Guild Wars 2

Now I know many of you feel the same as I do but there’s a point to this thread. Not everything will be to everyone’s liking. This does not change the fact that I was having a great time 5 days ago.

You don’t like the event? Sucks. Neither do I. But the last thing I would do is blame ANet for not pleasing me, specifically. There are a lot of people having a great time in this event so they obviously did something right.

Look, there are bound to be plenty of things in this game you do not like or enjoy. Yes, it’s especially painful when one of those things is what everybody is focusing on or when it’s the ‘big thing’ of the month but it’s still just one event.

You do not need to participate in every single event. There will be plenty of them. Let this one go, maybe comment in a thread like this one with why you didn’t have fun (but be objective and helpful instead of whiny and entitled), and go do something that you enjoy either in or outside this game.

That being said, here are my problems and how I would have done them differently:

Problem: Everything I don’t want is account bound. I don’t understand why I can’t give my friends my cogs and/or doll frames as it turns out I will not be using any of them.
Solution: If there are 5 things to make and we can only make two of them, let us sell, buy, and trade the others. I would have made mini’s and given them away as Wintersday presents. As it is I just tried to make an Endless Tonic and got frustrated because it didn’t work and I hate gambling. When making new things account bound, please think of us and not our credit cards. If you poke at me to use it, I’ll hold my wallet tightly closed. If you just make the game awesome and fun, I’ll give you more money……don’t you worry about that.

Problem: The whole sweaters/socks/hats thing that you can trade for more boxes with more sweaters/socks/hats thing is just gambling. I dislike gambling so it’s basically just TC trophies.
Solution: Well, I don’t really understand why there are 3. Why not just sweaters? Or just Lumps of Wintersday Coal or something? I still wouldn’t have found a use for them, really, but that would make more sense to me regardless….

Problem: PvE boxes were high risk/little reward. After a few, there’s no reason to open these ever….though OCD still presses me to do so.
Solution: The more you open and complete, the better your magic find relating only to the opening of boxes. This way, someone who runs around the world, opening 500 of these things will have a better chance of getting something good than the guy who opened 5.

Problem: Aside from ‘stuff’, I’ve been bored with the events. I feel like Mugatu being the only one who sees Zoolander making the same look over and over. Every one of these events is the same thing! You get the presents/food, paint the dolls, protect/kill the toys, etc. and it all ends with knocking that golem into the ground again. It got repetitive on day 2 for me.
Solution: You guys really need to work on flushing out stories and plotlines. I really have no idea who Tixx is or why he is doing what he is doing and, as a result of this, I don’t really care who he is or why he has an Infinitarium. I mean no disrespect but, in my opinion, the storyboard creators for this game in general were either heavily edited or in a hurry. Compare any story in GW2 to GW1 and it’s crystal clear how lacking it is. But I digress…..

Problem: The jumping puzzle was way too easy after so many people complained about the Mad King one being too hard, the snow PvP just isn’t my thing, and the music event was Guitar Hero only you have to unbind/rebind your keys just to play it….and then fix them after.
Solution: Jumping Puzzles apparently need modes of difficulty. I made it through this one on my 3rd try and that’s because I tried to dodge through the rolling snowball on my second try. I understand that some people had trouble with the previous one but there are also many of us who didn’t. As for the others, many people loved the PvP and music events. I just didn’t. So I don’t really need to tell you to change anything. I wasn’t offended that you added them and they seemed popular. Kudos :-)

Snowball fights? Don’t change a thing!

That’s about it for me. If anyone else wants to chime in, please keep it as objective as you can. I’d like ANet to see this thread and get ideas instead of insults.

Thanks :-)

No qualms with anything you posted besides:
“and the music event was Guitar Hero only you have to unbind/rebind your keys just to play it….and then fix them after.”

Erm, since when? I’m sitting on multiple perfect scores, mostly high and middle parts, and I haven’t touched my key bindings once. The only thing that gets changed when I do that minigame is camera angle. I know quite a few people, myself included, really enjoy this game, even though it lacks song variety. Lag aside, and I mean no offense to anyone, it just seems like the people who don’t enjoy it aren’t willing to put the time into figuring it out.

