Guild Wars 2

I play Guild Wars with one of my best friends.

We both logged in tonight to see the new Halloween content.

It was so bad. So confusing. So awful, both of us were in shock. He kept saying, “When is the fun going to start?”

It was awful. It made no sense. It was pure chaos.

Whenever I asked anyone about it everyone would say, “google it.” “Google it” is the sign of VERY POOR GAME DESIGN.

There was nothing to tell you what was going on. None of it made any sense. It still doesn’t make any sense.

You go up to a caldron and switch into a costume, and keep doing that over and over.. I had no idea what to do next. Nothing told me what was going on.

People kept saying, “READ THE BOOK.” What book? I talked to everyone with a pumpkin over there head in Lion’s Arch and I never received any book.

The whole thing MAKES NO SENSE and is horribly designed.

Honestly I loved this game prior to today, but honestly the experience we had tonight was so bad, so completely lacking of fun in any way, … it’s tainted my view of this game.

And then the Super Mario jumping puzzle in the middle of Lion’s Arch. Did any of the developers ever consider how hard that would be with —50-- other people doing it at the same time? you can’t see anything. It’s just bad… very bad.

And that’s all ontop of having NO IDEA WHAT TO DO -or- what’s going on. And no, I’m not going to “google it.”

You shouldn’t have to “google it.” If you have to “google it” then the developers have completely failed. The game design for this event is horrible.

I have to agree, when I first logged in yesterday, I had not clue where to go to do anything. I saw the PCGamer vid a few mins later and realized all the fun was in LA. Got there, ran around for a bit. No clue I had to even search for people with pumpkins over them, I ported right into the Mystic Forge area. I just sat there costume brawling until i asked myself if that was all there was. Did a search, found out to go to the center of LA, and to do the page thing.

No clue where to get the Weapon crafting recipes for the event. Opend 10 chests, and got nothign (dont expect anything out of 10 though). Had no clue that the gates were only in 2 zones and which zones they were.

Very poorly informed event.

Im not suprised. The recent Q/A session with the programmers was hosted on Reddit. Most game updates can be found on Facebook. Finding information in game or on the main site for pretty much anything seems to be more of a challange than getting to 80 with no deaths.

If you did talk to the 2 pumpkin marked npc in LA, you might want to check your mail….
and maybe pay attention to the npc conversation a bit more.
There really isn’t much to do atm, there’s costume brawl, the main quest chain aka “the book”, carving pumpkins and farming them candy corn

Didn’t anybody tell you to talk to the big pumpkin NPC icon right on your map?

Also, did you read the official blog post for details?

eh, i managed to figure it all by just following the game’s instructions. it’s kind of confusing at first, yeah, but nothing that a little experimenting doesn’t fix.

“Google it” was a bad response.

The response should have been “look for the giant pumpkin head that appears on your map in LA that is almost impossible to miss”. Everything is pretty obvious from there.

i think this Halloween was absolutely awful “but then you dont have to do it” exactly not going to get any more involved in it. at first i had no clue what was going on and when i asked in chat then they just said go play aion or some kitten very mature. then someone give me a link with guide on the ghost quest because i had been running around for 10 minutes and couldn’t find the other ghost. when i finished i got a level ONE back item that’s all for running around talking to npcs. there was a map with pumpkins also but I’m just going to once I’ve carved 20 pumpkins i was bored to death and the reward is just a meaningless title. and to get the halloween items you have to spend 1,5g on keys someone in my guild opened 12 chests got nothing so i wont bother doing this also. and the brawling oh my god this look like something my 7 y/o sister would enjoy.

overall I’m pretty disappointed the artwork is great but the rest of the content is not. I’ve seen the Halloween events in gw1 so i had high hopes for this.
its a good example of pay to win something i thought the game was not about.

Something that is worth bearing in mind: this is not all that Halloween has to offer.

ANet run their events in stages, typically with map and loo changes coming a few days before the main part.

The book you recieve at the end of the “quest” chain mentions a second volume, the Halloween event has been advertised as being in four parts. Colin has said things get really exciting on the 28th at midday PDT. The stats on it are bad because it’s probably not really meant to be equipped, just saved as a component for later I expect.

This isn’t all that ANet have planned.

