Addressing In-Game Event Rewards (Holidays and Celebrations)

Community WoW Community Council
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Not sure how much time I have left here, but I wanted to leave this here while my ADHD has me interested in doing something other than doomscrolling Twitter/X. It’s obviously incomplete, but it’s a stream of thought on a philosophy around in-game events and their rewards. Fixing this is kind of a white whale for me and y’all will hear about it even when I’m no longer on CC. Anyway, here we go…

  1. All annually recurring in-game events MUST have an event currency.
  • Currency from in-games events should be character bound.
  • Currency rewards from in-game activities MUST be static to provide a predictable Maximum Potential Currency Reward (MPCR).
  • Currency rewards from in-games activities MUST have a daily cap.
    • The total time investment for players to earn the daily cap of event currency through in-game activities should not exceed an expected 45-60 minutes per day, per character (Not including queue times).
    • Group activities such as Dungeons, Raids, or Battlegrounds that award event currency should have rewards match the additional time investment.
      • Not beyond the daily cap.
  1. Low Chance Drop Items (LCDI)
  • LCDI should not provide player power (mounts, pets, transmogrification appearances only).
  • LCDI CANNOT be permanently removed from the game.
  • LCDI have a minimum drop rate of 1-2.5%.
    • LCDI should drop at a higher rate on the first event boss encounter or reward box of the day, per account.
      • Minimum of 2X drop rate for first encounters or rewards.
    • LCDI drop rates should not be lowered below the baseline 1-2.5% for LCDI for additional characters, per account.
  • When additional LCDI are added, existing LCDI have their drop rate raised to 3-5%.
    • First encounter or reward bonuses still apply.
  • LCDI can remain “low drop exclusive” from event boss encounters or from event reward boxes for a maximum of THREE years.
    • On year four, LCDI are added to an in-game event vendor at a cost of no more than 80% of the MPCR.
    • On year four, LCDI can still drop from event boss encounters or reward boxes.
      • Drop rates should not be reduced when added to in-game event vendors.
  • LCDI from annually recurring events can only appear in the Trading Post 5-7 months before or after the associated in-game event.
  1. One-off Event Exception
  • One-off Events are in-game celebrations which include, but are not limited to, the World of Warcraft 10th and 15th Anniversaries, Diablo IV Launch, or Hearthstone’s 10th Anniversary.
    • Expansion pre-patch event rewards should be under consideration.
  • LCDI from One-off Events are moved to a vendor in the Caverns of Time during the World of Warcraft Anniversary Event within TWO years of the event.
    • Purchased with Timewarped Badges.
    • Prices are capped at 5000 Timewarped Badges per items.
    • Timewarped Badge acquisition rate should not be adjusted.
  • LCDI from One-off Events should only appear in the Trading Post during the one-year anniversary of the event.
    • After LCDI from One-off Events are added to the World of Warcraft Anniversary Event vendor in the Caverns of Time, they may only appear on the Trading Post 5-7 months before or after the event.
  1. Rationale
  • Many of the most sought-after rewards of the in-game events for holidays and celebrations are tied to chance and low drop rates.
  • None of these items provide player power.
  • A player’s time spent in-game should not be disproportionally skewed to in-game events for holidays and celebrations.
    • Players should not feel obligated to plan around in-game events.
  • Allowing items to remain “low drop” for a set number of years allows items to still have prestige (for a while), while avoiding feelings of despair caused by bad luck.
  • Let these in-game activities feel FUN!
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Standardizing every drop to become a guaranteed obtainable across the board is not something I care for, nor want to see.

It promotes a poor overall game health and mentality that you get your participation reward, no matter what.

There should be items, many of them infact. That require not specifically 1000s of attempts, nor 50 hours game time played to earn by random chance.
That if available once per year for one week or even a day. If given one chance a day, can take multiple years.

These types of systems shouldnt just be there. They need to be.