Toast.6459:

No qualms with anything you posted besides:
“and the music event was Guitar Hero only you have to unbind/rebind your keys just to play it….and then fix them after.”

Erm, since when? I’m sitting on multiple perfect scores, mostly high and middle parts, and I haven’t touched my key bindings once. The only thing that gets changed when I do that minigame is camera angle. I know quite a few people, myself included, really enjoy this game, even though it lacks song variety. Lag aside, and I mean no offense to anyone, it just seems like the people who don’t enjoy it aren’t willing to put the time into figuring it out.

My first line of binds is 1,2,3,4,5. No problem.

My second set is C,Q,E,R,T. If you can play piano quickly with that. You are a master.

Very very well written post!

One note though. In your original statement you forget at least one type of players, namely collectors. I know, if I wasn’t a collector you were completely right. But I am, and I do want every single minipet in the game – That includes the sport of being in every single event. I am ready to spend time (main factor of course. It’s a game, meant to waste time) and even some money on them. But when you come to a point where either the time it takes to get the minipets by playing is greater than the event (By playing 5+ hours a day, I know, I have no life), or the amount of money required to get them gets greater than what you actually paid for the game – Well there is a problem, because it simply ruins one type of playing. I’m not saying everything should be easily obtainable, but it should at least be possible.

Edit: For clarity; So yes we could “let go of this one” – But then our collections would have a big gaping hole. So we’re hoping for ninja changes instead, although unlikely.

Treeline.3865:

Very very well written post!

One note though. In your original statement you forget at least one type of players, namely collectors. I know, if I wasn’t a collector you were completely right. But I am, and I do want every single minipet in the game – That includes the sport of being in every single event. I am ready to spend time (main factor of course. It’s a game, meant to waste time) and even some money on them. But when you come to a point where either the time it takes to get the minipets by playing is greater than the event (By playing 5+ hours a day, I know, I have no life), or the amount of money required to get them gets greater than what you actually paid for the game – Well there is a problem, because it simply ruins one type of playing. I’m not saying everything should be easily obtainable, but it should at least be possible.

Edit: For clarity; So yes we could “let go of this one” – But then our collections would have a big gaping hole. So we’re hoping for ninja changes instead, although unlikely.

I agree completely, collecting should be accessible by everyone, not just people with ALOT of spare time, or those with large sums of money to spend of the item store. i dont want anet to make it easy, but being able to obtain rare event items shouldn’t be restricted to hardcore players

Agree completely with points 1-4 (though I am saving items to make minipets so point 1 applies slightly less to me … but still makes a great deal of sense).

Sort of agree with point 5, though from the opposite end of the spectrum; I found the jumping puzzle insanely hard and have actually made less progress on it than I did with the Mad King’s Tower. This would point toward the idea of having variable difficulty seasonal jumping puzzles being of benefit to the whole playing population. So much hard work has gone into them both in terms of art and the design of the things that it seems a shame that they aren’t engaging as many people as they could. Ditto the Bell Choir, I find it crazy hard where some people are finding it trivial … maybe you need to make the easy part really easy. Certainly a lot easier than it is currently, and skippable for people who feel more confident.

Point 5 I don’t have a clue about, haven’t done it as it appears to be PvP. Not that I’m objecting in any way to having PvP elements in the seasonal activities, just that I don’t have any input to offer because that’s not a part of the game that I engage with.

Azure Prower.8701:

Toast.6459:

No qualms with anything you posted besides:
“and the music event was Guitar Hero only you have to unbind/rebind your keys just to play it….and then fix them after.”

Erm, since when? I’m sitting on multiple perfect scores, mostly high and middle parts, and I haven’t touched my key bindings once. The only thing that gets changed when I do that minigame is camera angle. I know quite a few people, myself included, really enjoy this game, even though it lacks song variety. Lag aside, and I mean no offense to anyone, it just seems like the people who don’t enjoy it aren’t willing to put the time into figuring it out.

My first line of binds is 1,2,3,4,5. No problem.

My second set is C,Q,E,R,T. If you can play piano quickly with that. You are a master.

