Guild Wars 2

Aomine.5012:

cocowoushi.7150:

Seeing all this salt just makes me want to grind and get the achievement more. I’m more worried about needing 150 Mystic Coins.

If you have trouble with that insignificant cost, you should give up right now.

it’s 20g vs 1000g, just saying.

It’s not as easy as you’d expect since one present exactly give you one alcohol and worth exactly one point, which is a rather dumb design.

Oh- you can buy Mystic Coins?? Wow I never noticed. This just became a whole lot plausible, since I have no need or intention of buying drinks. Thought Coins were only from login rewards and couldn’t be bought.

Come on Anet, 5k is a nice compromise.

While the amount of drinks is pretty high, I don’t like your suggestion either. As if playing to get 50 wins in a PvP activity where the outcome depends on other players isn’t grindy and annoying.

So far I’ve gotten about 700 drinks since the release and I sold a few drinks on the TP before I found out what I needed them for, and I played about 5h maybe? So it’s doable. And it’s probably thought as an incentive to keep redoing the event next year (though with Anet’s tradition of completely changing the needed amounts for things each year that’s questionable).

By the way, it’s the Claw of Jormag, not Jormag.

glenndevis.8327:

Is this… GW2 teaching kids bad drinking habits? Oh my god…

This is why games come with age ratings. I don’t recall GW2 being a age 3+ rating. If you let your kids play games with ratings above their age, then content suitability is your problem, not ANet’s. Or you know, you could educate your child about what alcohol is like IRL and why binge drinking isn’t good for them (and the fact this is a game, not real life). Touchy subject for me as working as a game retailer, I got sick of blasé attitudes of parents towards buying games like GTA, yet they’d be the first to complain about the game’s content because of their poor widdul kiddies’ eyes seeing prostitutes, drug use and large amounts of violence. Manhunt being pulled from the shelves for a period of time really ticked me off. Nothing personal :P

Grots.4726:

I’m concerned with how holiday achievements have been resetting lately that I’ll get halfway done this year and have to start from scratch next year.

This is my only concern. I’m going to be saving the drinks I get now I’ve unlocked the achievement and waiting til next year to see what happens. If it resets, then I’ve got 2 years worth of drinks to try it with and only wasted a couple this year. If it doesn’t, I’ve still got the drinks. Either way, I’m not getting the shoulders this year so meh. I don’t much care for the skin anyway. If it resets, 10k is too much for the 2 weeks or so the event’s up. Personally I see it as a long term holiday achievement to be done over a couple of years. Mind you, I used to annually play events on GW1 (never had to buy a consumable title) so I guess I got into the whole festival farm/hoard mindset a few years ago -shrugs-

I do wonder if this is ANet trying to retain players by giving them long-term goals – only the lack of communication doesn’t really help if that is what they’re trying to do. It’d be nice to see a bit of clarification on this from a staff member as people are going to just get more dispirited thinking it’s something they’ll never get rather than something that can be worked on over time. The Lucky title in GW1 for example gave you a boost to your lockpick retention on chests which brought down the cost of the Treasure Hunter title, which in turn could bring down the cost of the Wisdom title. Admittedly the Lucky title could be worked on through breaking picks year round, but the fastest method was a festival mini-game called 9 Rings which was an out and out gold sink. I’d be looking at 600 plat per festival (x3 a year) to camp the rings for the duration. It took people literally years to get that title and boost to their retention rate. Yes, I know this is GW2, but it makes me wonder if they’re trying for a similar concept with this achievement seeing as achievements are now how you get titles. Plus both the GW1 titles/benefits and this shoulder skin are optional. If you want it, you put in the work and time.

It would be pretty boring if everyone had the shoulders though – people already kitten about gem store wings in that regard for example.

I think a zero is mistakenly added.

Wintersday spirit? Eye for an eye…Give whoever thought this was a good idea the “Jam of the Month Club” as their holiday bonus. Clark loved his!

Aidenwolf.5964:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Jumping puzzle is also required to get winter’s presence. This is another unfortunate trend since HoT. Platforming seems to be an emphasis since HoT.

Honestly I don’t have the same aversion to JPs you do and think adding skill requirements is OK. The item could of been entirely skill based and I would’ve accepted it even if it meant I lost our on it. My issue is the insane amount of gold sinks thrown into every part of the game.

I’m not dismissing your hatred of jumping puzzles I just didn’t think represented a threat to the game like these sinks do. Fractal encryptions even require gold to open, it’s everywhere.

I think the JP thing was to point out that HoT has started a new direction in general for this game. You don’t like the grind/cost. A lot don’t like the JP requirements in general. JPs are now a part of the new direction and people don’t like that either. Platformers have been disappearing from the gaming scene. No idea why GW2 wants to bring them back. Along with tired mmo models like raids and mass grouped content, and insane grinding(like most of those in f2p mmos which this isn’t supposed to be?).

Wintersday is a great representation of GW2 – Post HoT

psizone.8437:

Man, what happened to just getting skins from completing the event meta achievement?

