I have played about 5 games so far, and the main issue that I have noticed is that the timer is a little too short. I have never been able to beat the first wave boss, even when we play extremely well. My only suggestion would be to raise the timer just a bit. Maybe to 12 - 12.5 minutes.
I have 2 things that I'd like to see for the Beastmoon Monster Mayhem.
1. Increasing the first round time limit to 15 or 20 minutes. I've done the Beastmoon Monster Mayhem 3 times so far, and I haven't been able to get past the first round. Increasing the time limit slightly, gives people a slightly greater chance of progressing to stage 2.
2. Let Lunari be a reward at the end of every Beastmoon Monster Mayhem round (even if it's a loss). I haven't gotten any Lunari from the event, and you need to get 275 points to get any Lunari reward. This makes it difficult to increase your beastmoon form's level and get more cards to help you progress.
Hey so I thought I'd share my thoughts on this new event and I'm curious to what others think of it as well.
Mainly I want to express my opinion; this event is MUCH too difficult.
First of all, a lot of players don't have organized teams up 6 friends to play with, me being one of them. I have played this event already for a day and have not once gotten past stage 1-- and this is supposed to be the easiest stage, yet the boss can have up to 1,700 health (the ice kraken). Doing 3 mobs is very difficult on a time span of only 10 minutes plus 2 if you can get the time clam, but in the end even the time clam isn't enough to finish all the fights.
I think this event could be really fun but I think the time limit really affects the fun factor, at least for me. The clock just stresses me out personally, especially knowing there is an extremely slim chance of just getting past the first stage. I know some people love this kind of gameplay, and I think it can be good if done correctly. I believe if it was re-balanced a bit next time it would be a better experience. For example maybe either 10 minutes isn't enough or 3 mobs and a boss fight is too much. Maybe add another time clam to get. I haven't gotten past stage 1 as I mentioned, so I don't know how the other stages are, and if you have reached them please share your experiences and thoughts on this event! I love the other Beastmoon event, and I want to love this one just as much, but I think some things should be changed a bit to make it more fun and not as much of a stressful activity.
Also, I don't mean any hate or anything, just wanted to offer some suggestions for the future perhaps and I'm curious to know what other people think of this new event :)
okay firstly, this is very fun but only if EVERYONE in your team knows what they're doing and is good. Unlike the original BM where if you have one player who is lost, or even missing, its still winnable, this mode requires EVERYONE to be good.
As a direct consequence, this is unplayable the second you have a menu chat guy in your team. You simply cannot communicate point blank using menu chat in this mode, it requires TOO much communication and co-ordination, even adding new phrases wont fix this. This is infuriating bc the last 4 games i played had menu chat and we lost bc we couldnt communicate with him.
Secondly, please make clear how many time clams are in each wave. Is there only one per wave, or does it increase per wave? Also can you make the time clams in a different colour from the coin clams? So its easier to distinguish? you only see the name on top once you get close.
Thirdly, this mode does not reward healing and shielding at all, its simply a waste of time. The timer is too strict, essentially the most efficient way to beat this is to have all attack based monsters. On the note of the timer, some spells even shortened take too long and cost way too much time--AND some mobs death like the fish (the balance fish) take forever. I feel like what this mode needs is toward the last 30 seconds maybe of a spiral fight if the two mobs or one mob is dead give extra time clams (make it clear that time clams are being added).
Can you guys add a time freezer like you do for maze game? That would be excellent.
This game mode truly is fun and im glad for its creation, but it just does not fit with the randomisation of teams with BM and the time is just too harsh. The fact you can only win this mode with a god tier team unlike BM where you can get away with a new/confused/menu chat players really says enough.
I agree with everyone else's thoughts here and I thought I'd share more after doing several more attempts at this event.
I still think it is way too hard, and I'm sure most people can agree that this is nearly impossible with even a competent team. Most of the time I had people who didn't know what they were doing, AFK people, etc. One person can make the game in this event, unlike in PVP beastmoon where you can communicate and plan out effectively if you end up having a missing player, sometimes being able to win.
