss in the Smuggler's Run free-for-all PVP area (eep!) and although I am not entirely sure, from a story perspective, why I was doing this I assumed a giant bantha infected with the rakghoul plague is justification enough.

 

Negatives

 

However there are some aspects that I feel could be improved ...

 

Story, Immersion and Continuity

 

For me the biggest negative is its impact on the story, immersion and continuity. Story is after all one of the four pillars on which SWTOR is built and why many of us are playing SWTOR rather than something else. Unfortunately these elements have taken something of a beating over the last few days to the extent that it has felt like playing Space WOW than SWTOR (which unfortunately is probably why the event was so popular).

 

I'm not a role-player but I do have a character concept that I try to adhere to and I do want BioWare to maintain a believable and immersive setting. In designing a quest where players are incentivised to kill themselves (repeatedly) and to inflict a plague on their own side BioWare seem to be ignoring the fact that we are supposedly (reluctant) heroes on the brink of, or engaged in, a galactic war between the Republic and the Empire. While I suspect there are infiltrators and terrorists on both side it is hard to accept that they make up the majority.

 

Similarly for the Containment Faction the completion of the Tracking the Origin quest is a frustrating failure in terms of continuity. For those players, like me, who avoid spoilers and walkthroughs this quest represents a large investment of time to acquire a reward that is, well, just plain wrong. I am massively disappointed that I was not, at the very least, offered a light/dark side choice to kill/keep the source of the biological nightmare currently ravaging Tatooine and the Fleet. I had to resort to destroying the thing OOC which was hugely unsatisfying.

 

Despite all the effort to theme Tatooine and the Fleet to reflect the impact of the plague and enhance immersion the world does not react to the spread of the infection. I have been told infected players travelling to the Fleet are accosted by a couple of Containment Officers but these easily defeated and after that infected players are allowed to wander about entirely unimpeded. Despite the constant announcements the NPCs are oblivious to players' (and their companion's) obvious signs of infection; to the "plague circles" at the cargo holds access; and to the horde of Raklings that have infested the Fleet.

 

While the rewards are proving to be very popular two in particular, the Rakling pets and the companion customisation, seem rather insensitive from a story perspective and inconsistent with the setting. These will continue this event's dislocation from the Fourth Pillar until (hopefully) they are replaced by the next event's rewards.

 

Gameplay and Reward Imbalance

 

There is a great imbalance between the Infected Faction and the other two groups in terms of how gameplay is affected, the cost of participation (or avoidance) and availability of rewards.

 

BioWare have repeatedly stated the Fleet is an important community space but the event has made it somewhere to avoid for the Containment Faction and Nonparticipants. Their alternatives are to head for low population areas (and hope to avoid any infected players); remain aboard their ship grinding crafting or space missions; or to log out for 10 days until the event has run its course. Conversely the emergent gameplay Infected Faction has been to surround the cargo bay access on the Fleet infecting each other (and unwary passers by).

 

Of course the Containment Faction and Nonparticipants can buy a vaccine which provides a temporary immunity. However this cost essentially amounts to a tax of 2000cr for every 6 period of play and/or every death to ensure they remain infection free. This Vaccine Tax can be mitigated by doing the dailies as two quests provide vaccine as a reward however this may not be sufficient and is only available to those wishing to participate daily. Since item durability is unaffected by "exploding" and there is no decontamination/resurrection fee the Infection Faction has no such cost associated with their participation this event.

 

That said whenever a Containment Faction player is not currently vaccinated they have to stop what they are doing and move away from any infected player that approaches or risk being caught in the explosion radius should the infected player blow up. Conversely, as noted in the previous section, the Infected Faction players' movements are uninhibited except for that one encounter when docking on the Fleet.

 

Frustratingly the Containment Faction is almost entirely impotent when it comes to containing the plague. It is bizarrely one-sided that an Infection Faction player can potentially infect anyone else but (outside of one quest) no on in the Containment Faction can cure or even delay the onset of the plague. Moreover despite the advice in the Fleet announcements there is no way for the Containment Faction to a) report the infected to the Health and Safety Council, b) restrain them or, c) kill them.

 

The Infected Faction is rewarded for becoming infected and for infecting others and can do so repeatedly (every 20 or so minutes I believe). Whereas the Containment Faction has no such periodic reward system. This gives the Infected Faction the ability to farm DNA tokens and purchase far more rewards than the Containment Faction.