Expect it was your own choice to rebind your keys to that in the first place. Anet can’t really check everyones keybinds to see if they are viable. 1234 and 6789 is a perfectly reasonable keybind setup for the choirbell game. One hand for 1234 the other for 6789. These are the default settings.

Azure Prower.8701:

My first line of binds is 1,2,3,4,5. No problem.

My second set is C,Q,E,R,T. If you can play piano quickly with that. You are a master.

Keys have dual binds. You can keep both CQERT and 67890. That’s how I could both play with my normal binds and keep the original for the bells.

MobiuS.6394:

Azure Prower.8701:

My first line of binds is 1,2,3,4,5. No problem.

My second set is C,Q,E,R,T. If you can play piano quickly with that. You are a master.

Keys have dual binds. You can keep both CQERT and 67890. That’s how I could both play with my normal binds and keep the original for the bells.

That’s actually a good point. Didn’t think of that. Still not my cup of tea though. Got my title with out even finishing a song in the choir. I enjoyed the other events more.

I loved playing Bell Hero

The only thing I got out of this event is selling presents.. The Toys-R-Us dungeon is not even remotely fun.

background: I have been playing the event with my sister.

The Dungeon is practically the same every time.

Day 1:
1. Destroy Tar Elementals and return their ooze to the machines

2. Teleport to the platforms above the gift-giving apparatus and stop the mischievous skritt (Kill 12 Skritt Intruders)

3. Collect plant food near buildings for the Ventari toys (Collect 15 Plant Food)

4. Destroy the malfunctioning turrets (Destroy 18 turrets)

5. Stop Toxx from rampaging through the airship

Vs

Day 5

1. Collect presents for the toy princesses – 15 (day 2 same as plant food)

2. Color unpainted princess dolls with the plasma paint cannon – 40 (day 2)

3. Retake the plush griffon’s aerie from the princesses (day 4)

4. Defend the toy Ventari from the princess dolls – 5 (day 2)

5. Destroy malfunctioning mortars before they cause too much damage – 25 (same as turrets)

6. Drive off malfunctioning toy soldiers attacking the assembly line – 8 waves (day 3)

7. Destroy plush griffon nests, and drive plush griffons away from the helm (day 4)

8. Destroy the oversized haywire golem building turrets above the gift-giving apparatus (new)

9. Use unstable toy golems to stop Toxx’s rampage through the airship (Toxx)

I can see no reason for this, it makes over half the dungeon a repeat of the day before. Neither of us found it fun and we haven’t completed the 5th one.

Also the “Color unpainted princess dolls with the plasma paint cannon – 40” plasma gun often bugged out not allowing us to paint dolls or skritt.

Other problems we had were the inability to get in same match for Snowball Mayhem, and the fact that neither of use are good at timed JP.

Treeline.3865:

Very very well written post!

One note though. In your original statement you forget at least one type of players, namely collectors. I know, if I wasn’t a collector you were completely right. But I am, and I do want every single minipet in the game – That includes the sport of being in every single event. I am ready to spend time (main factor of course. It’s a game, meant to waste time) and even some money on them. But when you come to a point where either the time it takes to get the minipets by playing is greater than the event (By playing 5+ hours a day, I know, I have no life), or the amount of money required to get them gets greater than what you actually paid for the game – Well there is a problem, because it simply ruins one type of playing. I’m not saying everything should be easily obtainable, but it should at least be possible.

Edit: For clarity; So yes we could “let go of this one” – But then our collections would have a big gaping hole. So we’re hoping for ninja changes instead, although unlikely.

This is my thoughts also. Collectors/OCD people are kinda forgotten during this. This kinda would be easily fixed if we could sell cogs/frames/minis, with the only problem then being high gold costs.
I’m also in the boat that thinks that any holiday items should not be too rare. I don’t care if everyone has an unbreakable bell/endless toymaker tonic, it should not have as low a drop chance as they gave them. Heck, they could leave that drop rate, but give us another means of getting them, other than RNG.

To those saying its another whining thread, how else are we supposed to give Anet our feedback? If we don’t say something now (and with each event), it’ll stay the same and more and more people will leave, because of the things that people are “whining” about.

