Guild Wars 2

So I’ve tried overflow servers and my home server, both with less than 10 players in each instance. I’ve played at different times over a 6 hour period. Plenty of time for players from around the world to get in on this right?

One may think so, but from what I’m seeing, there’s very few people actually participating in this. What’s the story? I looked at the Dev sticky on Toypocalypse and it doesn’t say anything about a number of player cap for each instance, so what gives?

5 players is max.

It is very repetitive and not rewarding at all. I got 4 gifts out of the entire time of 10 waves. no last chest, just the title. Since one of the beasts died early before people had things going I did not get the other title and will not be back to try to get it.

Umm no it’s not.

I’ve been in instances where 6 or 7 players have been active.

In that case you have witnessed players leaving the instance, after which another have joined.

Treeline.3865:

5 players is max.

You couldn’t be more wrong. Toypocalypse is sPvP style party. I did a round with at least 8 people.

Ok to my mind at least, that makes the whole instance rather unfair. How is anyone supposed to protect all 5 doly’s from death with so many enemies coming in from all directions? I don’t want to say it can’t be done because I’m sure it probably can, but I got to wave #7 I think on one occasion and one doly was having a hard time holding up.

A good strategy is to just build snowman and catapults all over the map. As soon as you pick up the material build it on the spot. This will distract the mobs as they spawn. Only a few, if any, will get through

It’s a flop because they decided to make a team PvE game impossible to enter with a party of friends.

Then their response to this is to say they’ll reduce the requiements for an achievment.

Catamaran Nights.2630:

A good strategy is to just build snowman and catapults all over the map. As soon as you pick up the material build it on the spot. This will distract the mobs as they spawn. Only a few, if any, will get through

I tried this myself, virtually in the same way.. but some I ran to the outer edge of the middle ring. Problem is that mobs will spawn out where you are gathering resources and then you’re history. Another tidbit is that mobs won’t ever spawn in some places where you find the resources so it’s a bit of a waste building them on the spot. Thus I’ll run them closer to where the action is, at the detriment of the team needing the help deflecting the enemies.

I still thinnk there are too few people playing this, at least not enough to have a fair fighting chance for most/all people to get the Toypocalypse Cancelled achieve.

this whole wintersday sucks becouse u cant play with premade teams so u get pugs that leave or go afk (snowball mayhem). i managed to finish the instance just to see the reward at the end (nothing) with 3 people alltogether at the end so i have to say that this is bigest fail i seen from GW1 and GW2.
this whole wintersday is disappointing.
ANET fix this please

I love the mini-games, this entire holiday and while not being able to join as a team at first was confusing, I really have no problem with it anymore. Can’t believe this is such a big deal to many people.

i managed to get the achievement done with just a group of 5, frankly i thought that was the max anyway, and it wasnt that difficult at all, could of gone through tons of waves if it was necessary lol. It took me 3 instances to find a group of people dedicated to earning the title but once that was done it was cake. I do agree that you should have been able to enter with friends, as this would have made it tons more fun. As far as presents go I only managed to get like 3 giant ones and thats about it. So if you’re not looking for presents and just want to have some fun this is great.

I enjoyed all the mini games Wintersday had to offer. Bell choir was super hard for me at first, but now its rare to get under 590 ending score. The jumping puzzle was a LOT easier than mad kings tower….so thank god for that. Not the biggest fan of snowball mayhem (not a pvp person) but even that was pretty fun at times. Toypocalypse was a great turret defense game.

I managed to finish both achievements, and I LOVE all the other events, but I’m not keen on returning to Toypocalypse.

The only part that bugs me about this minigame is how unresponsive it is when picking up snowballs or scraps. For example, if I don’t come to a complete stop before picking up an item, I will often get stuck in a running animation that I can’t break out of. It doesn’t last too long but it is really annoying.

And since frequent and speedy building is such a big part of Toypocalypse, it’s too easy to get worn out over the course of ten rounds while suffering from these constant hiccups.

