Guild Wars 2

Does anyone else have a case to make in favor of or against the new Halloween event?

^ What he said. As I’ve posted in other threads, I’m enjoying the Bloody Prince story immensely, but the inability of newer players (or those who missed out last year) to complete achievements for things like Pumpkin Carving or the Clocktower, the non-return of popular Halloween skins, and the locking of new rewards (new skins, Halloween pails) behind high levels of grind have all contributed to a deepening sense of “do Living Story NOWNOWNOW or miss out forever” that’s been a real psychological drain on myself and, from forum posts, a lot of other players.

I work in a software company myself, so I’m well aware that there might be very sound and logical reasons for why ANet has done things the way they have. (Indeed, I’ve speculated on a number of them myself in other threads, and when viewed from a design perspective, they all make perfect sense.) I think that we, the community, would just like to have more dialogue and feedback from the devs about why things were done the way they are. Currently, with Martin’s post about increased moderation, there’s a real sense that ANet is bunkering down and getting defensive, which is contributing to the “us vs them” mentality.

I won’t absolve the player base of blame either. Some players have gotten VERY personal in their attacks, and I agree that the atmosphere on the forums has really taken a toxic turn in recent months. I think that both sides need to step back, take a deep breath, and engage again in an open, genuine and constructive conversation.

I have no problems with how they did the story. If it is that much of an issue for you, you could skip the grinding of the achievements and just find someone who has done them and finish the story with them.

I didn’t find the achievements all the hard to get, I got most of them the first night, I finished up the 13 points I need to move on, on the second night, and even helped my bother get the majority of his points that he needs. All I did was go into the mad king labyrinth and run around with a few zergs. I got all the bosses multiple times, closed my 50 doors, opened my 50 bags, saved a ton of bags for my brother to open and a few extra to give to guild mates.

I found the labyrinth is a great place as well to level lower level characters that don’t get as much play time. Me and a few guild mates did that on the first night, it was great.

I’d agree with most of what you said:

Rewards: I’m not specifically looking for anything out of Halloween, but like the holographic wings from Dragon Bash, I was surprised at just how much candy corn it takes to get the pail or the Bloody Prince mini (15000 and 20000 respectively). I understand it’s been stated somewhere that those things are going away at the end of the event, so that’s essentially setting a target that cannot be met in anything resembling normal play without buying large amounts on the TP. From a Machiavellian perspective, this probably actually improves the rewards in some respect, since it means that people who just decide to sell them will find buyers – but it means that a lot of people are just going to look at it and decide to opt out.

Story: I actually don’t mind story being incorporated into the holidays, done well (and what I’ve seen of the story so far makes me think it’s one of the best updates this year for story). These are events that actually do happen once a year in Tyria, so it’s reasonable for them to have an effect on other things that are going on around that time. What’s more of a problem is the question of just which year did Zhaitan bite it again?

That said, I think the “go forth and complete achievements” bit could have been handled better. It’s a very suspension-of-disbelief-destroying step – what we’re told is to go and fill up an entirely out-of-game tally and, as with other meta achievements, the MacGuffin will just mysteriously appear. This could have been handled much better if Tassi had given us a real connection between these achievements and receiving the golem – for instance: “Accounts of previous visits by Mad King Thorn record that he has been known to grant the allegiance of one of his candy corn golems to those that sufficiently impress or amuse him. So go see if you can find ways to impress or amuse him – challenge and defeat his minions and those of the Bloody Prince, plant effigies in his honour upon the bodies of your fallen foes, take part in his games during his visit, and other tasks as take his fancy from one day to another – and see if you can get him to reward you with one such golem. Should you succeed in doing so, come back here.”

That would actually give us a reason these things are connected, rather than what is purely an out-of-character thing.

The Halloween content is the worst in the game. Last year, I hated it so much I left the game for about 6 months. I am about to repeat that scenario this year.

Gnat.9405:

Does anyone else have a case to make in favor of or against the new Halloween event?

I’ve got plenty of words to say about this event, none of which would ever be permitted on this forum.

1. Bring back the myriad candy corn ore nodes in the world, they added a Halloween feel to the world and were fun for people who like gathering – especially now there is actually something to spend the candy corn on!

2. Bring back the old dungeon and the meta achievements that came with it, so people can unlock the Emissary title if they missed it. Could it not be phased content?

3. Bring back the mini DOTA game. Why disable content that people enjoyed?

4. Bring back the old skins – at the moment, the only people benefitting from their absense are gold hoarders making a mockery on the trading post. Given that people are actually willing to spend gems on these skins, why deny them?

5. Bring back Mad King Says! If it’s only active for one day, that just means there will be dozens of LA overflows on that day…

Here’ to hoping we see a return of last years dungeon. I found it amusing personally. The siege in wvw didn’t see a transformation either. I am disapoint

Ahratan.1098:

1. Bring back the myriad candy corn ore nodes in the world, they added a Halloween feel to the world and were fun for people who like gathering – especially now there is actually something to spend the candy corn on!

2. Bring back the old dungeon and the meta achievements that came with it, so people can unlock the Emissary title if they missed it. Could it not be phased content?

3. Bring back the mini DOTA game. Why disable content that people enjoyed?

4. Bring back the old skins – at the moment, the only people benefiting from their absence are gold hoarders making a mockery on the trading post. Given that people are actually willing to spend gems on these skins, why deny them?

