Guild Wars 2

Interesting how some players heap praise on it comparing the content released to other MMOs who don’t. This is my first MMORPG ever and dont plan on playing other MMORPGS in the near future and I have to say I am perfectly fine without Halloween, happier even.

Maybe my expectations are more in line with traditonal solo RPGs where grind/skill gave u definite rewards.

Overall I thought the event was a lot of fun and it was great to learn about everyones favorite evil king. My only problem is not knowing that you had to have a sufficiently high level character to complete the main quest (Mad Memories in my opinion).

My level 50 only had trouble near the end, even then with a little teamwork from others I was able to complete it with very little problem. My level 30 on the other hand was a very different story. I feel that it is exactly impossible to complete with a character this level or lower which is really disappointing to find out after sinking so much time and effort into the event.

I now know not to expect to actually be able to participate in special event content unless my character is of the correct level. I guess I should work on all my alts now for the winter event instead of finishing my main character.

Overal, I loved the event.

I really liked hunting for the ghosts, figuring out where to go next (I had turned of chat at one point because I didn’t want spoilers!) I only had to look up the last location as I had never been to Sparkfly Fen (yet I’ve been lvl80 for a few weeks already :P)

I loved the maze! Though, it would have been more fun if you hadn’t had access to the mini-map. Using that sometimes felt a bit like cheating. It was a fun place to get extra candy, finish that Huntin’, carving and event achievement and to just go on a mindless killing spree.

I don’t care about PvP, so those two PvP areas I looked at, found them not bad, but still didn’t care for them.

I hated the clocktower. It’s an awesome jumping puzzle, but putting a puzzle of that category in a temporary content update was just … let’s just say, I didn’t approve :P But, I read that Josh is sorry, so I forgive him. Provided that tower will come back in the regular game!

The three crafted weapons are nice, but their price is too steep. Half the required amount of ingredients and they’d still be hard but also possible to get for the players who don’t farm 24/7. I did stock up on the required materials for the Forge, in case I ever do get the money I need to buy the wine, but I have no idea when I even have the money for the first stage (getting the recipe), let alone the second (Gift) and third (weapon).

Lastly, the chests… I think ANet made a mistake there. The fact that you could get rare skins out of those chests, nothing wrong with that. The fact that the drop rate was abysmal, yes, there is something wrong with that.
We also had those personalized ToT bags and the standard ToT bags. They could have put them all together.

Standard ToT bags: drop rate of the three rare skins: 0.01%
Personalized ToT bags: drop rate of the three rare skins; 0.1%
Black Lion Chest: drop rate of the three rare skins: 1%

Then something that isn’t really Halloween related but more general event related: town clothes.

We really need a way to store town clothes at the least, the ability to re-get town clothes without having to pay for it again would be better.

I got both the Witch’s Costume and the Mad King’s one. I also got some horns from the Shop. And I already had some baseball caps. And now I also got that Witch’ kittenfrom the Mad King’s Party. I’m running out of characters that can wear those extra town clothes…

Something like the pet collection tab would be nice for the town cloth collection tab…

DecoyKnight.8739:

I feel that it is exactly impossible to complete with a character this level or lower which is really disappointing to find out after sinking so much time and effort into the event.

I finished both quests on my lvl31… So, it was possible, but you really do need friends. It might even be possible to go there with an ever lower level, but I would wear disposable armour then…

The two things, or maybe three things i enjoyed the most in order of being the most fun for me.

1)Mad King Tower. If only the rest of the jumping puzzles were anywhere near as exhilarating and fun as this one. I hope many more puzzles are released that are similar to this one.

2)Halloween decorations. The art team has done a OUTSTANDING job at it.

3)Halloween weapon skins.

I would like to mention that I liked the Halloween weapon skins but NOT the way in which you got them. It was a RNG mess. My GF was lucky enough to get it and gave it to me, since she did not use a greatsword. Next time, please put SOME weapons on the cash shop, SOME weapons that are extremely RARE to find in chests, and SOME weapons that you can get through hard work. Then no one will complain about the RNG mess that was this Halloween.

The rest of the stuff was, imo, pretty lame and lackluster. That includes the Mad King dungeon.

I enjoyed this event a lot. The clock tower, fighting the mad king was all enjoyable, wish i can do more of it :P. There is my own pros and cons to the event, but more pros then there is cons.

pros:
1. The ghosts for a new back piece was great, with the visuals, it matches the CoF armor.
2. The clock Tower was ridiculously fun, but was very hard to complete, it was very well done in terms of its challenges, but it could be fixed up a little to make sure there was little bugs, but reward was good.
3. The halloween brawl is very fun, I enjoyed doing it with my pirate costume and madking outfit(Img. below shows the honor of the madking).
4. Fighting the mad king couldn’t be any better for Halloween, could be done solo or with 5 people, with possible great rewards, no exotics but wish it could of lasted longer.
Cons:
1. Candy Corn nodes were everywhere, It rather replaced a lot of nodes(especially Orichalcum Ore)that were very valuable to mine, it should stay only in Kytra or low leveled areas for next time.
2. There were many bugs, Clock Tower, Fighting Mad King Thorn(or trying to start MKT)had some issues, I was unable to fight him solo or host party due to the event being bugged, and at last, the Lunatic’s Inquisition was a tad-bit buggy.
3.Act 4 was rather short and dull, I was hoping for some super close down event(like what happened in GW2-Beta)for a reward.

Nevertheless, This even was very enjoyable. I hope there will be another great holiday event like this.

P.S. Is there going to be a Thanksgiving event? I have noticed that there are 2 “???” on the monthly Event.

For the game with o much potential, this was terrible event. Except phenomenal CT, everything else was focused on GW1 fans and money making. But that’s general problem with GW2 anyway, ppl who like it are in most cases GW1 fans, coz person who played Lineage, Aion, Ultima, EQ or WoW can see that this game is missing content, and a lot of it.
So + for CT , would b nice to see same , if not harder puzzles in future.

