The Rising Tides Event Observations

I just want to preface this post by stating that these were some of the things I discovered while going through the Rising Tides Event.  This is only my second event that I participated in on the site, so I cannot reference too many prior events.  The following are my opinions on the goods and bads of the Event:  Rising Tides and possible fixes that could be made in the future.  The purpose of this thread isn't to offend anyone nor was it to make anyone angry but as a possible tool to use for future events.

The Good
- Everything was in 1 centralized location so it was MUCH easier to find the event.  Unlike the Priory where it was spread out throughout multiple locations, it was much easier to find other sides of the event and read what was going on there.  So kudos there!

- The mods were a bit more active*  (Yup, asterisk because, well.. I'll explain down below in the Bad)

- There was a clear goal this time around.  Defeat Gargalrax.  Thank you for giving us a very clear goal as everyone know what to do.  This was something that the Priory sorely lacked.  

The Bad
These are a few things I feel could be improved upon.  Remember, these are simply my opinions.  I've hosted events before on other sites and, due to my experience, feel that there is room for improvement.

- Spotlighting only the higher ranks.  Going through this event, while I did have stuff to do, I didn't feel very important.  The X Rank NPC bothered with the H Ranks and higher ranking mages, however, lower ranking members either felt intimidated to have make an aggressive move on an X Rank or they felt that their contributions against the X Rank would amount to nothing.  While my character did rescue civilians, it felt as if it was for naught considering the lack of recognition from the moderators involved in the event.  
It didn't feel like my actions had any impact on the event, itself, which also made it feel like I was just background to what's actually going on in.  I felt this in the Priory as well.
What I would suggest is... for future events...  separating the event by rank so that:
D-C Ranks can evacuate citizens/do less combat driven actions appropriate to the event.
B-A Ranks can do w/e (up to the event moderators)
S-H Ranks can take on the BIG BAD.
This way, everyone in every rank has their own specific way to shine.  I find it hard for a D Rank to shine when an H Rank is bouncing around throwing bright and spectacular spells everywhere.  Events that cater to only higher ranking people just aren't engaging for lower ranking individuals.
The argument can be made where "Oh, you'll think differently when you're H Rank".  Maybe.  However, the fact still remains that the spotlight is taken away from the lower ranking mages that actually RP their asses off only to not get any form of recognition what-so-ever from the mod as the main focus of the mod is the boss; not the little scrubs the lower ranking mages are fighting off.

- Monsters and Monsters after Monsters.  The last two events followed the same formula:
Have 1 Big Bad
Have smaller mid-level bosses
Mid-Level bosses summon cannon fodder
People fight cannon fodder
Even more cannon fodder appears
People fight more cannon fodder
This formula is over-used and just isn't fun.  If I may be bold to assert, that formula is just flat-out boring.  We weren't given much of a backstory on this event. I didn't care for any of the NPCs involved in this event and my character had almost no reason to fear the Big Bad.  While I do recognize that Fairy Tail is a very battle oriented anime, I don't think that fighting things constantly makes RPing any more fun than having an interesting scenario to tackle.  
This also comes down to focus as well.  If the main focus of a topic is to fight an X Rank Mid-Level boss, then having people fight the cannon fodder feels pointless as it doesn't contribute at all to the storyline of that topic.  

- Moderators not posting frequently.  Yes, this is contrary to one of the good points in the event.  Once Gargalrax was offed, it felt like the mods stopped caring about the event (almost refusing to post at this point).  Now this wouldn't be too bad if a replacement was performed in a timely fashion.  I know this happened in 2 of the topics where replacements just weren't found/picked for the event which caused 2 of the threads to just die out (because people forgot them, to be honest).  
If a moderator were to request a replacement, a replacement should be chosen in a timely manner.  If not, the people responsible for the event should have stepped up and took the reins whether they wanted to or not so that the event went smoothly.  Unfortunately, it felt like that didn't happen and the event (for 2 of the threads) just went defunct.

