Guild Wars 2

Mad King Book:
This event was cool but really confusing in the beginning. Some clues were also really vague unless you tend to dig really deep into the lore. A lot of people used guides instead and this could have been resolved by simpler clues and by braking each chapter into several steps. The first step is really simple and make sure that all players get to the right zone, the rest of the steps take place in the zone and guide the players slowly to the final location.

Mad King Realm

• The Maze – It was fun to run around and fight lots of monsters but it was missing an end goal, something that everyone should try to achieve in that maze.
• The strange Living/Undead mini-game – I never really got the hang of it and it just felt meaningless. Maybe I missed something while running around, trying to get strange objects to characters and hunt other players as undead…
• Pumpkin Brawl – Had a ton of fun with this mini-game and would love to see it as a permanent addition to the game. Even new players got the rules really fast and joined up to fight over the three locations. I would only suggest that players would have a weaker effect if they attack one of the three locations directly or make only the skeletons able to do it for a more strategic game.
• Clocktower – This was really frustrating but a lot of fun at the same time. It was not impossible as long as people dared to experiment a bit and find the most effective way to jump their way to the top. I really felt satisfied with myself when I reached the top for the first time

The big Halloween Brawl
All that fighting was a fun but it felt like the social achievement demanded a bit to much from the player. It also felt like it got a bit pointless after a while because it was just a big hit everyone around party with no real end goals or strategy (I know there is some minor strategy involved but it was so minor that I do not feel like counting it).
This should have been a perfect place to tell players that they get a cool Halloween item if they complete the achievement.

Suggested Item Changes:

• Time limited weapon and armor skins = IGC
• Permanent weapon and armor skins = BLC Gems
• Permanent weapon and armor skins with cool stats = Event rewards (hard to get but not as hard as during this Halloween event).

Other
It is sad that those clothes that was added to the game was only social armors because it would have been cool if people could use them while fighting in PvE or PvP. Feels a bit like a waste of time to get them because they cannot be normally used and they should have been split into head, shoulder, chest, pants, shooes etc.

This is definitely the best event i have experienced in a MMO. Getting so much stuff to do for just an ingame event was great.
Loved the first time i logged in LA, entire place decorated. I can only expect the decorations to spread on other parts of Tyria for next year event and cant wait to see it.
The ghost scavenge hunt in Act 1 and 2 was really fun to do, the hints required some decent knowledge of the game lore and it was fun to try to get some of those without looking at other players’ guides.
The 2 mini games? OMG it was so great to see you implement those just for the event. Maybe the things i enjoyed mostly. Small fun minigames, with no real rewards behind em, but just there to enjoy em.
The clocktower was such a source of rage trying to complete it and such joy and sense of accomplishment when i finally did it. Completed it several more times just for fun. The only thing i really hated was seeing the cutscene over and over agian.
The one time event is something the MMOs really need despite some people disagreeing. It doesnt need to be something spectacular and rewarding, actually it shouldnt be that but these event give players the right to say, “Yes, i was there!”, and are always something the community will revolve around.
Ascent to Madness dungeon was spot on, a quick dungeon with a low chance to get all the event goodies and more to make the farmers happy. Available only for a short amount of time to cause no imbalances and the best thing: every level can enjoy it!
And everything else, the free “i was there” devil horns, pumpkin carving cause whats halloween without pumpkin carving, extra dynamic events, the costume brawl even though not a halloween thing couldnt be introduced at a better time and what not else.
So much effort from Arenanet for just a 10 days holiday event. I can’t wait to see whats next

I very much enjoyed every Halloween event, but the end felt a bit lacking. Especially once you already completed every achievement possible and got your title. I was hoping the title would have some unique icon bound to it (such as the world completion title). But as far as I can see it’s just an ordinary title. Don’t get me wrong, I really love the jumping puzzle/carving events/scavenger hunt/dungeon and pvp elements that where added. I just find that the end could have been better, overall it was a very fun and epic experience.

Me? I had the misfortune of accidentally deleting my game install on Sunday around 1:35 pm Central. Means I had to wait through 3 days of re-downloading to pop into Tyria again.

Regardless, I’m tremendously enjoying most of the festivities. I love the candy corn nodes scattered about and rush right over to mine whenever I see one pop into view. Same with the haunted doors. Lots of fun. Also got my Master Carver achievement on the casual side which makes me happy since I lost so much time.

My biggest disappointments are the extremely low drop rate of the rare skins on BL and MK chests and the MK dungeon, which I largely missed due to the aforementioned reinstall. So, I know the skins are rare, but when I pony up actual money to get my chance, I guess I expect more. I’m not the kind of gamer who can grind anything in an MMO since my time is precious with a job and family that take priority. But I still like pretties in-game too.

Overall, I loved the experience. My preferred holiday is Wintersday anyway, so I’ll probably put more effort in then. Greatly looking forward to the big update in ~15 days.

Thank you ANet for the Halloween event this year! My preferred holiday is also Wintersday, so I really look forward to what you guys are going to be doing for that.

For this event, however, I had a lot of fun. I never participated in events in GW1, but I decided to give it a try this year and I’m glad I did.

