Happy Musings Thursday my friends! I’m back with another musings post for you. I’ve got some thoughts, so let’s get to ’em…
Alright, guys, we’re in the home-stretch of the Black History Event (it ends 1 week from today…10am ET) and now it’s time to share my overall thoughts on the event.
I covered some initial thoughts a couple of weeks ago here, and as promised now it’s time to share my final thoughts. You guys know I like to reserve judgment until an event is over (or almost over), so let’s get to it…
The Good
-I’m glad EA FINALLY tackled Black History. This event was long overdue and was nice to see it finally hit our pocket-sized towns. We’ve had Virgil’s cabin forever…it’s nice to finally have Virgil to go along with it!
-The price on the Gil “Deal”. 150 donuts was FINALLY a fair price for a Gil deal. The Patriarch isn’t over-priced, and he’s a fun character. So, for a change, this event brought along a good Gil “Deal”.
-Mabel is easily the BEST premium character of this event. Aside from the fact that she’s a Marge doppelganger (which is weird because she’s HOMER’s relative…not Marge’s), she’s a fun addition to this event. The Candian Border, the “building” Mabel comes with, actually makes sense as a combo item with Mabel. And…Mabel will actually use the border! Plus she’s voiced.
-4 out of 5 prizes on the prize track were new content. And each Act had at least 1 new Freemium character, with Act 2 having two new characters.
-Premium characters can be used for more than 1 act to earn event currency. This was something that used to happen when you purchased and event-specific premium character, that character would earn currency throughout the entire event. However, it disappeared in recent years, so it’s nice to see it make a comeback for this event. Really makes premium characters worth buying during an event, instead of waiting for a Mystery Box.
-The Dialogue. The dialogue with this event was great! Nice to see the writers return to form after the awful dialogue of Days of Future Passed…
The Bad
-Virgil doesn’t use his cabin. What a missed opportunity!
-Buildings and characters in the premium offers didn’t really go together. Why is Hibbert’s Father with the Moving On Building? And Hard Lad with Stoogie? Both buildings are from future episodes…but the characters are not.
-Jay G bundle available in the store even if the player already had the bundle. This was just a bad optic and frustrating for a number of players.
The Ugly
-Prizes on the Black History Event prize track from Future episodes of The Simpsons. Talk about disjointed…
-9 day Acts. Players have been going on 1 week Acts for over a year now, making the Acts 9 days was confusing and led to a lot of players unsure if they still had time to complete the act, if they were on schedule, or even just when the heck the next part started. Making Acts 1 (or 2) week(s), allows for a uniform start date for each new act, which is a little easier on players.
-EA tried to make the event harder by upping the currency requirements. Yes, this was harder…but it was also boring the frustrating. TSTO players don’t want harder for the sake of harder…they want harder with puzzles, games, and other achievement markers.
Final Thoughts
Overall I’d give this event a C+. They tried to do something fun, so give them credit for that, but their efforts kind of imploded on them.
Thoughts? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!
D – 9 Days instead of a Week is bs. Rita Le Fleur Quest blocked. Bart Screen of Death WAY to often…. and the increased currency…. Nope, that event was for the trash can.
D-
After playing for 7 1/2 years, This will be the first event in which I didn’t complete a single act…and I don’t really care. If there had been some actual historic characters (Harriet Tubman? Malcom X? Fredrick Douglas? George Washington Carver?) I might have cared.
The Good
– The Black History theme
– Other characters get to shine such as Carl, Lou the Cop, and Dr. Hibbert
– new characters come to Springfield
– Golden Goose Building is back for those who missed out the first time around.
The Bad
– same ol’ multi-event format (Yarn…)
– 9-day cycles make 4-hr grinds even more of a drag
– the decorations are meh (plus they don’t even have an XP bonus)
– no Valentine’s day mystery box (its been like this for the past year with no holiday-related boxes)
The Ugly
– BART SCREEN OF DEATH!
– Bird noise still heard during the splash screen.
Almost done with this event. As soon as I unlock Virgil (along with maxing out my in-game cash, which is almost at the Max Limit), no more Tapping Out for me until the next mini/multi-event, which will about 1 or 2 weeks by now.
Final grade = D+
GRADE : D (and that’s being generous!)
NEW CHARACTERS : 9 (4 Premium, 5 Event Prizes)
Abraham J. Simpson the 1st (a Bart Simpson lookalike) and Virgil Simpson may be “New Characters” , but they’re also Characters stuck doing Tasks at the Brown House (doesn’t get any L-EA-Z-Y(ier) then that!)
The Patriarch and Mabel Simpson (Marge Simpson lookalike) both were the best Premium Character Building Combos (best Visual Tasks, came with the best Building accurate to the Character) and EA was thanked on social networks for this!