- The first part of the event.  While I understand what they were trying to do, I didn't like having to wait a whole month before I could make my first post.  At that point, it was hard to get into the event because I honestly stopped caring about it due to how long it took just to get started.  In this time, I had enough time to rank up, make new magic, get that approve, and almost finish a job before I was able to post.  (And be locked at C Rank, yaaaaay).
One way to alleviate something like this from happening again is to get rid of the posting order.  If you remove posting order, but restrict it to posting once per "round" so to speak, you will have people be a bit more active during these events.
Also, if you get rid of posting order, you can change the "round" restriction to 3 days before the next mod is put up.  Keeping a posting order makes everything take SOOOO LOOOOONG.  While I agree that posting order is good in some things, something as big as an event should NOT have a posting order.

- The Rewards.  While I understand that the Event is made to further the storyline of the site, I feel the rewards that are attached to them are crummy.  The rewards for D-B Rank for regular activity and 400 word posts are B Rank EXP and some Jewels.  While the jewels is fine, the EXP is just awful.  A D Rank will benefit from that; however, with how long these events last, the D Rank will be B Rank so they only get B Rank experience.  And the B Ranks that follow that only get B Rank EXP is crummy since a B Rank could knock out about 3-4 A Rank jobs in the time it takes for an event like this to finish.
While I don't think the Jewel Rewards should change, the EXP rewards ought to.  Simply put, you could have the EXP rewards be:
Do an OK job?:  Your Rank (at time of completion) EXP + Jewels
Do a good job?:  Double Your Rank (at the time of completion) EXP + Jewels
Do a GREAT job?:  1 Rank above your rank (at the time of completion) EXP + Jewels
While you may say "But why your rank at the time of completion?" because by the time most people who regularly do jobs get finished with the event, the EXP they gain from the event with the current system is pointless.  
TL;DR:  The Rewards for the event are poopy.

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These were just some of my observations from the event. This wasn't meant to be inflammatory and these are just my opinions as a player as well as suggestions on how to make things better in the future (subjectively speaking).

I agree with all of this. Nothing more to say. Except that while Rising Tides had its flaws, it was still an incredibly fun event! ^^

Though I did not participate in the event, from an outside point of view, I agree with this as well. ..

I will also make my own point. Staff should not man the events. By that, I mean staff shouldn't play the npc's and bad guys. We have a event org/staff for a reason, they can man ALL the npc's.

I say this, because of staff activity, if they dedicate their site time ( some have little available time ) to making timely posts in a demanding event, it takes away from their responsibilities and duties as staff.

I can understand it if the dedicated staff picked up slack from those that are manning the event, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Ravana wrote:Though I did not participate in the event, from an outside point of view, I agree with this as well. ..

I will also make my own point. Staff should not man the events. By that, I mean staff shouldn't play the npc's and bad guys. We have a event org/staff for a reason, they can man ALL the npc's.

I say this, because of staff activity, if they dedicate their site time ( some have little available time ) to making timely posts in a demanding event, it takes away from their responsibilities and duties as staff.

I can understand it if the dedicated staff picked up slack from those that are manning the event, but that didn't seem to be the case.

The only staff member that played a role in this event was Ariel who was played by Alyia and Kyoden. Kakuma was not a staff at the beginning of the event, the activity of the event cannot be placed on the staff.

When Kakuma was brought into the event to play Vic he was already a trial mod.
Akryn played the monster. He was staff during this time.

Kakuma was not.
And Akryn soon left staff soon after the event started.

This isn't the place to derail the topic.
When I said staff, I mean everyone that isn't a normal player (to include moderators, admin, and event team).  I'm also pretty sure that's what Ravana meant as well. This isn't the place to derail the topic.  If you would like to argue over semantics, please take that to PM.

Actually Akryn was the monster the entire time Evia. Just to clarify. 

<---Event and Dev Team.

But I plan on fixing a lot of these problems in Bosco. Which I am still trying to do, now that I got backing.

Even then, I was not saying that Staff was even playing the npc's in Rising Tides, so defensive... I know, for sure, that they have in the past. Like the Priory event, which was brought up in Ana's post. My point was to suggest it from happening again. *shrugs*

Thank you Ard, for taking Ana's advice into considerations. ^^