The Mad Memories book was a great way to ease me into the spirit of the Mad King, however I have to admit that I was extremely confused on where to begin. I did do a few google searches to find out all that was available, as well what each title means. I think more explanations or guidance would have beneficial.

I love the Clocktower Puzzle. It took me a long time to do, but that’s mostly my fault. I think that a title would have been great to have with it after completing it x number of times. It would have made the puzzle more worth while and rewarding.

The Labyrinth was a lot of fun, but it did get repetitive after a while. I loved being able to level up quickly while focusing on Halloween instead of my missions, and finding a family sized candy corn was just plain fun!

Overall, I really enjoyed it and it definitely got me in the spirit for Halloween. Great job!

Overall I think this was a great event with a lot of fun things to do despite certain annoyances :

1. Final mad king event (mad king says) suffered from the restriction of viewable amount of characters. Everytime the mad king teleported it took my client some time to catch up and display him again. This messed with the mad king says game for me. If I happened to touch the plaza center where the dungeon entrance was, I got warped myself and my client had to load everything again.
2. Clock tower. I love jumping puzzles but the way I wasn’t able to see my toon most of the time, destroyed all fun about this part for me.
3. I don’t know if it is a bug or not. But with costume brawl, if you leave costume while in brawl mode, you stay in brawl mode but can’t fight back anymore without loading a costume again. The only way then is zoning or logging. I don’t see the point for this if you deliberately push the button to get rid of the costume.

I don’t have an issue with certain things not working right away. This must’ve been a learning experience for you guys too. Which hopefully leads to a more smooth experience when the next holiday event takes place

Lunatic Inquisition is actually quite a lot of fun. Particularly if you get down to one of the last two or three people left.

Reapers Rumble just didn’t appeal to me. sPvP doesn’t appeal to me either so that may be why.

Clock Tower. This event needs fewer people for instance or even better would be an option for a solo instance.

Mad king dungeon: Make this thing a once a day deal so we don’t have to have a total disruption of normal dungeons and don’t have to see endless “LFG MK!” all day.

Loved the event over all but the end party seemed to have so much going on that it seemed to lagg a lot and really kind of reminded me on this end of the initial beta tests where everything went in slow motion. I eventually got booted from the event and the error report has already been sent in.

Loved the scenes, the scavenger hunt and the random trick or treat doors the best and as a gamer I appreciate all the time and work that had to have went into the event.

The Maze – I liked that the maze, while level 80, was pretty simple to get around. Whenever I hear of a maze, I get a bit concerned that getting lost will be an issue for the longest time. That said, I also liked being able to see it up from the waypoint as well.

Lunatic Inquisition – I loved this. Teamwork is essential for both sides, but is more of a concern once your numbers start dwindling. The only thing I’d change is the “Mad King Says” abilities to share a cooldown. Far too easy to stun too many people with it (be it they following the order or otherwise). Naturally it gives them points if they follow it, but still.

Pumpkin Brawl – I liked it, but I would have preferred to see the skeletons be the prime fighting force between the two teams.

Clocktower – Best. Jumping. Puzzle. Ever. The multiplayer portion was probably the best choice as having others around made it easier to goad each other to continue on.

The Big Halloween Brawl – Mummy’s OP, as is the Mad King costume. Needs some balancing. Actor culling is an issue with this, specially with larger groups forming.

Oh yes, and the emote for quickly overeating candy corn literally made me LOL for at least 5 solid minutes while I was alone in my bedroom. Kudos, ANet.

Likes:
- The entire event was well done with plenty of variety for all
- Labyrinth and the Mad King instance were my favorites
- The pvp games were fun and well designed, I wish more played
- The redoing of Lions Arch and other areas with all the decorations and stuff was excellent
- I enjoyed the candy corn mining and pumpkin carving as side things to do
- All the little touches, like the pumpkins flying from catapults
- Brawling was a nice touch that looks can be expanded on in the future, great job
- Scavenger hunt reward

Dislikes:
- Not knowing what to do, seemed disorganized to start and couldn’t see ghosts from scavenger list
- pvp instances were underplayed but easy to get to
- all the complaining from whiners =P

Oh, yes.. I love the fact that even story missions were affected by Lion’s Arch decorations.

Endless Halloween Tonic - It should be trade-able. It’s hard to get, some people wasting tons of money buying Candy Corn and not getting it. It was trade-able in GW1 and people feel it should be in this game too.

Halloween Bag - The one time bag reward at the end of the Mad King Dungeon should be Account Bound, not Soul Bound. It should have also been of a more substantial size. 10 slots is nice but if it’s a one time reward only obtainable on one character across your whole account, it should have been bigger at least.

Clocktower - I enjoyed this Jumping Puzzle. It was fast paced and wicked fun, wish it was here year round. But at least I can see it next year.

Thx a lot ! Great event!

Event was excellent overall. Higher quality and more total content then I ever expected.

The only negative feedback I have is the nature of the reward system. I don’t like swingy rewards. The Mad King’s Memoirs is an example of the kind of reward I really like. Do X amount of work. Get Y as a reward. We can then decide individually if we think it’s worth it and everyone who does the work gets the reward.