This is supposed to be a happy, fun event for everyone. What fun is there in farming for presents for several hours each day of the event or spending mad amounts of gold?

It’s a Christmas event, who cares if everyone gets the kitten skin! Make the game fun, not a grind.

I tried giving the same argument in /m chat and guess what kind of responses I got.
“the items should be exclusive to only some people”
“I should be able to show off”
“its better that not everyone can get it”

Literally what the kitten.

Aomine.5012:

Funny how people don’t notice 10k drink is tied to Winter’s Presence.

Oh believe me we notice, otherwise we wouldn’t care.

I’ll try out the PvP reward track for the 10k drinks. I got the jumping puzzle, mystic forge, and snowball fight parts out of the way so far.

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

I’ll click if Anet buys me new 70$ gaming mouse after that clicking.

Ragnarox.9601:

I’ll click if Anet buys me new 70$ gaming mouse after that clicking.

right click > consume all ?

or is it left click? shrug

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

Treb mode never ask you to grind. It’s a one time thing that’s less than 10 hrs total, and can be done via watching a youtube video for easy solution.

Yes, you actually EARN it. No amount of credit card or brainless grind would help you get it. This should be the main method of acquiring rare skins in a game.

I think the biggest thing ANet needs to clarify now is:

a) How long will Wintersday be here for? This gives us the ability to plan ahead and see if we can farm the drinks ourselves, or have to buy it.

b) Will the ability to progress the collection be available even after Wintersday? The ones tied to the Wintersday mini-games are obviously going to be gone, but drinks can be acquired all year round thanks to our personal Gift Trees. If the achievement becomes locked after a couple of weeks, that puts TREMENDOUS pressure on people who want the skin.

Aomine.5012:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

Treb mode never ask you to grind. It’s a one time thing that’s less than 10 hrs total, and can be done via watching a youtube video for easy solution.

Yes, you actually EARN it. No amount of credit card or brainless grind would help you get it. This should be the main method of acquiring rare skins in a game.

I wasn’t even going into the grind component there. Was simply addressing the whole mentality on exclusivity.

However, I wouldn’t say SAB didn’t make you “grind.” If you wanted more than 1 weapon you had to do each trib mode zone and get its associated token, and you could only get the tokens once a day. IMO that’s just as tedious.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Aomine.5012:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

Treb mode never ask you to grind. It’s a one time thing that’s less than 10 hrs total, and can be done via watching a youtube video for easy solution.

Yes, you actually EARN it. No amount of credit card or brainless grind would help you get it. This should be the main method of acquiring rare skins in a game.

I wasn’t even going into the grind component there. Was simply addressing the whole mentality on exclusivity.

However, I wouldn’t say SAB didn’t make you “grind.” If you wanted more than 1 weapon you had to do each trib mode zone and get its associated token, and you could only get the tokens once a day. IMO that’s just as tedious.

Well, overall, only 2-1 and 2-2 are super tedious. Rest if you memorize it, it should take alot less time. And ofc it’d be tedious if you want more than one skins

It’s not like we’re getting 12 different types of shoulders for the Wintersday, just one.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

/shrug

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

Aomine.5012:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Aomine.5012:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

Treb mode never ask you to grind. It’s a one time thing that’s less than 10 hrs total, and can be done via watching a youtube video for easy solution.

Yes, you actually EARN it. No amount of credit card or brainless grind would help you get it. This should be the main method of acquiring rare skins in a game.

I wasn’t even going into the grind component there. Was simply addressing the whole mentality on exclusivity.

However, I wouldn’t say SAB didn’t make you “grind.” If you wanted more than 1 weapon you had to do each trib mode zone and get its associated token, and you could only get the tokens once a day. IMO that’s just as tedious.

Well, overall, only 2-1 and 2-2 are super tedious. Rest if you memorize it, it should take alot less time. And ofc it’d be tedious if you want more than one skins

It’s not like we’re getting 12 different types of shoulders for the Wintersday, just one.

Yeah just one. kitten thing should be legendary tier. Hmph.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/shrug

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

Oh dear gods….I remember farming for that bear. Oh the pain…. the agony. Still don’t have one.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/shrug

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

Thing is, if these were RNG based like the preserved bee etc then I think most people would be totally fine with it being “rare”.

But having it both tied to a festival meta achievement and collection makes it a bit much, especially considering how vastly disproportionate it is compared to every other achievement involved.

Biggest problem is that, differently from Nightfury, this achievement will be tagged as historical and we won’t be able to complete it.

I started playing in November 2014. While hidden, I was still able to get a Halloween 2014 achievement in November.

While I would like official clarification, I suspect you can still do it after wintersday ends.

psizone.8437:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/shrug

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

Thing is, if these were RNG based like the preserved bee etc then I think most people would be totally fine with it being “rare”.

But having it both tied to a festival meta achievement and collection makes it a bit much, especially considering how vastly disproportionate it is compared to every other achievement involved.

Would they be fine if it was RNG to acquire?

