Povus-palooza

[ChompyNibblers]

Hey Gorgonzolians!

For too long have flapskulls and megahexapi laid waste to our sweet town of Povus. ENOUGH I say, its time we bring the fight to uh... our doorstep. Clears throat

That's right: its time to party!

Introducing...
Povus-palooza

What: Povus-palooza is going to be the premier Povus-defending party squad. (With free alcohol, food, buffs, drugs, etc.)
+ If you're interested in helping host or willing to provide anything, please post here or reach out to me on Discord!

When: Sunday October 24, 2021 at ~3PM ET (25 [24+1] Hours After Poetry Jam)
- Dance brews will be dropped when the in-game clock strikes 2PM - this will happen at ~3PM EST. Since this is the first event, I highly recommend you show up early

Where: The event starts at Serbule Inn with a dance party, everyone is welcome to attend regardless of if you want to join for the Povus defense! After the party we will grab some buffs in Serbule and then portal to Povus for handing out the remainder of the free stuff/buffs.

Why? The goal is to fully clear a Povus night event mission and have fun going overboard with buffs. I don't think we've fully completed the 7 possible night waves, imagine the possibilities! Plus, what better way to convince people to risk their lives fighting horrors in a disease infested swamp than with a party that has free booze, charcuterie, tonics, and drugs!

Anything else? - Yes I'm glad you asked!

1. I would love to hear your ideas for how we can improve the event.
2. We have the opportunity to strategize and organize ahead of time, feel free to post and discuss additional ideas here. I have some ideas already below.

Strategies:

1. There's a small window of time where we can light lamps before monsters spawn at 8PM in-game time. With enough players, in theory we could complete the lamp-lighting quest instantly.
2. If we find ourselves in a ghost-heavy set of events, we may need extra stuns. Paralyzing traps (from Rahu Sewers) and the ability "stake to the heart" are good options for players who don't have skills with stuns.
3. Be prepared to need to fix broken bones and/or to help fix the broken bones of our tanks
4. If you're able to heal and/or tank I expect those roles will be in higher-demand but it would be helpful to have other sets of gear ready.
5. Try not to go out of your way to loot too much
6. Do bury things

Timeline


Free stuff
+ While I am happy and able to fully host this event, please let me know if you would like to contribute anything!
+ *Cheese probably won't be free for future events

[INXS]

Maybe the Devs can bless this event just for this time with a soul anchor like WB event?

[Tandiril]

Sounds great, if I can manage it I will join! One thing though

Strategies:

1. There's a small window of time where we can light lamps before monsters spawn at 8PM in-game time. With enough players, in theory we could complete the lamp-lighting quest instantly.

That sounds...questionable to me, to put it mildly^^

[Niph]

That sounds...questionable to me, to put it mildly^^

The monsters still spawn, so either you light lamps then fight them, or fight them then light lamps before respawn. If you have enough people for that, you'll win fights, so I don't think it's that bad.

[Zephyon]

Sounds great, if I can manage it I will join! One thing though


That sounds...questionable to me, to put it mildly^^

If you are standing at a lamp when the event starts, there is time to light the lamp before the mobs finish spawning. With one of the "presight" potions in effect you can see the purple blisters come up after the event announcement. With the lamp targeted, you have plenty of time to get it lit. Still have to fight the mobs, but the quest will be complete.

[Tandiril]

If you are standing at a lamp when the event starts, there is time to light the lamp before the mobs finish spawning. With one of the "presight" potions in effect you can see the purple blisters come up after the event announcement. With the lamp targeted, you have plenty of time to get it lit. Still have to fight the mobs, but the quest will be complete.

I am not saying it doesn't work, I am saying that it sounds like an exploit.
It's one thing to have a group and quickly light a lamp because you happen to be next to it, but organizing an event where you potentially plan to swarm the whole town in an organized way to take advantage on a large scale might go too far for the devs.

So basically it either gets us an advantage or not. If it does, it fullfils the definition of an exploit imo, and we should do it normally. If it doesn't give us an advantage, we might as well do it normally

Still going to participate, looking forward to it! I just won't touch lamps until I see enemies

[ChompyNibblers]

I had a lot of fun with this event and hosting it isn't especially difficult and I would be interested in encores! Thank you to everyone who came, participated, and made this possible!

Big thanks to Zacty and Deldaron for also contributing free goodies!
Special shout out to Kirkidan, Manwar, Hanniver, and INXS as well for sharing their resources and/or providing critical items!

Notes & ideas for planning future events...
* I made 20 lager kegs and 3 bourbon kegs, used 6 lager/2 bourbon, but it seems around 40 players-worth of resources (5 lager + 1 bourbon) would have been sufficient for the dance party.
* 80-85 players participated in total based on /who. ~70 players partook in the free Gouda and Blue-Whisker
* Could consider starting the dance party a little later (no later than 3PM in-game)
* Event is new player friendly but new players might need swamp balm for diseases afterwards.
* Have someone explain how to participate in the Povus nightly events to new players
* Suggest parties set loot to any player so all players can loot/bury.
* Fireworks are a good idea for calling for help

Dev feedback/suggestions
* Most of the defense was easy once the player mob formed. I really only died fighting the final orc wave and that was really only before the player horde formed where most of the orc mob was as it took a moment to find them.
* We had a point in the middle where we were waiting on megascray spawns for ~20 min (and some ratkin for ~5 min) - I suspect this feedback has reached the devs already. Assuming this is addressed and given we finished with ~2 min left on the clock (intense ending!), future Povus-paloozas could finish 15-20 minutes early. I would love to see more waves, or an infinite wave, or maybe a raid-boss challenge mode added so we could keep going
* I was a little disappointed in the town XP we earned from Povus-palooza (on the other hand, 80 players completing all waves must have printed a lot of xogrite). If the extra waves idea is considered, I would hope especially challenging check-points could provide a substantially more impressive XP reward as well. Right now it seems the town XP system favors quantity over quality and I'd love to see both options.

[Figger1]

if you do it again, you should not serve alcohol until right before the night event starts. When you drink a second time, it is usually worse than the first time. I had never seen the wave where megahexapus and ranalon beastmasters were far away in the water, was that normal. It seemed unfair that we had to find mobs in the water and some far away since they were supposed to be attacking the town. It took too long on that wave.

[ChompyNibblers]

Something I've realized that could make future Povus-palooza's even more popular is that this seems like a good way for new players to reasonably collect Xogrite and get Povus gear. Based on logs, I got 9 Xogrite from the palooza + high-level gear worth thousands of councils each. New players could save their Xogrite for spending on learning armorsmithing/etc or sell them immediately to higher level players at the event for councils. I doubt many low-level players were aware of this and I didn't "market" it.

[sleepgoofy]

Maybe not all. I'm a low level player and I don't know that.

krunker