The Witching Hour Rewards: The Facts

To those of you that are trying to help us explain the way this works, that it is fair and achievable without replays, and are enjoying the event, then this post is not for you. Please move along and continue enjoying DCUO's The Witching Hour!

To those of you raging about the rewards and feeling cheated, you have either misunderstood the facts or are being completely unreasonable. Let me outline the details, then a little philosophy, and see if we can make this make a bit more sense.

Here are the facts:

• The event will last for 28 days.
• You can earn 3 Spooky Tokens a day.
  • This yields 84 Spooky Tokens by the time the event ends.
• Each year we add a certain number of new items on the vendor.
• The 84 tokens you can earn without replays is MORE than enough to obtain everything new on the vendor this year (minus Mr. Boo, which I will explain later).
  • This tally includes 6 extra items that you don't even need to earn any new feats.
  • And you could still have 10 tokens left over to blow on candy or save for next year.
  • More importantly it means we leave some room for people that couldn't make the event every day to still achieve all of the important rewards/achievements introduced with the event.

Here is a bit of philosophy:
Seasonal events are meant to be easily complete-able the year of their initial release by players who get the max amount of tokens during the event, without replay badges. To do this it takes dedication, and we believe that should be rewarded. If they missed out on any items because they were unable to earn enough tokens, they have to wait until the following year to collect the rest of those rewards. However, seasonal events are always growing. This means year after year there is more stuff to buy. Someone who has participated in the event previously will have a head start on getting the new items, because they don't have to worry about the old ones they already have.

The event has been running for 3 years now. Those of you just starting have to start making choices about what you want to purchase now, versus what you want to leave until next year. This is par for the course on these types of events and intended. And, it is also the same thing that players who have participated in the event each year have had to deal with. They had to wait three years to get what is available right now. This required dedication and patience on their part.

An exception to this was introduced this year in the form of a purchasable Mr. Boo. This was based on your feedback that you wanted to be able to get this very rare item with marks if luck has not favored you in the last two years and you still don't have it. So, we put him on the vendor for an amount of marks we felt was fair to the people that earned him from a drop. If you want Boo that badly, you can go buy him now, but you will have to save up to do it.

Here is a summary:
There are more than enough tokens to get everything and more on the vendor each year (Boo being an exception as I stated above). If you are years behind, you can elect to catch up with replays, or you can do what everyone else had to do and take three years to get those rewards. The choice is up to each player. Once you catch up in that manner you can earn everything through dedication, and that's up to the individual.

If there are any further questions or concerns, please post them below for us to clarify.

Thank you!

You know, there are a lot of things to criticize in this game, but this seasonal really isn't one of them. I don't get all of the bellyaching about it.

good post. +1

Word Jens! That sums it up perfectly.

No more tears players. No more tears.

I support this 100%. Seasonals are a good way to keep the game economy going both inside and outside. I'd like to add at how grateful I am to see that the base items are tradeable! This gives those who do not want to replay more opportunity to purchase the item they want as well as keep the value of those items decent for those who replay and want to sell. I personally will continue to replay for this reason. Very smart move on all fronts.

G

I gotta agree, I loves me some ******** and bellyaching but the seasonal events are legit and I can't complain about them at all. There years running for me and I'll have all the feats by the end of the event

Now that people know how long the event last, they can adjust the way they play the event to get their feats.

YES, Now I have a thread to refer the doom crying kids too!

Great Post +++1

Wonder woman Spin for the WIN!!

Well done, good sir, a jolly good show, indeed!

I can do basic math. I knew I could get the feats before it closed. The problem is you're asking me to farm the same stuff that got old last year. THIS is reusing content, and it's lame. So I do Klarion Mission on 4 alts getting them all the feats last year, now I have to farm it for 16 days again this year? That's lame.

The devs are not thinking about what's fun. THey are tossing stuff in merely for us to do. Trying to push the rewards behind as much play as possible. It's old, please stop. Make the game fun again. Make that the number one priority and stop sacrificing that for replay value. and I don't just mean replays as in getting money but I mean stop putting things behind a ton of farming that isn't fun. This is supposed to be a fun seasonal, not a 16 day grindfest of boredom.

Having to do something for 16 days, ok fine, but don't make me do the same thing every year. Calling doing these missions dedication is not doing justice to the word. These things are a small step up from the vault. It's like calling someone dedicated for watching the whole twilight series. You're not really doing anything, just dealing with annoying things.

I really enjoyed the Atlantean seasonal and I am enjoying this one, too. I only have one small gripe and there is no need to post that here. I look forward to getting my first Boo and collecting new feat points!

Hi Spytle!

I'm going to post in this thread about this, because I am partly to blame here for getting people riled up. I could not remember how many bits we got last year. Within a busy year and the fact I farmed the heck out of the event to not get a boo made that even harder to remember. And comparing it to other seasonals, TWH is the lowest amount you could get overall. (5,7,8 if i remember right.) I am really sorry for that.