I guess it’s just lag but it rules me out anyway

Gehirn.8796:

I guess it’s just lag but it rules me out anyway

Nope, its not a lag. I got same unresponsiveness with anything that requires player interaction (“f”) during event with the exception being looting. It is most noticeable during toypocalypse as you have to interact alot. And i never lag during game (even in crowded areas, unless its server-side lags)

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Catamaran Nights.2630:

A good strategy is to just build snowman and catapults all over the map. As soon as you pick up the material build it on the spot. This will distract the mobs as they spawn. Only a few, if any, will get through

I tried this myself, virtually in the same way.. but some I ran to the outer edge of the middle ring. Problem is that mobs will spawn out where you are gathering resources and then you’re history. Another tidbit is that mobs won’t ever spawn in some places where you find the resources so it’s a bit of a waste building them on the spot. Thus I’ll run them closer to where the action is, at the detriment of the team needing the help deflecting the enemies.

I still thinnk there are too few people playing this, at least not enough to have a fair fighting chance for most/all people to get the Toypocalypse Cancelled achieve.

Just would like to say that someone in our group said to do this, and when everyone started doing this, not one mob got through. All the dolyaks remained at full health, and whenever Toxx spawned, it would attack those first and we just killed it away from the dolyaks. Oh, and only upgrade when they get damaged. Btw, we used only catapults and snowmen, no ballistas or walls.

P.S.

Catapults are OP!

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Ok to my mind at least, that makes the whole instance rather unfair. How is anyone supposed to protect all 5 doly’s from death with so many enemies coming in from all directions? I don’t want to say it can’t be done because I’m sure it probably can, but I got to wave #7 I think on one occasion and one doly was having a hard time holding up.

use the force!…. I mean the walls

Amazingly fun, totally not repetitive, sure if you play it for 6 hours straight.
But if you play it daily for max an hour or 2 it’s actually amazingly enjoyable.
Besides that, rewards don’t really change anything, as long as i’m having a great time with it.

And the players i usually play with would be around 5 max, so i don’t know wether there are 6 or 7 or 8 at a time, but definitely 5.

And yes, i would’ve liked it alot more if i could do it with people from my guild, but it is what it is. And it doesn’t really spoil it by that much.

OP:

I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time completing this content, but that does not define it as “a flop”. That’s the same mentality that has labeled the jumping puzzle, the bell choir, and the snowball mayhem ‘a flop’; it’s just a few people have trouble one way or another in completing it.

All this content added for the holiday has been very successful. And roughly 90% of it is purely ‘fluff’ for holiday weapon skins, mini pets, transformation tonics, and musical bells. Only has the chest Tixx rewards currently in Lion’s Arch is character-effecting by providing expanded bag slots (15 slot bag), yet the back piece he has is still cosmetic in nature.

To direct on specifically the Toypocalypse, it’s very enjoyable whether or not it’s rewarding. Rewards do not fuel gaming, fun does (well, it used to but with this current generation is all about “phat lootz”). Toypocalypse plays much like a tower defense game with many twists and turns and is a good break from day-to-day dungeon crawling, WvW, or sPvP.

So, again, I’m sorry you’re not having fun, but that doesn’t mean that other people aren’t having fun nor does it mean that the event is a flop.

I loved this part of wintersday, the only thing was that it took sometime before i ended up in a decent party so we could finish with all dolyaks alive. The reward is not so awsome just some presents with socks ????but the fun compensates for that

Siphaed.9235:

OP:

I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time completing this content, but that does not define it as “a flop”. That’s the same mentality that has labeled the jumping puzzle, the bell choir, and the snowball mayhem ‘a flop’; it’s just a few people have trouble one way or another in completing it.

All this content added for the holiday has been very successful. And roughly 90% of it is purely ‘fluff’ for holiday weapon skins, mini pets, transformation tonics, and musical bells. Only has the chest Tixx rewards currently in Lion’s Arch is character-effecting by providing expanded bag slots (15 slot bag), yet the back piece he has is still cosmetic in nature.

To direct on specifically the Toypocalypse, it’s very enjoyable whether or not it’s rewarding. Rewards do not fuel gaming, fun does (well, it used to but with this current generation is all about “phat lootz”). Toypocalypse plays much like a tower defense game with many twists and turns and is a good break from day-to-day dungeon crawling, WvW, or sPvP.

So, again, I’m sorry you’re not having fun, but that doesn’t mean that other people aren’t having fun nor does it mean that the event is a flop.

