Guild Wars 2

I personally, haven’t been able to log into GW2 since the Wintersday Event began (stupid computer!!). But, judging by the forums, this event seems to be going quite well. Hardly any complaining, lotsa discussion about various games and items, a generally positive mood. Might I even say, a jovial holiday spirit? I love reading constructive, positive posts on the forum instead of endless whining.

Also, the profession adjustments and general balancing all looked pretty good to me. Classes that have needed some very serious love got just that. Major issues for classes like Rangers and Necros have been improved, a giant step forward toward total balance throughout the professions.

So while I can’t comment about my own personal opinions on this event, I’d say that ANet payed attention to the players and learned from its previous events what worked, what didn’t, and what merely needed tweeking. Props to you ANet.

I also appreciated the snippet the developers included in the notes defining the “roles” of the various professions. They outlined nicely the strengths & weaknesses of each profession, further providing justification for certain disadvantages certain players felt they were suffering, despite any advantages they may have been benefiting from.

And while I can’t log on to enjoy the new updates to my once-loved and now maybe loved-again professions, I will say again: props to you ANet for listening to your players and making changes where they needed to be made. This update has me very excited to play a game that I know I’ll be playing still this time next year. And probably the year after that as well. The mood on the forums today makes me think I’m not the only one.

Personally I think this event is probably the best implemented so far. The jumping puzzle is easier which alleviates pressures to do something you don’t enjoy just to complete all the content (it’s still challenging but nothing like Halloween – the hardest JP should be permanent content, not time sensitive creating a mood of “must do now or miss out, can’t do in my own time” resulting in lots of unhappy people). The RNG is far less offensive – several skins which are not crazy grinds to obtain (the present drops for an RNG chance at a green item and a straight up purchase ability with junk present drops for people who aren’t lucky) and skins which are straight up sold from the store. Personally I find their gem prices to be way too high so I won’t get them (plus I don’t like any of them) but had the chain saw great sword skin been available the same way I’m sure most people who wanted one would have bought it. The minis are better than the Lost Shores event and in some ways worse, some ways better than Halloween. We can make 2/5 special minis from playing content (how weird is it that ArenaNet rewards playing content rather than buying gems, gambling on chests or playing the TP?) and the other three are available in the store (again at too high a price, but at least they are available for completionists). The minis that are worse are the rare drop ones which still use RNG. I don’t know who at ArenaNet thought turning the game into a casino was great game design (clearly someone who doesn’t care about happy gamers and healthy game design) but they need to purge that from their developers – it is almost always the most hated part of any content patch (especially at the rarities ArenaNet loves to put them at). Either way, people who spend money in the store can access some stuff (I think the prices still need some tweaking to be worthwhile) but people who play content in the game have a fair chance to enjoy in the festive items and skins and walk away from Wintersday with some neat souvenirs.

I have nothing permanent to remember Halloween by (I still can’t afford to grind out the permanent versions of the exotic Halloween weapons, I refuse to gamble on chests) but I have several Wintersday souvenirs which I already have or am collecting to keep me busy during this event and enjoy in the festivities. I feel like the balance on rewards and itemisation was much better implemented this time around.

The removal of one time only events (I’m told each Tixx dungeon path will be available from LA) is also a huge improvement on the dramas we’ve had in the past. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect but they’ve done so much right and gotten dramatically better from how they did it in the past. I have enjoyed this event much more than the other two so far (despite the Mad King encounter being much more fun than anything I’ve seen from Tixx – but Wintersday isn’t over yet). On a final note, I did like the atmosphere of GW1 Wintersday better. This one feels like it’s missing something and while I do think adding music to LA was a DRAMATIC improvement from Halloween (they had the track – they just didn’t use it) I miss the GW1 Wintersday music. I wish they had reused that for something.