Snowpeaks Festival - my first thoughts

[spyyder976]

I have noticed that about 1/3 of the Champions on Hard are Scourge of the Snowpeaks faction, and so far I've gotten about 4 of them after doing about 5 quests. I've gotten from chests: 1 bronze coin, then 1 key and 1 gold coin, then twice I got 1 key and 2 silver coins. I also got a bronze coin out of a regular chest. Don't know if keys will drop in regular chests rarely or not. Haven't used the keys yet.

[Carpone]

At level 30, ran the following on R10:
Feywild (12 - skipped Lost Locket)
Tethymar Mines (5)
House J (5)
Gatekeepers (5)

Out of 27 quests, obtained:

13 Frozen Keys
12 Gold Snowpeak Coins
34 Silver Snowpeak Coins
63 Bronze Snowpeak Coins

[cru121]

At level 30, ran the following on R10:
Feywild (12 - skipped Lost Locket)
Tethymar Mines (5)
House J (5)
Gatekeepers (5)

Out of 27 quests, obtained:

13 Frozen Keys
12 Gold Snowpeak Coins
34 Silver Snowpeak Coins
63 Bronze Snowpeak Coins

Comparing your number to my anecdotal yields, I suspect heroic chests yield fewer coins per chest than legendary. During some heroic action, I managed to collect 24 keys (mostly from white chests from orange named champs) but IIRC I got fewer coins than you.

[Alttab]

I like that the snowmen champions are integrated in all quests, I got a couple of keys yesterday just doing the quests I would usually do playing a couple of hours.

[Saekee]

The change they made was that you don't get chests if they die from falling into the pit, you have to kill them yourself.

Yes but the ice chests do appear, oddly, down the bottom of the pit

[Aelonwy]

Here are my recommendations:

1) Harbor Ski Jump
a) Restore this event.
b) Put up an invisible wall that blocks all access to the Purple Coin accept from the direction of the hard ski jump.
c) Put a second Purple Coin near the existing one to make completing the hard ski jump worth the effort to master.
d) Add a new ski jump of middling difficulty and put one Purple Coin at the end of that jump.
e) Each year, add a new ski jump and a new coin at the end of that jump. Make the rewards require crazy combinations of all color coins. The Golden Tribe Kobolds want you to to fill the Harbor with Jumpways. (If you get that reference, give yourself a lollipop.)
f) Refresh the rewards _every_ _single_ _year_. No excuses.

2) Restore the Eveningstar Skate Course.
a) Introduce air jets that blow skaters around.
b) Add more jump ramps and anti-gravity spots and trick jumps.
c) Associated a different colored coin with each trick jump. Make it so that the player must choose between trick jumps and thus coins on any particular run, thus increasing the number of ways to successfully run the track.
d) Add new rewards that require crazy coin combinations, thus forcing the player to master many different routes and many trick jumps.
e) Refresh the rewards _every_ _single_ _year_. No excuses.

3) Add challenge to the new downhill run.
a) Add air jets that will blow players off the course. If blown off, have the player feather fall to the next milestone. The penalty for falling off is missing all coins in the previous section, not death.
b) Add skating kobolds to the track. If you hit one, you spin out of control.
c) Put a timer on the run. If the player does not get to the bottom in time, he or she loses all remaining coins on the track and the end chest.
d) Have kobolds along the track throwing snowballs at players. Each hit slows the player down and/or pushes him or her off course.
e) Add some trick jumps to the course allowing the player to high jump or side jump to extra coins.
f) Put some Easter Eggs in the rough.


Stab you later!

I love your Vexa stories but I would HATE these suggestions, as someone that cannot stand Mario Skill checks, and would prefer less Mario/Donkey Kong/Sonic in my DnD flavored game, thank you. If I wanted that, I would play those. I wouldn't mind the occasional *jump here* to get a platform with an *extra* gold or something of that sort but having ALL the best prizes only available for those who can time jumps or have the requisite jump skill via hand-eye-coordination and actual character skill numbers would tick me off for an event that's meant to be for everyone to enjoy. They could even have those *extra* jumps or platforms be random, so long as it were possible for someone of low skill to access all the rewards even if it took more time or more runs because they weren't getting the *extra* skilled jump bonuses. Ergo if running the ski ramp without trying for the extra jumps netted 3 gold coins but being able to make the extra jumps netted 6, I would applaud the skilled that enjoy making that extra effort for success without being bothered that it would take me twice the time to get the same.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