But there’s 5 New Characters I’m left going woop-dee-doo over (I can’t defend EA’s decisions to offer up new Characters with dumb Visual Tasks, or a Character you weren’t looking forward to, or didn’t seem as a good choice to represent Black History Month, or weren’t worth the Grind and / or using 🍩’s to expedite obtaining!)
NEW BUILDINGS : 5 (only 1 was an Event Prize)
2 Buildings actually are cohesive to the Premium Characters they came with (the Patriarch and Mabel Simpson). 3 were cast off’s from the “Days of Future Passed” Event (they didn’t belong in this Event, only 1 of them has Character Tasks) and that’s pure L-EA-Z-Y to me!
NEW BUILDING SKIN : 1
What a waste of an Event Prize (not looking forward to this being the new norm!) I won’t defend this as new Content! Same with Character Task as Event Prize (that’s just a nope!)
NEW DECOR : 7 (1 offers a Character Task)
An utter waste! Only 1 offers a Character Task, the rest go right into Storage (blame Item Limits – but also? if it doesn’t increase your Bonus %, or allows for creatively showing off your Springfield? it’s an utter waste!)
RETURNING CHARACTERS 14 (includes 3 University Nerds offered as a group, 1 Character with 1 NPC Pet)
The Black History Month Mystery Box could be deemed more rewarding then the Event Prizes IF you actually had Content to obtain (I got the University Nerds, then Lewis Clark with the Mighty Pigs Practice Rink) vs 1 Token = 12 🍩’s (not worth the Grind!)
RETURNING BUILDINGS : 7 (3 Mystery Box, 1 Bundled with Character non Mystery Box, 3 without a Character)
If you never obtained the Golden Goose Reality? That truly was the only reward in this Event (along with any Character Building Combo from the Black History Month Mystery Box) and you could thank EA for bringing it back. For the rest of us, chances are only a few were worth the Grind, or expediting for (or it wasn’t worth it at all!)
There was a generous 🍩’s offer (Truckload of 300 🍩’s + 25% Bonus = 375 🍩’s!) did I take that offer? No! As long as the Bart Simpson Screen of Death keeps popping up (EA has Network / Origin Account problems on a global level they need to fix!) with so few new Content worth your time (Item Limits need increasing and the Load Screen audio noise hasn’t been dealt with!) I’m not rewarding EA for being L-EA-Z-Y!
You could say this Event was Rewarding, Punishing, or both (I considered it more Punishing then Rewarding!) There are back stories to Dr. Hibbert, Carl Carlson, Police Sargeant Lou which didn’t get explored in Game (a shame, really!) 9 Days for an Act with more Event Currency to obtain using a stale format is a hard nope!
I’m still working on Week 4, and I absolutely hate this update. It is so badly executed. Why do you have to pay so much for each of the decorations and characters? This will be the first TSTO update since the game was created that I will disregard if I don’t get to complete it officially.
I feel you! There are so few things worth thanking EA for (a chance to obtain the Golden Goose Reality if you missed it last time), or less new Content (including Premiums) worth the effort …. I hope EA takes the time to consider that certain changes weren’t necessarily the right ones to make with regards to Event format.
The event was awful. Boring. But boring events is all EA has been giving us for years now, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. An event should be more than just what I do on any given day with my characters. Plus, I’ve been tapping at least 3x a day and I’m no where near being finished – and this fiasco ends on the 12! Not happy. Not happy at all. A D rating at the absolute best.
You are mild Alissa; for me it’s more like a D. And then i’m rather generous. The massive grind for let’s say mediocer prices…Even with the new Premiums you had to log in at least 4 times, which i don’t do anymore. In the old days the events were sometimes very hard too, but more challanging. Like neighbours actions, or thîngs to do in your town,, even if it was tapping minuscule thîngs you could hardly see. Please ea, probably it’s programmed already, change it a bit and let us enjoy the game again
Written by a less cranky guy than Patric
i give it a solid D-… the prizes specially on the last leg… argh… i’ll just leave it at that… D-… and that’s pushing it…
Yep, D from me as well, if it wasn’t for the good dialogue it would have been an E.
Sorry but you have to do better EA.
I agree with you points Alissa, the theme of Black History was neat but the extended time and future item fillers wasn’t the best ideas. Some more points that I think could be included:
The Good:
*Golden Goose Realty returned in the store so everyone has a chance to get land tokens.
*Some rarely used locations like the Rigellian Construction Site, White House, Heavenly Swing Set/Ten Commandments, Community Centre, Springfield U, and the Monorail Station got used by characters during the event.
*The new characters were the best items in the event along with a couple of new buildings.
The Good/Bad:
*The tokens are a great way for (some not all) newer/freemium players to get a premium character and building/decoration combo for free in the mystery box.
*The tokens were also useless to (some not all) long time/premium players who had all items and could only use the tokens to get 12 donuts.
*A tiny promotion for the new Simpsons short gave Maggie another 4 hour visual task but was a something different aside the event.
*Martin and Carl got new visual tasks which relates to Black History.