The idea that you as a player can get every single thing in the game with a moderate amount of effort shouldnt be a constant.
Just because an item is labeled or concieved as transmog, pet or mount. Doesnt make it yours by right, by design, or by consequence.

What is it really hurting that someone didnt get a manuscript during an event?
Regardless of the fact the system does need change, iteration on drop percent.

It doesnt harm anyone. It doesnt break any aspect of the game. You can look forward to accomplishing this as a long term goal.

This thought process that it makes people feel ikky, anxious, sad, depressed. Not getting an item.
Its just down right pathetic.
How can you possibly use that in an argument for an item drop. You are grown people. I see this everywhere. I dont understand where it comes from.
How is your emotional state affected so much by the lack of an appearance alteration.

Dont take the tone of my entire post based of this last comment. I am frustrated with fundamental arguments I read and am apart of on this.

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100% agree. And all items from said event should be connected to the currency, regardless of if that currency cost is doing the event activity for each day for two “uptimes” of the event. Someone can get lucky or don’t bother and still get the item. But it would provide a fallback for those that do interact with the event.

From my end, the game shouldn’t force you to play on different characters to maximize your chance of having an item being dropped. The drop should be the same regardless of character I’m playing.

I’d also be fine with having it being drop only for the first year and then moving it unto a vendor.

This many times over. There are so many cool rewards that’s been available through promotional or one-off events during the years and some of the rewards are available through vendors (ex some of the anniversary rewards). But for some reason, not all of the rewards get this treatment. Still wishing for that Core Hound that was available a few months before I started playing :cry:

This is just my take but being lucky is nothing prestigefull.

Louder for everyone in the back. In-game events should bring you back to the game because they’re fun, not because you’re farming a mount for the twelfth year in a row.

It’s fine. We’re not all on the same side in this argument. I don’t want everything handed to me on a plate, but I also don’t want bad luck to keep me from it for weeks/months/years. If someone wants to actively engage with any piece of content, regardless of if that content is holiday events, rares or raid farming, they should ultimately be rewarded for said activity.

I did Molten Core for two years on two characters, that’s a bit over 200 attempts to get Eye of Sulfuras and 100 attempts to get the other Binding of the Windseeker. I didn’t get them, and I abandoned the chaise because it simply didn’t reward me for the time I invested.

And here is where we disagree, and that’s fine. We’re advocating for something you don’t want, and you should instead try to motivate why it shouldn’t be like that instead of bashing the other side.

It doesn’t physically hurt anyone, no. But it does make the game less fun which in turn motivates people to move on to other games, perhaps for a short while, perhaps permanently.

I can’t though, can I? I have no idea if this will take me 1 more day or 12 more years. I don’t want to commit that much time to a video game. It’s here for my enjoyment, not as a career.

I will pass on commenting on the last part as I don’t think it even belongs in a forum post, much less so in the CC forums.

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Overall I think this is pretty solid. Blizzard might even already have some type of internal document with info/drop rates for new events already, but I think it’s good to put this out there regardless.

I’m definitely in favor of having most items obtainable if someone puts in the time and effort to do the holiday/event dailies. There can be an item or two that aren’t guaranteed but have an increased chance on the first event encounter of the day for the account so that people don’t feel like they have to grind it on 30+ characters a day. The drop rate could be increased slightly if the event is annual, so if it had a 1% drop in year 1, it could have a 2% in year 2, 3% in year 3, etc, to make it a bit more likely to drop but by no means guaranteed.

Of course, the Trading Post now gives a great outlet for certain items if people missed them during the holiday or anniversary event. There’s a lot that they can do with this and hopefully they take advantage of it.

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While understanding that they introduced low drop rates to keep players doing the event so that the events “turnout” doesn’t take a proverbial swan dive immediately… There needs to be a compromise between immediately guaranteeing the item and providing the item during the time frame of the event.

