(I’m throwing this here because there’s a possibility it might have too much general discussion to be productive feedback)

As the hours are winding down for this year’s Icerun Seasonal, I’m curious about what people’s thoughts are about it now that everything is pretty much done! I ended up muscling my way into the 7th tier of the Pebble Pass and I’m not going for any more. I was able to snatch up one full set of everything that’s going to be soft-retired, which I’m very pleased about. My initial plan was to go for at least two sets each, but I got burned out towards the middle and hardly looked at the shop page for 2 weeks. I know I wasn’t alone in that, and I think it was this event’s biggest drawback for me: it’s actually not that fun to do the same ~16 tasks (I never actually counted) for an entire month— or 550 times just to fully complete the Pebble Path.

On the whole, I know that the taskload is reasonably manageable if you stay consistent. I think the math turned out to about 19 tasks a day if you spread it all out, give or take a few? I just didn’t stick with it as much as I should have. I don’t know. I have mixed feelings on the whole thing, but I’m leaning towards the positive. I liked it, even if it felt like a slog a lot of the time, and I’m very happy that the ticket tier rewards were adjusted. I don’t think I would have made it through otherwise.

I thought the event was brilliant! I was able to get every piece of apparel and a fair number of event companions.

For me, having an entire month was great. I could take much-needed breaks between grinding and still get the stuff I wanted. That was a big deal because on other sites I have to grind even when I don't want to in order to get the event stuff. It seemed really laid back and not a mad rush. Super satisfying. :)

At first I felt really overwhelmed that the event lasted all month, but I’ve adjusted and I like having extra stuff to do during January. I’m looking forward to the next seasonal, whether that’s Murkwood or Goldsea.

There were many times that I would buy random pieces in arena, not to play, but to fill up the activity bar. While it felt ‘fun’ in that I could easily fill up the bar if I wanted, it was also boring and made me feel bad if I didn’t do it.

There was a pain point if I happened to get double ‘Combine Pieces in Arena’ and double ‘Defeat Icerun Bosses’ together. Having only two other activities to do often made me feel like I wasn’t doubling up effectively in my choice between Campaign and Seasonal Arena. I’d really like to see a replacement for the bigger ‘Combine Pieces’ and ‘Defeat Icerun bosses’ variants so that they can’t double up like that, with each other, in the future.

For the site's first major event, it has been somewhat enjoyable. However, I feel like the tasks that counted any significant number of tickets became far too repetitive. Even letting any stage's final boss count towards the boss task would have gone a long way; once the event is over I think it will be a very long time before I visit Icerun 3 again.

I think having more pathways to earn tickets would go a long way, similar to daily activities - more tickets for releasing higher level / level 10 wolves, tickets for crafting, cooking etc. (could be thematically related back to cooking supplies for the troops).

If the next major event has the same focus on area 3 / specialty arena I see many, many people just entirely disengaging with the event entirely.

I managed to complete the pass, get one of everything in the event shop, and just now made it past round 30 in the trials, and all in all feel pretty satisfied with the way the first event was handled. Not gonna lie, I was very intimidated when I saw the steep ticket prices of the items in the event shop, but I did the math and figured out a daily ticket amount I'd have to get to obtain everything, and usually ended up doubling that amount per day in the beginning anyways. Then we got the awesome rework and were given bonus tickets which greatly cut back on the amount of daily tickets one would have to gather if they were evenly dividing their work throughout the month. Not to mention that you basically earn back most/all of your pebbles put into it from the payouts you earn and the items you're rewarded.

I think I'd like to see some more variation in the tasks for the next factional event, but the ones we had were easy enough to complete, if tedious at times. I feel bad for users who didn't have huge food stores to grind, though. I have hoards of fish, crops, and prepared dishes that greatly aided me in jumping into the campaign and trials over and over again. Big events like these are probably more grueling on newer members or those with fewer resources.

For what it was, all in all I didn't mind it. I would have liked to see more lore or story coming out gradually as we played throughout the month, though. The story in the beginning was interesting enough, but being left to our own devices after that for the remainder of such a long period kinda made me zone out a bit and go through the motions. I guess I didn't mind the boss fights and consumed mobs. Good synergy builds will ensure you never lose to them--I focused on building for Assailant, Tactician, and Dueler, though obviously support synergies like Protector and Healer work great, too. Did feel just a tad bit limiting having to stick to third zone for the event in order to encounter those bosses for the activities, and again, I feel like newer users with fewer companions and lower level wolves are gonna have to hit the ground running play catch up to be able to make any kind of progress in something like this.

I guess I don't really have any meaningful suggestions moving forward, though, other than wanting to see more variety in activity tasks and more story beats unlocked/released throughout the event.

It was pretty good for their first big event, though!