Graaloween
 

Hooray! The event has begun. Trading candies for hats, novelty light-up sticks, and trails! Yet there are indeed some cons to this. The candies are the hardest thing to receive. There may be an alternate route (the Pumpkin Monster) but that is time-wise. Attachment 19723 The ghosts and goblins on the other hand, that's wasteful. It takes alot of time to actually find a goblin inside of a bush/patch of grass. And the ghosts are easy to spot, but hard to catch. The lag makes it impossible to catch it. I have seen the thread about catching luck ghosts, but it doesnt really aid me when I have to face against lag, other players and my getting booted out of the game in-general. Mind telling me what you guys think of this and what we can improve about this? I know I'm speaking out of my league but does no one (excluding me) agree it's hard to gain candies?

Honest let down. Ghosts are the biggest server lag joke

True, and the darkness feature added into the game for the 'Horrific' feeling.

The setting effects are amazing-- I love the graphics style too- everything seems way more rounded than in the past (welcome to the future).

But, still an entire nuisance to even acquire one hat

And with the candies being rough to acquire, you still have to deal with those rotten kids! Stealing our candies!

I honestly would prefer going in players houses to get candy
than this lag fest. i hate it.

Its getting fun

9th thread about Graaloween and counting..

I honestly lovED this event (keyword: ED). I realized that they decreased the rate at which candy goblins spawn. Now, it is so hard to get candy. I swear, it takes me about an hour to get one piece of candy. Why? Ghosts are too laggy. Candy Goblins rarely spawn (more like never spawn). And the giant pumpkin monster is super rare to find! Just make the goblins more common please?

how do i trade my candy in?
the npc just asks me for candy then nothing happens.

Hold it up

What Golden Panda said, hold it up.
Make sure you touch them (so a message pops up, clear the message then hold up the candy)
*Sometims you eat it instead of giving so make sure you dont eat it xD*

Actually it says at the bottom of the screen "You should wait until after halloween to eat this" or something along the lines of that.

Quick games a good game. No clue why I would bother waiting minutes on end for a candy to drop so that I can earn a one time use glow stick. I was just semi-afk at mod fountain waiting for the exclusive halloween blob to respawn, 80 minutes later and i'm still waiting. The NPC's seem to be scattered around the map and disappear at random times. The laggy affects/animations are also stupid. Be more creative next time, maybe some sort of limited time quest, like the pitch black maze in deadwood 2-3 years ago. Still boring lol, but better than this ****.

I agree there are hundreds of riots around graal

Good thing I'm not participating in this, don't want to cringe over cosmetics.

How about actually playing instead of just AFKing and hoping candy falls into your lap?

Well isn't it supposed to be fun, then why does it take a hour to get like 10 candy without even being sure of getting something cool

Well we asked for input from the community and absolutely no one could recommend a single idea for Halloween that didn't involve just giving players a variety of a hundred hats/furniture made specifically for a one-off event. We said early on that having a ton of prizes wasn't going to happen again because it's a huge time-sink. Also people are complaining they haven't gotten everything before the event was even out for a whole day.

Last year everyone complained that Halloween was boring, and it was just a "maze-fest" because of the candy bowls. This year everyone thinks candy-bowls were the best thing ever and wonders why they removed.

And to end it all, players have been nothing but outright rude and insulting the entire time. Not a single constructive criticism, nothing but whining and insulting. Do you think staff sit around a table and try to think of the most boring things ever? Yet the incentive to even put any effort into making things better next year isn't there because all the hard work gets in return is a monsoon of negativity and insults. That's not to say people can't be critical because things aren't perfect(hence why event was heavily monitored the entire time yesterday and tweaks and changes made), but just throwing insults and acting entitled isn't being constructive and neither is suggestions like "we want way more rewards and we want a reward every single time we do anything!" It's not feasible, it's not realistic. We just can't do that, it's too much work to do every year when Halloween is followed by Christmas which also needs hundreds of new prizes made specifically for that event.