My thoughts on the new event :

- The course is too short !
- Sounds ! It doesn't have any sounds right now !
- The keys drop not that often ...
- The rewards are god, it seems to me.
- The course hasn't been tested too well for the case rthat someone drops off the road ... there's an "enforced teleport" , though ...
- The in-game connections between the Peaks and everything else is just poor ! I'd like to have some kind of in-game story for that ! Does Jack Frostbite live in the Peaks, for example ? Where does does Flurry actually come from and why is she there ?
- Does it give xp for level 1 characters, actually ?

So, far, I like it, it is fun, but it just needs to be a bit longer ! The more skiting, the merrier !

[Annex]

I love your Vexa stories but I would HATE these suggestions, as someone that cannot stand Mario Skill checks, and would prefer less Mario/Donkey Kong/Sonic in my DnD flavored game, thank you. If I wanted that, I would play those.

Hi Aelonwy!

Yeah. Many, many people complained about the difficulty of the Harbor Ski Ramp and Eveningstar Ice Skating so I am not surprised at the very low skill requirement for this event. I have no desire to make things harder for anyone so, even though I have lots of ideas, I will drop it. As you say, I can play something else.

...

I can offer some additional feedback.

The event is _very_ inclusive. Earning keys is a breeze. The downhill course is super easy. All the coins and keys can be traded. The rewards are very good. I find it boring but ... who cares.

The downhill course is structurally well made and looks like a proper snow zone. I have not suffered any catastrophic glitches in ~60 runs, even when frozen in place or lagging.

After finishing the downhill run, talking to Miss Flurry transports your character back to the Hall of Heroes but the dialog remains open. It would be nice if the teleport also closed the dialog.

Miss Flurry, in the Hall of Heroes, acts as both event trader and portal entrance. This results in a great deal of traffic around her. In my opinion, a separate entrance, placed a few meters away from Miss Flurry, would make entrance a bit easier during busy times of day.

I have little interest in cookies (right...) and so generated a bazillion copper coins. Some players may appreciate a few (dumb) 10,000 copper coin rewards.

...

Gold coins are the only thing that matters in this event. I am averaging 6.65 gold coins per downhill run.

The only thing causing me to continue playing the event are the (very good) cosmetic outfit rewards. I find the event extremely lackluster in all other regards. That is what it is. Sorry. I don't want to be mean. I am offering truthful feedback. Even so, it is causing me to come back and play for a few days. I would argue that bringing back intermittent players is a very important function for events so it works in that regard.

[Arnhelm]

My thoughts after running Elite Irestone Inlet on my 24 Monk for an hour or so yesterday:

Drops of keys and coins in the quest wasn't too bad. Ended up with 4 keys and several coins of various types. Takes some grinding, true, but no more than grinding the purple coin in Risia, imo.

The actual event run in simple enough most everyone can make a successful run. Go slow, use reverse to pick up all the coins, and remember to talk to Flurry at the end of the run to get the rewards chest.

The event rewards, such as Snowman, seem a bit pricey to me given my limited time to gather coins. Won't spend days grinding it out as I did with Risia/Midwinter runs.

Overall, not too bad an event. Going to grind a little every day to get the Snowman pet, and maybe some of the cosmetic gear.

Happy Hunting!

[Dnarth]

Well let's get it nerfed anyways. If you want to farm chests with 100% chance at keys. Get a level 30 toon. Go into a small problem. Advance the quest to get water (DO NOT CLICK THE ALTAR). Go to the waterfall spawn water ellies till you get a scourge, wait till it turns to ice. Kill. Enjoy keys.

I bet you are a real popular guy right now on your server.

[Hostyle]

So tldr - some certain grumpy people first complained about not being able to play the quest, then now it's a problem not enough things have dropped in an hour of a month long event?

I just spoke with Flurry and I'm told I need a key to travel to the Snowpeaks Festival.
Being that the only way to guarantee a key is to buy it from the cash shop I understand people complaining about not being able to take part, lol.

[Scope333]

I find it sort of annoying that XP pots continue to tick in an event that gives no experience.