is not my definition of fun. It leaves us to either not bother to start new event at all, or run some event with not so great prizes so cheaters can cheat all they want. It's always up to players base.
For sure, you must be fully aware of the worst of our mostly amazing free-to-play playerbase, that's why we needed the team prizes with fun goals (even though they can create tribalism and elitism within the competition) instead of just who can farm the most exp in a given time, which is almost pre-allocated to those with the most free time, unless you cheat allegedly, and how do you detect a well written bot, when scripters are more proficient than all the Inno devs minus Diggo (who doesn't sit around looking for botters), or someone using someone else's computer for them (either physically or digitally), all while the entire purpose of the world is to be as active as possible on all the jobs. It's unfortunate that people aren't completely sporting, but we have to learn from the past or be doomed to repeat it.
I guess these are symptoms of a combination of the set-up of the competition (and the absolute Pay2Win nature of both PvP and PvE elements of the game for relevant prizes) and human nature itself, and i think the way to reduce cheating is making it more of an "event" than a "competition" by giving fewer big individual rewards for an end "winner", but larger rewards for a larger group who achieve something together. Or perhaps for individuals, a series of goals to achieve, and all players are rewarded as they smash each subsequent and more challenging task*, as opposed to having one winner at the end with an incentive to cheat to get to that position. This set-up would massively boost participation in all aspects and hopefully therefore the overall enjoyment for everyone, and you can still make money from the nugget bois buying premiums and soap waters, just please don't have a bloody tombola in the middle of the event. In fact, no tombola sets at all and suddenly it all sounds like an event I want to be involved in.
Imagine: The game in its purest and most balanced form with players being taken through a mega-quest of all* the PvP and PvE the West has to offer in a challenging, but not tedious, and well thought out process, with actually enticing rewards for their main character back home, in sharp contrast to real quests. Everyone will have an opportunity to be the "winner", just nugget bois get there faster, and maybe they can still compete for a unique cosmetic prize amongst themselves for farming exp or whatever other tedious task you come up with to keep them busy and engaged.
The downside is it might need a bit of development to achieve, which may be out of our reach as a community given how the game is managed now, and I think the influence of community managers on etriel is close to zero these days.
Sidenote: I massively appreciated the free prize pool as the main content in this game are other players, and most of them play for free, but imagine trying to farm exp, non premium with 4 job slots, oof.
Side Sidenote: We struggle to organise local GM fort battles these days, are there really plans for more world-scale events?
Side Side Sidenote: As I've said before, I hope etriel decides to hold another IFBC with the current broken Fort Battles, just so she's actually forced to witness the consequences of the premium fort sets of late, and make it a bit harder to ignore all the best fort fighters in the world complaining about it.
*minor suggestion just in case someone actually takes my ranting seriously: DO NOT ADD ADVENTURES AS A TASK, I know you were already thinking about it, I know you all too well you faceless purposefully unaccountable multinational game dev company you. Bad Inno. The old Poker minigame was more tactical than Adventures, maybe bring that back instead.