Maybe people wouldn't have to resort to AFK if it was easier to get candy. You have ghosts which are uncatchable due to the massive amounts of lag. The orange candy ghost and green candy ghost north of graal have been there on the first day and NO ONE caught it because of that lag. Also, why are ghosts only catchable from behind? Not to mention how you have massive mobs fighting for one ghost which again, can't be caught do to the lag.

Candy goblins by far is better than ghosts but way too many cons. Good thing that it spawns in bushes so that it's less common but like the ghost, there is a massive mob north of swamp for the large bush patch for the goblin, and when the goblin does spawn, no one can get the candy because of the mobs. You can't even move in the mobs.

Pumpkin blob is the best way by far. Just like blob but emits candy when defeated as oppose to spoils. Candy drops ways from the pumpkin blob to make it harder for players to get it. But yet again, huge mobs that prevent you from moving.

Now granted, the mobs aren't your fault. But to be honest, what DID you expect from this event because it clearly wasn't mobs. Just face it, it was poorly planned out. Nice idea and concept, but with 3000 players on, the ghosts are always lagging, mobs make candy even harder to get which is an insult to injury because most players are getting tricked.

Did you suggest anything that players wouldn't mob around and server lag wouldn't cripple?

Hiding the visibility of players in a certain area doesn't take away that lag? Seems to work fine in Nexus, Revolution, Onnet.

That's not really how it works on the overworld. Especially since ghosts and goblins spawn pretty much everywhere we can't really isolate that to specific spots.

To Dusty, this year wasn't bad, it just didn't play out very well. Players always complain, no matter what. The problem as I see it is not that there's not a lot of items to get, or because it's difficult. There's 3 ways to get the candy: ghosts, goblin, and pumpkin. Everyone complains about the time consumption, but that's not the problem. The problem is the difficulty factor. The ghosts most of the time do not have a candy in them, and when they do, there's going to be multiple people trying to get that 1 candy too. The pumpkin causes mass amounts of people to come, which is great, except for the fact that you can't walk over other people in PK zones. This makes trying to maneuver through all the people near-impossible. When the candy does come out, people usually end up getting hardly any, or a lot. There lies the problem; it should have a zone around it where players can walk over each other, but still PK. The problem isn't that it's time consuming, but rather that the difficulty from how it was all executed. I'd prefer if the ghosts randomly dropped the candy, rather than catching it in a net; they would have the same candy rate as they do now, it would just randomly drop it on the ground to be picked up. Another idea that wasn't great was alowing players to give multiple candies at once to a trick-or-treater. It sounds cool, but it won't ever play out very well; no matter how many prizes are available. Furniture also doesn't seem like a very good item to get as a prize. People would love to just buy as much as they want. Now on to my ideas for next year.
As for tricks, I think they're cool, and mostly everyone else does too. In fact, the past couple years, I'd hope for a trick sometimes. I suggest creating other ways of getting tricked, besides only using your candy. There's a few mirrors in Graal, there could be a system that if a player is looking in the mirror, randomly, it will apear to crack, or there may be a 'ghost cat' type-NPC that roams the map, and when it passes a player, they too get tricked. These tricks would last longer than the tricks from trick-or-treating. It would be a nice, easy, interactive activity going across Graal. I'd also recommend that you not be able to give candy to a trick-or-treater while you're tricked, depending on how long you remain tricked. Everyone loved the witch that went around during previous halloweens. This caused people to hunt for it, and win the prize, which was a simple prize, yet took people a while to get sometimes. It would be great to do that every year, obviously with something new, but it would just be 1 item you get from it. For example, this cat mount that was made this year - there would be a cat that appears in random locations of the map, and you would have to do something to get the prize (the cat mount). Whether it be feed it cat nip and hope the cat likes it, or answer a question about halloween like the previous one did. If you get the question wrong, or it doesn't like the cat nip, or whatever other thing you can think of to do to obtain the prize, you would then be tricked. Tricks are the hidden gem in Classic's halloween. There's some pretty cool tricks you could play that make people laugh and enjoy it. A trick I just thought of was a headless horseman-type trick - there would be a gani where the player is holding their head in their hands, or it's just completely gone. There could be a trick where a ghost follows you around and does something like steal your hat and put it on himself, all different kinds of things. I honestly think tricks could be the best part of halloween, and secondary would be getting prizes from trick-or-treaters. That way you wouldn't need as many prizes, but still have plenty of activities that can keep players busy, rather than activities that focus solely on obtaining a reward.