The only thing I’d change is the cosmetic items offered for gems - they’re town clothes... they shouldn’t be. I wasn’t even a little bit tempted to buy them; being town clothes ruins their appeal to me.

If they were skins that could be applied to existing armor, my credit card would have come out faster than you can say ’boo’.

That said, Anet, you did an AMAZING job... I’ve been playing MMO’s since Runescape (shaaaaaame) came out, which I think was back in 2001...? and I have NEVER seen a holiday event that even comes close to GW2’s Halloween... really, my mind is blown... how the hell did cram THAT much into an event that’s only around for a matter of days?! You guys rock.

I wish I could afford to just go nuts with gem purchases - you’ve earned it! I did go ahead and buy the $10 one, just to say ’thanks’, which allowed me to grab my 8th character slot (other purchased with gold swap) - all 8 of my toons are now sporting the [Mad Memoires: Complete Edition], and I love it!

Keep up the outstanding work!

Erik Navkire.1603:

I loved the decorations and the Mad King himself (who sounded like Bane)

>_< now that you’ve said that i cant stop imagining it

I thought the whole event was awesome except for one thing…

WHERE IS MISTER GUMDROPS?

Really enjoyed the event and all the parts that made up the various elements pity the RNG did not like me as much

Never mind always the next event for my luck to improve

I personally enjoyed the event even though I was able to only do some of the quest’s since I can only play on weekends. However, I was one of the lucky few who got two Greatsaws (Yes, Two…) and a chain sword, so all in all, I was pretty pleased with it

My feed back (sence i tried to make a post to warn people and it got deleted -.-)

DO NOT try to mystic forge the mad king gem set (costume brawl thingy)

I saw you could and got (see attach) near 10$ down the drain, anywho don’t do it its a bad idea XD

I loved the way ANet managed to create such an awesome atmosphere of Halloweeny/creepy/funness. All the environment changes (Lion’s Arch was a work of art) were fantastic, and I loved that there were options for people who PVP as well as PVEers. Putting candy corn nodes in every map was creative and cute. I really enjoyed it. However, a couple days in my holiday became overshadowed by The Crossing. At first we found out it was an insane ~150G grind, and I decided to farm holiday mats and craft later, knowing I probably wouldn’t even want the thing by the time I would be able to afford 100 crystal lodestones. Then, the weapons started dropping in the Labyrinth! They were on the TP! Half an hour after I get to the Lab, ANet implements the patch that makes the chests drop 2 greens once a day. I farm MK constantly, scrounge for every last copper in an effort to be able to afford one if I can’t find it. However, I couldn’t do it. One never dropped for me, and by the time I had 20 gold, the prices had gone up above 50. So some people got this weapon for 0 effort -and make no mistake, spamming 1 in a crowd of 50 people requires 0 effort- and the rest of us who can’t afford what’s listed now will have to grind out a mini-legendary for over 100 gold. I’m trying to remember the good things, but this was a really horrible idea. Please, please, please, please in the future do not create such a huge discrepency in the availability of holiday items.

FUN! I wish there would always be events or just times where a whole pack of people would travel together conquering their surroundings. Defeating all kinds of beasts no matter their ferocity or number! …I just really don’t like how lonely GW2 can get sometimes.

But yeh, I loved all the events I especially love the Mad king’s jokes XD so bad, but so good!

I loved the event, but there may have been a little too much for the casual player (like me) to achieve in a single weekend.

I would have loved more time to play and conquer the clock tower.

Things to improve:
1. Remove the wait time on the clock tower – i’m sure you have a good reason for having it there.
2. Allow solo attempts at the clock tower – I can never see where I’m going because of all the other players doing it. I guess that’s kind of the fun part.
3. fix the halloween portals events – these were bugged on my server
4. provide better information on where to go and what to do for certain events. Hopefully the wiki will be more up to date next time.

apart from that it was great fun, especially costume brawling

Taking in to account things like: getting the books are really hard when you’re under leveled say level 20-ish) unless other people are also in the area getting them, I still think the Event was a lot of fun. I got a single Mad King recipe (sold immediately).
It was fun to play Mad King Says again, and the Mad King’s Dungeon was a blast most of the time. I do wish I’d been around to get in on the gold item madness when the Labyrinth went live, but c’est la vie.

I’ve always considered original GW to have the best seasonal events among MMO’s. But what AN presented during this year’s Halloween is just light years ahead of GW1 and every other MMO i’ve seen so far. So much content for a 2 weeks duration event, some amazing art-work, some spectacular moments (yes, i mean Clock Tower xP). Great job and thank you.

What i didn’t like? Bugs ofc xP. Whole gambling thing with skins in chests was imo a mistake, although i didn’t participate in it. And regarding Clock Tower, i think it was a good suggestion to make players appear as some Halloween characters, like skeletons, mummies, etc. to avoid this Norn/Charr drama, and it would contribute a great deal to event’s atmosphere. Personally i don’t think that making it solo would be good idea, it’s a festival after all and there r plenty of solo puzzles.

I enjoyed the MK dungeon, the rest was boring imo, also rewards vs the RNG sucked. It’s a once a year thing and you made it a grind-fest-gold-sink RMT event.

You should have given weapons skins a higher drop rate and exotics with low drop rate, just give the exotics better particle effects.

Just some of my ideas and thougths.

Act 2 was imo by far the best. The clocktower was awesome, i would love seeing even harder jumpevents like this. The PvP of Rumble i realy like, but i could use a boost in the form of a (better) reward.
The mad king says event was just not as fun as in gw1. Most of his lines you hear, are also in the PvP and dungeon. I didn’t realy hear any jokes in the event, however i heard some while i suddenly saw him running around the mystic forge etc. Put those jokes in the event please, content is made to be seen imo. Also, 90% of the commands you actually need to do, i would love more tricky fake ones.

And the thing that i realy miss is some more rewards for everyone. I mean with this costumes or skins or weapons. The rare ones are nice to collect for sure, but not everyone will get that. A few ‘easy’ to get items would make this event more rememborable imo.