Yes I would have to agree with Tott.I don’t get all my candy a week before Halloween and I don’t expect to see everything ANet has to offer in the first part of the event. I understand hype often can lead to disappointment but it may be best to give them a fair chance at showing us what they’ve created before making harsh judgements.

I’m having a great time, and really enjoying the fact that I had to figure some things out. Tastes differ, I guess.

Well, a posting of some basic info (on their website, not twitter, facebook, etc) would be nice. For example, the way the event is segmented is fine, but if you go to the site, they don’t ‘unlock’ the small blurb until it goes live. The Act 1 blurb really didn’t give out much, but would have been a nice thing to open just before going live.

It seems the norm for MMO’s to not give out info so as to not ‘spoil it’, yet within hours you can hunt down the info at various sites.

OPs point is that we shouldn’t have to scatter to third party sites and google every nook and cranny for the info that should be in the game, and I agree. This is something that has been a “issue”, since beta everytime theres needed information its all scattered in many different places, reddit, tweet, facebook, podcasts and whatnot

Bear in mind that this isnt a request to be told inside info for the game, but for information that should be available for players, such as what you can do in said event, in gw1 there was always npcs to tell you that theres this and that to do, in gw2 basic info is very lacking indeed

Basic information shouldnt be scattered in so many places, when i want to know something gw2’s official page isnt the first place i would look…the official page being the least informative about its own game is simply weird.

There are NPCs in Guild Wars 2 that tell you what to do, though. The rest is interwoven into previously established game mechanics, like the mystic forge and dynamic events.

The answer isn’t actually Google it. The answer is explore it for yourself and find out. It’s not like there isn’t glaringly different things in LA. Problem is, lot’s of people are lazy in the mind and want it all played out in front of them. Like a movie or something. So they google it or log onto the reddit/forums.

Design is fine and not supposed to be put right in your face. There’s tons of things that can be done during this event and very select few will be able to obtain everything.

Yes some things were confusing I was super confused at first. Its mainly cuz of the amount of ppl. Though they could make it better, do you expect everything to be spoon fed to you? Other players who figured it out obviously took some time to calm down and read carefully and follow instructions. Some pioneers keep finding the newest stuff without any info on it. How do they do it? Honestly alot of players sound like whiny kids, complaining about this and that, demanding rare skins or money back, op costume brawl outfits… Everything possible ppl complain.

It’s a free and interesting holiday event. Everything can sometimes be tough or confusing, but IT’S A GAME. Take it easy! Take ur time! And you’ll begin to figure things out and soon it’s not so hard once u get used to what’s going on

Now I’m no longer confused and having a total blast. Why can’t you take some time to adapt instead of complaining after such a short time. Sheesh

And I love helping ppl, if anyone asked me I personally take them to the spots u need to go for certain things

Research is also perfectly fine. Why do you expect NOT to research? Ppl research on class builds and watch gameplay videos and onwards. Research is good. There’s plenty threads I looked thru before I did anything during this halloween content

ArenaNet already said they don’t want to take us through the game by holding our hands. We learn as we go.

There are not arrows leading us through jump puzzles telling us where to go. There is no actual tutorial when we start the game. There is no in game system going, I see you didn’t figure this puzzle out, go here and hit F to solve it. Why would they lead us by the hand for a holiday event?

You don’t want to google it? Then either figure it out yourself, or don’t do it. It’s that simple. It’s not a mandatory event.

To be honest the entire Halloween festivity is one of the best holiday events I’ve ever experienced in the 30+ MMO’s I’ve played. A large portion of my enjoyment from it is that they DON’T lead us by the hand. We can do it when we want (for the most part) how we want, or if we don’t want to, we could skip it entirely.

There are so many different parts to the event, you could do one small portion of it that you enjoy, and not touch the rest! It’s an excellent event, and it’s learning curve follows the rest of the game quite well.

Some people want to be hand held all the way through every quest. Some people like to read the text and figure it out for themselves. I like to use Google to do it for me. Because even though I am too stupid to figure out the clues, I am not too stupid to use Google before posting on a forum about how stupid I am.

Yeah it doesn’t have this air of depression and monotony that I see in a lot of holiday events reduced to accelerated loot grinding sessions.

