Official Feedback: Hobnanigans

There have been so many great suggestions for this event in this thread, and they have all been ignored by Turbine. The only thing they did was stopping the map spam people always have been complaining, which was the least problem i think. What's so hard to just drag and drop them?
Well, anyway, i will post my opinion, though i know it's just a waste of time, as hardly any staff member stops by here anymore.
This weekend, Hobnanigans returned again, and i decided to give it another try.
The first evening was awesome, because it was rather "new", and the last time it was there is already a few weeks ago, so there were lots of people there and games started quickly, but as usual, there were the old problems of the afk dudes, and we all know what this means: a game 2vs3 or 1vs2 just isn't fair and results in the player who is fighting against more opponents than he can handle going afk as well... However, i had at least two or three games where all players actually joined in on the action, and it was really great!
The second evening was rather quiet, very few players there, and it took some time for games to start. "Afk guys" problems as well, which makes the game unbalanced and unplayable.
The third evening was horrible, rarely any players there, but both 3vs3 fields filled with afk multiboxing bots (lvl 7-8 Lore-masters with almost the same name all over the place). I was there, playing for a while, mostly against myself as those multiboxers rarely do anything. The only positive aspect from this is that games start quickly and you usually win and earn 15 tokens a game, but wow is it boring.
After quite some time i got a tell from one of the multiboxing douches, where he insulted me that i am disturbing his system of -one game won by red and -one game won blue. Wow, have we really gotten this far, that i, who try to play the game as it is meant to, have to accept to be ####ed by a moron who's only goal is to create in-game money without effort?
The result of those three evenings was about 300 tokens and 2 white chicken tokens, so i headed over to the barterer guys and check what they are offering, and i was underwhelmed again how freaking expensive everything was.
A funny hat with a white chicken in it costs 50 tokens, which seems reasonable to me, but if you want a red chicken it sets you back more than 700 tokens. Really? That's at least one week of token grinding for a normal, non-multiboxing player. Not even speaking of the dotted or dorking chickens items...
A fun game when all players are participating, but otherwise really not worth the time and effort.

Not been reading through the whole thread, but think schlumpfencowboyjoe has some very good points, so I'm gonna add some comments:

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Originally Posted by schlumpfencowboyjoe

The second evening was rather quiet, very few players there, and it took some time for games to start. "Afk guys" problems as well, which makes the game unbalanced and unplayable.

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I think this is one of the biggest problems. It usually takes you half an hour or more to even get started, especially if you don't keep picking up all sticks to do it solo. I think it should be timed instead. Like: it starts every x minutes, or it starts x minutes after the first person picks up the stick. There are usually missing sticks on most of the fields anyway, so it's not easy to get a full game unless you do one first to reset the field. The way it is now, you pretty much need alt-accounts to be able to play regularly. Even if tokens and rewards were BoA, this would still be a problem.
I did Hobnanigans with a friend one of the first nights of the event, to show him what it's like. We spent 40 minutes or so there, for one game, not even a full group. We ended up losing and got 5 tokens. Checking the rewards: We earned enough to buy us a single map to be able to return to do it again. My friend was not impressed.

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Originally Posted by schlumpfencowboyjoe

fields filled with afk multiboxing bots

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I really feel that Turbine is encouraging this by:
* Making tokens and rewards tradable
* Making prices skyhigh
* Requiring certain amounts of players
The first two might be related, since I've heard it being said before (don't remember the context) that "but you can trade the rewards, we have to make it a huge grind or it will be too easy". And yeah, there is a point. But it's really unbalanced that when you either:
a) Play solo and can't play at all due to lack of players, or it takes forever for a game, and you might lose
b) Level up 12 alts to level 5 and fill a 6 vs 6 field to get guaranteed rewards from all alts every 10 minutes.
Obviously when b is an option, they have to set crazy prices.
Solution would be to lower prices and make tokens and rewards BoA.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by schlumpfencowboyjoe

A funny hat with a white chicken in it costs 50 tokens, which seems reasonable to me, but if you want a red chicken it sets you back more than 700 tokens. Really? That's at least one week of token grinding for a normal, non-multiboxing player. Not even speaking of the dotted or dorking chickens items...

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I was thinking the same thing when I looked closer at the rewards. Either I can pay 75 tokens for a field for my house with white chicken standing on it, or I can pay 2160 tokens to get an identical one but with an orange chicken. It's good news for me, since I would be happy with a white one... But it's really weird.

Another thing I dislike with the rewards is how big difference there is between winning and losing. If you lose, you get 5 normal tokens. If you win, you get 15 tokens and a chance for special token that saves you up to 2160 tokens when buying rewards. This gap is too big even without the chance for special token. There is a big chance that you will take this too seriously and get upset when you lose, as it's really not worth playing at all unless you win. It's good that there is a reason to win the game, but honour and 1-2 tokens should be enough.

