Discussion Focused Feedback - Seasonal Events

[LouisCyphre]

This feedback thread will be to assess the following questions, and to discuss related topics. Unlike the general feedback thread, feel free to respond to other posts in this thread.

Points of Discussion:

• Which events felt like the right length, to play?
• Which events felt like the right complexity, to referee?
• How does co-op play hinder how smoothly events run, and limit what they can be?
• What steps can we take to better accommodate co-op play?
• The current event schedule will continue to run through this year's Summer Event. Come September:
  • Should the schedule change to better fit large events; or
  • Should events become smaller to better fit in the schedule?

Discussion Goals:
It's become clear to players and mods that the current Seasonal Event system has become overly taxing for all parties involved. In this thread, I'd like to find methods for ensuring a sustainable future for the Seasonal Event system.

In terms of sustainable workloads, I look to the League Circuit ruleset. They require only a blurb of flavor and a unique rules twist to get off the ground. Furthermore, we moderators get some free months: Post-patch Circuits are currently always plain. I consider this to be the minimum effort for an Event system. Finding the maximum effort, so we can find an enjoyable middle-ground, is the purpose of this thread.

I don't think retiring the event system or folding them into more permanent ventures is on the table right away; though I could be convinced. Events serve to allow us to provide players with a steady supply of interesting, yet-unsolved challenges and helps spur players to discuss strategy with one another. Getting players talking about the game helps develop theory and skill. Additionally, Events help players progress towards the veteran plateau, often alongside those same veterans.

I'll take a moment to admit: My time with events is bumpy and burdensome. As a developer I often get caught up in increasing scope; and as a player I often get bogged down in scheduling. I'm looking forward to getting to play a more-accessible version of Events myself as well—hopefully authored by someone other than me, some time!

 

[TMan87]

As a player, my best experiences have been with Realgam-based events, namely Mad Science Mixups and The Defenders' Vacation. They were moderately difficult to prepare, rather quick to undertake, and the satisfying aspect of co-op really shines through there, not to mention the possibilities for flavor.

As a ref, I enjoyed reffing Z-Blooming Flower (even though I got rolled) for much the same reasons: easy to set up, easy to grasp, and with some real fancy tools to play with. I would like to stress that, in my eyes, giving the ref enticing tools to play with (not necessarily powerful, though that helps, but out-of-the-ordinary and specific to the event) is something that should strongly be considered for events, as it has the triple advantage of letting a ref play on even footing with two players pooling resources and coordinating, making it more of a challenge and thus a storyline to be painted, and being more engaging to ref, because even if you lose (which is sort of expected!), you got to experience something unique.

As a designer, I will say that co-op rather constrains design in the sense that you have to bend facilities to accomodate two people, even those that weren't made for Doubles. Egregious examples include School Year Starts Anew, with Tree absolutely not being made for Doubles and Gimmicks becoming broken (in either sense of the word) there, or Raid, where the AG/SU/PR trichotomy has to be broken if you want players to contribute "the same" to an event. In general, events have this problem of either being Doubles, or risking one participant not playing while it's the other turn, or vice-versa. I'll say this is not necessarily a bad thing and maybe something I'd like to explore more in the future.

Finally, aesthetics-wise I'd rather have events be bigger and more sparse to really make a mark on BBP. They should be times where the community really put their heads together and devise ways to beat juggernaut, similarly to limited-time raid bosses on cart for example.
However, events are also a way for players to earn important currency such as Records or Academy Credits, especially players of a lower Trainer Level who might enjoy the boost. Bigger, scarcer events would get in the way of this functionality.

 

[HeliosAflame]

The events I have enjoyed most were Stella Magna and Mad Science Mixup.
The things that draw me to events are brewing what to do for the send in (stella magna was the first contest, mad science has a lot of funny builds) and teaming up with different members of the community.

The thing that I dislike about events is it feels they very often lose momentum. They tend to be far longer than most battles and that gives a lot of time for one of the participants to lose interest, especially since the players really want to be coordinating together instead of ordering separately.

I started but never finished the harvest usurper's arrogance (twice), little leaders.
I reffed but never concluded school year starts anew and mummy hunt due to the players stopping their orders.

Generally as a player I prefer them when they focus on interesting mechanics and have fluff mostly as their set up like mad science mix up. the events that focus heavily on an ongoing story feel like they often take multiple battles to tell said story which tends to drag on and lose momentum (did anyone ever uncover the hidden final round of little leaders?)

I think events being less common with a bit higher player and ref rewards would work better, but no matter what pace events are done at, many of the previous ones feel like they would still feel too long and like they would be unlikely to actually finish.

 

[Doduodrio]

I remember I enjoyed playing the Harvest Usurper's Arrogance event in 2022 when the entire community had to get together to complete certain objectives. It was very fun, and I liked that I was able to help contribute to the community goal by doing a few objectives. However, this event had the potential to go on rather long (and did go on very long, for some teams), so the length might've been a bit off. Maybe it would've been better if signups had opened in September so that more of the event was during the actual event period?