Also, the overflow system just seems unable to handle large amounts of people (the dungeon), hope this will be looked at, because i think this will happen with every popular event.

What a good positive idea to give constructed feedback.

Scavenger Hunt:

I had tons of fun on my lvl 80 going back to places I haven’t been to in a while.
It was great to discover that on each location there were several secret ways of getting more bags. Sadly it was discovered quickly that you could exploit it (thank you Kittens).

Part 2 was a little heaver on a lower lvl alt, but thanks to a lot of helpful people, I was able to get the 2nd book for my alt. Great job and I loved deciphering the hints!

Suggestion: Make it a little bit more accessible for a lower level alt.

Haunted Doors:

It was fun to run into a door and get some enemies or a TOT bag.
The fact that sometimes one was bugged, didn’t bug me at all. Stuff like that happens in a game and i felt that Anet quickly resolved those issues.

Suggestion: Play a little bit more with the trick part of a door. I loved the fake door at LA that drops you high out of the sky. Remember that the Mad King is truly mad.

Labyrinth:

I had great fun with tons of people and what i loved to most is how "unknown"people get organised, help each other out. I still find it pretty unique that people are so much more social in GW2.

Suggestion: None

Lunatic Inquisition & Reaper’s Rumble:

I am not big on pvp to be honest. I haven’t played them both much but from what I have seen they looked great.

Suggestion: I felt that the two instances above could use a little but more explanation. Maybe a cinematic could have helped it making it more clear.

Clocktower:

I absolutely love the Clocktower. I finished it on an Asura, Charr, Norn and Human. I would love to see more puzzles like this and I went back several times just for the hell of it. Do not change a thing about it.

Suggestion: More, more, more and make them harder

Mad King Cinematic Event:

Everything i have seen so far has been really well done. I do have one little thing. In the beginning of act 4, I did not see the MK coming out of the well and talk. All I saw was it exploding and tons of green smoke. Not sure why it wasn’t working. Some people in my guild had the same issue while other saw it. (We were all gathered on the same server on the same time)

Suggestion: You fixed the issue I had with not being able to see the cinematic by repeating that part every 20 minutes or so if you were standing near the fountain.
Good job!

Mad King Dungeon:

I ran the dungeon several times and I really enjoyed it. The only thing that was sometime hard, is when the the MK swaps your skill bar for an emoticon skill bar while you are fighting. .(Yay got the Crossover staff)

Suggestion: A warning up front on who he picks might work, so that the player can separate himself until it is over. Nothing big, just a suggestion.

Halloween skins:

I got two skins out of a chest and sadly they weren’t heavy armor. I was fully aware that spending money was a gamble so i do not feel disappointed that i didn’t get anything for heavy armor. Nobody forces you to gamle.

Suggestion: It would be great if those skins were not tied to light, medium or heavy armor but universal.

Conclusion:

What a big great event and thank you everybody at Anet for creating so much content for a simple Halloween day. I can not wait for the upcoming holidays.

Please hire the guy who did the voice acting for the mad king and let him do more stuff.
What a great awesome voice!

PS. Whoever designed the pirate Quaggan ( we need that as a pet), the artwork on a crafting window, loading screenshots etc. etc. THANK YOU!

Event was awesome, I feel like they packed so much more content into this holiday update than other MMO’s do. I love the creativity of the devs making this game, they really have a outstanding eye for detail.

ACT 1 : I was a little lost, really didn’t know what to do or where to go. I feel like A-net could have done a better job explaining what was going on without having me to alt tab and do a google search. Rating 6/10

ACT 2 : Doors throughout the world were very cool, entering them was alot of fun and the maze was entertaining . Clock Tower was awesome in design, reminded me of the old arcade game from the 80’s “Dragons Lair” but much more difficult lol. To be honest the difficulty on the clock tower was way to high. I think clock tower would have been a much more enjoyable expierance without the time limit to complete it ie: the rising ooze. Rating 9/10

ACT 3 : Mini instance fighting the Mad king was fun & quick, difficulty felt just right.
Rating 8/10

ACT 4 : Act 4 felt very anticlimactic . Now i was only able to spend 2 hours on this act last night from 10 -12 so maybe i missed something. The whole simon/mad king says thing was funny & entertaining but that was all there really was to this act, again I only spent 2 hours here so maybe i missed something . Rating 6/10

Overall : 8/10 I feel like the devs put alot of work on this update and it showed. As a gamer i apprciate the fact the update didn’t feel like it was thrown together 2 days before release of the patch the way so many other MMO’s do. Basically i hope the Devs pretty muich mirror this event in all future updates, It was alot of fun and the rewards were decent. Good Job Anet.

Overall the event is really good.

One thing that bother me a lot is the lack of weapon/armor item/skin that you can “easily” get from the event. I know there are a lot of skins and items from black lion chest and crafting, but those are really hard to get for casual player.

There should be common, uncommon, and rare skins or items that you can get from the event or black lion chest. This will definitely let people to have some “souvenir” from the halloween event and not end up getting nothing after opening a lot of chest or running dungeon in hope of getting “very” rare item or skin.

Looking forward for the next event, hope there is another event for Christmas.

