[Feedback] 20th Anniversary!

[Tawaret]

Unfortunately this apparently good intention was implemented so poorly and such emphasis seems to have been placed on keeping languages grouped rather than the numbers that were supposed to be used to balance us all and ensure fairness and a proper game/race for everyone that instead we have this: Thank you for the fair server grouping

All of this could have been avoided by giving the rewards for position rather than percentage. It is hard to argue over whether a server group is placed 9th or 10th. It is very easy to argue that 'percentages' have been recalculated in some way. Most races have podium prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Most leaderboards then show the top ten and often the final position of all participants. Everyone who finishes the race gets a position. It keeps most people happy.

While I do not and have not believed BB 'rigged the event' so .de would win there certainly have been numerous occurrences of what looks very like favouritism and this has done nothing at all to foster the sense of healthy competition an event like this ought to inspire. Rather it has, in many cases, caused a great deal of bad feeling and much text has been spent in many chats and on many fora taking unwarranted swings at other servers.

Unfortunately favouritism doesn't look very different to rigging the event when servers are looking at small details. Instead of making people happy, motivated and willing to work for a good event, this fostered resentment, lack of motivation and a lot of bad feeling. It is not exactly how you should set up an event that was supposed to celebrate all the achievements of Settlers over the last 20 years and encourage people to continue playing and recommend it to their friends, or to encourage new players to join.

[Qualan]

it doesnt really matter if there was favoritism or not- what is abundantly clear is that the system chosen doesnt make for a level playing field

phase 1 was intended to level the playing field by matching servers together to each (group of) servers is more or less equal in strenght- well at least in a fair game thats what you would have intended to achieve with that phase

If you look at the percentage spread you can not but conclude that this wasnt a level playing field to the extent that at a horserace there would be an investigation and the result would not stand

i can live with a 10 or even 20% spread with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions at around 30%

the score so far:

- the biggest spread between number 1 and the last is over 100%
Average percentage across all servers is 137%- so the middle goal was not an achievable target for most imo that should have been the top goal's hitlist more or less
- the top server scored 70% above the average - yes 70%
- the bottom server however was just 33% below that average
4 or 5 servers will reach the middle target of 150% imo the aim for the middle target should have been a number closer to half the servers so around double the number that is getting there

There are many methods to compute a fair target per (group of) servers to ensure a decent spread of results. In the previous event i have seen many suggestions how to compute this and how it can be adjusted to even out effects of variables like age of server and even "cheat by prior knowledge" and artificially weakening position of a server prior to event so they get an advantage in event

Some methods are simple and some are quite hard but all aim to make a level playing field even when this is not easy

I dunno what system you have chosen BB- but if youw ere running a racetrack, your would now be shut down by officials for running a crooked operation. The spread across servers shows clearly that the weights assigned to various servers was incorrect- either by people fudging the fiigures prior to event or by bad decisions on part of the event developers. I refuse to believe that a company would willingly and knowingly at the management level make the decision to give unfair advantages to certain server groups. But you have to admit that the figures dont look good for BB across 2 serverwide events

Both times it has been the same servers excelling- and the second time it has been after the competition has been made " fair " and still the same ones are on top and not a little bit but by margins unacceptable in a fair competition.

[Qualan]

another minus point on the event imo has been the questline- Please make em worth doing- this was just a bad joke

10 balloons rewards across the questline for finishing it- limited xp and no resource rewards or special rewards for finishing he adventures- what planet were u guys on or did the team fall asleep the last day of development and didnt get around to itemising the adventures and questline in a proper way?

It was absolutely not worth doing and rewarding people with these adventures with no resource rewards or special buildings in em is not a reward but a punishment as most will end up deleting em cause even the xp reward isnt worth it in regards to troops lost in comparison to other avaiable adventures

Competitions are great ideas but make em special by making em better than regular stuff- not worse than regular stuff

Now we ended up with
1) a bad questline with bad rewards/loots
2) a bad daily quest which is so easy it is laughable- then again the reward was laughably low as well so that compensated- However - the unintended sideeffect of this questline was that some guildquest or daily quests became laughably easy as well- if u get the finish 2 adventure quests u just do 2 of these event dailies and finish in like 3 minutes
3) A non level playing field as previous post showed
4) mediocre rewards for the event except for the top server who will take both extra prizes on top of the 200% reward

this is not the first event where rewards are becoming so disappointing that people start signing off on participation and when targets are unachievable as well- instead of binding people you end up driving em away- which is a shame as the events are usually the highlights of the game

[RonPope]

only 2 days left to get to 150%. Not going to happen. not gonna waste donating balloons and then fall short on the 150% mark.

overall - I did not enjoy this event. (besides the voucher codes which I look forward to each day). but the whole donating balloons thing and no return - terrible.

all this for 100 gems, bunch of skins and a Settlers 2 HQ building that takes up space on the island. 20pop is just way too low.


sorry but i'm not feeling 'happy' about this anniversary. more like sad and depressed.

the only thing that would cheer me up is a change in the population count of the building.

[banksie]

dont think that there will be a lot of planning in the next server event as there are a lot of players that will not do it, more so if its run along a fair ( what ever) system like the balloon race. players will only take so much then vote with feet and give events a body swerve.
just wish all servers had just stopped on phase one and only put in found balloons makes me wonder what bb would have done, i can understand not giving "free gems" but it is a birthday event

[Seraph--]

My personal feedback on this event...

It was stupidly unfair. Please do not ever make any event like this in the future. It only annoy players, because no matter what they do individually, they can't really affect the outcome.
Some of us really tried hard to help the server to "win" this (achieve 200% at least), but to no avail. It was apparently tailored to fit the top german server, without care about the other servers. Good job.

BB, if you are reasonable, you should give the rewards to all servers, admitting your mistake in calculation.

Cheers.

[nexxypoo]

I just found the whole event extremely underwhelming... so boring i just switched off after a few days of those stupid daily quests where i had to... wait for it... this is SO exciting... click on a few things on the screen... thats it!?!?! omg L.A.M.E.

neX

[HsinchuAdam]

Yes, a good event should be one that makes people feel excited, one that's fun, and one that everyone can join in. This was just a who can make the most resources contest.

Next event please do something more imaginative and something where everyone has an equal playing field. Having a daily adventure is a good idea, but then make the rewards entirely based on adventures. No resource conversions. Have a contest where the winners will be the servers that have the most participation, not the one with the most lvl 50 economies.

If BB wants to make these kind of simple adventures have any entertainment value, why not have branching quest chains? Have a daily quest with three outcomes, you can choose which one, the next daily quest is based on your choice. Have a reward for each quest and a special reward if you get to the end of the chain and make the correct choices. You could have puzzles, moral choices or even plain dumb luck. A new quest chain each week would keep people excited and interested.

Please think about entertainment BB, that's why people play games.

If it's really difficult, I'm happy to be a paid creative consultant

Adam

[BobLurker]

BB went through with the change of allowing balloons to be converted to gold coins. Stupid, just stupid. Next event they run, I won't be participating to help my server, I'll be stockpiling whatever resource it is to convert into coins - and so will everyone else. What on earth were they thinking? Effectively, they've enabled players to convert water into coins! Probably not a big deal this time around - although some players had prior warning of this and could use it this time - but it certainly will affect future events.

[EctoRune]

The conversion rate is much worse than simply selling the water on the market would have given, so I don't think this is really much of an issue.