The chests I don’t like as much. I pulled 4 exotics with a fairly modest number of chests opened so I’m pretty happy with that, but I can’t help but be a little jealous when I look over at the guy rolling in his giant pile of money because did the same amount of work I did but got 2 Halloween skins in his chests. To say nothing of how those people who did 50 runs and got only greens must feel.

I loved the event but The only thing i can say is that The " Attend the party" is badly placed. It would of been much better if The Mad King’s Dungeon was the final act.It doesn’t feel right. We battle the mad king thorn and it’s a nice fight that feels kinda of epic for [part 3 but then part 4 comes all you do is listen to the mad king. During the whole event, I was thinking “When are we going to be him up?”. Before Act 4, I would have though that we were going to have a big group event where you have to kill the mad king while he’s in Tyria. For the loot, It makes no sense, From “Attend the party”, you only get a witch hat which looks horrible on my norn male and i personally don’t like. While on the other hand, For the Mad king’s Dungeon, you can get the Halloween skins, boosters and other items from the chest.

Overall, the Halloween event was very good but the part placement was bad.

Short and sweet.

Pros: Best fun I’ve had on GW2 so far. Loved every part of the event and you guys did a great job.

Con: After spending dozens and dozens of hours on Halloween content I didn’t get a single skin/endless tonic/ anything special. Not even including all the money spent on keys. That is a lot of time and effort spent on an over-hyped chance.

Act 1:
– I liked the trick or treat doors. the randomness of what came out was pretty good. The only dislike was that doors would despawn after a short period. Meaning I’d see a door, and it would disappear as I was running to it. Sometimes the door would despawn while I was fighting something that came out of the door, which despawned the mob as well.
– The pumpkin carving was neat at first, but by the 100th pumpkin, it was a real chore.
– The incomplete book was very interesting, though the clues themselves were a bit merky leading me to think of several places, before I gave up and read a guide.
– The candy corn nodes were cute, though seemed out of place when in areas far removed from the zones with Halloween events in them.

Act 2:
– The completed Mad King book looks great. It was however impossible to know where to start the second chain of ghosts hunting without a guide. I found no clues to lead me there.
– The Clocktower was hard, and entertaining. It took me a couple of hours to get, but I was able to beat it. I think my platforming skills from console gaming really helped. I could see how it would be impossible for some, or many. that first 25% was the hardest part.
– Both the reapers and inquisitors Spvp areas were interesting, once I figured out what I was doing. I was pretty clueless what to do in Inquisitors the first time I went. Good thing I picked up on it fast.
– The Labyrinth was ‘ok’. getting the 10 events for the achievement seemed to be the main goal of the area. As once I was done with that, I just farmed the champ chests daily(getting junk everytime). I don’t even know if there was anything of interest in them. The drop rate of rare Halloween stuff was so rare that, I never actually heard of anyone getting anything from the chests once they were ‘fixed’.

Act 3:
– The Mad King instance was pretty fun the first few times. Random chest is really random. and Like usual I had very very bad luck. I farmed the instance for about 38 hours. Around 120+ runs. I received LOTS of greens. Vendored em all. I also obtained about a dozen exotics, 4 of which were black lion salvage kits, and the rest were all 76 to 78 exotics. zero on Mad King gear, or skins. Did get the shortbow, but bro called dibs, as he is the only one that has a character that can use it. So.. yeah lots of wasted time, when running dungeons would have netted me better money, and more lvl 80 gear. Could use an algorithm to force an event item drop after a certain amount of attempts, so that I wouldn’t feel like I just wasted my life. Once, the minimap bugged causeing the regular map to bug, which removed the waypoint from my map. I had tot be resed, whenever I died instead of being able to chose the WP.

Act 4:
– Short and not as grand as the previous acts. Felt kind of like a fizzled end. Entertaining on it’s own, I think it could have been swapped with Act 3’s dungeon, and tweak the story a bit to you subduing the Mad King. Act 3 felt like it could have been a decent ending.

I enjoyed the event overall.

Scavenger Hunt:
Most of my characters are lower leveled and so I had a hard time figuring out the clues and then getting to the locations. Most of the other people I met were nice enough to save me from a high level enemy, but overall I wish that more of the locations were in lower level areas where almost anyone could get to.

Labyrinth:
This was a great addition to this event that allowed me to farm candy cane and get a lot of pumpkins carved while killing event related mobs. It made me feel more connected to the event.

PVP Games:
I only tried them out for a round or two each, but they were ok. I couldn’t really get into them for some reason

Clocktower:
I hate it and I love it. It was really enjoyable, even if it took me a few angry tries. I do feel for those who have slower computers or do not have the reflexes to complete it though.

I personally think there should have been two different modes: Normal and Madness.

Normal would be a slower, easier version of the current clocktower and gives you an achievement and maybe some minor items. Madness would be the current version, maybe even more difficult, and it would give achievement and a rare item. This way everyone could get something good. The chests along the path are nice, but I feel like they are not enough.