Who said that they had to spawn everywhere?

People were talking about dungeons, Guild based events, where you would enter a building to participate. Leaderboards for that event. A prize system that wouldn't cheat you too much.

If they spawn in particular locations then people will just camp out there and wait for them to spawn.

Nice and vague suggestions. Absolutely no detail or plan or anything to it. It's easy to suggest vague ideas that have hardly any thought put into it but sounds amazing on paper.

"Oh man, a dungeon sounds amazing!"

Dungeons do sound amazing to players. So anyone who hears you suggest a dungeon will concur and think it's the most amazing idea ever, so suddenly you think it's a good idea. But there's no flesh or detail to it... therefor the actual idea is useless. Then you have to plan an actual dungeon out. But wait! An actual dungeon would only be fun one time, and even the best planning and content would result in, at best, an hour playthrough of a dungeon. Zelda games have some of the best game-developers working on them and they've been at it for decades... and even their most creative and fun dungeons have at max an hour of play-time per dungeon. Some as short as 15 minutes. Then what? Players will complain that there's no more to do for Halloween...

And then next year comes around and no one wants to play the same dungeon as last year! So we have to make a new dungeon. Completely contradicting the goal of Halloween - to create a self-sustaining event we can reuse every year the same as Christmas and Easter.

Also the server will still lag with 3000+ players on regardless of if they're in the same room. And dungeons will be very action-packed, and therefor baddies(which will NEED to be serverside) will also lag. So yes, lag will still be a complaint and players will whine that they can't complete the dungeons because the baddies are too laggy in the same way that the ghosts are laggy.

And guild events exclude everyone who isn't in a guild. That's a horrible idea for a holiday event.

But like I said, there's no downside to leaderboards imo. I've already explained why a prize system that rewards you 100% of the time every time is bad. Players hate consumable prizes(like glowsticks and jellybeans) but they want a unique prize every single time they visit a Trick or Treater! They'd run out of prizes by the first day, and again, complain when they have nothing else to do for the rest of the week. Even if we did what Thallen suggests and add aaaaaaaaaaaaall the hats from the previous years, players would still complain that they got an "ugly" hat they didn't want instead of the the really cool hat they wanted.

You think no thought is put into these events but the above is the kind of thought-process you have to have when creating content that players never seem to consider.

Which is exactly what happened to the goblins. Players found spots that spawned them frequently and decided to exploit it and then wonder why they don't spawn as frequently anymore. You give players the benefit of the doubt and they will always find a way to ruin it.



Classic doesn't have the benefit of being a cookie-cutter MMO/RPG that can just feed players item drops like new swords and armor with different stats from dungeons that just spawn mobs that run right at you. I really wish it did have that benefit, it would save me a lot of sanity.

You guys also introduced an interesting aspect recently - decorated bow and arrows. This would be a great item to make and sell for each holiday.

I meant that as a way to say that they could even spawn in a dungeon like a mob event, and if you catch enough ghosts in a certain time you get awarded x amount of candies. Anyways, it doesn't matter anymore.

I know how it goes but simply having more(better) ways of getting candy for everyone would have made this better, apart from the trick or treat event I liked halloween

Being in an isolated level does not isolate you from the lag of the server. Even if you were in your own random dungeon the ghosts would still lag. It would maybe spread players away from the same levels, but in the end the server hits a peak that there's nothing we can do about.

It's not like we didn't want more ways to get candy! That was the entire goal for this event, but ideas are hard to come by. We tried, and it's a pity we didn't get candy bowls working in time... Other than that we had no ideas for more ways to get candy. I have a few ideas but they're something that will have to be added next year.

Alright, time to post some ideas.