For the record, my group of friends and I have been having a good time with the event (and update as a whole for that matter).

Im sorry but Info was posted in multiple places before the event, LA had a big circle and NPCs marked not only on the map but also on the UI. Anet did maybe not a great job but a far better job then most other MMO’s. Personally, I thought it was pretty obvious before things started that events would be held mostly in LA.

As far as not knowing what to do, you need to pay more attention to NPCs dialogue. Clearly you skipped through everything just trying to get handouts. Me and my guild cleared the scavenger hunt within the first couple hours as well as some of the other stuff and just explore. Im sure there will be more events so if you insist on complaining at least wait till its over.

The big issue with the event and people being unsure of where to go or what to do is Anet’s continued use of Reddit and Facebook to host Q&A’s and posting information about the game.

There is an official website with forums, there is an official wiki. Use your official sites already instead of expecting your player base to go to reddit and facebook. This is the same issue people were having when you were posting information about parts of the game being down on reddit instead of here. You rectified that one, now fix this.

I mean come on, the wiki’s Featured Article has been the Hall of Monuments since…I can’t remember it ever being anything else. Use your official sites. Not Facebook or Reddit or Twitter or whatever else.

Well maybe I am just more observant than some, but, when I open my map in LA I see candy corn icons (merchants) and a big pumpkin icon within a DE circle. To me this couldn’t be more obvious. If you want to take part in these events then it is best if you keep your eyes open and YES reading ALL the text told to to you helps to a large degree also. As for the pumpkin carving (stand near one and hit “F”) and costume brawl I found those to be quite self explanatory, but for those that need the full explanation of the brawl you need look no further than the sticky explaining it to you here.

It’s the first part of a week long event, give me a break. It’s chaotic right now but that’s to be expected of new content on the first day, do you think every World of Warcraft expansion wasn’t like this on the first day? I wouldn’t chalk it up to poor game design.

If you have some map experience, you can pretty much figure out what the books direct you to. Read the mail and npc messages as well. I worked out pretty much what to do just by asking a couple questions at LA. The memoir pages are not walkthroughs, they’re simply clues and riddles.

We spent over 3 hours tonight in the Halloween area of Lion’s Arch trying to figure this stuff out and it still MAKES NO SENSE what-so-ever.

And read the comments in the chat of the game. That’s all anyone is saying, “This makes no sense.”

And I’ve read all the posts here and only a couple people understood my original post. You should not have to “google it” ever. The announcements, the events, how it works, what you are ‘pose to be doing, all that information should be INSIDE THE GAME ITSELF. If you have to leave the game to get that information then you’ve broken the fantasy and ruined the reason that I game. I game to escape into another world, and you are forcing me to leave that world and go open a browser so I can understand what’s going on.

I consider myself a casual gamer. I want to come home after work and escape into the game and have fun. We spent 3 hours on this content tonight and it was a confusing mess, and what little we did figure out how to do was zero fun. How is running around as a spider with 2 power (only 2 attacks) and getting knocked around and never getting a crown after over 30 minutes of trying… how is that any fun? It isn’t. It sucked. Badly.

It was so bad I felt bad feelings for even having asked one of my best friends to go into the game and game with me tonight. The content for this event is really that awful.

Ive been enjoying it.

Did the book scavenger hunt on my main and all the alts. It was actually fun the first time to figure out the riddles without looking on the internet. I’ll admit the scavenger hunt was frustrating the first few minutes after the update, but that was because of a bug that kept the first ghost from spawning, so you couldn’t really start it and there was no one that had already done it before to let us know how it was supposed to work. Once that was patched it was all dandy.

Farmed some ghost doors for a little while for ToT bags and then did some jumping puzzles to see how the new rewards were.

Costume brawl I figured out by just mousing over the icons. That was fun and chaotic enough to hold my attention until I got the achievements for it.

The only thing that really put me off was the whole Black Lion Chest supposedly having halloween themed items and then finding out after buying 20 keys that the only items were weapon skins and the drop rates were nearly non-existent. That hasn’t ruined the entire event for me, but I will never fall for that again. Now I know the Black Lion Chest being restocked for a holiday means it has all the same crap + a few skins you probably wont get.