 

Conclusions

 

Events should crafted so they compliment the galactic story and the different play styles not to conflict and ignore them. The designers should have greater respect for the setting, for immersion and for continuity: events have to be awesome and appropriate! They should also try to avoid adding things to the game that are going to make life difficult for people who are playing SWTOR for the Star Wars setting, the story and the lore.

 

A little more effort is required when designing some of the daily quest. Three of them have an identical format simply with different assets: click on escape pods and kill the passengers; click on the space junk and kill Jawas; click on the Dewback corpse and kill Rakghouls. These felt like filler quests to pad out the better designed ones which were multi-step and/or included codex entries.

 

The Containment Faction should have been empowered to actually tackle the plague head on, for example, to set up safe zones where people can get cured on entry and can go about their business without fear of becoming infected. It should have been possible to follow the advisory announcements by providing a means to report an infected Player's location an have them quarantined by (level 50, Champion) Containment Officers or to attack/kill them.

 

BioWare should have included an actual in-game Infected Faction that is hostile to everyone and flagged for free-for-all PVP. All infected players who are in the second phase of the plague are put into this faction. Using the Vaccine instantly will remove the player from this faction so NPCs are no longer hostile and allows the PVP flag will drop in the normal way. Alternatively the DNA Samples should only have been rewarded to Republic players for infecting Imperials and vice versa which would have allowed the issue to elegantly resolve itself.

 

To address the cost imbalance BioWare could have either:

• a) Provided free inoculation to anyone of a certain level (i.e. below Tatooine's recommended level range) on the condition they do not step foot on Tatooine; made Fleet Medical Droids administer a free vaccine that removes any existing trace of the plague but does not provide the on-going protection; rendered the plague inert (i.e. suspend the timer) during Flashpoints, Operations and Warzones. Such initiatives would have gone along way to mitigating the Containment Faction's vaccine tax.

or:

• Make "exploding" affect item durability or have a special decontamination and resurrection cost so that the Infected Faction have to pay a similar amount to the Containment Faction's Vaccine tax.

 

To address the rewards imbalance either:

• Provide a mechanism for the Containment Faction to harvest Rakghoul DNA Samples from infected players. The process takes 20+ minutes real time to create and when used on a infected player will create 5 Rakghoul DNA Samples.

or:

• Modify the plague so an infected player can only "explode" once per day. Allow them to get infected again as soon as they like but the "explode" timer doesn't start ticking again until they log back in the next day. There would still be an imbalance but it is 50 tokens over the course of the event. It would also mitigate the "plague circle" issue.

 

Rewards should be worthwhile and desirable for all play styles and should be appropriate for the setting and the story. Obvious light side and dark side choices should rewarded and not simply ignored. Players should have a choice of reward that is appropriate: they should not get to the end of a four hour quest and be forced to chose between aborting the quest and accepting to a rakghoul pet!

[Ujest]

What I would loved to have seen is to let

whoever is not infected to attack/kill the people who are infected.

 

...

 

Wouldn't it be funny group of infected vs non infected killing each other.

 

This is just PvP

 

 

About the fleet, it would be too much of a mess,

with the current npcs that kill any infected person entering the fleet,

put another set of guards where people spawn from fleet passes.

 

although this wouldn't be good on a pve server.

 

Actually, just keep the infected from Fleet all together. I'm getting tired of being griefed by an infected player camping the GTN or some other vendor just so they can pop and get their daily with out any effort on their part. It is bad enough the cluster f*** of infected at the Fleet Pass spawn in point, but to camp a place players are stationary and occupied so the grieffer can get an easy point for their infect X quest is just sad.

 

Hell the easiest place to effectively quarantine would be a space station. With limited ways in, can't get in without a medical survey, the station is surrounded by a hostile environment, infected people coming to the station are already contained in their ship, etc, etc, etc, unless they are using their Fleet Pass.

 

Another solution would be the let the non-infected kill the infected as we are authorized to do in the announcement, but don't flag for pvp because of it and only on Fleet. Also do not make it a quest to kill X infected, that would just have people standing around and killing each other over and over to get their quota.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Ujest

[Doamy]

-Post content removed- Edited May 6, 2012 by Doamy