Guild Wars 2

Seriously, why don’t the mods just a make a general feedback thread with every release forum?

This is my first impressions: Wintersday is back, hurray! It’s roughly similar to last year, but that’s fine for me. It’s a holiday, aren’t holidays about tradition? Yeah, it’d be cool if we got something new, like the Bloody Prince story with Blood and Madness, but it’s a holiday release, so I won’t complain.

I don’t mind the rebalancing. Whenever they do it, my characters are never affected in a way that I notice. The new skills are welcome, I wish they were less expensive though. I suppose they’re for level 80 characters, but it’d be nice if they were more accessible to lower levels.

The End of Nightmares thing is awesome. Kessex Hills has returned (relatively) to its sunny self, but there’s some noticeable changes too. I wish, like F&F that the Towers releases weren’t spread out so much, mainly that the ToN and Nightmares Within were combined somehow, but too late for that. The instance was nice, I’m glad it’s repeatable. I like how the NPC’s at Thunder ridge provide some background on Scarlet for those who don’t read the short stories, which seem to have mysteriously disappeared.

Merry Wintersday is the kind of release that should be the standard for future releases. It’s big, has more than just one main feature or event going on, and things change. I’m happy with how LW 2013 is ending. This is may become my favorite release of the year. And I’m super hyped for what’s going to happen next year!

Your thoughts on everything in this release?

I second the skill thing. I was so excited, and the skills seem really interesting. Then I see it has a 25 skill point cost and I just deflate since I only have low level characters at the moment. A cost of 5 or so skill points or lower would be appreciated.

Well at work so I can’t comment on the actual content yet, but as for the rest of it:

1) Glad we got a way to increase the cap size for collectibles tab, EXCEPT that it costs $30 (US) to make it cap. Would have preferred something along the lines of 1000g to max it out.
2) Content amount is what I would expect for a months worth of LS, but we have to wait 6 weeks before we get something new. Hopefully Wintersday content can keep us occupied till the 21st of January…
3) Dual story/arcs at the same time is interesting. Would kinda like to see more of this, but content would need to stay longer (like this one is), depending on the amount of content in that different stories/arcs.
4)Ascended: No comment.
5)Rewards: Yay more backpieces. Though I wish the recipes weren’t account bound (at least thats what someone said in a different thread). Due to RNG I hate we can’t buy them directly from TP (Hopefully mini Ho-Ho Tron is purchasable on TP). Still wish the meta achievement skins were added to the AP zenith/hellfire/radiant panel thing so we can use them on more than one character/one time.

Overall I think I like this patch, but actually playing may be a different story.

Kessex Hills has returned to its sunny self,.No it hasnt and it wont.

skullmount.1758:

Well at work so I can’t comment on the actual content yet, but as for the rest of it:

2) Content amount is what I would expect for a months worth of LS, but we have to wait 6 weeks before we get something new. Hopefully Wintersday content can keep us occupied till the 21st of January…

That’s the only thing I have doubts about. I don’t know about others, but for me, holiday content won’t keep my attention for long. Of course, there’s still the rest of the game in the meantime.

3) Dual story/arcs at the same time is interesting. Would kinda like to see more of this, but content would need to stay longer (like this one is), depending on the amount of content in that different stories/arcs.

Yeah, It’s the End of Nightmares thing that I think makes this release seem so big. Would love to see more overlap in the future too.

I just post what i have experienced so far:

The End of Nightmare was fun, however i think it could have been given to us with the last update, since it doesn`t really furtherd the plot. The only reason we got it is appeaerently because it wasn`t finished and they wanted to keep the tower for a bit longer.
I can understand it, but it still feels weird content wise.

The changes to Kessex and the cinematic were awesome, though. More of that please.

Wintersday: Not really much new. It is okay, after helloween i did not expect anything new anyway (yep i am a bit bitter here. Just because you built the foundation does not mean you have to stop -_- )

New items: Did not get into it too much sadly. i kinda like the new armors, even though i do not think i will ever get my hands on them.
The backpack items are annoying though. I hope they drop reasonable (recipts). My necro and Ele would love them…

Balancing: i have to thest first. I do not think my playstytle will change greatly

Overall i like it, but i am not to thrilled.

I’m VERY disappointed with a new jump puzzle. Rapidly exploding boxes is not fun at all.

Gifts:

Following the dolyak zerg, the only activity that requires 0 effort, is the most rewarding source of presents? What? The event is also constantly active, x2. Of course this won’t be true in a couple of days however.

Rednik.3809:

I’m VERY disappointed with a new jump puzzle. Rapidly exploding boxes is not fun at all.

Is the box section different from last year?

FatDragon.1752:

I second the skill thing. I was so excited, and the skills seem really interesting. Then I see it has a 25 skill point cost and I just deflate since I only have low level characters at the moment. A cost of 5 or so skill points or lower would be appreciated.