1. I like the new way to get candy(goblins) but I feel like there could be some changes and/or additions that could've made them a little bit better. You could have different color goblins(or not even different colored, doesn't matter much) drop different amounts of candy. Make a more common goblin who will drop 1-3 candies, then you could have less likely goblins that would drop the normal amounts.

2. Maybe have some sort of game that would give candies as well? You have crab chance and the Buffalo nexus game, which could be reskined for Halloween, and give out candy. I think crab chance could be good, maybe have an exclusive hat or two in that crab chance game? Yes, I realize that graphics are time consuming but it could be a haunted crab or something. That would keep players playing said game

3. My feelings are that the more ways to get candy, the better. You mentioned the candy bowls, which would also be a good addition.

4. Lastly, on the note of hats. You could take player suggestions, I've read coco's statement about most of them being pretty poor, but you can't make more hats, this is the only way. Maybe add an incentive of some sort to have the players hat added to the game? Maybe say "you got the bat hat, made by (fill in name here)" besides that, there isn't a way to increase the pool right now, without overworking the Gfx team.

There are problems with my ideas, yeah. The crab chance crabs would lag, probably. But they are just ideas, thoughts on what could be added. Aside from that the event works for me.

(Maybe some more fun tricks, if possible)

Just saw this, my thoughts would be for next year.

Well for next year, 20 candies on daily login, spinning wheels like the facebook like event I think it was and perhaps some miniquest with bandits smuggling candy in the caves.
I'm already excited for next year though if decoration will be as cool(or cooler) as this year

Dusty lost his mind form our complaints

I don't blame him, he and Coco are the ones trying to deal with our complaints and feedback so stuff can become better. Like they even choose to go through the stress this gives to make it better for us. I've seen enough game companies be like ka-ching throw away feedback cus they pay anyways

*cough* voting system *cough*

Ya your right we should only complain once a month

That's what I meant, I never stated that idea before, except today.

I guess thinking right now it could have been like this:

A time limit, ex. 5 mins

Entrance could have been free, or maybe obtained by goblins/pumpkings dropping event tickets for entry.

There would be plenty of ghosts for you to catch, could have even been a guild based event.

Catch x amount of ghosts before the time limit, and you could have won x amount of candies spread evenly amongst 1-5 players.

Let's say it requires skill to catch 10 ghosts (solo) each minute.

Every 10 ghosts you would catch = 1 candy (If event is free to enter)
20 ghosts = 2 candies.
10 ghosts per minute, 5 min limit = 5 candies after you finish the event.

If you have 2 players the amount of ghosts required would be increased, but you would have to increase the amount of ghosts spawned, or the time it takes for ghosts to disappear, after getting caught.

To get people to participate with more people, prize would be increased by 1 candy for every more player. 2 players +1, 3 is +2, 4 is +3 candies at the end of event. 5 is +4 candies, so people would want to get a party of 5, but a team effort would be required for max prizes.

Party of 2

20 ghosts = 2 candies
40 = 3 candies
100 ghosts, 5 min limit, 6 candies for both players.


So people can't just enter with a 5 man party, wait 5 minutes and earn 5 candies. You would be required to catch x amount of ghosts within the time limit, otherwise no prize.

2 people = required to catch at least 20 ghosts
3 people = at least 40
4 people = 80
5 people = 160

There could have also been leaderboards

A solo leaderboard, top 10 for amount of ghosts caught within the 5 mins

A party leaderboard (Parties of 2-5 players included)

Anybody have on ideas to get candy? Only way I was able to get candy was from goblins at bushes near swamp but apparently we "exploited that situation" even though i got a total of 6, I cannot find another way to get candy. Yes there are the ghosts but I never get the candy because net box is 509003904334 yards away so anyone have tips on where to track Pumpking?

I've noticed that he mostly spawns near the police station, north of Swamp and near the MoD fountain, sometimes at the bridge too (these are all the places I've found him).

There is little purpose tbh. One dropping more than the other wouldn't really change the outcome much.

