I agree this was totally underwhelming. We could've at least gotten some old retireds at the Crystal Shop or a few quest shop items (CAKE).

I don't mind the Subeta Birthdays being a bit less celebrated than last year. But still this year was a bit drab even for me.

It would have been possible to make that day special without going out of the way.

At first I missed a really enthusiastic news post that just announced the Anniversary! And on this day there just had to be a free gift. For me it would have been enough if we'd gotten a nice slice of Birthday Cake as a free gift at last! In my opinion just that would have been enough to make that day a celebration.

But beyond that I think there aren't enough birthday themed items on site that really look like birthday items. The new plushies and stickers are nice but the plushies don't exactly scream 'Happy Birthday' at first glance and one wouldn't like to sticker masses of the same sticker to a friend ever year. So I'd love to see something like the lucky cakes brought back next year or some more cards.

Maybe even increase the number of someone throw a cake at you events and including retired items like said cakes. They are so pretty but hard to come by, too expensive. Subeta's Birthday would be a great chance to bring them back and other beautiful cakes to get newly on site!

But I absolutely agree that the floating items with numbers on them are no necessity. I found most of that stuff really useless.

I am ok with low key birthday/events and only focusing on the bigger ones (like 5, 10, 15, 20...etc.). I also like that there are not as many floating items around the site. It will hopefully make plot and event items less common, but not so rare that you can't afford to do anything or get the items (unless you literally spend 24-7 on site).