Judas.5432:

Problem: Everything I don’t want is account bound. I don’t understand why I can’t give my friends my cogs and/or doll frames as it turns out I will not be using any of them.
Solution: If there are 5 things to make and we can only make two of them, let us sell, buy, and trade the others. I would have made mini’s and given them away as Wintersday presents. As it is I just tried to make an Endless Tonic and got frustrated because it didn’t work and I hate gambling. When making new things account bound, please think of us and not our credit cards. If you poke at me to use it, I’ll hold my wallet tightly closed. If you just make the game awesome and fun, I’ll give you more money……don’t you worry about that.

I actually came to the thread to post about this exact thing. I devised a cunning plan to spring a surprise on another player and mail them everything they would need to make a Toy Ventari. This would reflect our in-game RP of my character giving their character the toy. I went to implement this plan the other night, only to discover that two of the ingredients could be traded, but the cogs and recipe could not be. I’ve been told that if I make the mini myself it will also end up account bound (which is what I was afraid of to begin with). Why? Why account bind part of the requirements but not all of them? Why account bind any? Of course, we can still RP around this, but the ‘surprise for the other player’ part is blown, and I’m a bit mystified as to the reasoning behind the restriction.

@OP, good post. I don’t agree with you on all points (I love opening the big presents, for instance), but that’s fine; to each his own. And actually, I think your suggestions for improving them is great. For the most part I’ve been enjoying the event; I was just very disappointed to have my fun little plan foiled.

I have two things I’m unhappy about in this event:

1. Unbreakable Choir Bell on RNG
2. Choir Bell Ensemble can’t be played with friends without first playing server roulette

I would have also preferred a harder puzzle, but I still like the one we got.

Disclaimer: I am NOT unhappy with this Wintersday event. Overall I’ve been enjoying all the new content this week. That being said, there are some areas that could use some tweaking, and hopefully ANet will not mind the feedback.

1. Could we go back to the mini-pack that was offered during the Halloween event rather than having minis in the RNG boxes as in the Lost Shores and Wintersday events? I will glad plunk down the gems to pay for guaranteed content but am far less likely to do the same to play the lottery with the RNG boxes on the hope that I’ll get what I really want. As it is, since I don’t have a lot of money to spare right now (RL or in-game), the only way I’m going to get a Foostivoo is if I’m lucky with one of the giant gift boxes. Foo . . .

2. The toy mobs that spawn from opening the mysterious presents are a bit overpowered. My husband and I frequently have to run away to keep from being gakked, which we normally don’t need to do in monster fights. Either there should be less toys per mob, or the toys’ stats should be dialed down.

3. Since it’s too late to go down to only 1 type of ugly wool item, could we get a way to exchange them for the others, like being able to exchange socks for hats and hats for sweaters or vice versa? It’ll then be easier to get the higher-requirement items, and there’s less chance of leftover ugly wool items at the end of the event.

4. As much as I have been enjoying the daily events at the Infinarium, they are rather repetitious. It would be nice to have more unique tasks each day, or at least to have more of a mix-up of the repeated tasks, rather than having the “Paint the princess dolls” one EVERY day since the dolls came out.

Thank you for your time, ANet, and for giving us an overall enjoyable event!

The annoyance and aggravation factor with this event, coupled with the fact that as a collector I will not reasonably be able to collect the things I want… has led me to not participate at all in the event. In fact, I haven’t even logged into the game in several days… but I have been playing another game that is well known but I will get infracted if I mention it. /shiver LOL

I personally have found the events a little bit “meh!”
The JP was fun, but too short and easy (ish) I did it on about the 30th attempt.
The dungeon is ok but as others have said too repetitive.
The song thing I hated at first until I rebound my keys to the default. Having said that even when I got the whole tune played with others playing their parts too I could not tell what the songs were. They all sounded terrible and just noise!
The presents in the world I no longer bother opening. The mobs are OP. Although I did find that the experimental gun for the heart “Help Carmel cleanse the Inquest pollution” in Mount maelstrom was totally awesome for opening presents.
The pvp is fun but the requirements for the achievs I find undoable for me. I cannot ever get the gift because everyone wants it so you are “fighting” your own side. I got very bored of it after only 1 hour of playing.
The mini pets thing, I have simply sold all my mats for them as they do not interest me in the slightest. Mainly because Minis take up an inventory slot. Bring on the day they do as WoW did and make a UI thing for minis so I can summon them and NOT have them take up space.
Overall the content added is ok but I def said at more than one point “meh…”

I did the first Infinitarium in the Grove. Next came the Queensdale one. By the third day, I just gave up, logged out, and went off to play Guild Wars, where it’s Wintersday every single day of the event, useful things drop from kills, and I can just do silly things.

