Halloween Event

[Frith-Rae]

I started to post this in the general feedback about the Halloween event - but then I thought it may come off a bit *too* ranty - so I'll just post it here instead .

Overall, yes, this is one of my favorite events of the year. Though I am always disappoitned not to see any new content besides the new masks - I do love the masks - I love being able to have something like a mask on my character and I aboslutely love that players design them now!

My rant is not to do with that - my rant is to do this year with costumes.

Namely - Dragon Costumes.

Specificaly - DROP RATE!!

OMG! I was extremely disappointed at the LACK of dragon costume drops off of the mobs esp. incomparison to every single other race in game. I was extremely disappointed at the high rate of every OTHER racial costume drop and their total lack of value for anything besides *delete*.

I farmed for a couple of hours, getting enough candy in the area to get all the new masks. I'm not complaining about the candy farm.

But in that time I must have deleted HUNDREDS of biped costumes of all types - mulitples of the same thing over and over and over again - and how many dragon costumes in that time? A total of THREE! A single Ancient costume, and two juve. dragon costumes. No regular adult ones.

I don't know maybe the drop rates were bugged - if not it SHOULD be a bug cuz that is just totally unfair and ridiculous. That's just crazy bias numbers. If its "totally random" well then obviously that needs tweaking - personally I think its ridiculous that any race should have to mess with cotumes from another race in the first place. Why I'm having to delete HUNDREDS of drops I can't even trade to the vendor for mask/costume credit (like the candy worth) is just downright pointless.

If its an event - the drops should be fun. The drops COULD be worth something to those vendors. They could count as the candy does - so that way when we get cotumes we can't use over and over again - at least we could trade them in for a copper value to helpl us get the items we WANT rather than just dumping them and farming some more for candy.

So I'd suggest that first - put a copper value (even if its just 1c, so its half the worht of a piece of candy) on those costumes so that we can trade them in to get the stuff we want. No need to change out loottables then or alter anything other than allowing costumes to be traded in for costumes (or masks too as well).

But if we don't want to do that - then please, for Drulkar's sake, for next year, BALANCE THE FRICKIN LOOT TABLE!!

I'm so glad I saved up a few costumes from last year or else I'd have not had any luck at all. I'm an adult dragon - and out of two hours and hundreds of biped costumes of all races - not a SINGLE adult costume dropped.

You can make it so that only the costumes for that race drop, or you can just make dragon costumes drop as much as apparently everythign else drops - or you can reduce the drop a bit across the board (since every single mob drops at least one costume at this point, maybe not any candy but definitely a costume) and even up the distribution.

But ugg - that was just laborious, boring, and a wasteful experience.

I went in with high hopes of having a bit of fun and left with a bad taste in my mouth and NO desire to go back again.

[Takora Drakan]

Seems you just have bad luck, I got plenty ghose costumes for hatchies, adult and ancients, while farming candy, that are the only dragon drop costumes, the zombie one you have to buy.

[Pharcellus]

The drop rate *IS* balanced...

There are 7 costumes for each of the 9 biped races (minus a couple which were never finished to put into the game) and 6 for Dragons. So, you have around a 10% chance to get a Dragon costume every drop. The other 90% will be biped costumes and, yes, you will delete a LOT of them before you get all the Dragon ones.

Now, I suppose there could be a higher drop rate for Dragon costumes, since Dragons cannot use biped costumes, but meh. It doesn't take all that long to get them and trade for them with other bipeds.

Hell, I think I still have a bunch of spare Dragon costumes somewhere on one of my alts.

[Scaleth Drakescale]

I farmed for 7 hours total over a span of a few days.. I got two hatchling ghost costumes, one adult dragon costume, and one ancient costume, if I remember right. I noticed a lot of others were having the same problem. Maybe, if possible, make the drop rate for dragon costumes just a tiny bit more? I really don't have much of a problem with it because I have plenty of time to farm for them. But others might not have a lot of time to play.

[Raptress]

My own experience was similar. I was out there for maybe two hours and did not see a single dragon costume drop. I'm not really annoyed at that; What I'm annoyed about is the fact I never found one of those special zombie ones. Those do actually exist, right? XD

[AguaRush]

i hunted for a few hours so maybe i have no say in this but i recieved 1 ancient dragon ghost costume and i hunted pry 3 hours... candy drop rate isnt the best either.. and i feel bad being a level 100 draggy out there wiping out the spawn and theres 1 hatchie so i end up sharing my not much candy cause i feel bad! is the drop rate better for lower levels???

[Scaleth Drakescale]

My own experience was similar. I was out there for maybe two hours and did not see a single dragon costume drop. I'm not really annoyed at that; What I'm annoyed about is the fact I never found one of those special zombie ones. Those do actually exist, right? XD

You buy the zombie costumes with candy. I believe its the NPC accross from the one who sells the masks. :3

[Raptress]

I know, I'm talking about the one I've heard about that turns the user into a zombie like the festival zombies. I hear it 'dies' when you /sit. X3

I didn't see that one on the vendor. Could always check again, I s'pose.

[Vaz]

I have four or six of them from last year. Next time we're both in-game remind me to give you some, Raptress.

