Guild Wars 2

These are things that I personally liked and hated about the new event, and I was hoping that by posting this here, other players could agree/disagree, add to it, whatever.

5. Lion’s Arch was transformed to be all Holiday-ish and Dragon themed. I really liked the massive Holographic Dragon flying around everywhere.

4. I liked the mail I got that gave me the three gem store mini pets right away. I liked that it basically meant ’Hey! We know you spend money on the Game. Thanks!"

3. I liked the Dragon’s Jade Weapon Skins. They look very distinct from other weapon sets already in the game which is always a Plus (even if 99% of all players will never get to use that content for themselves…).

2. What I liked even more was that the Dragon Coffers dropped constantly, and I was able to buy them on the Trading Post so I could keep opening them until I got atleast one Weapon Ticket. (I got 6)

1. I liked the Story twist, (that we all saw coming for two weeks because of the the Dragon bash Achievements)

Now, Five things that I didn’t Like (really, all but Two are minor complaints):::

5. The Fireworks in Lion’s Arch Happened at wierd times. Instead of 9:00am PT, they ended up happening 50 minutes later, or sometimes later than that. There were alot of players that showed up at 9:00/11:00/1:00/3:00/5:00/7:00/etc. to see the fireworks to get the achievement, but then had to sit there for a full hour longer because nothing was happening, and this caused many players to miss getting the Achievement (and cool head item) at first.

4. I didn’t like that the Pinatas only gave you 1 measily piece of Zhaitaffy. Those people in Lion’s Arch must be pretty cheap keeping all the tasty Candy to themselves! That, or they spent all the money making those millions and millions of Pinatas and couldn’t afford to put more than one lousy piece of candy in it at a time!

3. I didn’t like Dragon Ball all that much. It wasn’t that it was poorly designed or anything, but it was because you couldn’t form your own party and jump in and play, and that teams were always randomized. There were also players that joined the games, and went AFK for an hour, leaving you technically one man short while playing.

2. The Story Achievements for Dragon Bash were spoilers before they were even available. I read somewhere else on the forums that there was nothing Anet could do about it, so, whatever. Seriously, I thought it was only a holiday type event till I read those Achievements. It would have been way better if they were locked, or hidden, or the text atleast said Locked so I wouldn’t know what was comming.

1. As much as I hate to say it, other players are right,….The drop rate of the Weapon Tickets is just maybe, kind of, a little, possibly, ridiculous. Look at the Drop rate Research done by members of the community here::

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon_Coffer/drop_rate
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rich_Dragon_Coffer/drop_rate

Someone opened 75 Rich Dragon Coffers and got 0 weapon tickets. On the regular dragon coffers, someone opened 6647 coffers and got only 1 weapon ticket (that guy must have really wanted one!). Other people opened FAR less and got more tickets, some people never got any.
I myself opened 25 Rich Coffers, and around 5,000 regular coffers, and I got 6 weapon tickets, 1 holographic dragon wings, 13 mini holographic risen knights. I also got about 7,000 pieces of Zhaitaffy, and 45 or so each of the other food items. The total cost for me was 100 Gold all across the event (about 70 gold to get the gems for the rich coffers at the time. The other 30 Gold mixed with a week of just killing things to get the regular Coffers). Unfortunately, some people spent quite a bit more ingame gold and real money than I did, and got away with, Nothing….
Going back to the Rich Dragon Coffers, that guy who opened 75 of them, he could have spent the equivelant of 75 U.S. Dollars, or he could have bought the Gems (which at the exchange rate is 210 gold), we don’t know. Either way,….just Wow…

Here is some suggestions to make Dragon Bash, or an event like Dragon Bash a little more bearable in the future.

1. Change the drop rate of Weapon Claim Tickets. What I mean is, Don’t make it 0.07% or whatever it is for the whole event. You should make it a much higher number, like 10%, until the Player finds their first one, then drop the chance back down to 0.07%. That way, every player that participates in the event will get to experience all of the content (and I mean ALL the content, including getting to use a cool weapon skin!), but if they really want to get more weapon skins, then by all means, go spend a week grinding away at whatever it is in order to get more!

2. Make Weapon Claim Tickets Tradeable Instead. If you aren’t going to change the drop rate, then atleast stop making them Accountbound so that if a player wants to get a weapon skin, they can buy it instead. Some people who got a ticket but have no interest in the new weapon skins would also be able to just sell the ticket and make a little gold instead. If the Weapon tickets had the same drop rate as the Dragon Wings, then, baring someone being a horrible person and buying them up (or them being more popular than a holographic back piece that you can’t change the color of (which it is)…(just saying!)), the Price of a weapon ticket would be 10-15 gold or so on the trading post right now. After the event, the price would go up, like what happened to the Flame and Frost Dyes, but if a player that wants it really wants it, they know how much work they have to do to get it.