There are several very simple solutions that would make this whole event more pleasant even without adding extra rewards or functionality.

tl;dr
* Don't require a certain amount of players to play
* Make tokens and rewards BoA
* Lower costs of rewards
* Make costs for differently coloured rewards closer. Almost 30 times more expensive for orange vs white does not make sense
* Lessen the reward gap between winning and losing a game

Regards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by schlumpfencowboyjoe

Wow, have we really gotten this far, that i, who try to play the game as it is meant to, have to accept to be ####ed by a moron who's only goal is to create in-game money without effort?

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Actually he's right and you're wrong: Hobnanigans in its current state is broken and multiboxing is the only way to earn the required amount of tokens. It was fun during first days when players tried to play "as it is meant to", but not now, when most fields are empty. Why not just write to this guy who prepared multiple windows and tell him that you'd like to join him? You don't like him? You don't like multiboxing? Then go to another field and take all the sticks yourself - what's the problem? Or find other players who wish to "play the game as it is meant to". Would it better if this guy and you throw the chicken there and back during 10 minutes so nobody gets wining rewards? Really?

P.S. Hobnanigans is example of awful design. Turbine should either revamp it again (but they don't have resources blah-blah-blah) or cut it and place the rewards to another place, let's say Skirm's camp or Farmer's Faire. But even if they fix it I'm not sure players will come back there - many were higly disappointed with it.

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Originally Posted by Phindecano

Actually he's right and you're wrong: Hobnanigans in its current state is broken and multiboxing is the only way to earn the required amount of tokens. It was fun during first days when players tried to play "as it is meant to", but not now, when most fields are empty. Why not just write to this guy who prepared multiple windows and tell him that you'd like to join him? You don't like him? You don't like multiboxing? Then go to another field and take all the sticks yourself - what's the problem? Or find other players who wish to "play the game as it is meant to". Would it better if this guy and you throw the chicken there and back during 10 minutes so nobody gets wining rewards? Really?

P.S. Hobnanigans is example of awful design. Turbine should either revamp it again (but they don't have resources blah-blah-blah) or cut it and place the rewards to another place, let's say Skirm's camp or Farmer's Faire. But even if they fix it I'm not sure players will come back there - many were higly disappointed with it.

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You must be kidding, aren't you?
It is MY FREE DECISION to join the game on ANY FIELD i choose which offers free sticks, WITHOUT having to care what the other players are or look like (whether they're afk-bots or real players) and play the game as it is intended, which means i try to win and earn 15 tokens, even if am the only person who is actually playing and without caring what the other players/bots are doing. I WANT to play the game and HAVE FUN, and so i take every chance to join a game that looks to soon be starting. It is NOT my responsibility to check if i am up to real opponents or just farming bots, and it is also NOT my fault if the multiboxing guy isn't fast enough in between games to pick up all the sticks with his multiple accounts before i can pick a stick as well and have him suffer the loss of a handful tokens just because he only got 5 of his bots in instead of his usual 6. Or did i miss something and the fields are now reserved for certain persons only?
I usually don't care for multiboxers, but they're drving away regular players. Also, if they besiege an event which offers limited starting places (fields/sticks) it really becomes obvious what a ruthless, selfish and ignorant pain in the ### these pests are for every game. I wonder what kind of lame-ducks these guys must be in real life to have the need to be such a jerk when playing a game with others.

But i get your idea.
You're a tricky fellow, my little LM-army-building friend.

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Originally Posted by schlumpfencowboyjoe

blah-blah-blah

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Of course it's your free decision. As well as being ego tripper is your free decision as well. ;)

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Originally Posted by schlumpfencowboyjoe

You're a tricky fellow, my little LM-army-building friend.

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Absolutely wrong here, never had LMs ;)

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Originally Posted by Phindecano

Of course it's your free decision. As well as being ego tripper is your free decision as well. ;)


Absolutely wrong here, never had LMs ;)

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Ok, since you don't have any more arguments for your ####, you're putting mine down as "blah blah blah".
What an evidence of incapacity.

I have one comment on hobnanigans: Make. Pets. Cheaper. Not enough people play the game for me to be able to get all pets. They're freaking expensive. And they sell for like 1500 gold in the Auction House, which is ridiculous.

Farming could sorta be solved by having the game auto-populate one team with NPCs who try to score, so you can't just pop one goal in and then AFK. But then people would complain that they can't play against their friends or the NPCs are too easy/hard to beat or whatever.

But really, the reason people fill fields with alts is because the token costs for prizes are sky high. People aren't putting 12 robo-alts in the Yule snowball field because Yule rewards are fairly easy to get on your own. If nothing cost more than 100-200 tokens there would be a lot less incentive to farm.

Why not just leave the game going anytime there's a festival involving the nearby Bree fairgrounds?