1-24% drop rates should NOT exist in a limited time event. A player shouldn’t have to, in some extreme cases, do upwards of 70+ runs a day with nothing to show for it to try to attempt to get a limited time event item. At the very least, if doing the event on 1 character per day, by day 4 of an event they should be guaranteed to walk away with that item they are striving for. --Edit: To clarify, this should work like bad-luck protection. As an easy example (by no means “this is the way”): If the drop rate of an item was 25%. On day 1, attempt 1, the droprate would be 25%. On day 2 attempt 1, with badluck protection, the droprate could be 5-25% higher making the droprate now between 30% to 50%, and so on and so forth.

The trading post should not be used as the “gimmick” of why the event can have and retain 1-24% drop rates. I’m not sorry to say, but man, if they keep up with these subpar drop rates during limited time events… it turns what is supposed to be a cool way to pay homage to, or cool event into nothing but the player actually lives to despise. Grinding your face off for a limited time event should not be the way, yet these subpar drops force it.

Heck, can you imagine if they had not extended the current event by 4 more days? How many people are still experiencing the bug where if you kept 9-10 of those green cards in their inventory they’d receive nothing? What if they had kept it at an hourly cool down? Kept it cycling between the 3 areas?

These are all things that led to have this event be even worse due to the low drop rates. Had the drop rates been higher, most of those things most likely would never have changed. The need for a player to constantly attempt to do this event over and over and over and over and over again would not exist. The player would have had minor beef against the Stormwind portal as Horde… but it would have been easily dismissed even by them since they could just garner the events things elsewhere with ease knowing the drop rate wasn’t subpar.

These kinds of things lead to players hating, and not looking forward to any future events. As what will this next event bring about? The one launching tomorrow. The one that nobody knows anything about it., no testing provided for, and no news beyond the patches number provided and that it’s going to be a “Limited time event”. How long? What’s in it? What is it? What will this event provide? Will its drop rates be actually nice or subpar? Will what is supposed to be a fun event turn into yet another reason for players to have further disdain about any future events? – Who knows… Time will tell, but I hope that I am proven wrong and that this experiment of theirs where nothing is given and is a limited time event turns out to be something worthwhile, fun, and remembered in a good way.

Edit 2: After seeing the patch preview… a PvP event that’s purely on another client, not using the character I’ve been playing for years… I just… I don’t know. This isn’t what I’d have ever requested. PvP surely is not everyone’s play style, and I don’t expect this to go over well. Especially with the reportedly 120 matches you have to partake in just to get the 40 renown levels they decided to throw into this.

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You keep doing this. You keep accusing people of wanting everything to be 100% obtainable and handed to them on first kill. Where is your proof that people have been asking for things to be this way? You KEEP saying this and quite honestly I’m tired of it. You’re pulling your “facts” out of no where with nothing to back them up based on your own assumptions that you think everyone wants it handed to them as a 100% drop.

Rarity is okay, but people should NOT be wasting 14 years of their life chasing a rabbit from a limited time event that only pops up for 1-2 weeks a year. 14 years, that’s 5,110 days! You cannot tell me that is a reasonable amount of time (a majority of it waiting for the event to even take place) to wait for something to drop.

This is inexcusable.

It’s discouraging when something doesn’t drop, sure. Especially when tons of other MMO’s have holiday events and do it SO much better. Wow’s holiday system has been unchanged for almost 20 years and the fact that people feel this way after all this time means SOMETHING needs to change to make them feel more excited when an event is on the horizon.

Every Holiday limited time event that has been put in WoW has filled players with dread. Will they be able to get the drop in time, will they get it this year, will they have to wait another year, or a year after that?

A holiday should not invoke these feelings in people, they should not be doom talking. You see the problem with people feeling these things and THATS why it needs to change.

You know whats more pathetic? Not wanting to make the game more enjoyable instead of people experiencing dread when a holiday approaches. Holidays are meant to be enjoyable not stress filled events where you feel the need to complain about it.

Again to tell you specifically for what feels like the 100th time, we are NOT asking for 100% drop rates but we are also asking not to spend years of our time wasting away with nothing to show for it and the disappointment of coming out of a Holiday feeling negative feelings towards the game itself. It’s just like being at Christmas and it’s ruined because someone set your house on fire. It’s an absolute miserable experience for everyone.