For co-op, I think that aspect certainly does slow down a lot of the event process since you have to find a teammate, make a plan with them, and maybe gather items/Pokemon needed for that plan, not including the time spent in the queue. Of course there is also the aspect of there being three players meaning there's 1 extra post per round (or 2 extra posts in snake order).

I'm not really sure if there are any steps that can be taken to lessen the planning portion of co-op events, but maybe events could be made both shorter and more sparse. Maybe they could be run in 2-month cycles where the first month (or less) is dedicated to signups, planning, and taking events and the second month (or more) is dedicated to the event being played?

 

[LouisCyphre]

Adding some more questions to the heap.

• What's the point of an Event Museum? What does it offer players?
• We've considered making smaller events into "quests", not unlike "Paldean Independant Study Exchange!".
  • Should these be accessible to players after their time ends?
  • How can their access be gated, so as to offer them to new players gradually?
  • vs.
  • How can they be made accessible, so that players can use them easily once they're ready?
• Are there any types of events that shouldn't go in the Museum?
• This implies the question, what should Events be, to a new player?

As a reminder, if there's a relevant Discord conversation, feel free to link or screenshot it in this thread. Short posts and exchanges are just as helpful as essays.

 

[ChronoCritical]

I haven't experienced many events, but I still have some thoughts.

Firstly, I was a ref for one of the unfinished Harvest Usurper's Arrogance runs Helios did. We were stuck on the first phase. The event's length was obviously an issue, but I did notice other problems.

As we previously discussed, a lack of hours kept the pace sluggish as well, since the time limit lacked urgency. My bigger takeaway is that I thought there were too many Pokemon in the battle. I really dreaded reffing for 4 Pokemon on each side, even when the mons I had to work with had very limited actions. Perhaps especially when, since it was pretty boring. There wasn't any opportunity for the boss to win, and the players were very slow, though I imagine the new energy system will help keep the pace.

I definitely preferred reffing Mad Science Mixup. It was really fun seeing what the players came up with, and it wasn't much more work than a regular battle.

---

The main purpose of Event Museum to me would be making sure mons that were distributed through events remain available. Other concerns, like preserving previous content and stories, aren't as important to me personally.

I really enjoyed the "Quest" gameplay of Paldean Independent Study. Some games I've been playing lately (like gacha games, RIP me) have an event structure I feel could help out here, where most of the event can be completed after the time ends, but a cosmetic reward is exclusive to the event period. While BBP doesn't really have cosmetics, the general idea of having a small extra reward during the event period, and maybe one "quest" that can only be completed during the period, could be interesting.

One option for this would be a collective goal that gives all participants the reward if the goal is completed during the event period. I like this option because it makes the Quest events feel more... eventful.

 

[Mamoswindle]

Whilst it's only been a short while and the only event I've played to completion is going to paldea through the museum I figured I might as well add.

I enjoyed the paldea exchange, it struck a nice balance of not taking up a lot of space whilst influencing the decisions I made in what I was doing, the side questing was enjoyable and I remember plotting out where my next facilities were going based on what got me event progression. I don't think I have much constructive to add to this style of events but after the first one I'm looking forward to the next one for sure. In fact paldea is probably a factor in the amount of activity I was putting in over Jan. In terms of gradual access I guess just making it so you can only be doing one "report card" at a time makes sense to me, the side quests are giving plenty of extras on top of the stuff you're already playing bc of them so going through them one at a time would sound reasonable. I do think I prefer the idea of having them accessable post time slot is good as, particularly with paldea, it provides a lot on incentive to explore all the other content. I'd also make a case for making them super easy to access but having them add a unique item to the profile to stop them being a repeat grind function, i.e. a completed paldean report card that just sits on the profile to say you've completed this content time to go onto something new. This would function both as extra content that isn't overloading the player by giving them new and different things to do whilst also providing a catch up mechanic of sorts that someone who mapped it out could quickly catapult themself from a new profile into competing in circuit (paldea might have given me like half of my first circuit team to get me on a signup so fast)

Other events I've only really been on the side of the ref, and whilst I've not found it particularly out of the norm of reffing, going through 3 back to back doubles battles is kinda a slog, I think this is mostly down to doubles battles being 1 step per round resulting in a lot of posting, which results in a lot of uptime, but I also understand that the events don't really function as a multiplayer experience without the doubles format and to be fair the plotting with another person is probably one of the highlights for me personally.

In regards to the event museum I think it's important for access to released content in terms of things that can be added to a player profile, not pressuring someone to participate in something now or miss it entirely is a win for me. I do personally like seeing the stories such as the current narrative of maribelle's journey but I think that part is far more subjective to the individual and I wouldn't want that to factor as much as the first part of this. I don't know if I'd say there are events that shouldn't be in the museum, I think there are events that should be there, but that's me answering a question that wasn't asking instead of the one that was.

For new player interaction, I think they could make a good balance of a resources for building a new profile with the side quest style events, giving them extras on top for interacting with all the facilities, and more incentive to start looking at reffing that isn't just running out of JC and being unable to play. Whilst also being a way for them to be involved with other community members through the more standard events by taking on older content with someone, probably to try and gain access to something otherwise unobtainable.