The skills are out forever so you will have time to unlock them it is simple level progression.

CuRtoKy.8576:

The skills are out forever so you will have time to unlock them it is simple level progression.

But why should a signet centric necro work so much harder for a fitting heal skill then a minion or well necro?

Overall, nothing to write home about, again. Also if you’re lucky enough to only get one spore from an Offshoot event, you’ll be spending a LOT of time waiting for more Offshoots to spawn. This release is great so far.

edited to prevent incorrect interpretation by moderators.

Here are my thoughts:

End of the Nightmare
Finally, it’s over. Story was nicely done to wrap up things.

Achievements. OK, some champs. No special mechanics. just re-used stuff- Not very grindy. It’s ok. Only the “jump over the shockwave” with the worm was a bit annoying. Had to guest on a low pop server to do it at night. Spent most time waiting for the champs to spawn.

But the video at the end everyone is praising looks like a story board you produce before you actually render the final movie. You know, sketched background and some moving elements abvce it plus some Ken Burns like stuff. I expected a bit more here, but obviously there was not enough time. That’s ok the Tower was bad anyway.

Wintersday

I am very disappointed that the frames for creating the minis from last year are not back (still have all the parts except some frames) and we only get one over the meta achievements. Couple of years to get them all? I doubt I will be playing GW2 in 3 years from now. At least not if it continues the way it has since Halloween.

Wintersday is basically a collection of activities. And to be frank I do not like them at all, but I never liked the PvP activities.

I was hoping for Toypocalypse to become some more of a Tower Defense thingy, for which it had potential. But it didn’t turn out that way.

Infinarium? Fun collection of events. Liked the fact that you need to destroy everything for an achievement. It’s even soloable without problems. The pricess doll’s whining is a bit annoying though.

The jumping puzzle is ok, but the exploding big gifts are a bit annoying. It’s very good that you removed the waiting. This is a huge improvement.

But without the ability to craft some minis, endless tonics I have no reason to play these activities very much. The meta achievements is very grindy and I probaly just do the dailes as all stuff is centered around the activities I do not like. But as said the PvP activities were never my cup of tea.

Ascended Armor
Cost me about 120g for all three as I had most of the material in my bank. Now time gating begins for a full set of WvW armor. Will probably take me a months here, unless people start the sell the time gated stuff on TP like for ascended weapons with a reasonable price tag.

Increased Stack Size for collectibles
I really really like that. No need to sell all the stuff that drops because your bank is full. I could also recover some bank space. I spent some gems here to get them to 1000.

Balance Upate
No more Hammer Time for my Warrior. Even in PvE I felt the impact the reduced damage of Earthshaker. Mace became useless (played Axe/Axe and Mace/Shield as well). Guess I go back to Axe/Axe and rifle now or even start with GS/rifle (never liked GS so far). Hammer was fun while it lasted. Maybe I play my Necro or Mesmer for from now on as changes on these are more interesting.

Update is more or less what I expected. A nice maintenance release, bringing old stuff back minus the awards. I can live with that. It hopefully gives you guys at Anet more time to produce quality content for end of January.

Now I only have to grind throw the Wintersday meta, before it’s back to WvW.

Great event, really fun activities, but with next to useless rewards.

There’s nothing desirable to purchase with ugly socks/hat/jumper and the droprate for anything unique is so low that you may as well just remove them from the game.

It’s fun but I probably won’t do any of it again because I don’t have any incentive to.

What the heck did you do with the jumping puzzles this year? I did not mind the waiting time last year. Was kinda fun to snowball fight with undie wearing characters or snoring for two minutes in the waiting area when you missed the first jump. But this year it’s like a nightmarish snow globe of lag and glitches. All the stuff I noticed in one hour doing it:

• Respawning twice, because once isn’t enough.
• Lag spikes that instantly kill you, when you synced again (because you just run of the flake/present/path).
• Chaotically appearing snowflakes in front of you that force you to wait and watch your health ticking down, while the one you need to jump on wont appear.
• Rapidly exploding gifts.
• Non exploding gifts for at least 10 secs while waiting at Trixx (and then: chain boom).
• Two rolling snowballs right behind each other.
• Rolling snowballs standing still all of a sudden (no lag at all, the goal area was loaded at the moment I jumped into the present).
• Actor glitching out. I did the jumping puzzle while my character was laying on the belly. twice.
• Wobbling around at the goal area as if the character is constantly walking on icy Lego bricks with invisible obstacles between them
• Seriously. I noticed the clock which is ticking down from 30 minutes to zero. One might ask when? I tell you: with Trixx’ extra gift in my hands on one of the small blue gifts right before the last jump. How did I notice? I found myself at the starting area one sec later…
• Did I mention the horrible ping?

