Eveningstar Midwinter Festival High Scores!

[SqueakofDoom]

Share screenshots of your high scores from the new Midwinter Festival Race in Eveningstar!

[Shade]

Scores:
1 - 300ish
2 - 927 (lotsa double point stuff)
3 - 300ish (got lots but purposely failed to see if finishing made much differences)

And thats it... Utterly disapointing to limit us to 3/4 runs permanently, per account if we dont want to pull out our credit card on something so basic. At first I assumed it was a daily thing, like challenges, but nope, doesnt mention that anywhere, 3 for the entire event? gross. 5/day would be reasonable. 3/entire event is not.

Yet another awful pay to win event. As it's essentially impossible to get enough rewards to get any of the decent items in 3 runs, your forced to the ddo store to play the event more then 3 times..

And btw, All DDOStore links are broken in the current build. Various other broken dialog options present too. So further testing is atm impossible. Other then that though, the event worked and was mildy entertaining for the ~6 minutes or so it lasted.

[Tid12]

Scores:
1 - 300ish
2 - 927 (lotsa double point stuff)
3 - 300ish (got lots but purposely failed to see if finishing made much differences)

And thats it... Utterly disapointing to limit us to 3/4 runs permanently, per account if we dont want to pull out our credit card on something so basic. At first I assumed it was a daily thing, like challenges, but nope, doesnt mention that anywhere, 3 for the entire event? gross. 5/day would be reasonable. 3/entire event is not.

Yet another awful pay to win event. As it's essentially impossible to get enough rewards to get any of the decent items in 3 runs, your forced to the ddo store to play the event more then 3 times..

And btw, All DDOStore links are broken in the current build. Various other broken dialog options present too. So further testing is atm impossible. Other then that though, the event worked and was mildy entertaining for the ~6 minutes or so it lasted.

What are the items in there? How does it work?

[Coldin]

Scores:
1 - 300ish
2 - 927 (lotsa double point stuff)
3 - 300ish (got lots but purposely failed to see if finishing made much differences)

And thats it... Utterly disapointing to limit us to 3/4 runs permanently, per account if we dont want to pull out our credit card on something so basic. At first I assumed it was a daily thing, like challenges, but nope, doesnt mention that anywhere, 3 for the entire event? gross. 5/day would be reasonable. 3/entire event is not.

Yet another awful pay to win event. As it's essentially impossible to get enough rewards to get any of the decent items in 3 runs, your forced to the ddo store to play the event more then 3 times..

And btw, All DDOStore links are broken in the current build. Various other broken dialog options present too. So further testing is atm impossible. Other then that though, the event worked and was mildy entertaining for the ~6 minutes or so it lasted.

Hmm. I was pretty sure it was daily tokens. Where did you see they weren't?

Actually. It's right in the release notes.

Each day Brace will give free tokens to participate in the race based on your account status:

I'm more curious how many motes you got for that score of 900. I got a score of 500, but only got 180 motes. It's going to take over 3 weeks to get the polar bear cub if a player is only getting 180 motes per run.

[Shade]

What are the items in there? How does it work?

Works the same as the risia event. Except it's a pretty easy skate for speed while collecting snowflakes, versus the previous difficult jumps. It has some jumps for purples, but they are all pretty easy, its more about being fast and accurate.

Rewards: Meh, a big downgrade from risia.
You have +10 cold or fire resists you can tack on lootgen shields, armor and clothing (robes).. But unlike the previous risia rituals, these are non stacking with what many of us already have, as they are typed insight bonuses. EG: Lootgen you could wear a primal robe like i do on my sorc, which is one slot for +10 inherent to four damage types. Where as with this, youd need to use up 2 slots, and youd only get fire and ice.

Weapons - icy burst deleted. only option is glaciation. Goes from 30 to 120 and the cost is fairly steep. Might be worth it if you use lootgen onehander on a caster.. (personally use the raid staff so no good to me).