I don’t mean to be rude, but the title of this thread made me laugh. It’s basically the same as naming it, “An event of this game is so bad I am going to hate the game.” Think of this holiday as a progressive flavor for the upcoming days (that is going to change with multiple acts) with little things you can mess with, such as getting candy corn in maps and knocking on doors so you can get achievements, temporary skins, and recipes, while also buying gems for keys and Halloween theme skins, while also brawling with other players, while also doing the event, while also just enjoying the game as is with the additional content they have added to the game in general with the build. Sounds pretty good to me, actually.

And so the threads by people pining for the yellow floating exclamation marks begins…

Use your eyes, your ears and your brain. It’s not hard.

Farm Candy Corn, that’s the fun.

Personally.. im getting tired of the whining on these forums and in GW2Guru forums… either make constructive criticism and give some ideas or suggestions that will help the devs… or move on. I like figuring things out and I don’t think everything should be spoon fed to you like an instruction manual… If I want that, I can go read instruction manuals for all the appliances my business facility uses… I come here to escape and explore. That’s what these events are, they are to be discovered and explored. As for the black lion chests, they dropped the ball but they have responded and will be compensating people who spent lots of $ on the keys to reward them with the rare items soon.

The only problem I had was that I couldn’t see the initial ghost behind the beginning NPC. There was like 100 people around doing the food fight thing, and the ghost is sort of.. transparent. Other than that… How do you miss the huge freaking orange circle that denotes the event in LA?

I really enjoy finding random trick or treat bags in the normal mob loot tables.

To me so far, it’s not held up to the fun of the events in gw1 BUT it’s only the first stage and they are I think trying to work the background in for the newcomers to the game as well, it’s only just started and going by what the npc’s are saying, there is a lot more to come

And

if anyone is on here from tarnished coast , it was fun dancing with you all in Lions arch prior to the build being sent out!!

i personally think this event was great. given i didn’t know what to do right off the get go or have anyone holding my hand. i was confused. but the place was so well-designed. there was so much fun going on. the tooltips might not be the best, but it gives us, the users, room to explore and figure stuff out on our own. which i think is great. eventually, i started spending time, noticing the details, reading all the messages, taking note of what others are doing… which is one of the best ways to learn how to experience this game. and soon enough, i know what i have to do, what can be done, and what i’d like to do.

yes, perhaps the event was not as fleshed out as you’d liked it to have been. but for you to let this one experience completely change the fact that you like the game, is quite disheartening to hear. don’t get me wrong, it’s not going to affect how i play and love the game, but it’s just sad to hear that.

if you were on my server, and i saw your messages asking what to do. i would have answered “i have no idea. trying to figure it out now. wanna party up?” and go from there. hopefully you’ll be able to keep playing the game the way you used to and not let ONE event get you down. maybe not everything in the game was designed for everyone. but don’t let that discount the bits that you do love.

the instructions are all there in the game.
it is not anet’s fault if the players are unable comprehend.

My whole legion is enjoying it, and we come from GW1, we like to check everything for ourselves and check what’s going on and ask people in-game, said this, it is a great event, I don’t even wanna point a game where they just gave you a hat, and say happy halloween, instead theme cities, low level areas, lobby of pvp, acts with different quest, themed jumping puzzles and many things, I mean, come on.
The only thing I complain about is the chests, and they said already they are going to workaround to give those people as well a chance to get things halloween related, so what’s the big deal now?

Maybe, just maybe, people are telling you to google it because they are tired of repeating the same answer to thick headed people who refuse to pay attention to things.

You admit to having talked to the npc with a pumpkin over your head, if you refuse to read and understand what that npc has to say, then yes you should google it, because you are beyond help and you are just spamming the chat as the annoying person you are.

That NPC will tell you everything you need to know through the dialog and the mail he will send you

Whilst some things are fairly obvious (trick-or-treat doors, candy corn), there are some aspects of the Halloween event which are confusing people because it’s hard to tally the information provided with what happens (or doesn’t happen).

From ANet’s ‘Costume Brawl For All’ posting:

“The Mad King’s costume available in the Gem Store allows you to summon a Ghostly Banquet Table and anyone eating from it joins the brawl as a Pumpkin Food Fighter.”