I too agree that the rewards are not good in this event. Unlike in PVP beastmoon, you get no rewards whatsoever if you don't complete boss 1, which is a difficult task in itself, and as mentioned many times is nearly impossible unless you have a good team. After doing this event many many times, I was able to defeat the stage 1 boss two times. While this may seem like an accomplishment, the rewards still didn't seem that great to me. 8 Lunari and a few reagents. If you lost the match in PVP beastmoon, you'd at least get 16 Lunari or something along with a seed or some reagents. Most people doing this event don't get past stage 1 and if they do, that's it. With the difficult state this event is in currently, the rewards aren't really worth it and Lunari really needs to be boosted up since there is no other way to get Lunari other than the event rewards or the Scroll of Fortune (which I don't get).
If the rewards were boosted up as well as time limit, this event would be much better. But in the current state, I think the other Beastmoon event is superior because it's just more fun with how it works and there's no strict time limit.
The time limit is an issue because of the animation cast time. As others have already mentioned, the animation casts take longer than some think. Fire aoes are terrible offenders to this, as well as many other spells. You also have the timer to pick cards, and every team I've had there is always the person who picks last second, which is a huge waste of time. Another frustrating factor is how the time can run out when you about to win. For example, I was in the spiral fight and we were casting cards and if the round had time to end, we would have won. I don't understand why this isn't like Tournaments, where even if the clock is 0, you have time to complete the last round. Please change this because I really think it's unnecessary and really emphasizes how the time limit is a big problem due to animation cast time and the time just to pick the cards. I'm not sure if this can be fixed since other people can do individual fights while others do spiral, but it would be nice if it could because it would really help the stress factor a lot for many.
I also think having a tutorial on how to play would be nice, as well as tips on how to save time while playing the game. Time is extremely important and due to the strict nature of the clock, people must be very quick to make decisions, etc. This would help newcomers understand a bit better, and hopefully increase the chances of winning at least stage 1 with a random team.
Finally, I've also noticed that once you die you get locked out of your beastform. I'm not sure if this is a glitch or not, but it's frustrating b/c I paid for battle cards. Since this isn't a feature in PVP beastmoon, I assume it's a glitch, but maybe I'm wrong. Also I had an instance where a fairy cast a life imp on a mob that was already dead, which wasted time.
I really am thankful for the two beastmoon events we have, but I think this event would be much better if some of these fixes were to be considered and implemented :) Beastmoon PVP is great and fun, but this event just is too stressful and frustrating when you spend time trying to beat just the first boss with no luck, and also no rewards. Thank you!
I have to agree with all the post here. The game itself is fun. I have done the first wave and part of the second. I think the time for sure needs to be increased, it takes some players long to pick a spell, especially when they are not using their customary beast, they need time to look at what cards to pick. Might be a good idea to be able to choose the game level at the beginning, like a Beginner, Intermediate and Expert button, with the difference of the timer being longer or shorter. For slow people like me, lol.
I have 2 things that I'd like to see for the Beastmoon Monster Mayhem.
1. Increasing the first round time limit to 15 or 20 minutes. I've done the Beastmoon Monster Mayhem 3 times so far, and I haven't been able to get past the first round. Increasing the time limit slightly, gives people a slightly greater chance of progressing to stage 2.
2. Let Lunari be a reward at the end of every Beastmoon Monster Mayhem round (even if it's a loss). I haven't gotten any Lunari from the event, and you need to get 275 points to get any Lunari reward. This makes it difficult to increase your beastmoon form's level and get more cards to help you progress.
I especially agree with number 2. The fact that you get no lunari and little to no event points when the game results in a loss makes it feel like a waste of time. Another thing that I wanted to add is that this game really discourages tanky schools such as ice or life, especially in the beginning. I have made it to stage 3 myself, and found that by then ice and life are useful, but not many people realize that. However, when I did make it to stage 3, I was with a bunch of friends that were all on call together. The fact that we needed to be this coordinated shows the main flow in this gamemode. It is too hard with a random team of people that do not know that they are doing.
I've played this event maybe 20 times I think. And I've had good teams and bad teams. However, not one has been even close to winning the event.
The closest was almost beating the second boss, but someone didn't pick quick enough. My arrow was literally in the air to kill, and the match ended. So, here are a couple suggestions.
1. The current time allotment is too short. Perhaps add a minute or two.
2. The animations take too long. The animations should be auto fast forwarded if they can't be removed for this event.
3. The menu chat thing is an issue. It's impossible to co-ordinate with someone who can't hear you. (Maybe have menu chat people have to choose a partner to follow, so they can be used in the battles).