Potions:
Lolth cookie - minor bonuses to +dmg, +PRR, +spell power iirc. All typed as Profane, so the spell power and prr should fully stack, but the dmg won't with some things like the litany or abishai cookies.
CL20 fire shield cold and fire version.
30 point cost and fire resist potions - CL11
Prot potions fire/cold - CL20

On the bright side, things appear to be unbound, so at least we can have someone else burn there turbine points and get this stuff from the AH.

[Coldin]

What are the items in there? How does it work?

It's basically an ice track around the river in Eveningstar. The track is littered with snowflakes to pick up, buffs to help you go faster and jump higher, and ramps and obstacles. When you reach the end, you get a score, which I assume is based on how many snowflakes you collect.

The rewards at a brief glance, was a new companion Polar Bear Cub, for 10,000 motes. There's a Lolth Cookie that gives +profane bonuses to attack, damage, physical resistance, and spellpower. There's a stack of snowballs. Then there's a bunch of recipes that can add Fire or Cold resist to an item. The Glaciation recipes are also back.

[Shade]

Hmm. I was pretty sure it was daily tokens. Where did you see they weren't?

Actually. It's right in the release notes.

Thats good.. It's not explained anywhere in game though, and it really should be.

I'm more curious how many motes you got for that score of 900. I got a score of 500, but only got 180 motes. It's going to take over 3 weeks to get the polar bear cub if a player is only getting 180 motes per run.

Dunno, it doesn't even tell you. My screenshot only shows my item reward, which was a glaciation 108, same as what I got for getting 300. Didn't check my bag and logged out in disapointment.

Also you have to purposely fail to get the lower tier rewards, the npc even tells you. So thats kinda dumb, you forfeit motes to get the lower tiers (which you need, as the upgrades still have to be done in order).

Even at 3/day, assuming you could score 900 and that gave about double what coldin got, thats still only 900ish motes.. Thats enough like 2 potions.

Versus risia where you could get thousands of motes a day, meh.

I think the motes are at least faster, if limited. The course is pretty short, 3 min time limit, and maybe 30 seconds to run back, so people will get motes fairly fast if they buy the tokens.

Million times bette then mabar at least. Mabar you had to waste hours and hours to get any kind of good reward, this thing about 6 minutes plus maybe a trip to the auction house heh.

[WielderofGigantus]

944, and it looks like you get 1/3 your score in motes. Once I figured out how to use the moles, 3 minutes seems like a really long time to gather snowflakes.

I'm not quite sure if the speed boosts stack with the Phiarlan Travel Pendant.

The level of recipe being tied to your score is annoying. How about making it possible to trade motes for recipes? Or trade higher level recipes for lower level recipes?

[Shade]

944, and it looks like you get 1/3 your score in motes. Once I figured out how to use the moles, 3 minutes seems like a really long time to gather snowflakes.

I'm not quite sure if the speed boosts stack with the Phiarlan Travel Pendant.

The level of recipe being tied to your score is annoying. How about making it possible to trade motes for recipes? Or trade higher level recipes for lower level recipes?

Grats.
Yea trick is to kill the moles for the double points, and go for purples, something the npcs really don't explain.

They give you a tip that the speed boost only works for non monks, which is strange, but i guess fair since monks already have such a huge advantage in this even due to their inherant +30% speed and abundant step.

However the reality is, the speed boost isn't an advantage for anyone given this is really a lvl18+ event. Pretty much everyone at that level has a phiarlan pendant of speed, which provides +50% enhancement bonus to movement speed.. Exact same as the haste boost. (It gives you the challenge superspeed version, which is +50% movement, and +30% attack). I mean the extra attack is beyond what youd have, but those gerbils you kill take 1 hit anyways, so that doesnt matter. So it is weird to make that not work on monks, given their advantage applies equally regardless of that.

And yea its pretty clear it doesnt stack, another +50% on top of the pendant would be insanely easy to notice.

Sprint boost works on the ice, as does monk speed, abundant step, wind stance, etc.. So best classes at this would be Monk, Barbarian, Fvs and Sorcerer with air savant. Ranger too I guess.