I think you’ve taken this as being my assumption that it is already a flop. When in fact I was looking for answers/opinions from others who have done it as to what they thought of it, and if they had the same experiences. To my mind, there’s not enough people in there at one time; I accept this is part of the challenge, but it should also be enough to draw more people into it. We’ve already seen what some thought of it and there’s some rather divided opinions. I asked earlier in LA and a lot of people came back with rather negative views on it.

The human nature is to take more notice and hone in on the negative of anything. Just look at 70-80% of the posts on these forums. The challenge there is not to complain, but to take that negative and make it a positive instead. Granted, this is probably by design from ANet that the instance be like this with not a lot of people playing at one time, but having said that it’s also dividing people by not rewarding them with big loot, even though the content itself is probably very mentally stimulating.

Also that fact that not a lot of people are in the instance probably says to the average first-timer “oh there’s hardly anyone here, it must suck”. That kind of stigma turns people away from the content, unless there’s something there that tells them that part of the conditions of play are that you’re only to have x-number of people in the instance at one time. Other simliar instances, like Halloween, had a LOT more people in there at once for those PvP-type minigames… those who probably did those minigames and saw Toypocalypse with the same kind of player interface and wondered “where is everybody?” A fair question.

It is a flop. I’m sorry, I had a lot of fun with the city events leading up to this. However, for my friends and I this finale was a huge disappointment.

First of all, as everyone is aware, friends couldn’t play together. This is really disappointing to groups of friends that were tackling the holiday city events together all week and anticipating an exciting finale. I understand that technical limitations made this impossible in the time the team had to put the event together, but I feel this is one of those situations where it’s best to not do something if you can’t do it right. What had been a mostly positive experience this week has been completely soured for us by this one bad decision.

Beyond the obvious disappointments of not being able to play with friends, it creates many frustrating problems:

- being placed in a map with strangers who have no interest in working together.

- being placed in a map that is nearly complete on your first visit to the event.

- being placed in a map by yourself.

- being placed in a map doomed to fail because your group is constantly understaffed. Why? Because a dolyak is dead and players only interested in the achievement leave, only to be replaced by new players who are also only interested in the achievement and leave, rinse repeat.

- being placed in a map with players who just want to stand around AFK.

- being placed in a map with players who insist on spending all their time building ice walls right up against the dolyaks, even though it’s ridiculously obvious to anyone with eyeballs that the attacking toys are able to strike the dolyaks through said ice walls when they’re that close.

And I could go on. This is the problem with playing with complete strangers.. there are a lot of people out there that I have zero interest in playing with and chances are high that I’ll end up in a group with them. And the solution of bringing friends doesn’t work here.

If you are creating an event and your thinking is “this will work well and be fun as long as everyone plays reasonably”, you are well on your way to creating a disaster that is doomed to frustrate players. If technical limitations are preventing you from doing it right, don’t do it. Do something else instead. I would have rather just had a sixth rehash of the previous five city events than what we ended up with.

My friends all logged last night with zero interest in doing anything else in the game after a few rounds of Toypocalypse. Not exactly the best results.

Toypocalypse is a huge fail in my eyes, most of the games I’ve joined have already been in progress with Dolyaks already dead, so many people don’t know what they are doing, not responsive enough and don’t react or build defenses in a logical manner.

Oh, and did I mention joining games already in progress near constantly? Anet, don’t ever make an event like this again. It just doesn’t work with the random pug nature.

Well…

Its the most fun flop and the awesomest fail I have taken part of in a long time. Finished it with all dolyaks alive on my second time around with no communication with the rest of the team. Everyone worked together brilliantly. Its not anets fault that some people are just bad. But yeah, it would have been more fun to do it with friends, on that I agree.

Wish I could join a “Fresh” one with all the Dolyaks alive – Its getting pathetic at the moment.

I don’t agree, I found Toypocalypse very very fun, its actually the only minigame i’ve found really fun to date. I did not really care for any others but this tower defense game was great and requires some strategy.

We completed it no issues even before any nerfs..

I saw all these threads complaining about how bad Toypoclypse was before I had the chance to log in and play it. I thought everyone was just being dramatic or something; I had been enjoying Wintersday so far and I didn’t think a random group was that big of a deal.