MK Dungeon:
I loved the boss battle and the layout of the map. My only real issue is the fact that Mad King would sometimes teleport down or up, causing everyone to go back to the waypoint and climb back down again from the very top. It felt very time consuming overall.

Halloween skins: The most displeasing part of the event. I can understand the need to make money and the idea of keeping the skins rare, but I feel like the rates should have been higher for the BL and MK chests. I did not use any real money though, so this is really minor for me.

I dislike RNG in general and feel it is a lazy way to deal with a lot of situations, but it was nice that they added the chance to get the halloween weapons via the chest in the MK dungeon. It gave people the chance to get something nice without spending any money, so in the end I think it balanced itself out.

If you opened tons of chests and farmed the dungeon for hours on end and still didn’t get anything, that really sucks but bad luck is bad luck and we all get it sometimes.

I loved the event, but I was really looking foward to crafting some kind of event gear. Crafting in this game is better, and more useful then I’ve ever seen in a game, and I actually enjoy it. Having only epic items that only a few could craft was a big let-down. Everything else was great though.

+Awesome looking event weapon skins.
-Permanent versions locked behind a real cash lottery or a ridiculous grind.

+Costume Brawl is big dumb chaotic fun.
-Until someone with a MK costume comes by and pays to win. Also the achievement tiers for this are too high.

+Haunted doors everywhere! Who doesnt love trick or treating?
-NEVER told until the event is well into Phase 2 WHERE the doors are. I had to resort to outside game… hell outside official Anet sources to find out where these were.

+Loved the Lunatic Inquisition. Reaper’s Rumble was fun too.
-Again, no information on what these were, where they were, and most frustratingly WHAT I’m supposed to do. I stumbled into LI completely by accident. The information provided before starting is bare bones, and is gone too quickly to be any help. Nothing on official sites as to what these were. Much frustration could have been avoided with a simple patch note explaining this.

+Clock Tower was crazy hard. I never made it to the top, but I’m not upset. Rarely had so much fun failing.
-Camera issues aside, this needs to be a solo affair. Or a party only instance. Cramming so many people into one instance where character models can be almost 4x as big as another is a terrible design decision.

TLDR: Almost everything I liked about this event was marred by something that either annoyed me the whole time or (in the case of the LI) created a barrier of frustration between myself and the content that ended up being my favorite part of the event.

Good event. Do better next time.

Event Skins – Seperate them into 2 or 3 different categories and make the best one the hardest to get.

Exotic Event Skin – Obtainable with Black Lion Chests – Infinite uses + Account Bound.

Rare Event Skin – Obtainable with Black Lion Chests and Craftable – Only one use.

Master Event Skin – Otainable with Black Lion Chests, traded for event currency and Craftable – Last for 24 hours.

Everyone can be happy and enjoy the event.

As this is the first Halloween i expect more things to be added/improved for next Halloween. It can’t really be worse next year and next year after that.

EverythingXen.1835:

+Clock Tower was crazy hard. I never made it to the top, but I’m not upset. Rarely had so much fun failing.
-Camera issues aside, this needs to be a solo affair. Or a party only instance. Cramming so many people into one instance where character models can be almost 4x as big as another is a terrible design decision.

Completely disagree. Other random people made that event fun and pushed me to completion. Yes it was frustrating at first, but in the long run having someone else to taunt you (let alone a big Charr) was an awesome experience and made winning that much better.

Very upset that today is October 31st and I cannot get into the dungeon because it has already been closed.

Apparently posting

" It was great..

for people who are 6-10. I logged into LA awaiting a full-on battle and got ‘Simon Says’.

Hardly an ‘ultimate event’ – really hope I missed something, or I won’t even log in for future events."

Receives an infraction for detraction from debate. I disagree, because to my mind a large part of the event was childish, whereas Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve) is anything but.

I’ll assume this post also gets deleted in a few minutes.

I enjoyed the event. Never got into the rumble, I think it was just too busy cause I kept getting some wierd connection error. Ended up giving up on the clock tower cause it was too hard for me to sort out, but I had some fun trying. Didn’t get any special skins but got materials enough to make them if I ever farm the CoE tokens for it. Tried some costumer brawling but never got he hang of it. Gave like… a ton of candy to the charr cubs that were dressed up, those were totally adorable. Had fun doing the labyrinth and ascent and trying the lunatic court, even though I got slaughtered :p.

I kinda wish the labyrinth had been a bit bigger and had more to do, but overall I think the whole thing was pretty awesome and I enjoyed it immensely, and I got a decent back piece out of it if I want to replace the story one I got earlier. Very cool fun event that definitely makes me want to see what else Anet can come up with.

Tanqueray.4837:

Apparently posting

" It was great..

for people who are 6-10. I logged into LA awaiting a full-on battle and got ‘Simon Says’.

Hardly an ‘ultimate event’ – really hope I missed something, or I won’t even log in for future events."

Receives an infraction for detraction from debate. I disagree, because to my mind a large part of the event was childish, whereas Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve) is anything but.

I’ll assume this post also gets deleted in a few minutes.