Sprints are less beneficial then monks passive boost tho, since there limited and its kind of a far run to the tavern to refill.

re: Time limit, its possible that finishing faster then the limit may increase score, havent tested that. Failing to finish in the 3 mins does reduce your score though i checked.

Another tip: Lower jump is actaully better here, and avoid the super jump as it really slows you down. There is only one purple I saw thats much of a jump, need about 30 to get it, so thats the sweet spot, 40+ slows you down slightly.

[Shade]

Few other issues I noticed:
Daily tokens are BTC, But the per day limit is per account, not per char.

So they really should be BTA. Important encase someone takes them on a non ideal classes and realizes the want to switch.

Else change the per day limit to per character and keep BTC to encourage players to use alts.

Other minor one:
Ice skate rental is 50 motes after the first set.. NPC doesn't recognize motes in bags and tells you have none unless you take them out.

Easier to spot the snowflakes with the UI turned off, however that also turns off the overhead popup display, so you cant track your score. Would be nice to have finer control over that.

[Diyon]

Sprint boost works on the ice, as does monk speed, abundant step, wind stance, etc.. So best classes at this would be Monk, Barbarian, Fvs and Sorcerer with air savant. Ranger too I guess.

Sprints are less beneficial then monks passive boost tho, since there limited and its kind of a far run to the tavern to refill.

I imagine that snowsliding wolf druids will be really good here. They have super step plus full +50% sprint boost that is fueled by SP, and can be maintained 2/3 of time (10 second buff, 15 second cooldown). With the time pendant going, the only thing that will cover ground faster is adding a barbarian lvl for the speed increase and a smaller sprint boost to use during that five seconds of cooldown without snowslide's buff.

[Shade]

I imagine that snowsliding wolf druids will be really good here. They have super step plus full +50% sprint boost that is fueled by SP, and can be maintained 2/3 of time (10 second buff, 15 second cooldown). With the time pendant going, the only thing that will cover ground faster is adding a barbarian lvl for the speed increase and a smaller sprint boost to use during that five seconds of cooldown without snowslide's buff.

Yea. After running another 3 today tho, it doesn't really seem all that hard to get every single snowflake and finish in time though, so trying it on my sorc with his wind step didnt seem much advantage.

Main thing that affects score is actaully just luck though.. The course is really way too randomized. Lots of purples/double point chances = 900+.. else you could only get 500 with bad luck ,even if you got everything.

[Krelar]

Easier to spot the snowflakes with the UI turned off, however that also turns off the overhead popup display, so you cant track your score. Would be nice to have finer control over that.

Could the UI layout be used to help some in this situation maybe? Create a bare bones layout with as much minimized or moved to the sides as possible and save it for running then load up your normal layout for questing? I haven't used the command very much so I'm not sure what limitations it might have.

[Shade]

Could the UI layout be used to help some in this situation maybe? Create a bare bones layout with as much minimized or moved to the sides as possible and save it for running then load up your normal layout for questing? I haven't used the command very much so I'm not sure what limitations it might have.

Yea it can and I actually did set that up.

Just saying the hide ui option could be improved. In the past it wasn't all or nothing, used to be able to at least display character names, with a toggle.. Now it hides everything, even things like that popup, which really shouldn't be hidden since they are temporarily and fade quickly.

[Marupal]

High score so far:


Most of the rest have been between 500-650.

I'm not seeing purples very often and never more than once per course. I'm not sure if I'm missing them due to the short draw distance being used for the snowflakes, if there's some hidey hole they tend to be in, or if they are purely random with a low chance of being generated on your run.

EDIT: There can be more than 1 per course. Ran into 2.
There was also a third that was directly above a jump but it disappeared when I got closer to it. o_O Are they able to move or was this some kind of artifact?

[SirShen]

My best score


But it really is down to luck. Some runs are SO bad and others you get lots of stuff.

