Guild Wars 2

Personally I think its one of the best updates in a while. The story maybe a little short, but the minigames and labyrinth are awesome.

And the best part about Halloween…NO Scarlet

It was the best update… last year. This year its just a watered down version of last year’s event with rewards that require tons of grinding that are downright impossible for the average player.

2 minigames great last year
Labyrinth the same except had champs instead.
Extremely high candy corn prices with low supply.
Return of RNG chests
No scavenger hunt

Players expected a larger Halloween this year!

Because nothing is new, in fact, it’s the same content but made WORSE.

A lot of the rewards were nerfed so they’re not worth doing. Lab was made more annoying with less rewards.

Reapers Rumble just… vanished.

The new thing : a 2 minute little rushed story instance thing. “Oh hey there’s this prince guy.. Ok he’s dead put him back in, the end”

This is incredibly lazy. Anet is basically skipping an entire update piggy backing off of last years content with virtually nothing new, and then even nerfed what we had last year.

On top of the insane weapon skin grind….. and you wonder why people are hating on it.

If they were to continue with LW nonsense during this it would’ve been fine… but they’re just using rehashed (and nerfed) holiday content to replace a whole LW update, that’s just lazy.

The content that returned from last year is still good, and the story instances are entertaining, but a lot of stuff has been cut for no readily apparently reason (No, really, a lot of stuff!), the storyline ends extremely abruptly (beginning, end, no middle at all,) and the prices for Sonder the Seller are just so high that a lot of players are excluded from some of the new/returning Halloween content.

There are some nice elements, but they have a lot of flaws to compete with in public perception. Last year’s content was strong, but it’s been somewhat gutted this year, and it’s hard not to feel disappointed, like you know the team involved is capable than a lot more than this.

(Which isn’t an attack on them, mind you. I know there are budgets, timetables, personal crises, and any number of other things we’re not aware of that could explain the situation. Whatever the reason is, there’s just this feeling of massively missed potential in Blood & Madness.)

Jeff.4680:

And the best part about Halloween…NO Scarlet

true that.
it’s just that apart from the inquest it’s kinda boring. zergfarm is not actually the definition of “fun”.
the costs of the new items are so over the top, that i personally don’t even bother thinking about getting them, which reduces halloween for me to the inquest alone (noones gonna do those instances twice after getting the achievement, except for helping mates or something).

Good: That invasive weed isn’t here.

Bad: The story is summed up as “We watch the Bloody Prince break free, we force him back, we do an achievement grind to obtain the Mini Candy-Corn elemental to defeat him, then we seal him back in for real. Oh, but he might get out again.”

It was never explained why we had to use the Mini Candy-Corn elemental and couldn’t use the many elementals that were already in the Labyrinth.

In addition to that, all of the new items for this Living Story are pretty much either in the Gem Store or Black Lion Chests, and the Halloween weapons you could craft from before now require a ridiculous amount of materials to complete, on top of only being craftable for the duration of this Living Story and not afterwards. Same with the 20 Slot Pail and the Bloody Prince mini.

Somehow I was expecting more with this event, it was not bad but a slight let down due to excessive grind and having only a small amount of fresh content.

Nilkemia.8507:

It was never explained why we had to use the Mini Candy-Corn elemental and couldn’t use the many elementals that were already in the Labyrinth.

That’s just because the instance was made for 1-5 players. The other four were there to imply that everyone had brought one.

It’s more just a major oversight that there were so many if you run it alone.

If you really want to ask questions, try activating your mini candy corn elemental and suddenly there are six minis on the loose.

Previous just was better. Larger.

Psycho Robot.7835:

It was the best update… last year. This year its just a watered down version of last year’s event with rewards that require tons of grinding that are downright impossible for the average player.

This pretty much sums up my opinion too. Too much has been removed from last years (instead of just adding more story stuff) and the requirements for any of the holiday items (weapons/pail/mini) are way out of most players ability to acquire.

This makes me very uneasy for the third halloween event next year.. I don’t even wanna think of the possibilities of what could happen to it..

For me, once I realized it was impossible to obtain the halloween items through doing the holiday content, I completely lost interest in the whole event.

There’s not really much to log in for. Just achievement grind.

There’s just a very strong focus on grind that seems worse this year. I seem to remember this game being advertized as being not grindy, but I think the captain might be drunk again, and steering this vessel in the wrong direction.

one of the best updates in a while? that really made me laugh. there’s nothing interesting or new with this crap update. they said ooh the blood prince is back and he’s kitten ed woowww watch out…… go to an instance and a half alone, beat him around like a lame pushover and seal him back up. complete bullkitten.

where’s the epicness from last year’s fight with the mad king? they should’ve made something like that but ‘harder’.

I made a post in another thread about the event but I feel the need to post here again because honestly this years Halloween event makes me sad.

1: Scavenger hunt last year that let you learn about the Mad King and gave you one the best back pieces in the game. Actively involved the player in more then grinding to obtain something from the holiday.

