Lack of (metaphorical) easter eggs in seasonal events like Hatching Tide

[Minali]

Hello,

I am aware seasonal events are just a neat little thing inbetween and in general I like the stories. One could debate about how much content should be involved in there. Just running to five NPCs in one city state or so seems a bit dull to me, but at the same time I am also a person with multiple alts and I know farming that ghost hunting duty in that clown themed All Saint's Wake event a while back became tedious at a point. It's tough to find a good balance. If one considers a reward appropriate or not is highly subjective, so I won't mention it here.

However, quests and loot are not what this thread is about, this is about the stuff happening in the game during the event. What I was always looking forward to were the interactions during or after the event quest, depending on your MSQ and side quest progress. I still remember a Hatching Tide where I was running all over Gridania and talking with known NPCs from all other the game dressed in chicken and rabbit costumes. Figuring out who was who and hearing their motivations to visit was a big joy for me. Same goes for the letters I received on multiple occasions, one Valentione's Day I believe, depending on story progress. It's the little things and nods that made these events truly special for me. (Shoutout to Chicken Gaius and his companion! ) It made this world feel alive, like the city in question was really celebrating and visiting and enjoying things together.

In the latest events there rarely was any of that though. If there was a special NPC they were standing right in front of the quest location but nowhere else, as if outside of e.g. the Amphitheater nobody would care about this supposedly big event important for everyone far and wide. Most were NPCs from previous iterations of this seasonal event or someone local.
This time there is one NPC from the EW Alliance Raid, which is nice, but you can't even interact with them for a short "Hi, enjoy the festivities!" or something.

The letters from the developers during the Rising event were extremely awesome to read and so heartwarming, I appreciated them very much. However, it seems this would be more the exception than the rule...

Yes, I know, the devs are busy with a new expansion, but this is not their first expansion. They have managed to create interesting seasonal events for years despite being busy working on new patches or expansions or fixing bugs and whatever. And putting a person in a chicken costume next to the Leatherworkers or some such with a short sentence shouldn't be that much of an extra effort that it couldn't get squeezed into the schedule.

Please put some more work into seasonal events again. I don't need twenty mounts per event or whatever, or a super elaborate dungeon or whatever. However, at the moment they feel like we only get the absolute bare minimum in terms of story and appreciation for the event and that's very disappointing, at least for a person who knows previous iterations.

[Supersnow845]

Deryk is the only good part of this event and you can’t even actually talk to him directly

The bar is just that low

But also give me more deryk, he is my WOL’s husband

[AzhreiVahlok]

I'm really disappointed in this combined event (and i'm not the only one).... did it in like 20 minutes, all i got was a goobue mount lol.. Where's the furniture to buy? Looks like they made a bunch of new stuff this year for decorations. I may be wrong but check out housing wards, there's a GIANT picnic mat w/umbrella (and like a small table with birds on it), cherry trees now in planters, new screens... even potted flowers i don't remember. Go to the dappled stalls Tele in a Gridania housing ward, or down to the MB in the middle (past the house u can jump on from the cliff). What's disappointing is that there's nothing to buy at the event npc but a dumb .. firework? prism thing... Where's the event furniture? That egg basket with the egg balloon tied to it on the Amphitheatre stage woulda looked nice outside FC houses in the yard... :/

[DrWho2010]

There's tons of old furnishings and hoi polloi for you to buy on the online store! Remember this has been around for 10 years, how many egg dishes can you turn into in game stuff to play house?

[Minali]

You don't often get a mount and furniture in an event though, from what I remember (and looked up in a wiki, although I didn't check every event.) Furniture is usually when you also get a minion, a glam or an orchestrion roll, or an emote. Last hatching-tide that gave a mount was 2017. (This one actually came with a wallpaper, but nothing else.)

That said, it was not an entirely new mount, just a recoloured Goobbue, and it's two events combined as one... But then again it was also just running through the area for 15 minutes and watching a goobbue doing funny things, it's tough to say what would or wouldn't be appropriate. That's precisely why I didn't make this thread about the loot. I dislike Goobbues in general, so I'm probably not going to use this mount a lot, except during Hatching-tide, but I am sure many others will love it because they like Goobbues and because it's a mount and not a glam or orchestrion roll. On the other hand, I was super thrilled about that Happy Bunny minion, I wanted these bunnies as minion since I first saw them in Eureka. However, I know many people didn't like them either because Eureka made them hate them or because they considered this shaking animation unsettling. And other people might not have liked it because it wasn't a mount. Different people like different things.

[AzhreiVahlok]

a me problem? sorry i didnt' realize i was a game dev that did this.... There's always something worth geting at that booth, aside from some meh firework or w/e. This time that's all there is (i'm not counting a reskinned goobbue that most wont' use more then 5 minutes) and they COMBINED two events? c'mon man... pull your head outta your butt...