The simon says portion actually ties back to guild wars 1 fairly well. I thought it was cool, though I hope they do more with it during the party. Feel free to check out the guild wars 1 wiki for more of the story on that if you want.

Likes:
-Overall decoration of Lions Arch
-Minigames/quest
-Dungeons/Instances
-Heck the over all event
-MAD KING SAYS and CLOCK TOWER
Dislikes:
-No Halloween music in Lions Arch
-Wish there was a corn field maze

Mad King says is insanely awesome. I’m addicted lol.

It was a nice event. I enjoyed the 1st and 2nd act (but didn’t get to do the dungeon from the 3rd; It was sort of weirdly bugged for me and nothing was really happening in the dungeon when we entered..), liked the PvP stuff (I usually dislike PvP rather strongly) and enjoyed exploring the Labyrinth. Unfortunately never got to finish the Clock Tower, mainly due to my computer and the vast amount of players jumping it up, up, up, that made both my computer and my internet connection struggle rather badly – And yes, most probably also on my rather limited experiences of jumping around in this game; some also said there were a few places where their characters would just slip down, hit their heads on an invisible roof, get stuck or not jump at all but I don’t know much about that. I only tried ~40 times before realising it wasn’t my cup of tea..

One thing my boyfriend and I really disliked about the event was the way it made us feel like we were playing this other game all over again; the feeling of getting it done being a job, instead of the game being fun I can put aside when it’s not fun anymore. So perhaps a bit longer time for the event would have been good? Since, let’s face it, not all of us have limitless time to spend on a game – School, work, family.. Somethings just are more important a game.

I wish I’d gotten to do the dungeon – When others spoke of it, it sounded like a lot of fun.

Overal, tho, it was a nice event with only a few bugs I ran into.

I had a blast i must admit. I’m amazed at all the effort they put into this event.

Sure, when we all got kicked i was fighting the mad king and had him down to 25%, had a little rage going on. But once we logged back in and realized we could fight him more than once i cooled off. But it was a pretty fun event.

The Clock tower was a real hair puller. I’m pretty sure i was foaming at the mouth with this one, until i finally had the route memorized and was able to complete it in around 15 to try 20 tries after that. I won’t mention how many hours it took the first time, uhg.

The other events were just pure candy fun. I’d have to say this was the best halloween event i took part in in any MMO i’ve played so far. A lot of detail and effort went into it and Anet should get a pat on the back for it.

So i got a nice backpack and a pair of slippers as well out of the deal. Wasn’t lucky enough so far for any other gear or skin, but i am content.

My main concern with this event was how much of it seemingly depended on buying gems and using them in the store, if you wanted to get something that could be useful, or sold for gold on the Trading Post.

The store bought costumes dominated Costume Brawl. It wasn’t that you couldn’t win without it. Just that it gave a huge advantage when used well.

Black Lion keys. I understand that you want to/need to make money. However if you expect people to pay real money (Yes…I’m aware you can get -some- keys without buying from the store) for keys to open lots of Black Lion Chests. The drop rates from them should be much better. The Mad King Chests should have been even better than that. They wern’t. I don’t mean to say it should have been exotics, but costume parts or something cosmetic like the weapon skins should have been easier to obtain without having to spend vast amounts on keys.

Events. If you’re going to run an event. Make sure it works first time e.g. the problems with parties being split when they entered to fight the Mad King.

Looking back though, even though I didn’t really get anything of value from the event. It was pretty fun to do until I ran out of reasons/ways to farm. Typically in GW1, I’d only farm events and would make most of my money from that. In GW2 with this as the first main event, I was a little dissapointed that I couldn’t make much/any money from ToT bags. Though the economy works differently, so it’s somewhat understandable.

What it came down to for me personally, is that events usually provide me with more “bang for my buck” when it comes to gaining wealth to make the normal after-event game more fun, with a new item or something. This event, I didn’t get anything much out of it except for a little enjoyment farming doors for ToT (When they wern’t broken) and doing the Clocktower; though once done, there was no reason to do it again.

Oh and one last thing. The ghost hunt to get the books was pretty cool. It didn’t take too long, gave some little background details…but I couldn’t do it on 7/8 of my characters to the end which was really dissapointing, since I loved the “full book” skin. However I don’t have the time to grind characters to level 80 and would have liked to have been able to complete it with all my characters.

I thought the event was only okay, maybe even a little bit lackluster. Nothing was that incredibly engaging, everything was vague, I’m not even sure why they have Halloween in Tyria. A little bit more background would be great for those of us who didn’t play GW1. I thought it was very boring in comparison to other Halloween events I’ve experienced in games. Definitely not the best, in my opinion.

I did think the candy corn nodes was a cute touch, and I loved the town costumes but the RNG thing is kittening lame and a rip-off to the people who are not yet disillusioned by this game and the way it works. I felt the Mad King’s realm would have been cool but like most everything else in this event, was half-baked.

Also, I think everything should be accessible from day 1, skip the “act” BS and definitely don’t make something happen for one DAY (or five minutes, regarding that lame cutscene in Lion’s Arch). Oh well. I don’t blame it for being kind of flop-ish, the game just came out.