[Justa Mirage]

I know, I'm talking about the one I've heard about that turns the user into a zombie like the festival zombies. I hear it 'dies' when you /sit. X3

I didn't see that one on the vendor. Could always check again, I s'pose.

I forget but one of the emotes makes it say "Braaaaaains"

[Takora Drakan]

Nah, it says at random times brains, you just have to stand near the festival zombies or one with that costume.

[Frith-Rae]

As to the "trade them with bipeds" - there wasn't a point. Bipeds are getting theirs no problem - there wasn't anyone who WANTED mine.

So yea, 10% drop rate for everyone, but since we have less options - we need to have a higher drop rate. Obviously, as seen here, it wasn't just me having bad luck. If I had gone farming for 7 hours and got four costumes...ugg..that's just horrible!

The Candy rate was slow, yes, but that wasn't my major complaint. I mean I had to work a bit to get four masks - so that's alright I guess.

But still able to get 100+ pieces of candy in two hours, and three dragon costumes...

Hundreds of other costumes...three dragon costumes...

That's just...not right.

Again like I said, give'em a 1c value for tradein with masks and costumes I say! Then wammo problemo solved!

[Soraii]

Well Actually when you get right down to it, there is approximatly 7 for every race yes, but dragons are also seperate meaning drop wise there is only 1 for each age of dragon. A hatchling cant use the adult or ancient (yet) so effectively that "10%" is much much lower for them. And while if you take that out of account you only have 3 dropped dragon costumes to every other races 5 plus the plain "zombie" plus the fact that every biped could use any costume it's not religated to size like ours is.

biped = 30+ costumes usable dropwise
dragon = 1 costume usable dropwise (per size)

I just dont see %10 there....

Soraii

Once again I point out the unused dragon texture.... yes, looks like a TP'd dragon, but doesnt every mummy look TP'd?

[Pharcellus]

Well, my point was that they *are* "balanced". They have the same percentage chance to drop as any other costume.

If you wanted a male Saris ghost costume for your biped character, and were hunting for it, it would take, on average, just as long to get it as getting the Ancient Dragon ghost costume, for example.

The issue is that the number of "useful" costumes for bipeds vs Dragons is much higher, but that's not important if you want a specific biped one.

I collect things, and I wanted to make sure I had a full set of costumes. It took about a week of farming originally to get all of them, including the "rare" Zombie one, and I deleted a LOT of costumes.. I mean probably around a thousand of them.

[Justa Mirage]

But Soraii is right...

Let's say you are a bi-ped and want to "dress up" for the festival. With all of the bi-ped usable costumes out there, so they don't get the "male saris ghost" costume, but chances are, someone else has.

If they can't get the costume they really wanted, there are a bunch of other races / undead types of costumes they could also "use"

Let's say you are a dragon... ummm... 1 costume per age, and you are an adult dragon. Your chances of getting a costume... ANY costume... that an adult dragon can wear for the festival is not 10%

Sure, you can "buy" the zombie one, but it's like a bunch of dragons show up at a gnome bobbing party all wearing the same costume... because they couldn't get the ghost one.

[Soraii]

Still, there is not much variety; ghost, zombie, or mask... which is why I did up that one mask mod to use the unused dragon texture ;P


Soraii

[Soraii]

You know, I was just thinking, if it were me, I would remove the age restriction on the dragon costumes... What!? you say... A hatchling is smaller then adult or ancient!? Well.. so is a dryad to a half giant... but those costumes still fit

Soraii

[Steelclaw]

I argue that a uniform drop rate for all costumes is less than ideal (and certainly not "balanced") when the desirability of said costumes is not uniform -- except for instances where there is a certain costume that the devs want to be rare.

There's a somewhat lopsided distribution when about half of the population is trying to get less than 10% of the costumes -- or to put it another way, half of the population gets over 90% junk loot. (while the other half gets 10% junk loot)

A more "balanced" distribution would be biased by estimated demand -- both halves get junk loot 50% of the time.


Of course, then there's a problem -- bipeds will get five times more junk loot, so those who want one of every biped costume will have to work harder. Maybe that's acceptable, maybe it isn't. It is something worth discussing though, as I'm sure this isn't the last time we're going to encounter this problem of highly disproportionate amounts of junk loot for bipeds or dragons and highly favorable amounts of useful loot for dragons or bipeds.

[Justa Mirage]

Fix for the problem: (which will have me eaten for suggesting this)

Allow all costumes to work with all players... dragons included.

What's more scarier than your friend dragon running around as a female gnome? or a Saris. Allow the Khutit form to use regular costumes.

Another fix: have 1 more dragon costume on the loot table.

Another fix: it is possible to raise a loot item's percentage to drop, I remember a discussion about that a long time ago how this can be done.

Another fix: (aka bottle cap collection) a dragon gets every bi-ped costume and fills up a "portable closet" with them. then turns them in for the quest reward of a dragon ghost costume of their age choice.

[Frith-Rae]

And another fix as I suggested...

Make the "costumes" worth money to be traded in for other costumes/masks like the candy. Even at 1cp that's better than nothing.

But I do like the idea of khutit costumes! Something tells me though the engine isn't designed for that since we can't wear any biped stuff...