I would honestly expect that my skill bar and/or appearance would change, with perhaps a pumpkin icon on skill 1, but nothing happens. This seems like a bug to me.

Honestly, I only Google’d two things:

1) To learn that the first book was “bugged” (the ghost wouldn’t spawn at the time I was trying to do it, either because too many people were in the spot or were trying to activate it at the same time), and I didn’t want to do them out of order, so I went to collect candy corn for a while. I’m really shocked so many people were asking where to get candy corn.

2) The last four book locations, because I’m lazy. I figured out the second one right away, but I blanked out on the others.

I think the only hint needed would have been some kind of mail saying “OOooooOOo, gooOOoo to Lion’s AaaaAAarch”, that’s about it. Like others have said, the big pumpkin head icon would have been all you needed, and the instructions were clear on getting the first book.

Morons.

Figure out who i’m talking to.

Its pretty simple to figure out. You should have gotten a mail with a personalized treat bag and a scanner. Read the mail tells you to talk to so and so… it’s Halloween, so go figure people with pumpkins over their heads are more then likely quest folks.

Costume Brawl is annoying especially if you are A.D.D. So many people fighting randomly about it gets annoying, with all the text flying all over the place. I then ran around to the candy corn vendors looked at pumpkins and noticed they could be carved so I carved one and figured… you know I bet this is part of a special achievement… opened my achievements and noticed oh it is. Then looked at the others and figured hmm Im gonna go outside the city and look around a bit. Noticed there was Candy Corn nodes I remember seeing those from my treat bag and noticing they were needed for my scanner to work.

Ran around farming the hell out of them because I knew I needed 150 to get the sugar rush achievement for the monthly to complete… killed stuff found treat bags farmed nodes found treat bags opened up the max of those.

Went back talked with people in map chat figured out the riddle thing with people and now Im just farming and waiting for the rest of the event to unfold. It was pretty simple to put together personally. Sorry you have people on your server though who kittens. That sucks people on my server were excited to help and even invited me into their party to run around.

in all honesty it was a let down for me as well, its kinda overly complicated. i already finished alot of it, but i had a friend who had already done it drag us over to each point where the ghosts were.

when i did it earlier in the day it wasnt fun and i left the game within 20mins of trying.
just wasnt fun.

I find this a little funny because It was quite the opposite for me and my close friend, we both got on and instead of criticizing everything.. we took it for what it was. It’s only part one of the event’s and I for one have loved it so far.. I’ve done all the possible achievements for Halloween so far.. Done the costume brawls.. and the new non-event content including the Mini-Dungeons and Jump Puzzles, and I’ve got to say I don’t have a signal complain.. It’s a game.. people need to start taking these things for what they are.. NOT what they aren’t.

Kaderin.7584:

OPs point is that we shouldn’t have to scatter to third party sites and google every nook and cranny for the info that should be in the game, and I agree. This is something that has been a “issue”, since beta everytime theres needed information its all scattered in many different places, reddit, tweet, facebook, podcasts and whatnot

Bear in mind that this isnt a request to be told inside info for the game, but for information that should be available for players, such as what you can do in said event, in gw1 there was always npcs to tell you that theres this and that to do, in gw2 basic info is very lacking indeed

Basic information shouldnt be scattered in so many places, when i want to know something gw2’s official page isnt the first place i would look…the official page being the least informative about its own game is simply weird.

Too much hand holding would make the game boring and it would not solve the problem. If finding an npc marked clearly on the mini map in the dead center of lion’s arch with an area of influence (where you get notifed of the event) that spans 1/3 of the map is proving too difficult to a player do you think making it dead obvious would solve their problems? reminder this NPC sends you on a treasure hunt thats quite tough to solve and by definition can never be obvious!

Hmmm I spend some time at the forums before starting.
Then went on candy and gate hunt with my friend… Time flew by. Also spotted the ix ghosts and used three hours trolling people in costume battle.