3. On the Jorbreakers, maybe Let us be able to get Weapon Claim Tickets with 100 Jorbreakers, just like with the Holographic Dragon Wings (that would make them cost roughly 40-60 gold as of right now depending on how you aquire Jorbreakers)

4. If you are going to make us confirm purchase of those food items with Zhaitaffy every time we want one, because the game’s programming makes us or something else, then let us buy an entire stack of them with a Jorbreaker instead. That would let us buy 200 of any food item at a time with one Jorbreaker, or 100 of the firework item.

5. If you are going to have events that happen at a specific real world time, like the fireworks, then reset the ingame day/night cycle with a game update to coincide with the particular event at that particular real world time, so players aren’t waiting around doing nothing. Players doing nothing aren’t actually playing anything, and players not playing, are usually angry impatient players too!

What does everyone else think? Did I get all of what was good and bad pretty well? Or did I miss something?

In this thread, we bash the dragon bash.

Also known as Dragon Bash Bash.

I liked the story part, didn’t like the festival.

Chrispy.5641:

Going back to the Rich Dragon Coffers, that guy who opened 75 of them, he could have spent the equivelant of 75 U.S. Dollars, or he could have bought the Gems (which at the exchange rate is 210 gold), we don’t know. Either way,….just Wow…

I’m a bit undecided about this. On one hand, no sane person would use actual real money for the rich dragon coffers. I’m betting he spent 210 gold, which is rather cheap for prestige items. 75 euros is a bit on the expensive side though. It just shows conversion rates aren’t high enough yet. At 5gp/100gems it’d be a bit more in the right direction.

That said, I’m usually not convinced by people who complain about gem items costing too much gold. The gem store should be about real money first and foremost. The box argument is the only one where it holds merit though, because sane people don’t spend 75 euros on a weapon skin. It does fuel gem conversion rate upwards which is good for the casual player.

Again, I’m undecided. There should be a way to do this properly.

Well it isn’t necessarily true that no ‘sane’ person would use real money for the rich dragon coffers. If you enjoy playing, like the Jade weapon skins and think it will increase your chances of getting one then why not use money toward your own entertainment?

If that holds true, then why go to the movies or out to dinner either? The movie ends and the dinner digests, but I can enjoy my Jade skin every time I play GW2. I actually got one ticket without buying any coffers, but I have bought some since in hopes of possibly getting a second one. No luck so far.

That being said, I agree with most of your assessment of Dragon Bash – many things were done very well and were enjoyable but there was definitely room for tweaking.

I found it hilarious that the winning reward for dragonball was 1 dragon coffer and the losing reward was 1 taffy.

For playing a game for upwards of 5 minutes your reward is equivalent of watching a 1 second channel cast in Lion’s Arch from beating a pinata.

And for winning, you open your coffer and 9 times out of 10 you get…. ONE TAFFY!

Nobody wins, everybody is losers! No child left behind! Just… kitten it. The economy and rewards in this game are broken as kitten.

I like the murder mystery missions they did for Dragon Bakitten was a nice change of pace and the nod to hardboiled, noir detective films was fun.

My main complaint regarding the story missions was I personally found the fights leading up to the conclusion needlessly annoying (playing a newer, low level ele instead of my main probably didn’t help). I could see no reason to include vets in the escort mission or aetherblade mobs who constantly re-spawn near the sylvari representative which was really irritating when I was trying to talk them and actually seee what the story was trying to tell me. The ending fight was better, straightforward and it didn’t interfere with showing players the ending.

I’m not saying I don’t like challenges, but if I want challenging fights I’ll go into a dungeon or go to a zone like Orr. I’ve always thought that if the goal is to tell a story in a game then challenge levels should be optional. Some people may want a challenge, others just want to see the story. Single player games have understood this for decades which is why they always have difficulty levels options. I don’t understand why MMOs don’t do the same when they are presenting their stories (particularly a game like GW2 where difficulty/reward options are available in other mechanics).

The good:

- Lion’s Arch really does look incredible. If nothing else, Anet really knows how to decorate for a party.

- I liked that they had an in-game way to get coffers. I’ve always resented the cash shop boxes with the exclusive cool stuff with insanely low drop rate, and can’t support it with real money. I’m glad they’re starting to realize what a kitten move that is.

- Story instances were fun, even if a lot of it was ridiculosly easy.

The bad:

- Click happy achievements are not fun. I finished the taffy and firework ones, but I gave up on the paper dragon achievement with 24 to go because i was so kitten bored with it. I realize they arent spending gobs of time on the living story content, and it really shows with stuff like this.

