Event Coins. Better methods of distributing?

Suggestions
1

How the events were done in Tower always felt odd to me, for the most part I’ve been hoping the coin system was kind of a place holder for the time being but years later it’s still here. I’m posting this in suggestions but it’s more of a discussion because I wanna know how others feel about this system and how it can be improved.

Currently during the Halloween, Holiday and Anniversary event, playing any activity that rewards units will also give you a coin to spend in their respective shops. However there’s a small delay between each coin drop. This system works as it encourages players to play the game more during the event. But here’s a few personal nitpicks.

  • Only some parts of Tower Unite reward these coins. Condo decorating, theater watching or just plain socializing, the main draw of this game doesn’t provide seasonal incentives.

  • The coin drops are time sensitive. As much as I wanna goof off and do things in tower, there’s a consent thought of in my head to just play a minigame, anything it doesn’t matter because I can get a coin in this very moment. You’re not participating in an activity because you want too, but because you feel like you need too.

  • Burn out. Since these coins are only obtained by activities you feel pressured to marathon games just to keep obtaining these coins. This system should incentivize players to keep playing but I feel like it’s causing the inverse by quickly burning players out.

  • The time between events. Halloween into Holiday is only a one month gap. Players farming the Halloween event big time are most likely more than burnt out to even participate in the Holiday event. Meanwhile the opposite of this problem is also an issue where there’s a big gap between Holiday into Anniversary and Anniversary into Halloween. Basically two major seasonal events so close and then basically nothing for the rest of the year. OBVIOUSLY Halloween and Holiday being so close isn’t your fault but felt it was worth pointing out with burn out being something to consider. Meanwhile it may be worth it to sprinkle more annual events throughout the year like maybe a carnival attraction or theme in the summer, something in-between Holiday and Anniversary, etc.

  • Unmotivating to play outside of events. With a system that encourages you to play during the events, why should you bother playing Tower when there isn’t an event going on? This is the double edge sword of this system because I do wanna play this game when I want to. But there’s always the thought of wait till there’s an event, you’ll get rewards by playing then! This thought process is something I feel this game should avoid at all costs.

  • And lastly, the pricing. You only get 1 coin at a time, meanwhile seasonal store items can go up into the double digits, and there’s a lot of them. As a completionist it’s only natural to wanna buy one of everything but there’s just a lot of items and that catalogue will only get bigger and bigger over time. And that’s just considering you only buy each item once. I’m sure there’s a lot of condo fanatics who are annoyed having to farm coins just to buy a certain prop more than once. This constant need of coins obviously encourages players to play the game more but then all of the issues I’ve listed start to stink in more and more.

So what do we do about this? Well this could go into any direction really. I don’t have a definitive perfect system but I think it’s important to consider all these negatives when creating these seasonal events.

Giving coins just by simply being in the game and not being afk is a start because it means you can do more in the game and you don’t feel pressured to play something because there’s a timed reward. Yes players with autoclickers could cheese the whole event but honestly, who cares? If that’s how those players want to enjoy the event then let them.

Providing seasonal dailies / weeklies with big batches of coins could help as well. You can even do what GTA does with its dallies and makes the multiplayer modes the same for everyone. So if you feel players aren’t playing Virus or Little Crusaders enough you can make goals for those games for that day.

I’d love to hear what others think of the current system though, or if there’s any ideas on improvements because I’m genuinely curious.

2

I definitely agree the current system is not really working, it feels lopsided and ambiguous.

3

Would be pretty nice if you earned coins with EXP gained on a timer (Plaza, Condo, Casino etc). I spend a majority of my time doing stuff in my condo so I tend to miss out on a lot of the holiday-exclusive items.

8 Likes
4

I’d have to agree, spending time in the plaza and playing an arcade machine every 6 minutes is beyond loathing.

5

Daily Awards is something we’ve been planning for awhile. It’s something I really wanna tackle this year, earlier than later.

This year we also plan to share the entire calendar of events for the entire year, including many new holiday events that involve different parts of the game. For example, Valentine’s Day will have a Valentines Day sale on furniture and Valentine items.

The main issue that’s really been effecting these events is that we are often working on a bigger project, and then the events push everything back.

Last year (2022) was probably the worst on our development team in many years. We sat down and discussed plans to improve it this year.

We had the Dark Voyage release, which was a huge amount of work for Halloween 2022. Because of that ride, we didn’t have a lot of time to touch any other aspect of the Halloween Events. Then right around the corner, Winter Holidays came up and because of the ride, we just ran out of time to do what we wanted to do for this Winter Holiday. We got about 95% done with the new Unannounced Condo Feature, which was due to be released on Winter.

Unfortunately, we ran into unrelated build issues with our code, our Plaza light build, and our server hardware. It took us a week and half to recover and figure out the build issues, come up with a temporarily solution for the Plaza light build, and try to buy expensive hardware to avoid this in the future. These issues led to us having to work all the way until Christmas Eve, something that we haven’t done in previous years (nor something I’d ever want our team to experience again).