If it wasn’t for this forum and the wikis, I’d have not done most of the event. Like the clues for the ghosts? Yeah. It took me a few hours even to figure out how to start. The clues didn’t EVEN point me in the right direction either. Thanks to the wiki, I could do that event.
Thanks to this forum, I discovered that all I had to do was jump in to the Mad King’s crater to get the point for participating. Since I don’t have a group of 5, I would have skipped it, just like I skip all the dungeons. I thought I’d have to go in and win to get the point.
So, yeah, it would have been nice if the game was self-explanatory like GW1 was. Do better for Wintersday, y’all. Looking forward to candy cane ore, LOL

I loved the event and my thanks to all the hard working Anet personnel who strived to make it a success and fun for everyone. I loved the versatility of activities, the clock tower was more challenging than most and drew in the hardcore “gotta catch em all” crowd, there were two events which catered to the PvPer’s so they had fun too, then of course more relaxed events for casual players or dungeons for the crowd runners. So there was something for everyone! You gave us the devil horns and witches hat for free (with some hair clippage issues lol) and that’s MORE than we got in gw1 even. I think most people are so absorbed into getting rares and exotics that they forget to just have fun…

What I would improve: I admit in the beginning, I was one of those irritated with the chance ratio on the chests for the skins(which we had no idea of at first until some spent either a lot of money or all their gems). I agree they should be rare, but I do think at the very least the chances for winning one should have been declared prior to starting the event. I bought gems and unlocked more storage and stuff like that but did not buy into the gambling. Gambling IS a choice, but the odds should have been stated clearly, that’s all I’m saying. I was not pleased that the only way to get the permanent bow skin was to craft it unlike the others and there were not enough various types of skins for all the classes to enjoy. I also felt rushed…the event was full of wonderful activities and things to do, achievements to obtain and challenges and fun to be had…but packed into one week. Some people work lol and I myself was looking for a job and going on interviews so did not have a lot of time to join in. If the event had been spread out more over say a two week period, that would have been better in my opinion and would have given everyone a chance to either catch up or participate.

I would also like to suggest to add even MORE challenging criteria into future events. Clearly many loved the clock tower…some did not. It depends on who likes a challenge. Don’t go overboard and forget the casual, regular players like me though lol…I gave up on the tower because I felt rushed for time when I did get to play. Also, perhaps some repeatable events which would appeal to lower level characters. I know there are a lot of high level 80 players, but we forget sometimes how squishy and weak we felt as a lowbie haha.

I have an idea for an event actually…it can be pvp focus or pve, but the idea is to pair up a high level 80 with a low level character. The higher has to protect the lower. The lower would be given heals, boons or whatnot to try to keep the lvl 80 alive. If both survive, they would both receive a level equivalent reward, or karma or money, something. I just think it would help to make lowbies feel included and more useful in events as well as foster the community.

Overall the Halloween Event was very enjoyalbe. Things I liked the most:
- Discovering the history of the Mad King – a very nice quest helping us to learn lore, with various activities and nice reward. ?
- Mad King’s Clock Tower – wow, that was tough! Requiring a lot of precision but luckily rather short. Thanks to that it wasn’t frustrating. I was constantly determined to do it again and again, like in old games!
- 2 pvp activities – GW1 style! Specific rules made them very interesting and entertaining!
What could be better in my opinion:
- Carving pumpkins – I don’t like activities, which require running around and finding things, unless they are somehow connected to the lore or story, like the book quest. I was tired and bored doing this.
- Ascent to Madness – I didn’t do this when it was available, because I didn’t have time! I wish it wasn’t closed, because only today I had a chance to play GW2 and enjoy Halloween. Now I can’t get ‘The Emissary of the Mad King’ title, only because I don’t have this mini-dungeon! I devoted my time to do all other activities and I feel like I was cheated. :/ I think it could (and should!) stay open as a part of one of activities from Mad Kings Realm, so that everyone had a chance to complete it, not only a number of players, who had time to access it.

My only objection is that I wish it lasted longer. I had a ton of work almost all through the event and college projects and exams, and by the time everything cleared up, wasn’t enough time to enjoy it. What I did get to play was great though, so hopefully there’s just more time for people to enjoy the next event!

feedback?Ok I try

What I like
-Title achivement. I like to hunt title what I like alway challange.
-Halloween thing food fighter,spooky quarggan.Yes I like when quarggan said"Yarrrr!"lol.
-Kill pumkin Well I like kill something not fight me back.
-Run around mad king labyrinth go get victim or be a victim is good fun.
-Mad king memory A lot of pure nice evil story I love to read it from all NPC around the world.
-Mad king clock tower real painful memory but be pround all player love to yell any rude every failed. But I like this.
-Spen sometime with killing toy in WWW pumkin bombart,toilet paper cannon,ghost dolyak.
-Spen time with somebody don’t know each other join event is GOOD meaning of this event.

What I not like

-Not get acthivement"Emissary of mad king" because last place must go is mad king dungeon in LA lag as hell and close to dam fast not pop in sat/sun.(and am struck not complete100% b-cos of this.)4place is not clear It should labyrinth,reaper,lunatic,clock tower at same place but last place is dungeon(and open for2 and less3day oh it3day if u not sleep and not go working just play a game for 72hr in a row.)

-Clock tower if this room got 1or2or more3 Max zise Norn/Charr make people and me get 25stack of crying(45sec).Laging or delay data from server 1sec make you doom.NPC never tried of stop talking.(good to hear but here same chat for 3hour of life is nightmare.“Tic tok your time is…” "Shut up your rotmouth asura!!’)

-You guy need player need to fix and searching hint for fun but somethine less data is make us not fun(People give up and look wiki/google not care your detail b-cos it dam hard such a lot of alway do and say “Wiki/google it”)

-Exotic item is not a big deal it just another farming season.But people love to have this before join event"I go Exotic item not care event why ask me!?!"

Overall the event exceeded a lot of my expectations, which wasn’t so hard considering I wasn’t sure what to expect. I liked that it came in phases; it gave a sense of progression and story. The game play was great. There was always a lot to do.

I thought, however, that the rewards were lackluster. I was really disappointed to find that most of the cool and useful event souvenirs were out of the reach of most people due to either lack of time or money (in game or otherwise).
1) The mad Kings Memories book was pretty cool, at first, until I realized that I had a large book awkwardly pasted on my back. Cannot un-see. Hopefully the next event will have a back piece that doesn’t look like I have a growth coming out of my backside.
2) The Mad Kings exotics should have had a custom skin… the rune that comes in them is rather meh. I have no reason to keep the boots once I find/craft something better. As a reward for completing the Mad Kings Clock Tower I thought given the above, the Mad Kings Slippers Fell short as a reward.
3) The BLC gambling skins was a very bad idea. I bought a set of BLKs before I knew the drop rate was so low and that’s a purchase I now regret. If I had known the drop rate was so low, I would have bought the set of mini’s instead. Worst of all, for Anet, it’s made me re-think whether or not I will put real money into future events. I want to put money into the events, so Anet can bring some more cool things to me in the future, but there needs to be more that can either be ground for or purchased directly.