But once I actually tried it I was very very dissapointed. A single person in group runs up and starts the event while people are still loading in, causing 3 of the dolyaks to die on the first round. The gameplay was not fun; in fact it was various tedious feeling placing all those items, and after 5 rounds I was already bored of it.

I haven’t tried “toypoclypse” yet (I probably will), but what I note in these comments is the “apparent” inability of random groups to “play in the same sandbox”. Now the question HAS to be asked, is this a “problem” for the game———————or a “problem” for the “supposed” players?? Or both??
If it’s a “game problem” then ANET should be taken to task———————but if it’s a “player” problem then maybe we should all take a step back and look at what WE, as players, need to do in this type situation.

I see this same “type” issue constantly in PvE, where players “jump in” to “help” but don’t stop to ask WHERE their help is needed————-they are just another “random” factor——————(and yes, I’m as guilty of this as anyone).

I see it as a bit of both.

For one, the minigame has been designed in this way with little thought for grouped parties.

For two, the players that do jump in and help basically are there under the premise that they are there to help out what is actually already going on. Most people will spawn in mid-game where tactics are already in place and the game in play is by-design from the participating players to stop the dolyaks from being slaughtered. But having said this, people who spawn in for the first time will be caught up in the reading of the instructions, trying to understand the conditions of the game, and will probably take more than a couple of decent rounds to get it right and start working as a team with the other PUG’s.

So once again ANet dev’s have enabled this type of play structure and behaviour based on pugging and non-structured group styles. This was mistake #1 for this minigame for a lot of people because it turned them straight off the way the game is designed to be played. Others in there for achievements only will be there for the duration (or likely, even less) based on the amount of time it takes to get said achievements and/or the rewards from each round of the game. Maybe if there were drops from foes as well as the “cheese at the end of the maze” then you’d have a few more people playing, as those people are counting on loot drops to make it worth their time. A waste, but anyway…

Now get in there and find out what all the fuss is about.

I’m not going to lie, me (and most of the people I play with) aren’t playing it because it’s just flat out really boring. I can see why people would enjoy it but it’s just not engaging enough.

I was expecting some kind of dungeon where I could use my own gear and use strats with friends to survive for as long as possible, and what I got in return was Seigepocalypse: Enjoy your crappy weapons edition.

I had fun. Maybe I’m just easy to please. But I enjoyed it. Still am.

It was by far the most fun I had on the wintersday event. Only problem was there wasn’t any point in replaying because there was zero reward. Unfornately they nerfed the already easy to get title. People won’t have as much fun anymore, because they will play it once, and won’t be forced to come up with clever defense stratgies.

Love this mini game, a lot of fun with people who know what they’re doing. I found it quite easy if your whole team works together. Not sure which is more fun, the JP or this.

Writetyper.1985:

I’m not going to lie, me (and most of the people I play with) aren’t playing it because it’s just flat out really boring. I can see why people would enjoy it but it’s just not engaging enough.

I was expecting some kind of dungeon where I could use my own gear and use strats with friends to survive for as long as possible, and what I got in return was Seigepocalypse: Enjoy your crappy weapons edition.

Yep, that’s how I feel about it. After running around using annoyingly slow and unresponsive skills for what seemed like ages, I was shocked to find out I had only made it as far as to the end of round 3. I hope my team got someone to replace me when I left.

The whole thing is just insufferably boring to me, so I’ll leave those 2 achievements unfulfilled.

I enjoyed this mini game. Though I also enjoyed the other ones as well. Probably enjoyed Choir Bell one the best. Like most of the holiday mini games we’ve seen in the past two holidays. I think they are enjoyed sparingly and not in giant chunks.

Toypocalypse is pretty simple and easy. But it can be very long, that I will agree with. But it amused me to see stuff instantly spawn and die. >.> Revenge for all those horrible massacres on my alts on opening presents in the game world.

I wish the game was harder. My “group” finished it on the second time once we realized that simply setting up mega snowmen to draw fire for our tons of siege gear was basically a guaranteed nap to both the 5 Dolyak and 50 wave achievements. I was happy to have received so many wintersday gifts though.