And you removed the first time daily extra drops (or I haven’t got it because of another bug). That simply sucks.

Agreed, the exploding presents at the jumping puzzle are annoying. Unlike last year were fast ppl would have the advantage of them all being there. Now you have to wait for a person to basically sacrifice him/herself to recover all the presents for the other ppl waiting on the platform with Tixx. Really bad…

I didn’t play winters day last year. I was keen to see what it would be like. I have to say I’m very disappointed for the following resins.

1) more back items. I’m sure some people are happy but I would rather something more useful, like a 20 slot bag or something else that people will use, not just over wright once a new back item comes out.

2) the jumping puzzle it just annoying. I’m not a fan of them at all. I’m sure there at people who like the puzzles but I don’t.

3) can’t group with friends to do some of the activity’s. This kills the fun for me. So I’ve not tried them.

Now for the good.

1)I loved the end to the tower. It was great. The cinamatic was amazing. It’s ashamed the PS didn’t have them like this.

2) the changes to kessex hills are great. Players who didn’t get to see the tower will get to see the aftermath.

3) The new events are also a great touch. I have to say the tower story has been my favoret by far. More of this please.

As far as acended gear go’s, I’m very disappointed in the skins. I’m sure someone worked very kitten them, but I feel Guild Wars had better armor skins. I’m not just talking the “Eliet” armors but the standered armors you could get from the start. The only set live added to the game that I think is nice is the phalanx skin set. I love collecting armor, I have about 10 sets in Guild wars, Just for my Warrior. Other level 20 toons have 2-3 “Eliet” sets each. I would love to see the Guild Wars “Eliet” armor sets make it into Guild Wars 2 via crafting or from new content.

The new healing skills sound good. In no tried them yet as I can only get the one for my main as I don’t have the skill points on my alts as they are all low level 50 down to level 6. I do like the additions of skills keeps builds fresh.

As for the rebalance I’ve not really noticed any changes to my damage out put/servivability as a warrior/guardian.

(“Fractured” got curbstomped with no notification, that is my biggest gripe. Scarlet had over a month to come to fruition, a News release saying the day it was ending, and mere cosmetic meta-rewards. Fractured had only two weeks and ended super quietly, yet it had significant higher-level crafting material rewards? That said…)

Wintersday is my favorite. Out of all the holidays, I think that this is the most balanced in a way similar to the best GW1 holidays. Sure Halloween is good, but it’s only PvP portion, the lunatic inquisition, was not that interesting (plus mirrored now by Southsun Survival), so it was a PvE holiday. Dragonbash, similarly, had a great PvP aspect, but seemed like it’s only PvE portion was to scavenger-hunt the clickable objects (click a hologram! now click a pinata! now click an effigy! “That’s great.”). Wintersday is absolutely more interesting than any other holiday, for that reason.

I love the traditional aspects. We get to see the return of Tyria’s favorite holiday, with a few new twists. You can tell that the people who haven’t experienced them before, like those new to snowball mayhem, are enjoying it immensely.

People have their own personal take on each of the various activities, sure, but I would say there really, honestly, is something for everyone

For feedback, could Anet please make adjustments to all festivals for subsequent years? I like Halloween, Wintersday, Dragon Bash, etc. but when I get the exact same events, I feel it’s kind of slack by Anet. Change the JPs around; make adjustments to snowball mayhem, add a new story for Tixx or the Toypocalypse, etc. etc.

I love Wintersday.

There’s something to be said for all the familiarity and being able to help people new to it.

It kind of reminds me of GW1 tradition – everyone knew candy cane shards, the rift warden, etc., would return and what Wintersday games/quests would be available. Everyone happily took their place on a red or green circle every year to get presents. You knew the process, what districts supported dwayna/grenth, and liked helping others who were new to it.

It was a great social atmosphere. Not unlike Wintersday in GW2.

My favorite part – the bell choir. And I actually earned an unbreakable one this year.

Happy Wintersday!

I enjoy everything as it is but as for the fancy winter clothes- I’d rather wear that as an actual skin instead of in towns .-. the clothes are too gorgeous to only wear in towns. I was talking with some guildies on this the other day and we all agreed that it would be so much nicer to just have as a skin for stuff instead of just town clothes >_<

I hope next year they change it up a bit. Maybe give us a new snowball map or jump puzzle. Of course they should also keep the original maps, but give the new maps the same reward as well. Oh, and next year please make the Tixx balloon go to every city like it did last year, it was kinda a bummer that it didn’t happen this year!

My feedback for this wintersday is unfortunatly negative.

This wintersday is a downgrade to what you have produced before.

Last wintersday was a very nice experience over several weeks, visiting every city till we finaly hit lions arch.
This year however it is just there. Nothing is really engaging and the only “update” is the donation drive ingame to get some money out of the system.