In all honesty, what are the odds that any other holiday event is gonna be better, or what are the odds they will take our feedback into account? Next year will be the same and it will be even less fun than it was this year.

I would love to have a costumes / hats collectible tab, they are account bound anyway and it will keep everything more organized, plus it may spark a “collect them all” fever.

Would have loved if the tower could be done alone, but if you guys have a reason for it to be a group thing then maybe let us “practice” in a solo instance with no reward at the end?

Had lots of fun thanks.

Finding the pages and completing the book an a level 17 alt was fun; comedic gold for my Guild Escort as well while he attempted to stem the tide of an entire zone that wanted be dead. The Mad King instance was pretty fun albeit annoying, and all the side activities are an entertaining diversion.

Tying a timed jumping puzzle to the Title that is next to impossible for me to complete while looking at 10 other people, several of which are Charr…..not fun. I was doing well in my own little instance and almost made it until the game decided to merge me into an instance of another group :/. At this point, I’d rather put on a fancy outfit, don a pumpkin on my head and set it on fire while I walk around town in agony telling terrible jokes before attempting that Jumping Puzzle again.

TL;DR : It was all fun except for the Clocktower. Cut out the group instances of it or cut it from the title.

Tanqueray.4837:

Apparently posting

" It was great..

for people who are 6-10. I logged into LA awaiting a full-on battle and got ‘Simon Says’.

Hardly an ‘ultimate event’ – really hope I missed something, or I won’t even log in for future events."

Receives an infraction for detraction from debate. I disagree, because to my mind a large part of the event was childish, whereas Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve) is anything but.

I’ll assume this post also gets deleted in a few minutes.

It’s probably because you’re judging the whole event based on the last 2% of it.

Scavenger Hunt – I have a bunch of level 20 alts so I just gave up after getting through the first part. No big deal, I can read the lore and because of my limited time to play, I probably would have just looked up everything on wikis even if my characters could go into the zones.

Haunted Doors –Entertaining mechanic. Tying the door spawns to zone dynamic events was a good idea until bugs borked things up. Nonetheless ArenaNet responded quickly and made the doors persistent. Nice job on the fix!

Labyrinth – I probably played this content the most. Really lots of fun killing and looting stuff. All the Halloween mobs were cool. It was enjoyable just rampaging with other players who were there to do the same.

Lunatic Inquisition – Interesting PvP match but it was difficult to figure out what was going on when you first joined. More in-game information is needed. Also I have no idea why my utility skills turned into emotes which one can accidentally press when you actually want to stealth : (

Reaper’s Rumble – This is a very fun PvP match. Easy to grasp and fast paced. I enjoyed this one and I would have played it more if I had time or the rewards were as good as the Labyrinth.

Clocktower – I don’t have time to finish it but it’s nice to be able to at least see what the content is like rather than being locked out from it due to level or gear.

Mad King Cinematic Event- Nice event leading to it which gave a natural reason for my guild to gather which lead to easy grouping for the dungeon. Well done ArenaNet!

Mad King Dungeon – Really fun dungeon. Amusing combination of jumping puzzles and spatial awareness when one is fighting on the floating islands. It was a nice way to get up close with the Mad King after his impressive entrance.

Halloween skins – I wasn’t going for these so it didn’t make much difference to me but I’ll admit I bought the witch one

Haette.2701:

Tanqueray.4837:

.I logged into LA awaiting a full-on battle and got ‘Simon Says’.

Hardly an ‘ultimate event’ – really hope I missed something, or I won’t even log in for future events."

It’s probably because you’re judging the whole event based on the last 2% of it.

No kidding. How does anyone miss the coverage of the rest of the Guild Wars 2 Halloween content on all of the gaming sites and fansites not to mention on the official webpage and wiki? A 5-second Google search makes it easy to see all the stuff there is to do even if you don’t explore around in game.

Or maybe ArenaNet needs to provide some kind of in-game guide rather than just a link to the webpage when we log in. Maybe just NPCs/town criers that link to the webpage?

Ok some honest feedback.

The Labyrinth:
Was ,well too bland in my opinion, the champions too easy ..loads of hp does not equal a challenge. I think you can spice those encounters up a bit by making them mini events. Bash away at the champion like this time around and at 75%/50%/25% it runs of and you gotta do some kind of event puzzle to get him to come back, like find pumkins and throw them at him to knock it down from a high safe area. .or somthing.

The Rumble event and Lunatic event:
Were .well ..pointless imo. Its a personal opinion but ..i found them boring ..there was no real end goal except beat the oposing team…thats not an event .Thats a mini sport like keg brawl. However these were put across as some kind of do or die event due ot the halloween nature :P Anyhoo..moving on.