4. The card selection timer should be shorter. We're trying to rush card selection to ensure we can win, but if someone takes the full time each round, there's no chance. I say shorten the timer to 10-15 seconds. If you don't pick fast enough at least it passes you quickly.
Otherwise, the event is fun. I've enjoyed it, it just needs tweaking.
The timing is rough for sure, but it is in fact possible (1 in like 20 times lol, I'm not saying I'm not down with increasing the time limit a smidge)
My team made it through level 3 today but here's the real issue I had: I was in the level 3 spiral battle and the boss hit us with some spell that killed 3/4 of us, so we called our other 2 players to come so that we could switch out.
Well I fled in order to give a fresh teammate my place (as it says in the help pages we can do) But I notice people were not eager to flee and I wondered why.
I changed my form and went to fight other battles to help spiral get cards, and the spiral won, yay!
What did I get? I got nothing. Because I had to leave the spiral battle (which I had a large role in winning, and which we would not have won if I hadn't left) I got zero rewards from that fight. I did my part in the battle, by the time we had to switch out we had take out 2 1/2 out of 4 enemies. Yet the 2 that had finished them off were the only ones to get the rewards (and possibly any dead players that chose to stay and do nothing more and still reap the rewards)
So are only the last ones tagged in a tag team the only ones that win? Did what was done before count for nothing?
Not to mention you don't get as good rewards if you are not in the actual spiral battle. Your role is just as important as you are the people fighting the outside fights to help the ones in the spiral win. But you get less rewards for it (which will lead to people fighting over who gets to fight in the spiral by the way) how does this make sense?
You have to have awesome teamwork from everyone to win these fights, everything everyone does counts and everyone plays their part.
You win as a team you should be rewarded as a team. Everyone on the team should get all the rewards.
Otherwise you're gonna have people stop caring and stop doing their part. No one will be willing to flee to allow others to continue and the team will lose. No more fun.
Please make the battle rewards universal for the team. Lets face it if someone is not doing their part in this then the team won't win anyway. So theirs no reason for the whole team to not get equal rewards. Thank you.
Also could we please do something about disconnections? my net had an almost imperceptible drop but of course wiz lost connection and when I came back not only was I no longer in the event but I had a 15 min penalty.
I've lost connection during fights before and just came right back to the fight, why is this so impossible in beastmoon?
It's even more important there because one person getting kicked out can lose it for the whole team :(
I totally agree with all of the above. I have played over a dozen matches and only won the spiral fight once, but we did not go on to round 2 for some reason. To only be awarded 5 or so game points, no lunari, and almost impossible to finish round 1 . . . it is not something the casual solo player can succeed at.
Please just a few more minutes in the round and it may be more success.
It appears this was created for the friend /grouped aggressive PVP masters. Not something the average Wizard101 player can even think of being even round ONE winner.
And BTW the yelled commands by the major domo of the grouped PVP masters is even worse here than in the regular Beastmoon. I was instructed to give up the pig, after I purchased TC - because Jennifer was a LVL 5 pig - so I did - but Jennifer never picked it up. Then when I got onto the field I was told I was an idiot and slow, get with the program - your stupid wtf did you join, only 2 per fight - finally I was told to quit or just stand there and do nothing, I was useless.
So, if I did not need points to finish the Summer scroll of Fortune I would never be playing this style of Beastmoon.
I have a suggestion: maybe freeze the timer whenever a spell is actually being cast. Several times now, we have lost just as we were about to win - because the spell itself took too long - the dinosaur had not quite finished roaring, or whatever. It is completely unfair to lose that way, and I think discounting the time for the actual casting of the spell will alleviate a lot of frustration.
That said, I have been on a winning team once and only once for Mayhem, and I almost had to "go missing" because the whole game took far too long in real time. If I had left, my team would probably have lost. I will continue playing the new beastmoon because it is all the extra you have available right now, but I sure hope you will not discontinue the original which I for one liked far more.
I agree with what everyone has posted so far. Time and organization are our enemies here. I'm not sure how comfortable I would be finding ways to invite a group of strangers to the TS server I'm on so we could all communicate, and trying to be a healer for the event leads to nothing but disappointment. I've made it past the first round once, with a very organized team, but it led to nothing much in the rewards.