My concerns relating this, is connection to completing the event with adding new feats. I play alts that I pull out during seasonal events to get them. I usually only focus on a lot and then end up focusing on at most 3. Doing the event everyday on them drives me insane. The event is fine, it's a personal thing. Anyways, when new things are added to the feat list, this isn't the problem, but the time it takes to complete them actually lengthens. Before, you could miss a day or two and still get the whole thing, while now you can't unless you replay. In other areas of the game, things get adjusted or added when something changes, mark conversion rate during the begining of the mark unification comes to mind with FOSes not equaling the same as before for the tier set there. When more is added, more should be given to keep this a fun event as opposed to a chore/job. Fast, friendly and enjoyable is the reason why I always do the event. The feats is second nature, but joking about glitches to the instance or making fun of the emo pilgrim is what's fun about it. I'm not even concerned about replays, you will see mine as I want that boo, but I wouldn't be shooting for a boo on an alt, just do the event and log out. As much as I still did it, the summer event I hated the most, from the instance part. It wasn't quit at all if you pugged and you look at the scorecard and it's 60 minutes with 10 people in there.

Maybe, just maybe upping the bits by even 1 as someone said would make things a lot more fun and less grind. Would prefer two, but not going to be greedy if anything will alleviate any stress that comes from my own beliefs of how to do the event.

The concerns I see from the community, it's not the same as I. They want it all, fast and furious. They see the feats and that is it. Then add on the boo in the vendor, they don't want to do the event and still get everything. Most of it is misdirected anger from something else that I wont bring up.

Also, thank you for the Boo. When I heard the fair 40 marks was the requirement, I already knew I wouldn't be able to get it w/o replaying it even if I didn't pay attention to the 3 marks thing. It is exactly what I wanted last year and I am REALLY happy to see it this year.

And once again, THANK YOU for addressing this personally.

I'm not fond of the Christmas seasonal or Mxy, but the Halloween event I have enjoyed even in year one when it was just the Scarecrow instance. The instance can be replayed for only 12 replays for two marks which in most cases is more than half of what you need to purchase an item from Skeets.

The instance itself can be completed in under 4 minutes a day. I think they added the appropriate amount of new items to the event to keep it valuable. We must keep in mind that we are constantly asking for new items and content from the devs, but they still have to operate within their means. Adding new items while keeping the same or similar content will give us something to strive for while they develop what we're really yearning for which is new DLC. I won't even get into how much time it takes for them to filter through all the complaints and we should be grateful the devs in this game actually take the time to read, listen, and respond to our criticisms.

THe new base items cool, not a fan of bases myself, but that's enough reason for many to farm it daily. Tossing the feats behind 16 days of farming the same **** I farmed last year is lame. It's not rewarding dedication, it's trying to get the most out of what they have done.

But hey, at least Jens took the time to give us the rundown. Props on that.

Now can we know whether or not head/shoulders/legs traces in time drops, now that we know you're looking at the forums? That was a joke, we all know they aren't. Laugh with us.

It's a well established practice that these events repeat their content with additional rewards to earn. Sorry, but expect the Witching Hour to include Klarion the Witchboy again next year.

Of course we are thinking about the fun. We hope people enjoy any content we make, and we think the seasonal content does a good job at meeting that goal (and when it doesn't we take steps to change it). But you should keep in mind that the content itself is a means to an end. The missions and boss fights are not meant to be challenging because they are meant to be accessible to all players in the game, even newbies (hence the stat boosts we give people). These events are about the rewards - funny hats and quirky consumables. The fun we are adding happens after you get your costume, candy and decorations. It begins when you decorate your base with the new Halloween items, when you wear your skeleton outfit, when you hand out candy to your friends, etc, etc. The fun of seasonal events is the festivities it generates around the holiday and transforms the in-game community with all of the items people have earned.

Sorry, Jeebie, but in my opinion you're missing the point.

Furthermore, we do not have the time to reinvent these seasonal events every year. We have DLCs to complete, and I know for a fact the scathing criticism that would be leveled at us if War of the Light was delayed because of a seasonal event. Year in year out you can expect we will deliver new items for you to celebrate the season with. If we have the bandwidth to add new content, like a race or something, then that should be considered a pleasant surprise.

Oh my gawd, if you could teach all teh kids this magical trick of abstaining from complaining about every little gripe, I would be your best friend evahhhh!!!!

Can you extend the event? I won't be able to log in for another 2 weeks. Am having massive withdrawals already after a week.

@BB

I'm not sure I follow your logic on the forced replay use. You can get every new item with 74 Spooky Tokens. You don;t even have to get all 16 of the base items to get the new feat, you only need 10, which means you don;t even need to spend 74 to accomplish it. What am I missing regarding your point?

Btw, I giggle at my Brick in my portrait every time one of my event NPCs knocks you into the dirt. I look at him sheepishly, with a tinge of guilt, then he lets me know it's okay and I should get over it, and we laugh together. ;P

I've played the content last year and I still enjoy it this year. There are new Feats to buy and new things to get for those of us that have it all finished. For those with new toons, you can finish the stuff next year, you don't have to get everything this year lol.

I think it's perfect.