The Clock Tower!!
…ohhhh the clock tower. .what a wonderfull event ..im not being sarcastic here… PLEASE! put more events in to the game as difficult ..infact no ..MORE difficult than that, honestly the easiness of games nowerdays bar a few exceptions has all but eliminated my faith in the gaming market for the past 12 or so years.. so a simple 1 time event like the clocktower is a welcome breath of old school air

The Mad King dungeon:
Was ..well. Again its like the few normal Gw2 dungeons iv played so far …takes a while ..‘can’ be killed a few times ..but not becouse its ‘difficult’.
Bosses ..and in this case the Mad King ..just had a huge amount of hp and 1 or 2 hard hitting or anoying skills. In this case the ranged 3x combo(usualy dodgable unless ur stamina starved) and the Scarcrow fear ..i dont think i could ever be scared enough to jump of the edge of a cliff ..but ok :P
As much as i REALLY loath the game im about to mention (and hate using it as a comparison) due what what its become.. WoW has much more complex boss fights ..now granted they are REALLY easy ..thats down to the leway and amount of dmg they do..a simple buff on the dmg and making said tactics alot less mistake freindly would make them difficult ..add that to GW2 alreayd has in bosses and the GW2 controls and you would be onto a nice combo. Currenlty though GW2 only manages to make bosses. .bosses..by giving them loads of HP..thats just plain lazy tbh :P ..Sorry ..but it is.

And finaly
Rewards:
Well ..it would be nice ot have some :P lol
I cant help but feel a small sense of Korean Grinder in the kind of drop rates and rng currently present in loot tables :P
Now i do play Korean mmo’s of and on, they r fun, and grinding is part of it..if u dont like it u dont play them ..BUT ..when a western mmo comes out ..that looks feels and by all intent and purposes is totaly Western ..you dont expect to have Eastern style grinding required to get anywhere in terms of loot. I know its no where near as bad (or good if u like it) as most Korean MMO rng drop rates. .but its still worse than what most western mmo’s r like. I cant help but think its down to you cash shop Anet ..make it hard to make gold ..make it hard to get lot ..and you make people buy ingame gold with RL money so they can buy their gear..thats just plain wrong, and is just a masked P2W style mmo…they inevitably end up falling flat on their face.

Anyway that concludes my wallo’text. ..i mean Feedback

Liked:

• Trick Or Treat Doors
• Mad King’s Labyrinth
• Mad Memories: Complete Edition item
• Costume Brawl
• New Halloween crafting recipes
• Mad King Thorn in Lion’s Arch (Act 4)
• Attempt to add Halloween jumping puzzle

Disliked:

• Implementation and difficulty of Clocktower
• Halloween PvP (Inquisition and Reapers)
• Quest to get Mad Memories – parts were buggy and too difficult to find locations without Google
• Amount of grind necessary to get seasonal achievements. For a one week event I expect to be able to get the seasonal stuff in not more than four hours of play.

Other comments:

• Too elaborate. To be honest I would have been happy with just playing Mad King Says on Halloween, getting a hat or back item, and have you invest the rest of the resources in developing content that would be available all year round.

Overall:

• Four words I would use to describe the event are: exciting, frustrating, overwhelming, and memorable.
• It’s probably the most involved seasonal event I’ve done in an MMO.
• I had lots of fun, but honestly I think I would have had more fun with something simpler.

Overall, I think the event was really good. However, I am disappointed because I didn’t have the time to try act 3. It is too bad the event is not longer. I am sure that a lot of GW2 players don’t play every day. I can only play during the weekend and therefore it is impossible for me to get all the successes.
It would be better if we could at least do the donjon and the other three acts until the 5th of November when the event ends. I also think there is a lack of information on the official Halloween page. The date of beginning for each act is specified but I didn’t see that act 3 would finish when act 4 begins anywhere. Disappointing!

Intigo.1653:

The Clocktower was amazing. Anyone complaining about it is clearly not aware that they don’t need to finish every single thing in the game.

It also wasn’t that hard.

I still don’t think people were complaining about difficulty on the clocktower, just that having 10 other people in the instance made it irritating.

For me personally, here’s my feedback on this event.

1. Clocktower – I thought this was a neat puzzle. It took me a while to get through it, but that was partly because when I stopped having fun, I would go murder things in the Labyrinth for a while. A lot of people insisted it had to be difficult due to the rewards, but the rewards were some exotics with sub-par stats, and they didn’t have a unique skin either. I also don’t really think a timer in the form of the mist was necessary. Most people weren’t failing due to being too slow but because of a mistimed jump. I think capping the number of people a little lower, maybe 5, would have reduced a lot of the issues people seemed to have.
2. Pumpkin Carving – This probably felt like the most grindy aspect of the event, and it wasn’t particularly fun. I found this to be a missed opportunity where Master Carver NPCs could be hidden around the world, and carving each of their pumpkins would reward the title. Would’ve gotten people out more instead of having them chugging through overflow servers with alts just to get the 150.
3. PVP stuff – I absolutely loved Reaper Rumble and Lunatic Inquisition so more of these in the future please!
4. Weapon Skins – This is probably the one thing in this event I was ultimately displeased with. I dumped some cash at the start of the event into gems to buy keys for the billion Black Lion chests I’ve had sitting around for two months. I bought 15 keys and got lucky enough to get 3 spares out of chests for a total of 18 keys. Zero skins. So later there’s the post about using boosters to make chests. Out of another 15 Mad King chests, no skins. That doesn’t really entice me to spend more money on gems for keys when after spending $20 and every spare mat in my bank nets me no rewards. If these are ultra rare, that’s fine, but in that case, why not just set them as an ultra-rare out of Personalized Trick or Treat Bags? More opportunities to get them without handing them out in a simple way means less people will be salty after spending money on keys.
5. Exotic Weapons – I thought these were cool but making them require what is essentially legendary-equivalent mats seems a little off to me. For a mini event, I guess I’d have expected them not be such a huge pain to craft. I think it’s cool they were available later off the chest in Ascent to Madness, but that was somewhat of a short-lived portion to the event.