The point being, a lot of the reason these events are the way they are is because they put a huge strain on development and push back every other feature.

Looking forward, we don’t have another Dark Voyage to release this year and the Unannounced Condo Feature will be released this month. This will probably make this year’s events a lot easier to organize and free up time to fix issues with the coins.

As for Daily Awards/Tasks, we need to create new fun unlockables for these awards. I understand that we can give Units and Tickets for awards, but I think it would be more fun and exciting if you could unlock:

  • Unique items
  • Player scoreboard effects (such as custom backgrounds)
  • Temporary double EXP/Units/Tickets
  • Player Sprays (artwork by us)
  • Collectable Cards
  • Chat Emotes
  • Floating Chat Designs
  • Capes
  • Trails

The tasks would include all the Game Worlds, such as getting a HIO for the day, or fishing up 5 fish. We’d also need to incorporate Condos this time around and that one is difficult to figure out. Doing it based on EXP would be okay, I suppose.

Anyways, sorry for rambling on and on, but there’s been a lot of ideas and plans we’ve been cooking up and working towards. I hope this year we’ll be able to implement these into the game as it’ll certainly help. And I also hope this year we can improve on the holiday events and coin system. Another technical issue with coins right now is that we rely completely on Steam API calls for the coins which limits our designs (for example we can only give you 1 coin every X minutes). If we move the coins to our backend (AGC), then we can design a better system. This is something on our immediate tasks to do.

17 Likes
6

I appreciate the lengthy reply even if nothing concrete was announced. Just knowing this issue is on the teams mind is reassuring.

This is a little off topic but I’ve always been confused about something regarding this. I actively follow the trello and weekly dev updates and year after year it feels like any development done for these events is in production during the same month of the event. Is this actually the case? And if so why not prepare these events months in advance?

7

Development for the events begin several months before, but with Dark Voyage, it took several months to complete it. It was unfortunately underestimated on how long it would take us. And we ran into several unknown bugs as well. Plus, with our small team, it’s still a challenge to juggle everything. Casino Phase 2 put a big strain on development.

Items for holiday events usually are made up until the very last moment as well, mainly because the passion of the team wanting to get every item in as they can. Usually this works out okay, but this year we hit a bunch of road blocks and that caused several issues.

This year, we’ve discussed changes to the development structure around holiday events and getting the items for the holiday events done even more in advance.

I am very happy we got Dark Voyage out. We’ve been trying to get it ready each Halloween on previous years.

6 Likes
8

Feel like it’s necessary to bump this again because well… nothing’s changed. If anything, things have gotten worse.

Coin distribution is either bugged or noticeably nerfed and made more grindy. And with more and more items being added to the seasonal store with hefty price tags, it makes the idea of “humoring” a “Buy all halloween items!” achievement absolutely insane.

If you farm for 5 hours straight with no breaks, you’ll make roughly around 300 coins. Which doesn’t even cover a quarter of the stores items. (Which is also growing every year.)

Like I said in the original post. Grind handled poorly causes boredom and resentment of said grindy game. And since these grinds are locked during certain parts of the year, it just encourages players to just play Tower Unite during these parts of the year. It’s really weird to structure your MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER GAME like this.

I’ll get moods where I’d wanna play this and then think. “Eh, the halloween event is a month or two away, I play again when that happens.”

2 Likes
9

Each year we reduce the amount of coins needed for the previous year items. We did a 30% reduction of coins needed for 2023 items.

The timer used to be 6 minutes and was reduced to 5 minutes this year. We also added coins to other drops.

As for the achievement, I don’t think it shouldn’t exist anymore.

We are still working on getting the Daily Awards system out.

3 Likes
10

I had no idea previous year items were ever reduced in price?? I don’t recall that ever being mentioned.

The coin drops seem broken right now if that’s the case. Visually I’m getting multiple coins every activity interaction. But in reality I only get like 1 or 2 coins after playing for 20 something minutes. Making the grind unbearable right now.

1 Like
11

I’ll be working on a fix after the weekend break, but yes, this is because Steam API changed unexpectedly and it we rely on it to tell us if a player was given a coin and if they can get another, but that is broken now.

5 Likes
12

I believe I proposed this for Halloween 2022 or 2023 as a way to make it easier for newcomers to gather items they want. The year after an item is introduced, we’ll lower the price to approximately 66% of its original price (with some rounding).

I think we announced this the year it started, but haven’t re-announced it since… so it’s easy to not see it happening.

3 Likes
13

I know this topic gets brought up every holiday across the forum and Discord, I think I’ve asked for it once or twice during past holidays, but I’ll bump this suggestion and say that I really, really think it should be possible for holiday coins to drop regardless of what you’re doing in TU as long as you’re not AFK.