All in all we had a blast:D and this is only act one!!! I love it. And love that transmute now have a soul and feels more vivid:) I see it as a pokemon thingy og wows petbattle:D

About it being confusing.. Yeah well youhave to think and it is not layed out, but that was kinda the reward:D finding th rings of fire, underwaterspring etc.. That what makes gw2 fun, you have to figure it out by you self.. Even by accident. To kitten with the actually in-game reward, the “ahhhh so that’s how”-moment and the race to figure it out before your friends is so much more rewarding imo ^^

crono.7123:

Could you cry a little louder? I don’t think everyone has heard you yet. Judging by your posts I see you do that a lot! This game is not perfect and yes the developers did kinda mess it up but what do you expect this is the first holiday for this game. Next year they should have it down. Getting mad cause you are too lazy to Google something is sad. Did you think maybe people are busy having fun and they dont want to hold your hand the whole way through the event?

You sure look like a wonderful person !!

The guy is making sense,you don’t.The event IS chaotic and it can be a pain to figure everything out on yourself.And when asking someone for some help and the only replies you get is google google google google,its kinda sad that this game evolves around people helping each other but on events like this its google this and google that.

People are trying to get through event content quickly so they can complain. They outfitted Lion’s Arch with a really nice halloween style look. A few costumes on the store that look very fun on my Asura at least. Flying on a broomstick made me laugh and the Phantom Hood has an awesome look to itself as well. The Costume Brawl is something you have to like I guess it’s just a mini-game that Incorporates the tonics, mystic cauldron and the cauldrons summoned by the witches.
There is a small chain event that involves the event or at least the start of it that includes some lore and requires a bit of thinking and possibly the need to get some help from social media/guildies/friends or if you’re lucky some nice folks on the map chats. I didn’t have much trouble finding this as you seem to mention. During my time checking out how the Halloween city looked like I stumbled upon the new npcs that were heavily crowded with people and was more or less a tell something interesting might be going on there leading up to finding this device and clues to the event chain.

And where are you supposed to find all this plentiful candy corn? I ran all over LA for 2 hours and found absolutely nothing. I clicked on every stupid pumpkin and NPC and got zip.
And what on earth was the Food Fight for? You didn’t get anything from it. The cauldrons only changed you into a bird or a frog and you ran around stupidly and squawked at other players to no purpose. Waste of time.

Sorry, this event fails on every level. Most importantly, it’s not fun. At all.

And asking people in LA for even the slightest hints only got me insults and ‘Google it’ as well. Asking questions only prompts snotty answers from people like you who only enjoy sniping at other players.

Well I cannot say anything to this since early on I disabled my General chat from my main tab and threw it in a secondary one. The candy corn though is easily found by mining outside Lion’s Arch or in Trick-and-Treat Bag’s that even drop from normal mobs. As usual I did my daily instance run and got about 30~40 candy corn from one path. Afterwards I walked through Malchor’s Leap and found a few Rich Candy Corn veins netting around 30 candy corns once again. My friends also found some Rich ones in Queensdale and Caledon Forest while exploring on their lowbies. I find it a bit sad that people on your server react in such a way. Sounds like their people there with issues and If I were you I would try to ignore those type of people and just ask again or ask your guildies!

Hhhmm.

I logged in and noticed pumpkins and candy. Based on the title in the client, I knew the Halloween event had started.

I port to LA and look at all the decor for a bit. LA is obviously the game’s Hub, so that’s the place to go. No Google needed. Noticed a huge cauldron instead of a Mystic Forge. Hopped on up and was turned into a toy spider. Based on my buff descriptions and the obvious chaos around me, there was a pvp mini-game going on. No Google needed. Oh, and pumpkin carving.

Pressed M, and noticed a huge pumpkin on my map that wasn’t normally there. No Google needed. Went there, talked to the NPC and started the “quest”. Mail dinged so I checked it. Got a piece of candy corn and some odd device. Read description. Based on description of item and the explanation from NPC, I use candy corn to power the device and look for specters. No Google Needed.

So since I was given a piece of candy corn, I was obviously suppose to use it. So I did, next to the rather large gathering of people. Not to mention a quick glance at chat will enlighten one. A ghost appeared. Talked to it. Got an item that was obviously clues to the next ghosts. No Google Needed.

Completed that event relatively easy. No Google Needed.

The only part of my adventure I had to ask for help on, was how to get more candy corn. A quick /map and I was good to go. Google a little needed, but the candy corn nodes are a little hard to miss.

There was, and is, nothing unintuitive about any of it. People….