I love seasonal events so I was excited to play through Wintersday. I have not missed any events since Beta and for the most part they have been interesting and entertaining though there is always something that bugs me. Since Wintersday is probably going to be an annual event I figured I’d weigh in this time. I believe the devs do read the forums and are actively interested in continuing to improve this already awesome game.
1. Mini pets
Being able to craft or otherwise receive a minipet in game by actually playing the game is Awesome! It’s so much better to look at my princess doll and say, “Remember when we all got pwned in Tixx’s ship by these little monsters?” then, “Remember that time I bought gems and then bought a random minipet pack out of the store?”. However, having only been told that if we play everyday we’ll be able to craft any pet we want did make it seem like we’d be able to craft all the available pets if we just worked hard enough. Having to pour through countless forum post to have one Dev finally say you can only craft two pets was annoying. Why wasn’t this explained at the beginning of the event? Other games have multi-year events where you can only get one pet a year, so not being able to craft them all on year one is fine, the lack of info was not. Overall communication was lacking and when given, was handled badly. Do the devs equate lack of information(to the player base) to anticipation and fun? Because I can assure you, it is not fun.
The official patch notes also said the store bought winters day boxes could also drop in game, this was sadly not true. Again big fail on communication. Also drop rates sucked the fun out of store bought boxes as you can see all over the forums. I did prefer just buying them outright at Halloween if the store is the only way I can get them.
2. Tonics
Awesome idea, I love that I can craft a tonic out of the extra toy frames I have. Again it sucked that I had to go into the forums to find this out. Everlasting tonics are the cherry on top, personally I’ve had no luck in crafting one, but I see many others have so over all the drop rate is probably ok. At least I get consumable tonics on each failed attempt and I get my frame back, that was well done. However why in the world are the mats non farm-able???? They only reliably drop from doing the event instance(limited amount of times) and are all used up if you make the pets your cogs will support. This means you can only get more if you buy from other players who did the dungeon but for some reason don’t want a toy or to gamble for tonics! Yes there is a chance the glue or stuffing will fall from a gift, but after opening over 1000 gifts I’ve never had stuffing or glue drop. Are the drop rates fubar or was this intentional? Weird implementation.
3. Jumping puzzle
Awesomely done! Big improvement over Halloween, loved everything about it except I didn’t get great loot for first completion. Was very fun and well paced.
4. Gift boxes
Loved the idea, loved having boxes to open dropped all over the world. I expected it to be like the Halloween doors which sometimes gave treats and sometime tricks, however for some reason wintersday gifts were all tricks. Always spawned enemies which I often just left up and ran off after grabbing the gift box which would also only drop junk. At first I thought the ugly socks and sweaters were funny but that’s pretty much the only thing that dropped. The recipes were nice but I haven’t used them. Food would have been better I think, eggnogs that make you drunk but also give the 10% xp bonus or fruitcake with a bonus to health. Getting things that I could use while playing that felt more seasonal and more gift-like would have made the gift boxes fun rather than just a disappointment. Having a chance at a mini-pet drop from them would have obviously upped the excitement unless it was so rare as to be pointless. Even adding glue and stuffing to the vendors would have made the sock/sweater currency feel useful as I could turn that into tonic attempts.
TLDR
Loved wintersday, Loved mini-pets earned by playing the game, loved jumping puzzle, however a serious lack of communication from the devs really sucked alot of the fun out of the event. More communication and better drop rates and more appropriate drops next time please!