At least The Crossing, Arachnophobia, and The Mad Moon are doable given enough time.

Now that it’s all over, there is something else I think is needed:

I know it’s part of the fun and important to have the contents of each phase be a surprise, but, it was terribly confusing to figure out exactly what was needed in order to end up with the “Emmissary of the Mad King” title.

For example, I had not yet done the dungeon when it was removed at the introduction of phase four. I had no idea it was going to go away before the end of the event, nor did I know that it was a necessary part of getting the title. By the time I saw any announcement about this, I was at work and access ended before the end of that work day.

It would save players unnecessary disappointment, and ANet some grief in terms of complaints if, toward the end of an event and with some wiggle room before necessary components are removed, there is some sort of clear checklist provided regarding what’s needed for event rewards.

Notes: I was only able to log in a little bit during phases 1&2, but played plenty during phases 3&4.

I felt there were a couple missed opportunities with the event in the case of the costumes and weapon skins. Having them on the store was seen a cheap money grab and most of the weapon skins were astronomically hard to get, especially for alts.

- Increase costumes/town cloths including scarecrows, ghosts, etc instead of only having them as potions.

- Have PERMANENT skins of every weapon type that we can purchase with candy corn or tokens from doing halloween events. Essentially, if you complete most all of the events you should have enough tokens to get a weapon skin and maybe a costume piece. Then have those same skins through the item store and random chance from Mad King chests.

- You absolutely have to keep the Mad King’s clocktower. I loved almost everything about it. The sprocket that everyone clumps up on before the tower side breaks out is the only thing I would change. The debris there makes way too many issues with pathing and camera movement. That combined with a clump of players is just WAY too much game structure interfering with otherwise awesome and tough jumping puzzle.

The Labyrinth was absolutely a blast. I loved the Risen VS Villagers game. The regular labyrinth was really fun too. I would say maybe add a meta dynamic event to it every few hours or so. The other games were really fun to try out also. I think the pumpkin pvp match was a blast.

Overall I had a blast and really enjoyed it as an event. I just felt a bit slighted about the way the skins were mishandled. There were several weapon types that weren’t really represented, and the ones that were, were a mixed bag of near impossible to get or only temporary.

I found a bit enjoyable the mad king dungeon. A bit easy but had his fun till last.
The rest of the event, i wish it never was online at all. My feedback? Fail.
If Christmas event is something similar, i’ll save my time for something else, for sure.

I greatly enjoyed the event overall.

Things I liked the most:

Mad King scavenger hunt.
Clock tower jumping puzzle
Mad King dungeon/boss fight
Mad King Labyrinth
Loot in chests that were repeatable
Costume Brawl (although some rewards might be cool if you can structure something more competitive)
Free devil horns
Mad King says with Witch hat reward

Things I didn’t like:

Pumpkin carving
RNG gambling on chests for Skins/loot
Ridiculous cost of crafting halloween weapons

The skins are not legendary weapon, so why make them so rare? They should have been a 1 of 5 chance of getting one in the BLC.

If skins last to the 5th, then increase the drop rate to 1 out of 5. And give people who already spent more than $20 some free keys.

My humble review:

- Book quests: They were simply great, although I felt sometime the compass didn’t work properly. Sometimes it was activated but there weren’t suspicious locations around. Or they didn’t trigger properly, imho. So I’ll give it 7.5/10

- Reaper’s Rumble: Very nice DotA miniPvP. Although I’m a PvE player, I enjoyed it. Anyway, I think it was a bit lack of rewards. I’ll give it 9.5/10

- Tower clock: Pure madness. It’s flawless for me. I’ll give it 10/10

- Inquisition PvP minigame: Sorry, but I didn’t like it very much. It was very easy to avoid inquisition, and it was very hard to find villagers. I think villagers need an extra pressure, like a reduced map or a good health degeneration that force them to walk into inquisition members. I could win with a villager doing almost nothing and rewards aren’t very good for a game with 15 min. duration. So I’ll give it 3/10, sorry.

- Labyrinth: Nice place, but only useful for farming for 3-4 hours. After that, you’ll only take crap, so you will focus on chests, avoiding all other events. Anyway, it was very fun. I’ll give it 8.5/10

- Mad King Dungeon: Awesome. It was perfect for any level. Anyway, I would add more “Mad King Says” curses. They are only a few at the beginning. The loot was very good. Perhaps too good if you compare it with Labyrinth or regular chests/events. I’ll give it 10/10

- “Mad King Says” event in LA: I liked Rock/paper/scissors! . Anyway: I’ll give it 9/10. 10/10 if you give us some place to save our clothes

I loved the event, I experienced most of everything and got all the achievements except the master carver.

Things I would have like to see improved/added on are:
A few more quest & events like the Mad King book. I initially didnt know there were new events in Gendarran fields so didnt take part in those but would have liked to.

I would have enjoyed something to spend my candy corn on other than time sensitive weapon skins. Would have loved to get a halloween weapon that was not a rare for candy corn much like candy cane wands and shields in GW1.

Wished my endless Halloween tonic would have the ghost and zombies in it as well.

Would have liked a few more things like Ghost in a box along with all the food items.
I dont think its such a good idea to have quests that take you in to higher level zones (above 30). I was able to since I was lvl 60 charr but just think it might not sit well with lower level people.

Thanks ANet for the awesome event!

And yes the Clock Tower was hard but I wouldnt change anything except maybe to flatten out some of the broken pieces in the beginning that you get stuck on. ( 3+ hours for me)

Only thing I wasn’t too pleased about was the scavenger hunt. It would have been nice to be able to find locations on my own because I used my meter properly and NOT because the zerg is currently surrounding the location in question (which not only spoils the mystery of it all for me, but transforms it into a mindless, follow-the-leader quest).