1A: Related to scavenger hunt. Item used to scan for scavenger hunt let you scan spots all around LA that netted you trick or treat bags. It was like a mini-scavenger hunt with sparkles and it was just amazing.

2: Halloween mats were plentiful so you could load up on temporary skins, Halloween skin weapons, eat candy to be silly, turn in tons to the cute kids for a chance at the endless tonic, etc.

3: Multiple stages of the event that lead you into cool text lore, animated lore, cut scene lore, and made you excited for the Mad Kings return.

4: Multiple mini-games that were quite fun.

5: Mad Kings tower was not only fresh but netted you rewards for each character.

6: Halloween did not overlap with any other living story. So it was the star of the stage and it gave you ample time to get what you want without worrying about anything else.

7: The Mad King story last year you made you anticipate his return. The longer the event went on the more involved it made you in the story of the Mad King. So even if you had not seen him before you were excited that he was coming.

8: Every Halloween item could be gotten in the event itself besides gem store costumes and mini’s. The rare skins could drop off of farming the Mad King, you could grind Halloween mats for recipes to craft later, endless tonic from trick or treat bags which were easy to obtain.

This year the event cuts out things such as the second mini-game, the scavenger hunt type event, farming the clock tower per character, farming Halloween candy corn for fun, overlaps a second living story event, the story of the bloody prince is short and doesn’t feel engaging at all.

Yes, Halloween was brand new last year and that did help a little but that doesn’t change the fact that this years attempts to do far less then last years. It comes off overall as a large grind rather then a holiday event. So you feel as if your time is being wasted instead of enjoyed. The story doesn’t even engage the player with a desire to find out more about the Bloody Prince like it did with the Mad King.

The event is just anti-climatic this year and I don’t care if it ends with a bang. The one last year started with a bang that sent out a shockwave till the end bang sent out a counter shockwave to stop it so it could end. =/

If this event is any indication of what future holiday events will be like I weep for Christmas and it already had a strike against it with last years mini-pet RNG crazyness rather then just letting you buy them straight out like it did with Halloween.

Its just disappointment over the continuing theme of taking things away. Last year there was an incredible story within a scavenger hunt, there was the mini-jumping-dungeon like area you fought the mad king in and reapers rumble. You got a Halloween themed bag from completing content. There were cool themed weapons that were drops. Candy corn was a lot easier to get.

I do like the Bloody Prince. I feel that they missed an opportunity to have a more involved set of “quests” to introduce and defeat him.

I did however like the story.

I thought the achievements were very doable and the rewards for completing them were nice.

Knote.2904:

Because nothing is new, in fact, it’s the same content but made WORSE.

A lot of the rewards were nerfed so they’re not worth doing. Lab was made more annoying with less rewards.

Reapers Rumble just… vanished.

The new thing : a 2 minute little rushed story instance thing. “Oh hey there’s this prince guy.. Ok he’s dead put him back in, the end”

This is incredibly lazy. Anet is basically skipping an entire update piggy backing off of last years content with virtually nothing new, and then even nerfed what we had last year.

On top of the insane weapon skin grind….. and you wonder why people are hating on it.

If they were to continue with LW nonsense during this it would’ve been fine… but they’re just using rehashed (and nerfed) holiday content to replace a whole LW update, that’s just lazy.

This, this, this!

I actually enjoyed the story this time around.
Nothing tremendously exceptional of course, but at least Anet’s starting to understand how to use their gameplay mechanics as narrative tools, and to do it without anything feeling buggy or clumsy. Given what we’ve had before that’s an extremely impressive improvement.
The candy elemental part may be weird (well, it’s just the usual disconnect between story and gameplay) and the end instance just went as expected (albeit with some decent boss mechanic), but the intro instance had some nice and cleverly done story-telling to it. I hope we’ll see more of that sort in the future.

I think they got the story fairly well with the Mad King the first time and I agree with others in that this time it felt rushed. The Bloody Prince felt like he could have been more but due to the way he was put into the game it feels like a flash in the pan. So even if he did have depth it is hard to notice it or care about it because of the way he was rushed in. He just doesn’t capture your imagination in the same way unless you go out of your way for it due to it.

The candy corn element made sense due to the way his father put him into the box but once again this highlights another problem Anet has. They keep putting key details onto their website like that and they never make it into the game. Kinda like how WoW constantly added depth to characters in it’s books but never once bothered to flesh that into the game itself. So the characters to a great many more players then those that ever read the books saw them as shallow and boring.

I read those stories and I like some of them like Gnashblade and the Bloody Prince. Others will always just be bad like Scarlet. Either way though due to the way it is done these characters will always seem hollow to many, wasted potential, etc. These elements need to make it into the game in some form if they are to matter to the player base or it will end up just like WoW did lore wise. A laughing stock to a majority of those who played in the long run. And many cool things like the election just end up being boring to most instead of close. All due to the fact that the important details never made it into the actual game.

So going off the Bloody Prince alone in the game from an average persons point of view? He is seen as an emo child and soon to be boss that drops limited loot. Rather then another chapter in the amazing insane family line that was Mad King Thorn.