- Moa races were just a boring money sink. I’m not a gambler, so I got bored with it really fast. I wish they could do something like GW1 roller beatle racing. Now that was fun!

- The fire work show seemed really disorganized with timing, which surprised me frankly.

I can’t comment on dragon ball because I didn’t play it. Overall I thought dragon bash was okay. It doesn’t seem like this is something they plan to make an anual thing, which is fine with me, because it was a little too lackluster for me too look forward to it every year like I did GW events, or Haloween.

The Good:

1) Dragon Ball. When you got in a game with actually living people that weren’t afk, I had a blast.
2) Decorations. I’m always pleased with how they decorate the town (maybe a bit more decorations in the other capitols, the main hub is what really matters). Looking forward to new versions on the MF!
3) Very high drop rate on coffers from everything. Big improvement over the last chests (I’m fine with low drop rate on weapon skins…kinda, more on this later).
4) Free mini pet package. This was really nice of them, and it makes it a little easier for those of us that NEED to own every pet (only need to buy 1 package instead of 2 this time).
5) 3 new combat helms! Finally a reward that I can enjoy while killing creatures (would have really liked to fight things with the witches hat…or earmuffs!) Was great of them to offer 3 helms instead of the ticket letting you choose 1 of the 3.
6) Very nice art on (some of ) the new weapon skins…now if only we had a more reliable way to get them…which leads me to…

The Bad:
1) Dragon Ball. While I loved this game when you had non-afk people, the number of games in which this happened was very very low. Most games was a blow out one way or the other with just 1 afk. Why? Cuz with 1 afk person, you would almost always loose 1 other (due to rage quitting or just leaving to join another game). Now it’s a 5v3, and unless your 3 were much better then the other 5, numbers alone would cause you to loose. I did have 1 match where I was the ONLY member on my team (I think 1 other person joined mid way through and left almost instantly). Game ended 280-500, but this was only cuz the other team I knew I was all alone and we were doing 1v1 or 1v2 death matches for a lil bit near the end for fun.

I don’t know if it was the poor rewards that caused this, or the lack of penalty for leaving mid match. Maybe a bit of both, but in the future, I hope that they add some form of penalty for leaving, and maybe slightly better rewards (1-3 coffer for loosing, 5-10 for winning). The main point of these events is to enjoy them, but 1 coffer reward for winning seems like a slap in the face.

2)The Coffers… Like many have pointed out, the drop rate on these things is either way too low, or way too random (I know random is random…hear me out). I’m one of those poor individuals who has opened over 7k common coffers (30 rich as well). I have yet to get a ticket. I’m more disapointed then anything else at this point, and hope that anet makes improvements for future events based on what’s going on. I know many people that have opened less then 250 common chests, and have at least 1-3 tickets. I also personally know someone that opened a stack in front of me and got 4 tickets from that stack. RNG is RNG. I know a while ago they were looking into the possibility that some accounts/characters get less drops then others, but I’ll leave that to conspiracy theorists.

My suggestion to fix this in the future: Via achievements, give everyone 1 ticket (meta achieve for getting all of the event achievements for example, including or excluding pvp ones). That way everyone CAN get a ticket if they want, and can farm for more should they choose. I would NOT suggest making them trade-able (as much as I would love a skin from this event) as the prices from Halloween/SAB have shown us how high these go.

3) Set time for limited time events. Don’t have events go off on in-game events like “at dawn” since we have no way of knowing the exact time “dawn” is in game. I got the achievement via the bugged overflow prior to firework event thing that many encountered, but still wanted to “see” the fireworks. There was no in game message when the fireworks were starting, and being forced to be in certain areas to get the achievement meant a lot of people were around when they went off. Add in the fact that camera angles in this game aren’t the best (no first person view, and at least in my server, many people LOVE to fire off AoE abilities when large groups of people are in one area.

(this one will sound strange to some)
4) Non-afkable Moa races. I don’t know why, but I LOVED 9 rings. It was a guaranteed money sink over the long run, but I wanted that achievement! I have no problem with money sinks in the game. But make them so I can afk while doing them, and please don’t force me to make a bet every few minutes

5) Rich Dragon Coffers. With whats being reported, these were just as big a waste as buying the consortium chests. IMO, give the skins a chance at dropping from BL Chests against (like you use to before these last 2 events). The skins can remain account bound for all I care, but at least when you don’t get a skin, you get a random assortement of other gem store items (boosts, dye, whatever else). The introduction of these new cash only chests just seems like the wrong path to go in order to keep players interested in buying them since the rewards you get when you fail to get a skin amount to a few copper to maybe a few silver only.

Just my 2c