However, I thought everything else was really fun. My absolute favorite activity from this event was the clocktower; I sincerely hope Anet includes more JPs of this difficulty in future events!

My feedback, as a “casual completionist”.
Things I didn’t like first:
- Having short events with required phases within it that are short in duration makes the event frustrating and too much like a job. For instance, I didn’t know phase 3 would go away with phase 4, and unfortunately only found out that I needed to engage in phase 3 in order to get the achievement, so I missed out. Lame, especially because I was sick during that 24-hr period and couldn’t play. It also happened during the week, so those of us with jobs with long hours are equally out-of-luck.
- Please tell us ahead of time if a particular event or quest chain has a particular level required for it. I managed to get the 2nd Mad Memoire book, but it required some extreme luck, naked suicide runs, and all of that “fun”, and I only did those because I’d already spent so much time on that quest. Had I known the final piece was in a lvl 55+ zone I wouldn’t have bothered.
- Jumping puzzle was very frustrating for many, including myself. I’m actually pretty good at jumping puzzles, but I wasn’t going to spend the requisite amount of time learning the path.
- Pumpkin carving = tedious. There’s no other description for it, it’s just a time sink with no value other than getting the achievement.

Things that I liked:
- The other events within the labyrinth were very cool, atmospheric, and I thought cleverly done and fit the theme well.
- I liked the concept of opening of the portals and the task leading up to it. The way it worked out you could engage in that if you wanted, or hop to one of the other zones and find a gate already open. You could also quit and stay in the labyrinth, no need to repeat the getting inside step.
- Trick or Treat bags – I liked the random extra bonus piece of this (although the achievement a bit less so).
- Art & Music – as expected, top notch, definitely captured the vibe of the holiday.

As someone else mentioned it was often difficult to figure out what to do. I agree with this, but I think that it wasn’t due to lack of instructions (our hands were held pretty well on that), but just because the event itself was complicated.

The event overall was pretty cool. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it covered the holiday well. However, here’s my only complaint:

I didn’t have enough time to do anything.

A lot of the event (especially the late phase stuff) took place on the weekdays and as a veteran MMO player, I don’t have as much time to play as I did back when I was a single college kid. This means that I had very very little time to play during the week. and completely missed the stuff that happened on the last day.

My suggestion: extend events like these past their real-life counterpart’s dates. I hate to make the comparison to WoW, but this is what they have done and it’s worked for them.

I LOVED the Mad King Clock Tower, geee I rage like there’s no tomorrow! But I was able to complete it now the one thing make it more difficult to me was trying to do it with the giant races of Tyria … I think I will use a by race only, but, if I’m running it with my friends and they have different races we won’t be able to troll each other when falling.

The pieces of the Mad King history were amazing and the fact that I get to keep an artifact that shows I did it makes it even more amazing … One thing I didn’t like about this was to have those weird riddles and end up on Google finding out how to do those … I would have use something like come with the clue to a Priory representative and some how going to a portal or something and open a mini event that will end up taking me to the particular ghost.

PVP maps, awesome, no complaints

Crafting. none

Mining nodes on PVP areas … I would remove those, I was more tempt to get those than to fight, big distraction for me.

• Sugestion **

I would love to see an event in where you get to hijack one Alt or even the Main Toon at the account to then have it to be rescued by another Toon that will escalate to the level of this Toon and by following clues and traces and mini events he will get to rescue it and then later on both, one with AI and the other yourself kill a Veteran or a Champion to be finally free … that will be nice.

Overall, GREAT JOB GUYS!!!

Loved everything about it.

Lunatic Inquisition is AMAZING! Most fun I have had in “pvp” in this game. I would love it to be kept around year round! Only thing I would do is maybe give a chance on some kind of cool reward to encourage more people to try it out (for those who need some sort of reward possibility instead of just playing for fun).

Wasn’t able to complete Clock Tower but love that there is stuff like that in the game and think there should be more of (difficult content – not mandatory – not dumbed down).

ETA: And ANet I beg of you to ignore the crybabies who are demanding that rare skins be less rare. If everyone has them no one would want them. Keep rare items fairly rare so that they are actually super exciting to get.

Clock tower wasn’t bad, infuriating but I kept coming back and trying again. I enjoyed finding a random door and butchering the enemy that spawned from it, ToT bags were easy to obtain kind of neat that the little halloween kids gave you them in exchange for a horrible candy, the mad king realm games were okay, fighting the king for two hours with my level 37 and the missus and her level 30 character just made it after dying enough times that I only had shoulder guards left.

Kind of fun getting all of the pages for the book, and having to go to areas of vastly powerful enemies, fortunately I was able to tag along with some higher level characters that knew the way, and could defend the lower level guys like myself while I kind of supported with group healing and a few small buffs (thanks to the many people on the same quest, or going the same direction that res’d me).

Just going to pop in and say I loved it.

Previous to this I had played very little GW2. Lots of schoolwork and life keep me away from gaming and so when I do I preferred to play/ watch SC2 over GW2 just because I was afraid it was going to be another WoW…

This event changed my mind entirely. I began the event when the Mad King popped out of the statue in Lion’s Arch and did not stop until I got most everything done and had a ball with EVERYTHING. Clocktower was my absolute favorite and I spent about 6-8 hours trying to do just that.

Really I wouldn’t change a thing. There were good easy things for EVERYONE to do and there were hard and time consuming things for the hardcores. Excellent job Arena. You have a new fan and I will be playing much more GW2 in the future

(P.S. Add some more jump puzzles like the tower please!)

I was overall very happy with the Halloween event. The problem was the lack of information. I only knew what to do because I read forums and guides and such, but I have a friend who doesn’t and he had no idea what to do, where to start, etc.

Some of the achievements were ultimately frustrating because we had no way of knowing whether they would become easier or harder to do. If I had known the labyrinth was coming, I wouldn’t have spent so much time looking for pumpkins and waiting for doors to spawn.