Overall, I thought it was a well-done first effort by Arena Net. I think that a few minor changes in the future will make the upcoming holiday events even better!

I loved the jumping puzzle, there is nothing wrong with it. I love that you enter as a group, it makes it much more fun and builds camaraderie.

Not going to comment on everything, I will just touch on a few things.

The final event needs better loading time on at least the Mad King. First time I had to wait 5 minutes before I could actually see or hear him. Sure I had just loaded the zone, but still he should have been a priority when loading. The second time I missed a lot of parts whenever he ported away again due to load times. Did he say Mad King says or not. I didn’t know for it hadn’t loaded.

The scavenger hunt was well done, though it should have been max level 25 zones. I say this with having 3 fresh out of the starter area characters with a complete edition. I ran my characters to all waypoint locations without outside help. For that I do have to applaud the choice of locations for each page. That even a level 4 max can reach the area it is in without that much trouble.

Please do not change the clock tower and make others similar. The only thing I wish to change is better camera work. On my Asura I had to many awkward camera moments that screwed up my jumps. The Norn and Charr were only a slight annoyance to me and I liked to see them fall.

I was pleased with the Clocktower and pvp because they added some difficulty and fun into the mix. I was displeased with the loot from the labyrinth, clocktower, and Mad King. I ran the Mad king over 50 times and didn’t get anything of value. I think I would’ve been happy with a token system to get permanent loot because I didn’t get anything from this event at all.

Make the Lunatics Court mini game availible throughout the year.

Feedback? Hmmm…

1. They might have made more revenue/money by selling all the Halloween weapon skins directly from the shop. No need to make them account bound or anything, so people could just buy them in bulk (more money for ANet) and sell them on the TP. Because the items would have had a fixed price in gems, the prices people could ask in TP would not have gone out of control (at least not until after the event). They could have kept the skins as rewards in the BL chests (maybe even increase the droprate) so people could basically buy them direct or as a lucky draw from a chest.

2. Clocktower might have worked out better if it was solo (as intended). Fixing the wierd camera glitching and invisible snags could have also made the experience more enjoyable for more people.

3. A select few Halloween skins as mini-legendaries? Please don’t do that again. Instead just put them up for sale in the store next time.

Mostly a good event.

The Clocktower had two big, easily avoidable problems, though. First was the gratuitous forced wait between attempts to start. It’s like, “Hey guys, we don’t want you to have fun all the time, so we’re going to force you to stand around waiting half the time when you could be playing because we’re mean.” Of course, the purpose of this was to gather everyone together to be starting at the same time, which of course makes the whole thing pointless. It’s like trying to do any of the jumping puzzles in the game after first taking an opaque piece of paper and completely covering the center of your monitor so you can’t see yourself or your immediate surroundings. Maybe some people find that fun, but it’s just frustrating, makes the thing impossible, and does the opposite of build camaraderie — it makes you truly hate your fellow players and wish you were playing in a personal instance.

Only other big gripe is, I would have appreciated a longer notice ahead of time on the fact that Ascent to Madness was going away. The length of time it was available wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if I’d known when it was going to end sooner.

One last little thing, though: a little more transparency on what the requirement are for the achievements. A lot of them simply fail to explain how they’re achieved, e.g. It’s a Mad King’s World fails to give any indication of what is or isn’t included in it.

I like how much time was spent on the event however as it’s the last day now, I feel that the entire event has become boring/anticlimactic. I enjoyed the minigames, clocktower, and instance but as a whole, it wasn’t very rewarding (especially for the people like me who can’t play more than 1-2 hours a day max).

Content 9/10 – Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. Clock tower was genius.
Delivery 3/10 – Far too many bugs. Communication of what was required for achievements and clarity of instructions for all the mini games, but particularly scavenger hunt part 2 and Lunatic Inquisition, was very poor.

I’ve played GW for almost 6 years now (original and GW2), and I must say that this event was easily the best Anet has come up with. Although I didn’t complete the Clock Tower (I’m dismally incompetent at jumping puzzles), everything else was extra fun. The Ascent to Madness was the most fun for me, and the scavenger hunt, MK Realm, mini dynamic events, etc were a blast as well. Great job with MK’s entrance too! Aside from a few bugs which others have mentioned, in my opinion this was a complete win.
The witches costume is fabulous! Being able to fly on a broom is STELLAR! My only criticism of it would be the inability to wear it all the time, even while fighting. In GW1, the original Doppel wore her Dwayna costume all the time after it came out
Final score: 9/10. Good job!