[Shade]

New High score - 1207:
http://imageshack.us/a/img255/4468/1207jx.jpg

And yea its mostly luck, though there is definetely skill and strategy involved in a run like that.. Basically have to purposely pass most of the snowflakes, in search of voles.. Beat the voles for the 15 s double points , then head back for the snowflakes. I got double points on nearly every thing on the course on this run, and barely finished with 6 seconds to spare using lots of sprint boosts. Was 3 purples, think thats the most that can show up.. Maybe beatable if you can find 4 though.

Actually found the high jump useful on that run too for a change, as I had to jump back and forth from the end area where a vole was, to the upper ramps where the purples are twice.

Though on the other 2 runs of the day which were really poor courses, I still managed 700+ each, so it doesnt vary too wildy.. Mainly the purples dont show up often, which are ~80-270 points.

Tried out the new snowballs.. They actaully made them really pretty fun. Pure cold damage, and hit pretty hard.. 1k crit:
http://imageshack.us/a/img152/3718/1ksnowball.jpg
Also did a 1700 later on with a 3x blitz.

Thats on a barbarian, melee build.. The 4 guys who play thrower builds will have fun with em. They are costly on motes though.

[Marupal]

New high score:


It is about random luck but like Shade said, maximizing your double snowflake bonus makes a big difference. 500-800 is a common range.

It's going to hurt on Live trying to score low enough to get the base recipes, unless they're going to be showing up somewhere else or the loot tables are going to be modified.

[Marupal]

They changed things up a little with this last build.

Purples start showing up about a quarter of the way into the course but are harder to get.

The jump buff is now more useful but has a much shorter duration.

The last 3 runs I saw 4 purples on the course.

Maybe RNG was with me but 2 of the purples consistently were in the same location. Not sure about a third one, wasn't even paying attention to whether anything was there.

Haven't been able to break a score of 600 with the changes.

Random is still going to play a factor but the course looks like it's going to be more about strategy.

[Shade]

Yea patch the other day changed the course a bit:

- More everything overall. Mostly more low score snowflakes though
- Less randomized. Pretty much every run has at least 2 purples, and 3-5+ show up more frequently, but are much more difficult to get as they are placed much higher up to the point most many plain required the super jump buff.
- Super speed nerfed to 6 seconds (pointless change, this was only useful to players too noob/poor to afford the tangleroot pack at best)
- Super jump nerfed to 4 seconds
- Double points still 20/15s

Due to this, the theoretical max/average score should have gone up, but the difficulty of hitting those good scores is a lot higher, and more leaned towards fast/good jumping classes.

EG: One early purple you can get only with wings or super jump, but the super jump doesn't always show up anywhere near close enough due to its 4 second duration now.

Kinda poor design imo.. They made the super jumps worth getting, but still completely random so they are rarely where you need them.

I'd suggest either un nerf the duration so that non-wing classes can get them all, or set the super jump buffs to be static and always close enough to get the high jump purples.

The later is what id prefer, as it encourages skill and timing over strategy. As youd only get one shot with the 4s buff, but at least could get it imediately without backtracking.. Which feels like the intention of the course given the timer.

Plus at least one of them I could absolutely not get at all on my bbn, even with sprint boost + angel for wings. Seemed pretty much monk only, or get lucky enouth for a jump buff to show up below it (near the end).

Oh and i read the monk tip again, it said the voles dont give bonuses to monk classes, gues sthat can balance this out a bit.. Not sure thats impemented though as i spoted some monks beating on those voles a few times.

It also updated the lama DDO Store:
- Cider added. Was cheap and a worked as expected
- Ice skates added. Think they were like 2 points, obvs not the live price. Slightly new art/text on them, otherwise same as risia ones.
- Token added. And yes token, not plural. You can only buy one at a time, 20 points a pop. This is gonna major issues on live it it stays like that. As players will obviously want lots of them, and the only way to get lots will be the spam click quickbuy - something the DDOstore can't handle, especially if thousands of players do it... EG: Day 1 Lag News: Sorry the ddo store is temporarily unavailable. (While we update the store to let you buy more at a time)
- Astral Shards added.
- +2 to +3 upgrade tomes added (This actaully marks the first time you can get +3 tomes on lama here.. Odd considering +4s are on live)