The rewards in general were really cool. The gem store outfits, the hat, the Mad Memories books (my favorite) were all really fun. The weapon skins and Endless tonic were a real problem. Having something so desirable be based on random chance doesn’t help anyone enjoy the game. Even the extra excitement the winners get is minimal compared to the sea of disappointed players and it shows in morale.

Make the skins or tonic cost 10,000 candy corn if you want them to be rare, but make them definitely attainable so that people don’t feel like they wasted time and money (sometimes a lot) for something they never got. The rewards are great, the delivery method was terrible and has been proven to be so in many games. Players don’t like minuscule random chance. It is not fun.

The clock tower was a really fun challenge, but it should have been a solo instance, though it sounds like that was what was intended in the design. All the same, i really enjoyed it and felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally managed it (on an asura!). See that’s something that I worked for; I didn’t have to hope I would randomly be able to beat the clocktower, and it was fun even though I spent hours trying before I managed it.

The labyrinth and mini games were clever and fit the theme well. I’d like to see more game types in sPvP, especially like the lunatic court, only with our normal weapons and such.

The Mad King dungeon was just right. I personally like the vertical nature of it, and I felt the difficulty was tuned just right. Not hard at all, but not something you could AFK for.

My final suggestion: next year, when we beat the clocktower, or the first time we defeat the Mad King, let us choose a weapon skin. Stuff being rare is kinda cool for a few people; getting the awesome item you want, even if other people have it too is always fun for everyone.

As it kicked off on day one, I must admit I felt a bit lost. There wasn’t a good enough guide telling you where to obtain the Candy Corn to power the Candy-Powered Matter Meter. That combined with Serene (the ghost next to Magister Tassi) being bugged at the time, got really confusing. I also had no real idea of where to find the pumpkins at first, and throughout the whole event I was wondering if I had missed something, since the achievements were spread over multiple Acts, more specifically the It’s a Mad King’s World one, which had 3/4 parts in Act 2 and the last in Act 3. I were at first convinced this was a bug with the Lunatic Inquisition map not triggering the 4th area visited in the Mad Realm.

Overall though, this was to me an fantastic event; I loved Lunatic Inquisition, and re-visited it quite often. Reaper’s Rumble was also pretty fun, and I hope to see game types like these implemented in sPvP some day. I loved running around with the big zergs in the Labyrinth. I startd to hate the Clock Tower initially, but once I mastered it, it was such a great feeling of achievement and I enjoyed it for the most part, repeating it over the 8 characters I have. I loved that the Candy Corn nodes were all over, even in World vs. World, allowing me to do some PvP and still progress on grabbing some event materials whilst there. I completely fell in love with the scavenger hunt, and it was a challenge I liked doing without following a guide. It was also incredibly fun to get my Lv.11-23 characters through the maps and to the ghosts with the help of one of my Lv.80 characters (a lot of re-logging). The fight against Mad King Thorn was also quite fun, and I enjoyed how there was a short scene that triggered when the battle-dungeon opened in Lion’s Arch. I also really appreciate the Witch’s head costume (Hat is censored if there’s a s and a <space> between..) given in the final Act. I felt that was a very nice gesture and exactly the kind of fluff I love collecting from events. Extra nice that it is Account Bound, so I didn’t have to flood my inventory by collecting 8 of them. I also loved the Witch’s- and Mad King’s Outfits!

On the negative side; I did not really like how extremely rare the Black Lion Chest skins were. It was an event, fluff skins, it felt too much like a scam to advertise these skins and not inform the players buying keys how rare they were. Don’t get me wrong, I am not mad at ArenaNet for this (I didn’t buy many keys at all, just spent some of my remaining Gems after buying costumes and even got the Scythe skin), but I felt it was unnecessary and I completely understand the rage-posts that popped up on the forums non-stop. Long-term, tactics like this is likely not going to pay off, as you probably lose those paying customers trust in buying anything random ever again. This is not a F2P as typical F2P games are, as you buy the game to play it initially. In a fully free to download, free to play game, these tactics may pay off, since players are constantly pouring in and out of the game. GW2 however, is more likely to retain players who invested money in purchasing the game initially, and won’t have the same amount of players just testing it out since it’s completely free. Anyways, enough of that, that horse has been beaten dead a number of times already.

I think the Clock Tower could have given a slightly better time limit, allowing for mini-mistakes to occur, and to say pause your jump(s) for a micro-second as the large group of players is blocking your view.

I’m not mad about it, but I found it a bit annoying that I had to buy the Miniature Spooky Trio Pack twice, in order to get Chainsaw the Skeleton. It’s not like these minis are tradable either.

TL;DR: I loved the event, and can’t wait for the next one (now in November? I see ??? twice in the Monthly Achievements).

For the most part I really enjoyed this week. However I was really frustrated with the achievements.

Specifically the fact that only some of the event achievements counted towards the title. I missed the chance to go in the dungeon and that is the only thing I am missing. I have 5 fully completed achievements but only 4 count! This really makes me angry since there’s NO indication that the other achievements wouldn’t count! If I had known that beforehand I would have made a huge effort to go to the dungeon, but I just assumed it was ok to miss since I had other achievements finished!

Very frustrated.

This event really got me interested in the game. ANET did an amazing job and I’m so astounded by it that I’m hooked.

I pre-purchased the game and started a character a few hours after headstart access began, but I didn’t play too much or very often at all, only logging on here and there to play for a little bit.

But the Halloween event really did fulfill the idea of a living breathing MMO and I’m excited to both play through the pre-existing content that I have yet to discover and to see what they come up with next. Even the clocktower was amazing and I’m terrible at jumping puzzles. lmao

I enjoyed everything apart from the jumping puzzle!

I was slightly disappointed with how early the dungeon was removed though. I never even got a chance to try it due to having had a busy few days. I was surprised that what turned out to be the most popular event was removed on THE ACTUAL DAY of Halloween! Strange decision.

