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There were complaints during DD that people felt under pressure to keep grinding, and ended up feeling burnt out.

Is there anything the devs could have done that wasn't done, to reduce this sense of pressure?

It was stated that you only had to contribute one item to a stage in order to qualify for the reward for that stage.

It was stated that you could contribute the item either while the bars were filling up or during the resting period that followed.

It was stated that each new stage would be manually triggered by a staff member during their normal working hours, and not necessarily the very moment they walked through the door: we were given specific times for each of them to occur.

And it was clear that each time period was being determined by when the previous tunnel was completed - they wanted each stage to last a minimum of 24 hours, and the exact time of the reset was based on when players from all timezones and with varying obligations might reasonably be thought to have had an opportunity to gain and hand in some items.

It was stated that you only had to hand in one item during the whole event in order to qualify for the overall prize (although people still managed to misunderstand that).


One thing that *was* done, but I think could have been communicated more clearly, is that once a player qualified for a chest, they could pick it up at any time thereafter, by clicking back to the stage when they qualified for it.

I saw people were worried that if they didn't pick up their prize before the next stage opened, they'd miss out on getting it. That's one thing that needs to be different for future events.

What else can the devs put in place so that people aren't worried they have to grind endlessly, or that they might miss out on a prize?

I think the biggest mistake was just making the last stage so much lantern oil that it burned out even the most dedicate of people. While the other bars filled up quickly, I believe someone worked out that lantern oil was set at one million, while the others were less than half that. The scaling was way off and I think it needs to be more even for future events like this.

I think burnout is just an issue that came from the players, not the staff. We had no time limit to get this done and we got items from all regular gameplay features, so there was no need to go into a grinding spree. I didn't do more than I would have normally done. All staff can do is to remind people that there is no need to hurry.

I do however think that a future event like this does need some adjustments, but this was a good test-run so to say.

Like it would be very useful to be able to exchange item A for item B with an exchange rate of 3:1 or so. So when eventually one or two tasks are filled, those items just don't pile up and be useless.

Yeah, I feel like the devs made everything to do this the less stressful possible way (except maybe the last goal needed a bit much items ? But it was good for the sake of event hype), and the pressure was only made up by people :/ unfortunatly there's nothing you can do to prevent people from feeling they need to do a non-time limited thing as fast as possible, and it's difficult to prevent easily influenced people to read the hyped people messages and think "I must do this now".
I know the devs rarely speak in the forums, but during the event they showed up a few times to reassure people (I remember Aequorin saying something along the lines of "no you won't miss anything, don't pull out an all-nighter for this, go to bed please")
The only thing I feel they could have done is post more messages each time there was a news box (maybe even on the DD page) like "don't burn out yourself, there's no time limit to finish this and everyone will have plenty of time to grab rewards"
But even then, it may be seen as considering the player base as kids ? needing to tell people they have to go to bed in order not to hurt themself with grinding :/ I don't think they could have done more than what was already done

In addition to the things already said, I think part of what burnt people out was that FOMO with this first-time, special event. So if it should happen again, now that people know that there's really no gain in rushing to the end (because maintenance was announced before we reached the end but only after it became clear that we were nearing it, so there was no way we'd get the final reward before 9:00FRT today), it would probably not be quite so bad.

There's also the possibility that the burnt out players are very vocal, but just a minority, while the players who didn't burn out and just participated in the event didn't post on the forums.

So in my opinion, "normalizing" this event should fix the burn-out. If you think about it, it was less... rigorous/intensive than festival grinding, where more currency actually means more items and the timeframe is known in advance. Since it was FR's first event (to my knowledge) of this type where more is not necessarily better, users might not have known how to go into it.

All in all, I really appreciated the pacing of this event, because it didn't demand I drop everything IRL to participate so I can get a good reward. I agree there are QoL changes I'd appreciate (the already mentioned item conversion), but the pacing was really nice.

[quote name="Kahvinporo" date="2021-06-16 00:53:18" ] I think burnout is just an issue that came from the players, not the staff. We had no time limit to get this done and we got items from all regular gameplay features, so there was no need to go into a grinding spree. I didn't do more than I would have normally done. All staff can do is to remind people that there is no need to hurry. I do however think that a future event like this does need some adjustments, but this was a good test-run so to say. Like it would be very useful to be able to exchange item A for item B with an exchange rate of 3:1 or so. So when eventually one or two tasks are filled, those items just don't pile up and be useless. [/quote] Sadly, burnout is an issue that players themselves have to learn to deal with, especially on FR. I have played games that encourage you to spend hours at a time grinding it, because there are super special, limited time only rewards for doing it, but that isn't the case with FR. There was no time limit, the event was going to end whenever players finished it. It was basically players themselves who decided that 'we must finish this NOW' and thus started grinding as intensely as possible. I don't even think that more warnings are necessary, because staff DID post and tell people to not grind too much etc... So, for FR specifically, I don't really think that there is anything that would help reduce burnout, because the people who want the event to end now so they get the rewards, are going to grind as much as possible to achieve that. The event wasn't time limited, nor were the rewards for each stage 'unique' to that event, and you only had to put one item in each stage to get the final reward (which is presumeably unique), so the event was as casual as the developers could make it without just giving everyone the final reward and no event. Only thing that could potentially be done is to say 'this stage isn't going to finish BEFORE 48 hours is up' or 'this stage will last a minimum of 48 hours'. However, I would see that upsetting people who want the event to finish as quickly as possible, but now know they have at least 2 days before the next milestone.

[quote name="LuminAgricola" date="2021-06-15 23:07:43" ] There were complaints during DD that people felt under pressure to keep grinding, and ended up feeling burnt out. [/quote] You cannot control what people feel the need to do - and there were already a lot of safeguards.