I'm not opposed to the idea. I wanted to do RPS gambling for candy but RPS is just too buggy. Inserting candy into the minigames like archery and crab chance aren't too bad of an idea either. Both are somewhat dependent on lag though so again, lag is an issue players will complain about.


Accepting player hats just isn't worth the time to deal with all the submissions. It takes just as long to accept submissions as it does to make hats. Then you have to worry about copyright/stolen submissions, and then distributing the rewards for accepted prizes. It's a long, drawn out process.

No. Why would you care if I add more ways to get candy? Why exclude ways to get more candy, just because you don't like it?

You missed the rest of my post that said it wouldn't alleviate the lag to make the difference. You'd still experience lag so ghost catching would still be annoying. However, I won't say there's not potential. Having some sort of haunted house you can enter and do stuff for a limited time for candy wouldn't be that bad. But there just wasn't time for it this year. In the end it's still ghost catching, and there will still be lag issues even if you're in your own level.

Could make it a competition though. A haunted house that throws you in with 10 or so other [random] players to see who can get the most candy, and winners get candy bonuses.

There would be no party system.

1) It would involve an entirely coded party system which isn't the easiest thing to do, yet alone for a one-off event.

2) If towers have showed anything it's that players will do anything to get an advantage. Giving players the chance to party with friends would only increase the chance of finding a way to exploit the system. Even if it was "let me win and get the bonus this time and you can get the bonus next time!" Randoms would increase the competition and keep things cleaner.

You may not have received much candy from the goblins but in a few hours players had accumulated over 12,000 candy from them. More than the blob and ghosts combined.

Daily spins or something for candy isn't a bad idea either.

I have a few ideas. Not sure how well they would work out.
First of all, keep the pumpking and goblins. Tweak them if needed, but I think they're good additions.
Three places that I noticed are void of ghosts (or anything Halloween related) are Snowtown, Big City, and the railroads. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but having content in these areas could reduce the number of people crowding around the rest of the overworld.
Crab chance could possibly give out different prizes for different holidays. For Halloween the big prizes could be a couple of the hats you would normally get from trick-or-treaters and the gralat prizes could be replaced by some pieces of candy.
You could be able to find candy from looting, killing baddies, or maybe digging (although the drops could be rare since that would be really easy to get).
For some new, Halloween-exclusive baddies there could be zombies/skeletons that rise out of the ground in some areas. A headless horseman npc could appear in parts of the map and give out a unique, spooky item. Maybe his jack-o-lantern head? Who knows?

Guild based, same thing as gst sign ups.

If the job is done correctly, then why would you be worried about exploits?

Let me win? bonus next time? The bonus is based off of how many people there are in the party. If the whole party doesn't participate, then no prize + no bonus for not catching at least x amount of ghosts (Dependent on size of party)

+1 candy for each +1 member in the party. Limited to 5 people, since you obviously can't have that many ghosts in one single area on a screen, and to keep it simple.

Randoms would increase the activity, but I'd rather do the event with people I can trust on being skilled at catching ghosts. Would suck to enter, and Jimmy with 22 hours would mess it up for everyone by not doing his part.

This was just a quick idea thought of in 2 mins. I don't really think ghosts would be great, but I was thinking "They are already here, less work for devs."

On crab chance. Sadly lag is just something that can't be avoided at this point. You could make the room not show others, to try and make it as smooth as possible. You could rescript the RPS system, seems like it wouldn't be too difficult, but i haven't ever done anything like that so it's not really my place to say. Also totally forgot about the archery minigame.

Yeah, I was just bringing up the player submissions for a possible way. Sadly, it has too many issues, it seems

How about a haunted house maze for a prize? The maze inside the house change every time you enter.

That would have been cool, I liked the maze at deadwood for the skeleton morph. Don't remember why that was closed (maybe a limited item)

One way you could've kept people busy is making one very expensive item (for example the custom bow). You could sell it for lets say 350 candy. That way you keep both the casual players busy with regular trick or treating and the real try hards could have something to collect for.

I LOVE ARCHERY

That's not how exploits work.

Am I the only one who can't connect to the server on any devices right now?