I don’t think I’ll be adding anything that’s not been said already, but shall contribute my feedback anyway:

- Book quests: Fun, lore packed and unique – thumbs up! My only grumble would be that there were plenty of more universal attribute combinations for the big reward than Condition Damage + Precision (zero use to my Cleric-geared main for instance). [A]

- Open world doors, nodes, hidden scan spots etc: I thought these were all great additions, that really elevated the event. Maybe different node icons for festive ones though… [A+]

- Labyrinth and mini-games: A bit of a mixed bag – lots of fun to be had, but some dreadfully unintuitive gameplay. Thinking particularly of the hide & seek game, though the absence of any instructions to throw pumpkins at mausoleums was a biggie. After a fair few games, I’ve still not any idea what fun there is in being a hide & seek courtier – felt very slow and random, particularly if you get converted late and there’s literally 1-2 villagers to look for.
Aside from the Clocktower’s initial exotic prize, I do think they were rather let-down by the absence of prizes though; labyrinth had a chest once per day but the foes themselves were essentially lootless besides a more generous festive drop rate, while the minigames had no loot at all (could make more ToT bags than even the winners got in the same time farming nodes & foes). It just made it hard to feel like it was time well spent, especially when the gathering requirements of the festive items was so immense. [B-]

- Mad King Dungeon: Definite highlight for me – I especially appreciated how it was flexible enough to be done solo at a greater time investment, or fast and frantic with a team. The chest of wondrous prizes was also welcome, though I do accept the only reason it wasn’t nerfed was that the dungeon had such a short lifespan – no way would it have been allowable for even a whole week.
Only criticism would be that again the festive foes were basically lootless themselves, so victories could feel a little hollow knowing that the loot could have been surpassed many times over just playing general PvE – was rather an all-or-nothing lottery. [A]

- Loot: Aside from the book and the fun ability to make festive items as chef & artificer, I’m afraid I did find the itemization extremely disappointing.
I should have known better than to try the Black Lion chests after swearing off them spending too much chasing permanent service contracts, but I still gave into the temptation – the drop rate was a massive disappointment, and I intend to (hopefully) steer clear for real in the future. Only 3 of the skins would I have been tempted to spend any gems on directly, and only the spectacular greatsaw could possibly command a price higher than what 5 keys cost – yet together they are unhappily alluring.
I’m not sure if pitching the items at cash store ‘whales’ was a good strategy – though maybe the internal metrics show it was – but I’d personally rather see future items as affordable souvenirs to tempt everyone to the store. If the BLC was the distribution method again though, I’d suggest tempering it by upgrading the Mystic Forged chests (a very clever idea btw) to take 15 tonics, 5 boosters & a whole stack of candy – but guaranteeing a festive skin; 60% of the time it’d have just been an armor-class specific shoulder pad anyway, but it would at least leave customers feeling like they got something exclusive. [E]

- Loot continued: The crafted skins were a misfire in my estimation also, I’m afraid – more visuals solely for the tiny legendary-pursuing super rich playerbase. I don’t think it would even have been logistically possible for anyone not already awash in wealth to construct any of the weapons in October.
This is consistent with the issue that itemization is very weak outside of extreme Mystic Forge recipes, but people tend to expect holiday events to be inclusive. I’d suggest the same solution as for the general issue of itemization; accessible skins in general circulation, special variants locked behind exhaustive Mystic Forge recipes (e.g. color variants, particle effects, glow in the dark).
The books are very nice, but realistically they were all 90%+ of players could obtain in this event; I intently focused on candy/craft drops, but even crafting so much as a set of runes out of them is gated behind tremendous lodestone cost… [D]

A big thank you to Anet for all the art & effort that went in to this event – and for responding so agilely to bugs and criticism that arose – though for myself the event never fully recovered after the initial disappointment of just what it would take to actually obtain any of the signature items.
My hope for future events would simply be greater accessibility, and for a bit more consistency in the pitch (not fun activities with near-zero loot efficiency competing for scarce time against loot targets demanding 110% hyper-efficiency).

Overall, I liked the Halloween event.

1) Convenient maze. I enjoyed that the maze was a one-stop-shop for hunting, carving, and mining.
2) Continuity. I enjoyed the tie-in with the Mad King Says game between the last two acts.
3) Artwork. I like the look of the 3 special inventory items. I wish I owned one. I like the books too. I own it.
4) Writing. I like the jokes that the Mad King tells on his walk around town.
5) Acting. I liked the Mad King’s voice and expression. Well done.

My complaint list, though, evokes more passion from me.

1) Much too short. Real life interfered at the beginning, so I felt very rushed to accomplish anything. Why not a month-long event? I spent October playing a different game that did offer more time for their Halloween event.
2) Much too obscure. I ended up reading webpages to figure out what I was supposed to be doing with my limited time. (See #1.) I suggest an NPC at the plaza that players can interact with for suggestions on how to accomplish achievements that the player character has not yet finished.
3) Poor loot opportunity. I dunno, it seemed really bad. I wanted a bow (I’m a ranger) or medium armor skins. I got bupkis. I couldn’t really farm anything either. (See #1 again.) Maybe a year from now I’ll be free to play again for another chance at satisfaction? The witch hat should have been a reward for laughing at all of the Mad King’s jokes on his entire tour of the town. Something better should have been rewarded from the simon says game, possibly with loot probabilities scaling with number of holiday achievements completed?
4) Audio clipped. The Mad King teleports at the plaza, and several times I made it to the next part of the plaza circle where I heard only a command, but I couldn’t hear “Mad King Says” beforehand. I missed my Gold completion several times to this “feature”. He needs to broadcast to a much larger radius.
5) Jumping puzzles. I hate them anyway and am so glad they got moved to their own tab so I can ignore them altogether. Moreover, this clocktower jumping puzzle was especially crafted so only a minority could ever complete it? And it supposedly offered the best loot opportunity of the holiday? There’s a reason I don’t play “twitch games” like first person shooters. I am bad at them and they stress me out. Challenge is not the same as absurdity.

P.S. The Preview text here is cut off on the right margin in my Firefox 16 web browser.