5. Bring back Mad King Says! If it’s only active for one day, that just means there will be dozens of LA overflows on that day…

All of these.
(for #5, Mad King Says is available for 3 days, “from 9 a.m. PDT on October 30 to 9 a.m. PDT on November 1”, from patch notes)

Anet added obscene amounts of needed material for either of the two new items (mini and 20 slot bag) and for the recipes for the 3 near legendary requirement items from last year. How the kitten is anyone supposed to get 10,000 of any of the 4 Halloween resources, without resorting to buying them off the tp (for a lot more than they were last year)? Even if you wanted to farm the corn, you’d have to spend all your time doing just that just to hopefully get enough to get just one thing (either recipe, mini, or bag). What happened to making the holiday events fun?

As for the old stuff, why would you (Anet) remove them? You let us redo the achievement/previous levels of SAB, so why would you remove stuff from last years?
If anything, you could have left it in there, but remove the gold star from the stuff, or even kept it as an option from the Asura NPC, that way people (new or old) could still do the backpack story (quest?).

I’m kinda holding out some hope for the patch on the 29th, since it will still be in the Halloween time frame. Hopefully they’ll add something in there that’ll reward tons of the Halloween resources, to balance out the obscene costs they added for stuff this time.

This event has severely decreased my joy in the GW2 Holidays, and does not bode well for Wintersday. (How much grinding are we gonna have to do for that one?)

This is all good. It seems what players want most is the reasoning behind doing what they do, not necessarily for everything to be changed at every disagreement.

1. The clocktower changes are fantastic.
2. The labyrinth is really fun

However,

1. Most of the content is recycled and nerfed from what it was last year. The one per account nerf on labyrinth chest and the clocktower is the biggest nerf.
2. The drops kinda suck. All of the new rewards are gemstore. The new gemstore rewards are underwhelming compared to the shield and chainsaws from last year. The new greatsword should have been an axe. The lunatic inquistion is particularly poor in rewards for such a long mini game.

I would like to see some Halloween skins for engineer like a pistol or rifle skin maybe a dagger skin for thief.. Hopefully they add some more skins on the 29th…Seems for now it’s all about the RNG…I hope we see the Lion statue in LA crack open again, and there is a dungeon we can farm. So far this patch was a bust for me

Not being able to access the content is a big problem for me. I can’t play the dungeon unless I’ve completed the meta event and having the meta achievements time-gated means that I can’t dump 6 or 8 or 10 hours on the weekend into getting that done. Instead I have to be on every day to complete some daily task to get the points. I wish I could devote some of every day to this game but I can’t. It’s a game and other parts of life take priority. So… If I can’t play every day I can’t play the final dungeon. To me this is a disappointing let down, and it ties me to the game in a way that not even a monthly subscription could do.

ME LIKEY:
1. The intro instance and story were superb, I loved it. Can’t wait to see the end.
2. I like the idea of the new bosses in the maze, although they are pretty boring.

ME NO LIKEY:
1. The weapon skins are craaaaazy expensive and the bags take a crap load of candy corn.
2. Too much downtime in the maze, there are long periods of time where no doors spawn.
3. Besides the story there isn’t anything new yet. The Lab, Clocktower, PVP game, etc. are from last year and aren’t as exciting as last year.

ME HOPE:
1. More/new content (like the dungeon) arrives that are fun/repeatable and make it easier to amass candy corn and other halloween mats.

I think we all may need to wait and see how this plays out. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I feel there will be a lot more coming. Look around and listen to the clues Tassi gives you through the golem. Something is going on.

This is true, and I expect great things from the story, but such a poor reception leaves a bad flavor for the rest of the event.

Gnat.9405:

This is true, and I expect great things from the story, but such a poor reception leaves a bad flavor for the rest of the event.

and future events.

sonicsix.5713:

The Halloween content is the worst in the game. Last year, I hated it so much I left the game for about 6 months. I am about to repeat that scenario this year.

Sorry you feel that way. I’m on the exact opposite of that spectrum.

I love the halloween content so much I wish it was here for the entire month of october.

Story: What I’ve done so far is awesome. I love the bickering of the Mad King & the Prince while you’re there in the Labrynth.

New Halloween weapons: I don’t care for all of them, but the Bat greatsword is by far the best greatsword I’ve ever seen. For me, it’s more awesome than any legendary I’ll ever see. Working on making an ascended GS to skin it onto. The spider longbow is gorgeous and if I get lucky enough to get another full ticket I’m buying one and stashing it in hopes my guardian will someday get to use a longbow. >.> (pretty please)

Decor: Gorgeous as always. Some may complain it’s recycled from last year, but it’s Halloween. It’s awesome either way!

Candy Corn Nodes: I’ve started to see them appear throughout everywhere. Found one in Cursed Shores, one in Gendarran, here and there. I hope they become more frequent as the event goes on.

Labyrinth: I love this place. The CC gets a bit infuriating when you’re trying to fight your way to the zerg/group/team….I don’t just try to run past things. But getting stunned, pushed, pulled, then frozen so I can’t even use condition removal/stun break…that UGH. Other than that I love the boss mechanics, just wish they had a tiny bit less HP.

Thank you for giving me all the squees and wiggles for Halloween this year. <3