This is not end game content. It’s a HOLIDAY. Not a stress filled Mythic +25 or a Mythic End Boss fight.

I have tossed around similar ideas in past threads. The facts of the matter is we are not looking for 100% drop rates and to be just “handed” everything. But we do want our time to be respected, especially for a holiday event.

As I said in previous iterations of holiday threads, I’ve mentioned a % increase but by no means should it ever hit 100% or even 50%. I feel 10-15% would be reasonable to stop at should they increase the drop rate each year. I feel it’s the best outcome as well as relieving some points of stress people will have.

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I voice my concerns, ideas, and point of view as I see fit.
Being explicitly told to conform to a specific way of talking, responding by multiple peoples over dozens of threads and DMs I will not tolerate.

If you do not agree with me. That can be the end of it. I’m not right about every little thing. I’m merely expressing myself. It’s just a point of view. Take it for what you want.

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No one is telling you to conform a specific way but you’re flat out lying when you’re typing like everyone “said they wanted this” and “wants that” or “Feels this way” but its your own opinion and not those of the people. Your approach on subjects is attacking things that aren’t in other peoples minds but voicing it as if it is when its only in your mind. I have been in several threads where the truth of what people want and what you specifically think they want are from two different worlds. So If you say “The people” think about if it’s really a “Me” opinion.

Also how you “suggest” and “discuss” things is inflammatory at best. Calling people pathetic for wanting a stress free holiday or to have a little more ease of access for equal opportunities for all is wrong. Your overall tone is harsh and unwarranted and that’s likely why your previous post has been flagged. WoW is not a Job. It is not supposed to be as stressful as it has been getting for multitudes of players, Especially in game holidays.

Also thanks for seemingly ignoring every other aspect about my post (which was on topic) and instead going straight to the “I’m being witch hunted” rhetoric. Really helps the discussion.

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I dont want to play your games Rajiv.

I dont attack anyone. I cant believe I have to defend myself so many times to you.

Lets move on.

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I’m not playing any games here. I’m literally just saying be more respectful with how you word things. The down talking, the lack of consideration for other perspectives, the uncalled for bashing of the player base when it doesn’t meet your standards, using inflammatory rhetoric to make a point. You can just as easily get your point across without any of the negativity you bring.

If you want to move on, then lets move on, respond to the topic and stop typing like we’ve gathered our torches and pitchforks against you to derail the thread.

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We have discussed this. In length in DMs. We came to an understanding.
End whatever resentment you have for me because nearly all the things you accuse me of, as we talked, are misunderstandings of the wordings I use.
Dm me if you want to tell me off. Its been a dozen+ threads already.

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Are we moving on or are we going to let the whole forums have a free access public CC Smackdown? You could have replied to my points that were on topic on this thread but instead you decided to play the “Witch hunt” card.

If you want to go back and READ my other posts to reply to some of the other points that were on topic that didn’t offend you, by all means. I’m not going to sit here to try to keep getting this thread back on topic instead of this back and forth that is further derailing it.

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LCDI: I’d like to see X-45 and the saddle be around 1 percent (not that I expect that to happen: if wishes were fishes…) But farming 3-5 accounts used to be the norm for how to procure the mount back in the era of level 20s being eligible. It isn’t fun but it’s all really low chance RNG if the lucky roll happens or not. That doesn’t feel fun. However the new collectibles to this year’s event were a nice touch.

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As Näamah said here, the constant push of the required level to queue these events should be stopped. All of the season events and in my opinion, even all TW queues, should be available at level 15 when RDF is available.

The bosses are a joke, and it would remove a lot of the friction from players not having to level their alt army each year just to do an event dungeon for a drop that should have been dropped years ago.

Removing the instance cap together with an account-wide first of the day buff would remove any reason to do it on alts, which is also something that I think should be looked into.

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