[My feedback on this event (and Rogue Swarm) as copied over from General Discussion.]
I have never participated in events until the most recent two - Rogue Swarm and Guardian Gala.
I loved them. They made me play Eve more, and more frequently. The loot was very motivating - SKINs, accelerators, and my personal favorite - the items with the inside jokes from Rogue Swarm. (Although I still don’t get the one about the stolen voting ballot.)
Perhaps most importantly, both of these ** events got me motivated to get out of high-sec. ** I’ve got 10 years of off-and-on Eve time, and that breaks down to 90% high-sec missions and 10% null-sec covops exploration, with nothing in between. The difference in loot between high-sec and low-sec was so striking (for Rogue Swarm, that is) that I couldn’t resist the urge to log in at odd times, do some scouting, and hang out in LS running events.
Now for some specific thoughts.
I ran maybe 400 sites for Rogue Swarm but only 70-80 Gala. But with the Gala, low-sec loot did not impress me relative to high-sec. I ventured out in LS several times, but after the 3rd or 4th site, I couldn’t notice a substantial difference between rewards / drops. Perhaps it was just unlucky RNG. But overall, if what I saw during the Gala event was normal, I would say please ramp up the differential between quality + amount of the good stuff in low-sec vs high sec. I can’t speak to NS and WH space.
Had Gala been my first ever event, the low-sec $$ would not have been enough to draw me out of high-sec after I ran my first 2-3 low-sec event sites.
I can’t speak to the VIP sites; never tried 'em. (Real life dictates I must be a solo player for now.)
I am visually impaired, so I target-lock exclusively through the overview, as opposed to in-space. It was a bit frustrating to have ships 20km away on the overview, but be un-lockable for upwards of 10-15 seconds. I loved the AI mechanics and strategy, warping out and in again, but would have been helpful to have a visual indicator of when a ship became target-able. This is just a minor nitpick though.
Spawn pattern for both events was great, but Gala seemed to balance things out. I appreciated having to move on after running two sites in a system. It prevented system camping for the most part and, to a modest extent, helped keep regular event runners from running over each other.
I liked the high availability of both events. What I mean is that no matter what time of day or night it was, if I was in the mood to do event sites, I could log in and be doing it within a few minutes. Low friction. I also think that 5 minutes is the perfect amount of time to be able to run a site in assuming a good ship.
It was important that there were agency points continually awarded for ship kills, given that the frigates were infinite-spawning. Running Gala sites would grow noticeably tedious once I earned the ‘100 guests defeated’ award, and then had to wait hours before that series of challenges would open again.
This is just my opinion, but based on the agency rewards handed out at the various levels for both events, I felt that earning points for Rogue Swarm was just a bit easier than need be, and earning points for Gala was just a bit harder than need be. Plenty of room for disagreement on this one. I also acknowledge that CCP needs to do events for all skill levels, so not all events will be the same. What is challenging for a new player will sometimes be a cakewalk for a vet with 100mil SP.
PLEASE DO MORE EVENTS. They make me play the game more and participate more in the following ways:
–> I’m thinking about getting into SKIN collecting, which might have me jumping on some of the Omega + SKIN offers, which I have never done before
–> I feel like I log in at least twice as often and play twice as long during events.
–> Those accelerators really keep me coming back. (I’m ridiculous - I even have a Google calendar remind me to consume them regularly, and other reminders when I need to take care of other event-related things. All of which gets me thinking about the game more and playing more.)
So, while others may nitpick or complain about certain aspects, I say Thanks and Bravo. Keep the events coming.