Other then that it is the same as last year. Nothing to work for, nothing really “interesting” if you were there last year.
For new players it is fine, but for people coming back it is just something they have seen before.

I do not mind that, but it is sad to see something like that, after the downgrade you did for helloween.
If that is how you want to fare further with the hollidays. Just rehash the main content, tweaking it to iron out some bugs then it is a sad thing.

Yes, you got the base set, however that is no reason to lay back and roll it out again and again every year.
You have to take it and improve it. Expand it. Build upon it. That is what i, and i bet many other people, were expecting.

For now i have to say, that i am disapointed. Ho-Ho-Tron is funny, but if thats all of “lore” we get, then it is really disapointed (and cheap inclusion, since they are “fan favourites”.)

I heard that Anet only rereleased the same Wintersday rather than expand on it because they want to “focus on more Living Story content.” I think, Arena Net, that if you’re making decisions like that, you’re mistaken about where your priorities should lie. The most exciting parts of GW2 during 2012 for me and my friends were the Halloween and Wintersday events. We were hoping for more seasonal events as other holidays approached, such as Valentine’s Day, but that didn’t happen. I personally saw the Living Story as being a filler until winter came around again. It seems that you feel that the holiday events are now filler between Living Story patches. I would rather see some better holiday events, because 1. it’s really fun to go through new holiday stuff 2. Living Story has received mixed reception while the 2012 Halloween and Wintersday were, from what I remember, loved by almost everyone. If more effort is put into the holiday events like in 2012, then I and many of my friends would be very happy. If anyone else has the same feelings, please say so so that we can get Anet’s attention. And if other people found the 2012 holiday events to be boring or worse in comparison to the Living Story, feel free to contradict me. This was just my personal impression, that the holiday events were better.

in this game the long jumps are broken into to stations and when you die in that station you revive in that station,
in the wintersday jump its a long jump and a lot of people are having trouble completing it, why have you not have a revive at tixx when you reach that far I and many others have been working on the jump puzzle for weeks 10 to 15 hours a day and I can’t seem to complete this jump puzzle. I have mastered the snowflakes part but the exploding gifts are vary hard but when I have to restate from the beginning it just makes it so much harder. why do we have to start over and over. at tixx you have given back the time and lets you rest just like the stations in most of the other long jumps in this game why have you not done it with this jump puzzle
thank you for listening to me

I’m going to focus my feedback specifically on the Wintersday stuff.

Duration

Perfect! Thank you for giving players a nice long duration in which to get everything done without needing to stress about it, ANet. I really do urge you guys to consider moving to this sort of pace for future Living Story updates. 6 weeks might be a TAD too long though; I think 4 weeks is a nice place for players to do new content without it getting too stale, but I don’t mind 6 weeks to allow stragglers that extra bit of time.

Tixx’s Infinirarium

This was probably the biggest disappointment of Wintersday to me this year. There’s really no reason to go in there anymore aside from the two achievements. In my opinion, you should have allowed players to acquire the wooden toy frames by choosing which toy is “in production” at the start. Reward players at the end with Mystic Cogs and a choice of Glue/Stuffing.

Toypocalypse

Still a fun diversion, and a great way to farm Gifts. Recommend leaving this as is for future Wintersdays.

Winter Wonderland

I like the halfway point system you’ve set up, and a good compromise for those whose jumping skills aren’t as good as others. I think the halfway checkpoint should be good for more than one death though. The exploding presents section could be toned down a bit; you can easily get through it once you’re experienced, but I can understand the frustrations of players who struggle with that part. (The infinite halfway checkpoint may help alleviate that though.)

Bell Choir

Still my favourite Wintersday activity. Please keep it unchanged for future Wintersdays (aside from adding new songs). My biggest gripe with it would have to be lag spikes making it impossible to catch notes, but that’s likely factors out of your control.

Snowball Mayhem

Not one of my preferred activities, but it’s pretty fun when working as intended. (There are some minor exploits in there where players can get higher than normal regen. These should be fixed for next Wintersday.)

Donations

I like the new mini-event and the dialogue that Ho-ho-tron and Marcelo have. Kudos to whoever wrote their dialogue!

Wintersday Gifts

Overall these are in a good place, but I would like it if there was a very, very, VERY rare chance you could get a Winter’s weapon skin from them. It’d be sort of like winning the ultimate jackpot from them.

OP HAS RETURNED!

This is the last day for this release, closing thoughts people?

My opinion hasn’t changed at all. I said Merry Wintersday was one of the best releases of 2013 and I stand by it. Kessex Hills is still all changed and awesome and I still wish the new skills didn’t cost so much. And it’s still fun pelting people with snowballs when I have the chance. I didn’t do a ton of stuff related to Wintersday, but I still enjoyed what I did do. I also just realized that this has been the longest release we’ve ever had: 1 Month and 10 days.