I had saved up lunari from the last Beastmoon event so that I have 3 forms at lvl 3 right now, but I can't build towards the form I most enjoy playing as it isn't open and the crafting table isn't set to accept the idol cards that I have. Had I known I would be throwing away the lunari that I have for a game that makes it nearly impossible to gain more, I would have just stuck with the Life Fairy I have at 3/3.
I appreciate your efforts to make an awesome event, I just hope you take our input into consideration.
So i played in the player vs player/capture the circle version of beastmoon and loved it because even if u lose u still are rewarded for your effort with some rewards such as lunari which is needed for buying the recipes for the outfits. However recently beastmoon came back as a battling monsters against time game. the time is very limited and unless everyone does everything perfectly u lose every time. i rarely ever get to the second wave and i really dislike that you get no lunari, nor any prize unless you win a round. i could play ten rounds and only win one, and therefore get very little lunari, simply because other players slowed me down and i cant fill out my team with friends. me and my friends are getting very frustrated when there is no good incentive and i'm very much losing interest in beastmoon now. id really like to get the outfit but its almost impossible now with this new mode.
i beg of you to look into this issue of no reward when losing. i also very much prefered the player vs player/capture the circle version of beastmoon. and one more thing to add. i was wondering if you would be able to make it so you can fill out the entire group going in, with friends only, so you can choose the team you play with and therefore have better odds. im aware u can bring in a team of 4 but it would be super helpful to be able to have everyone in the match be friends so you can communicate better and sort out a plan.
Played a ton of games today, some more potential suggestions:
-Those spiral buffs (the blade, aoe, etc thing u get from minions outside of spiral) if you guys dont want to include time freezes or the timer freezing during animations, how about the time freezing when a spiral buff is cast at least.
-I think this is a bug ? but if not this is a suggestion to remove what is happening here. So when the fight at spiral is finished, the timer instantly reverts back to max and starts ticking down again HOWEVER--we do not get access to the lobby for wave 2 straight away if there is another battle happening with the minions outside still but the timer *still* goes down, so for example in my game today and it said we got lunari, time clam happy and the timer went back to max however me and another team mate were in a battle outside, so before teleporting to lobby we had to finish all the animations in that battle before transporting to wave 2. The issue here is while we were waiting for animations to end THE WAVE 2 TIMER WAS STILL TICKING DOWN.(sorry for caps, i realised this paragraph was long so i want to draw attention to what the issue im presenting overall)
So essentially we were robbed of 15-20 seconds off wave 2 since we were waiting for the last animations to finish up in wave 1. So what i am suggesting is to do not start the timer count down as soon as spiral is finished, and instead to wait until everyone is transported to the lobby.This
And on that note, can there be a bit of a grace period between waves? like maybe 10 seconds to get your stuff together when you finish a wave before the timer starts going down instead of it instantly ticking down and everyone needing to rush out into battles as soon as you finish each wave? That'd be really good.
Timer needs to be increased (just two minutes at wave one) and the enemies at spiral wave 3 are able to easily kill everyone in two rounds, thats's kinda crazy cause you won't be able to do anything. At least don't make the enemy respawn at spiral when he has been defeated, that would be a great change. A participation reward is needed. I got from 13 to 25 lunari by completing wave one and 24-30 lunari completing wave two, so it would be perfect to give 5-10 (or more) lunari when you can't even pass wave one. Someone suggested to give lunari for each enemy you defeat (like 2-3 lunari per enemy) and I like the idea so I'm just posting this suggestion too. I was also thinking about giving other kind of buffs during spiral fight, such as aoe heal (not over time heals, but heals that can revive teammates) and aoe pips (like the spell that myth draconian can use, "pip rally"). Someone said that when you lose a form in wave one you're able to get it back at wave three. I was thinking that we should be able to get the form back when we win the wave.
