Christmas Event

**Christmas Event** is an annual event that is set near Christmas for 14 days, lasting from December 24th till January 6th in 2019-20.

The main goal is to fight both zombies and enemy player unit setups in a manner similar to Skirmish battles at the same time. For every successful battle (referred to as **stages**), players can receive between 1 to 3 gifts as a reward and a random bonus rage ability to use. Collecting gifts allows players to exchange them for a unique, event-exclusive prize, the "Christmas Case" at 30 gifts each at the Military Kit Shop.

The event is split across 14 days, with each event day lasting in 23 hours and 50 minutes with a buffer of 10 minutes before the next day. Each day will reset the leaderboards, rewards, and the amount of gifts that can be collected during gameplay and the day counter will go up by 1.

## Event Gameplay

   Like in other annual events, players are tasked with protecting the van by using every unit they currently possess. Players must use a 4x4 field grid, functioning close to the one used for Skirmish where players position their units. Similarly, players must strategically position their units down in one of these tiles.

The player always starts with 100 courage points, and there's no way of replenishing it other than by getting it back as a refund for a fallen unit. Rage always starts at 50 and can only be earned by killing the zombies that appear somewhere in the middle of the battlefield. Once a single battle is finished with the player coming out victorious, they earn their gift(s) for that stage's completion and a random rage ability that can be used for later.

Every unit can only be placed on the grid once. After they are placed down and enter the battle, they will not return to the deck and will fight for every round until they die. Once they are dead, they are gone until the attempt is over. However, the courage spent on said unit will be refunded so that players can put a different unit as a replacement. The player is obliged to have at least one human unit on the field at any time, otherwise they cannot begin the fight. Once some rage ability is used, it disappears from the list while copies of it remain untouched. Multiples of the same rage ability can be used during a single battle assuming that the player has several of them in their deck and enough rage points to spend them on. The same is also true for using multiple different rage abilities in combination. Units whose price is valued in rage points cannot refund any points back when killed, unlike those that cost courage.

Due to the nature of this event and its gameplay, Fury buff is the only buff that can be used. Its damage-boosting effects can only be applied for the fight it is used in as it will disappear upon entering the next one. However, it can still be used in several battles throughout the player's attempt.

During the event, players will battle through 25 stages. Failing one of these stages will have the player redo the stage until they beat it. Players win after passing all 25 stages. If every one of the player's units are used, the attempt is considered over and automatically end. There is also a level of precaution that must be kept regarding the player's van. Should it somehow manage to suffer enough damage from enemies or enemy units, the player's attempt will prematurely end.

A maximum of 50 gifts can be earned in a single event session and up to 500 gifts can be earned in a single day. Players can check how many more gifts they are able to collect by checking the battle rewards section in-between stages.

Additionally, like in other deck based gamemodes, Carol and Private Rodriguez get a similar buff to the one they have on Skirmish; their abilities starting range is infinite instead of being only activated when at a short distance from their target.

## Rewards

* Upon killing 100 enemies (both zombies and enemy units) as a personal goal, the player will receive a legendary case.
* The top 100 players will receive 100 gifts by the end of the event day.
* The top 200 players receive 50 gifts by the end of the event day.
* Other participants receive 20 gifts by the end of the event day.

## Trivia

* There are several bugs related to the event:
	+ There's a chance to randomly lose connection to the server. If this happens, the player's current event attempt ends and they get their rewards.
	+ If the player tries to quit the event through the pause menu, the game might crash.
	+ The second Agent from the Agents unit might spawn in the middle of the enemy team.
	+ If some player unit gets way too far from the visible area and their team comes out victorious, they might spawn in that out of bounds area in the next battle, with a chance to do that on the enemy's half of the battlefield.
	+ Turret fire can persist past the transition between stages, damaging and even killing zombies and enemy units unfortunate enough for a brief moment right before players actually enter the battle.
	+ If Glenn revives after the opposing team had won the battle, he will be able to attack and even kill units freely since they don't fight other humans back after the victory.
* A day after the event, matchmaking has been enabled for the game mode, prior to it any player of any level could match with any other player no matter what units or level they had.