The Bad:
*If players got Rita LaFleur during the event, her questline is blocked on part 2 and the majority of her tasks are locked out because of the missing building (Fallen Diva Apartments). Like the Jay G Bundle, these should’ve been patched by EA at the start of the event.
*No new or returning cash items were available to buy in the event only the bully crowd for donuts.
*The items all don’t really fit in a themed area apart from Virgil’s stuff or the future items. They were mainly decorations that could be added in existing areas.
*The Crematorium Bot is already an item in the game from an update nearly 6 years ago.
The Ugly:
*The characters used to earn the currency for prizes in each act are all the same instead of having different characters working on different currencies.
*No Valentine or “big game” update was released during the event.
*The obvious issues in TSTO such as the item limit, sound bug on loading screen and the missing friend actions still are not sorted out.
*The EA network went down a few times during the event.
Overall, I appreciate EA trying something different in terms of gameplay with the 36 day event and increased (and different each act excluding the characters and tokens) prize totals compared to the last 3 multi events that had the same 50 and 100 totals in all 4 acts over 4 weeks but even for a freemium 6 year player like myself, it is/was difficult to login 4-5 times a day every 4 hours without rushing with donuts.
I got all the prizes in acts 1-3 and currently working towards Mabel’s Wagon now so I’ll probably get Virgil Simpson by Wednesday the earliest. I grade the update a B-/C+ because along with the new items I also got Golden Goose Realty, Lewis Clark and Sideshow Raheem in this update.
Golden Goose Realty! Everything else is gravy…
Oh yea, i forgot all about that lol
Well, you did mention that obtaining each Act’s Premium Character Building Combo did help with obtaining more Event Currency – and we got to keep using all of them for each Act (the was new and considerate by EA).
Yes, I finally got GGR for my second Springfield, by far the best thing, though some of the premium characters were worth the effort of regular donut farming. Most of the rest felt like a bit of a slog.
My guess is that EA wants players to “buy” the free prizes with donuts, by making it very hard to get the prizes just by tapping, and making it necessary to use donuts to speed the endless collection of stethoscopes, hard hats, etc, along. Maybe players are not buying enough donuts to use on premium stuff, so this is EA’s way of forcing players to buy the donuts anyway. Or maybe EA is pissed about the donut farming. I have no idea what percentage of players farm, but perhaps this is a type of punishment for it. I am very stingy with my donuts, and if I have to use them to speed things up, it will be only with the farmed variety. I liked the 7 day event cycles that started on a Wednesday. I always finished on Sunday, and then went back to using the main characters to recycle, in order to get donuts. I haven’t finished a single 9 day cycle, and have never enjoyed the game less.
I sometimes wonder if the increased frequency of the Bart screen of death is a form of punishment for donut farming as it seems to happen more often when collecting from KEMs or Rat Trap trucks.
It’s not a punishment…it’s a weakness in their servers. The donut awarding requires bouncing across both servers, game play and ID servers…as well as specific math algorithms to calculate the Bonus %. It seems clear that these servers stopped getting upgraded a while back- and so loads of pounding with multiple routines, makes them barf the connection.
Lack of attention and resources. Not a punishment.
An A for the story, F for the rewards pace. I’m on week 3 prize two. I’ll be lucky to make it to week four. I can get 165 a day during the week and 220/275 on the weekends. Just no way without spending donuts. Agree with most, I like that it’s harder, but it’s too hard and a grind. If you are going to make it this hard, at least give us something besides sending the same few characters out for the same four hour task.
So the average would be a C?
Since the last few events were easier I simply didn’t get on as much as usual and consequently didn’t get very far with this event, which is considerably harder. I just don’t want to have to get on the game every four hours anymore.
I totally agree, I think it’s a great idea but poorly executed, the levels required to reach each target are just too high making this a real grind to achieve, not sure if I’ll get to complete it in time, in fact, pretty sure I won’t. Don’t understand why EA have made this such a challenge when compared to previous tasks.
ok this event stinks cant finish it unless you on it 24 7 or buy extra chars and not one item that is worth a dam lots of bla bla bla that no one has ever seen only thing worth is the number four prize the token ok but crematorium bot who cares
A B from me for quality of content. Probably a B+ if it hadn’t required premium characters to realistically complete each act.
Give it a B for dialogue alone.
I liked the longer weeks as I haven’t been able to tap as regularly.
Some very cool prizes. Really like Canada. Gorgeous.
Marge said she sells medicinal marijuana in season 31. Hilarious. Guess they aren’t cancelling the series after all…
This event has definitely been harder, I’ve struggled to keep up with the prize tracks – not helped by the 100% overlap of characters on each act. Previously it’s been possible to “mop up” the previous act.
Lots of cool content though 🙂
I would give it an D, not much I wanted to have and static and boring. Got the icerink, happy for that.
I agree, D. It had potential, but they wasted it.