I provided feedback while this was in Test and I'm saddened they didn't change anything too meaningful before it went live (though they did change some things which are noticeable and appreciated). That being said, I posted these changes in the Test Realm thread which has since been removed. But they're still needed:
1. Time Clam goes from 2 -> 3 minutes. This will help with pacing a lot. You want to give players a comfortable enough cushion late-game, but still weed out bad teams. I know people want more time, but I played the original times on Test and I have to say, more time did NOT help early game at all. What ended up happening is that teams that struggled through the first wave would sit around or get pummeled the second wave. Trust me, it runs into a ton of issues, and we asked that they lower the time so the average game wouldn't be 40 minutes long. However, it is still evident that players need more time and I will address more of that below.
2. All enemies lose ~10% of health. Basically, some mobs (and especially bosses) have too much health and you spend more time constantly hitting that it doesn't feel strategic. By the time you get to just the boss (no minions), it's just a race to do the most damage in the shortest amount of time. 1800 hp -> 1600 would help a lot.
3. UI improvements. One I REALLY wanted, above all else. The sun, star, moon, and eye symbols should be visible because the average player didn't memorize where each location is. Players instead say "the 2 fires" or "storm and balance" and it can get confusing and time-consuming. The time clam should get an icon *while it is spawned* so players know whether they should get it or not.
4. Speed wisp improvements. Firstly, hats off to KI for listening to our feedback on providing more pip wisps and fixing their associated bugs (though there are some smaller ones still out there). I think there should be more speed wisps, especially if the timer is this tight. Big forms move too slowly to be useful.
5. Communication improvements. Complimenting the UI changes, Menu Chat needs to be more viable. Text Chat needs to be more viable. I mentioned "pinging" and "flagging" locations on the map to mark where you want to be / are going. There's plenty of options out there, it's not hard.
6. Timer. I cannot stress enough how frustratingthis game mode is. I said it a million times in Test and I can't say it enough now. It's promising and has the potential to be really fun, but the majority of games, it isn't. Since we're keeping the timer mechanic (especially given timers exist in pvp now), which is important for not dragging games out, it's important to add ways to alleviate that stress. The time clam is a MUST to continue playing. In fact, I think winning should be achievable (though rare) without the time clam, but the time clam offers leeway for mistakes. The timer should pause when cheat casts are active. When your teammate gives you a spell boost, it should benefit you. Hands down. No exceptions. It's BAD to get the fire giant because it takes ~40 seconds to hit. That should never be the case.
7. Rewards. They really amped up the rewards since Test and I am SO thankful. Seriously, it was bad. That being said, they missed the mark. I think every match should give some lunari. Maybe just 5 lunari. I think completing one game should offer you something, no matter how terribly it went. I've had a number of bad matches and it's only more frustrating that you don't get anything. I choose to not fight the boss so I at least get some gold and runes by defeating mobs during the last few minutes of every game because at least if I lose, the last 6 minutes weren't a waste. My recommendation: every match gives 5 lunari, a beastmoon moonstone, 1 rune, and 2 event points when it's over. It's small, but it adds up. Compare it to Beastmoon Hunt, where you get somewhere around 30-90 lunari per hour, depending on if you win or lose.
8. Mayhem. I made a whole post about this, but this mode isn't very fun. It's challenging and feels like a hybrid of Beastmoon and Deckathalon, but it's just missing opportunity for having FUN with people. It's easy to get mad or blame the game or your teammates, but it's hard to appreciate them. What's fun is being overpowered or giving your teammates a cheat spell. TCs are noticeably absent in this mode and I think it'd be a lot of fun to add some more "mayhem" to the mode. There's lots of cool features and ideas I mentioned, but I threw around the idea of adding more buffs, puzzles, and creating a "hunter" role which is someone who just goes around collecting and solving puzzles and boosting teams as needed. Add bubbles, TCs, health and pip boosts, damage boosts, and speed boosts sprinkled in using features players are already familiar with (shock-a-lock, collect parts to build something, find a random drop, craft mini-elixirs - whatever - just ADD optional fun stuff and make the mode more than just fighting enemies - we do that enough in this game. This would make the mode chaotic, fun, and make teams more supportive.