One of the biggest problems I see between Wintersday in Guild Wars vs GW2 is that in Guild Wars, the quests are the same every single year. In GW2, the quests are essentially the same every day.

It’s boring, the rewards are less than stellar, often useless (really, sweaters I can trade for… sweaters in a lame game of GW2 roulette). Oh, and the Infinitarium – the huge, grand guignol of the event is impossible without a full team.

In Guild Wars? You know the events, you’ve come to love them as part of the holiday season that only comes once a year, and if you want, you can do them on your own with heroes and/or henchmen and don’t need to wait around for a team.

Between the two, I’d say Wintersday in Guild Wars has always been a fun home run, while Wintersday in GW2 is a massive swing-and-a-miss.

The exception? Snowball fight. I laughed hysterically when I used the giant snowball skill. Steamrollering opponents was funny.

Ansultares.1567:

For the record, you sound whiny and entitled, so should we disregard your post entirely or should we give “whiny and entitled” posters the benefit of the doubt?

You sound like half the other people on here. Anyone who disagrees with anything is whiny and entitled.

ubaid.8213:

I did the first Infinitarium in the Grove. Next came the Queensdale one. By the third day, I just gave up, logged out, and went off to play Guild Wars, where it’s Wintersday every single day of the event, useful things drop from kills, and I can just do silly things.

One of the biggest problems I see between Wintersday in Guild Wars vs GW2 is that in Guild Wars, the quests are the same every single year. In GW2, the quests are essentially the same every day.

It’s boring, the rewards are less than stellar, often useless (really, sweaters I can trade for… sweaters in a lame game of GW2 roulette). Oh, and the Infinitarium – the huge, grand guignol of the event is impossible without a full team.

In Guild Wars? You know the events, you’ve come to love them as part of the holiday season that only comes once a year, and if you want, you can do them on your own with heroes and/or henchmen and don’t need to wait around for a team.

Between the two, I’d say Wintersday in Guild Wars has always been a fun home run, while Wintersday in GW2 is a massive swing-and-a-miss.

The exception? Snowball fight. I laughed hysterically when I used the giant snowball skill. Steamrollering opponents was funny.

FINALLY, Someone who agrees with my point of view.

I’m sure a lot of people who think this event is sooo fun haven’t even touched GW1 so I’ll excuse their ignorance. Quite frankly… this is not a very fun event compared to GW1, and that’s disappointing since GW2 hasn’t let me down really in any other regard than the holiday events.

Seriously just plunk a few holiday themed hearts around outside all the major cities, and let them sell holiday stuff. All this jumping and bell nonsense can be rewardless extras. If everyone wants a challenge so badly, why do you go run fractals or do something that should actually poses a proper challenge?

First, respectfully, I found the art in Wintersday to be profoundly beautiful and well done. The dolls, the toys, the city decorations, the snow, the little icons, everything about the artwork was amazing.

I was a little sad that I did not get everything I wanted, but then that is the way it is at Christmas too, so why not at Wintersday. I am satisfied I came out of it with a few nice things, and that is fine with me.

I had to change my paradigm some from Guild Wars 1, where we hoarded up things we knew we would use the rest of the year, because there weren’t any to hoard.

The overpowered (for me) toys in the gifts around world made me eventually just run from them as evil things, and may have marred me for life on any big bowed covered object.

I also am coming to believe that perhaps games in general have outgrown me, as there is no longer even a modicum of “difficulty scaling” for those, like myself, who are not in it to be the biggest baddest booya around. I guess perhaps this is just the new normal for online gaming: Be Uber or Get out.