Every holiday I feel like I can’t spend too long decorating my condo, visiting other people’s condos, watching something in the theater, or even just socializing in the plaza for too long because I’m missing out on those coin drops.

I know many (if not most) other players feel this way, that during holiday events they feel pressured into playing the game a specific way just so they can get the coins.

8 Likes
14

Yes. I like the

proposal personally, as it is now, earning ghoul coins still feels too funneled. The “best” way to get coins is to go fishing at the boardwalk and then do a milk jug toss every 5 minutes, and that’s really sweaty. Ideally you’d want to do whatever you want, I personally sit at the arcade so I’m getting tickets and coins every 5 minutes, but that’s still slow. I don’t understand the apprehension towards making grinds less grindy and more fun. This is a social game, not an MMO or MMO-lite. I want to have fun. Let me have fun. I’ve faced this every year since I started playing and I always quit around Halloween. This is a problem that’s bigger than just the holidays concerning TU but the holidays are a sore point.

6 Likes
15

Was debating bumping this and reviving this discussion so I’m glad people are still in agreeance this is STILL a problem.

The events basically turn into me doing projects with tower in the background, occasionally tabbing in to throw a ball in the milk jug game, getting my every 5 minute coin and then going back to what I was doing.

What an exciting system, keeping me interested enough to launch the game but not enough to play it. :confused:

7 Likes
16

you can get more ghoul coins doing the trick or treat event now.

1 Like
17

I know I’m going to sound ungrateful, but it’s still a % chance and doesn’t solve the overall issue. Majority will give you candy thats worth next to nothing units wise and I would hesitate to call it a band-aid even. Thematically it’s cute, but otherwise meh.

4 Likes
18

Also, getting these one at a time when Ghoulcery Store items cost up to 20, 30, FIFTY!!! coins, is a total unfun slog. At one coin every five minutes, that’s almost FOUR HOURS for an item that pricy. And we need to buy 20 unique items for a Halloween achievement, which even at the cheapest items being ~5 coins would take many more hours atop that.

I understand wanting to encourage player retention with events like this but player retention doesn’t mean shit if they’re just AFKing to farm these agonizingly dripfed coins.

8 Likes
19

I think somebody may have mentioned this before, but here’s how I would rework (or rather, add to) the coin system.

  • Every 6 minutes, when you receive a payout, you get a coin—just as normal.
Minigames

All minigames in the minigame arena give bonus coins to the top three players (4+ players only!)
1st place - 3 bonus coins
2nd place - 2 bonus coins
3rd place - 1 bonus coin
A similar system applies to:

  • Accelerate
  • Bowling
  • Bumper Cars
  • Shooting Gallery (Boardwalk + Arcade versions)
  • Other Boardwalk games (Save for Balloon Pop and Milk Jug Toss)
  • Dark Voyage
  • Typing Derby (3+ players)
  • Trivia
Laser Tag
  • The top player across both teams receives a bonus coin each round. (4+ players only)
  • Every player on the team which wins best-of-three receives a bonus coin at the end of the match.
Billiards

*Any player who completes a match without scratching, even while playing alone, receives a bonus coin
*Between two players, the winner receives a bonus coin if they themselves pocket the 8-ball

Ball Race
  • Any player who completes every level without dying (King) gets 3 bonus coins.
  • All players who collect at least one melon during a bonus round receive a bonus coin.
  • Whoever finishes a level first receives a bonus coin. (4+ players only)
Little Crusaders

All knights receive a bonus coin if the dragon is defeated with Birb (4+ players only, and does not apply to the sword in mystic grove!)
Dragon receives a bonus coin for eating Birb (Any player count)

Virus
  • Patient Zero receives a bonus coin if the Infected win the round.
  • Last Survivor receives a bonus coin in the Survivors win the round.
SDNL
  • Like Minigames, Top 3 players receive 1-3 bonus coins based on placement. (4+ players only)
  • Player receives a bonus coin for getting a triple kill or higher.
Zombie Massacre
  • All players who played through all 6 days receive a bonus coin.
  • Player who does most damage to Boss receives a bonus coin.
Theater & Condo
  • Players receive a bonus coin every time they receive experience (AKA, every 15 minutes)

Hopefully, with how I’ve laid out theses specifications, people will be more encouraged to play together in higher numbers. Players will also be able to be rewarded for playing games they are good at, rather than being forced to play the quickest or most efficient; but on the other hand, unpopular games like Typing Derby will attract grinders for the quick coin rewards. Theater and Condo players also aren’t forced out of their comfort spots, allowing them to socialize with players or creatively express themselves and still be able to obtain event rewards.

6 Likes
20

Feels like I’m the only person here who doesn’t have that much of a problem with most of the things brought up? Yeah, some of it is bothersome, but I like the current system.

1 Like