9. Forms. Some forms are just useless in this mode and it's annoying. Healing and shielding and tanking are less useful because of the time limitations and the need to output a ton of damage really quickly. This problem is sort of answered by some of my suggestions (health deductions, time adjustments, speed wisps, etc). I have yet to see a use for the colossus form or the draconian form. The biggest problem with the game is that it is too "tight." It feels like you have to optimize to survive. *this* spell is too long. *this* form doesn't move quickly. It limits your creativity and strategies and thus your fun. Most players only have a few forms unlocked to level 3. Part of this is due to the scarcity of lunari, but also because people don't play Beastmoon very often. Again, these suggestions feed into each other. Adding lunari as a reward for all players helps boost them to get further and further into the game. It is incredibly difficult to beat the waves with Level 1 forms, and you need lunari to level them up and you can't get lunari until you beat a wave. See the cycle?
Also, thank you KI for heeding my suggestion and letting all forms have some school unlocked. Great job!
There's plenty more to address like adding better matchmaking, the ability to join games when people leave or go afk, a tutorial, better event rewards, more event points per day, less-tight AIs, and better balancing. This mode needs a LOT of tweaking to be enjoyable, but those suggestions are not as problematic for longevity as the ones mentioned in-depth above.
Again, this is my opinion. I understand people have different views and that they haven't made it very far. I agree. A lot of these suggestions will make the game easier without bumping up the time. Longer games seems like a nice solution, but let me tell you every game lasted 40-60 minutes and it was awful. You can't leave; you just sit around and wait for the timer to end. That being said, KI will likely not make a lot of changes for a bit (remember how long Deckathalon was out before they changed it?) so adding 2-3 minutes to the first round might be the easiest solution for them in the short term, but there's a lot more they can do to fix the mode. This mode gets old really fast. You'll see what I mean soon enough. These fixes will help liven it up!
Here's a simple solution to the Lunari problem-- Since you don't get any unless you beat the stages, why not add some when you defeat the mobs?
For example, currently if you defeat a mob you get around 50 gold and a rune. Instead of the gold, maybe do 3-5 Lunari as a reward for each mob you defeat so at least you get something if you don't end up passing the stages.
There are only three options here that would help it's current state!
1. Add more time to the very low timer!
Or
2. More (time clams) like when you are fighting for cards, maybe after you defeat one you also add a random time clam somewhere on the map for like 20sec!
Or
3. Could add a bonus of resist to incoming universal damage depending on how many players are in the battle circle! Like 1% per person to all players! But no bonuses on boss battle just before that on the working ahead to the boss!
Also could we please do something about disconnections? my net had an almost imperceptible drop but of course wiz lost connection and when I came back not only was I no longer in the event but I had a 15 min penalty.
I've lost connection during fights before and just came right back to the fight, why is this so impossible in beastmoon?
It's even more important there because one person getting kicked out can lose it for the whole team :(
I've had the game crash while trying to join the event. I thought this was fixed.
thank you everyone for all your thoughts on my post! i really appreciate that i'm not the only one feeling this way about beastmoon. there are sooo many changes that could be made. i really loved the last beastmoon mode, but this one has me in a tissy. i am super excited about the outfits and have been trying my best to obtain them but with little to no lunari rewards i am really struggling. i also do not enjoy having the needle reagent needed for the clothing because the needles are very hard to obtain.
but yes i agree with everyone here. thanks for the support all that commented on my post. hopefully something is done about this for the next beastmoon
1.I have started several times with nobody marked as missing but only five team members. In the regular Beastmoon, this is no big deal as long as both teams are equal. In this version, the live team is pretty much guaranteed to lose in the third wave, if not sooner.
Please give us *something* - more time, more clams, or weaker enemies if you start a team with fewer players. It is not fun to play a game that you know you can't win.
Similarly, if people go "missing" perhaps you might consider compensation to the team members remaining.
2. Please allow the very last hit, if not the very last round of hits to complete in spiral when the timer runs out. I have made it to the last round many times now when we all celebrated the winning hit - guaranteed to overkill - only to have the monsters win when the timer ran out before the animation completed and not always of the spell, but sometimes of the boss dying.
3. Tonight I went back to base after dying and fleeing, and was not able to select a new character. I spent the entire wave explaining to my teammates that I could not leave base because the forms would not give me an x. I was not disconnected - the team could still chat with me. I still saw forms with sparkles. I moved freely. But I could not interact with Acteon or any of the forms.
I finally won the event. I was super stoked. I wanted to commemorate with a badge, only to realize there is no badge for the first mayhem win. Can this be a thing? As hard as it is, we should get something to show we did it.
Aaron Darkheart