But thanks Anet for the pretty shinies. “You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes…you get what you need.” In this case? A big swift winter boot to the rear.

I agree wholeheartedly with the last 2 problems in the OP. I didn’t bother to keep doing them after I got my first mini (I don’t even like minis, I find them useless and not even fun to carry around). And today’s was the same thing over again. If I had known the “grand finale” to this event would be simply redoing one of the dungeons I’d have just skipped it.

Toypocalypse is also too long and too boring for me. Got in to see what it was like, left after 3 waves because too repetitive, boring and uncoordinated.

JP, yeah way too easy. I was thinking you could put in the choice between 3 different difficulty levels, while only changing small things that will represent a bigger challenge on the higher difficulties(for example, making the peppermint candies spin instead of being simple platforms, reducing the amount of time it takes snowflakes to disappear, making more presents disappear at once and with a smaller delay between their disappearances, etc.) They would all give the achievement, but the higher the difficulty level, the better the rewards would be.

In spite of the event being honestly very boring to me, I do have to admit that LA and the dungeon and all the new art looks amazing, as well as the Christmas-themed music.

ophidic.1279:

Ansultares.1567:

For the record, you sound whiny and entitled, so should we disregard your post entirely or should we give “whiny and entitled” posters the benefit of the doubt?

You sound like half the other people on here. Anyone who disagrees with anything is whiny and entitled.

And for suggesting that people be open minded, I received an infraction (and for mentioning that, I’ll receive another one; hope I’m close to that temp-ban).

Incidentally, OP spent the first 1/3rd of his post on the subject, so I can’t see how it’s even considered off-topic, or why he wouldn’t be called out for it and I am.

Selective application of rules is exactly why we shouldn’t let big government become even bigger.

I loved the events, everyday it was fun looking forward to the airship changing location and therefore a ‘new’ tixx dungeon.

I also had no problems with the ‘2 mini out of 5’ thing because I understand that people don’t need to ‘have’ everything, WOW for example had players take 3 years at least to get the set of minis from children’s day or so, and doubly glad that anet gave at least the option to buy the remaining minis.

The puzzle was fun albeit short, most of the area was to split people into groups and that in itself was a good thing, because it meant that anet listened to player’s and tried to fix things at least on the ‘too grouped up together’ problem of the puzzle.

Although the weapons from both the gem shop and the boxes felt slightly lack-luster, the positive side is that the system itself was agreeable, players had to pay gems or currency for either, unlike halloween were it was dominated by the RNG.

The BIG no-no for me in this event, was the Mystery Boxes, I’m a collector and at the very least I wanted to be able to collect the good things, Anet knew the quaggan would be the most coveted mini and so they put in a MF formula to make one if you couldnt find it as a drop from the boxes, that was fine except the formula required ONLY minis from the MB, I had to open 50 boxes to get that amount and that was alot of gems+ gold, just for the mini because honestly, all other RNG box items are always junk except the very coveted and rare ones.

I honestly hope that future events wont be like this, I really hated every event so far with boxes like this and collectables within, this time they were even account bound so non tradeable…

Ansultares.1567:

ophidic.1279:

Ansultares.1567:

For the record, you sound whiny and entitled, so should we disregard your post entirely or should we give “whiny and entitled” posters the benefit of the doubt?

You sound like half the other people on here. Anyone who disagrees with anything is whiny and entitled.

And for suggesting that people be open minded, I received an infraction (and for mentioning that, I’ll receive another one; hope I’m close to that temp-ban).

Incidentally, OP spent the first 1/3rd of his post on the subject, so I can’t see how it’s even considered off-topic, or why he wouldn’t be called out for it and I am.

Selective application of rules is exactly why we shouldn’t let big government become even bigger.

Wow, you got an infraction for that?! Jeez. =/

Don’t worry, I got banned from commenting on the GW2 facebook before release for participating in GW2 vs Diablo 3 fights. I still can’t comment, lol!

Nalora.7964:

First, respectfully, I found the art in Wintersday to be profoundly beautiful and well done. The dolls, the toys, the city decorations, the snow, the little icons, everything about the artwork was amazing.

That’s one thing I DID enjoy quite a bit, was the decorations and the music.