How about Gwynnefyrdd? That was RNG out of those Trick or Treat bags and if you weren’t reading the forums as that time, let me assure you there were many people unhappy about the low drop rate, RNG method of acquiring it. The main [Merged] thread discussing it had 15 pages.

I suspect most people don’t get upset about the Queen Bee because it’s not a holliday reward item. People want holidays to be relaxing and fun, not a wallet emptying grindfest to get something they want. They do that sort of thing in real life.

That’s 500 Drinks a day. I’ve been doing Festival stuff for the last 7 hours straight and only got around 300. That’s kittening ridiculous.

Interestingly if you need 10000 alcoholic drinks they should give a replacement liver as a reward…

This is like drinking 3 alcoholic beverages daily for 10 years…. Most RL people will be decent alcoholics….. never ever being able to stop….. so this should be “drunkard” title

Give the other one after 500, 500 drinks is 2 good beers every weekend for 5 years…

10k is drunkard
500 is spirited drinker

No, just worried I won’t make it in time. I have 7/10 achieved so far including the jumping puzzle part, all I need left are the Toypocolypse, last Jormag, and beer achievements.

After all that I’ll do what I intended to do, PvP and break into sapphire finally while doing the Wintersday reward track.

Nope.

Mandalore.8906:

That’s 500 Drinks a day. I’ve been doing Festival stuff for the last 7 hours straight and only got around 300. That’s kittening ridiculous.

You get 10 gifts each time you complete the JP which is about 300 gifts per hour if you’re good at it. Probably the most efficient way to get those drinks. It’ll take nearly 42 hours to farm enough drinks assuming each gift has an 80% chance to provide one point.

Ayrilana.1396:

Mandalore.8906:

That’s 500 Drinks a day. I’ve been doing Festival stuff for the last 7 hours straight and only got around 300. That’s kittening ridiculous.

You get 10 gifts each time you complete the JP which is about 300 gifts per hour if you’re good at it. Probably the most efficient way to get those drinks.

Which…I am totally not (good at it). Lol

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ayrilana.1396:

Mandalore.8906:

That’s 500 Drinks a day. I’ve been doing Festival stuff for the last 7 hours straight and only got around 300. That’s kittening ridiculous.

You get 10 gifts each time you complete the JP which is about 300 gifts per hour if you’re good at it. Probably the most efficient way to get those drinks.

Which…I am totally not (good at it). Lol

You and most other people. Especially as some can’t even complete it once. It’s just an option for those than can.

Hakuryuu.8634:

You’re complain about grinding for COMESTICS. They’re entirely optional, and no one force you to do so. No one is going to crap on you for not having one. You won’t die without it. You choose to commit to the grind yourself, and even though ANet has been a kitten lately, don’t stab yourself and blame it on them.

This game is about cosmetics. it always has been, as it is not your traditional (thank goodness) Linear MMO model.

The big problem here is that they were not content to make fluff grinds ridiculous in their regular HOT content (read the forums – this is an issue for many many people who have been playing GW2 since BETA, many of whom came from GW1. These are not people are aren’t used to working for stuff… These are people who are used to a reasonable grind), but they’ve expended the grind forever or pay us scheme to holidays – to Items only available during a 2-week event, which is ridiculous. Especially for people like me who have no freaking choice but to travel for the holidays. It’s not like I can tell my kid’s grandparents – “Sorry, you can’t see your grand kids this year because I have some very demanding virtual drinking to do.” I mean – I COULD, but they’d cut me off…

To fix it, they could:
Lower the amount of drinking required
or
Extend the variety of drinks that count
or
Make drinks available at a vendor for a decent price so we don’t have to deal with auction house flippers again (did Nightfury teach them nothing?).
or
axe that requirement alltogether – encouraging alcoholism isn’t socially responsible.

I’m annoyed. Again. They just keep making decisions that alienate me.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

You are forgetting that Mini Polar Bear was considered to have outrageously low drop rate by GW1 standarts. Though i agree that it was the first sign of the bad times to come.

Yea… I hate being forced into ONE activity. I’m thankful they didn’t make me PVP for the META (Sadly, I realized this after I was halfway done with that huge annual torture session), but 10k drinks is ridiculous! My husband and I did all the various Christmas activities for 10 hours yesterday and I only got 500ish drinks. If All I did was high-intesity bag-yielding activities, I would have nearly 800, if I had to guess, at which rate, I do not have enough waking hours between now and when I’m forced to leave town (Next Tuesday) to accumulate the requisite drinks without paying 9s each for them.

So… I’m sad. And mad that they’re letting their new F-off people who came to GW because it was different crowd philosophy extend to holidays.

Endless Soul.5178:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Having flashbacks to “Incorrigible Ale-Hound” acquisition. Weeeeeeeee!

At least you don’t have to wait for a fricking timer between drinks to get the associated points.

Let the good times roll!

Yep, I remember those days. Glad I got that over and done with, mostly during the timer days.

Yep, I actually set up a timer to beep every 3 minutes so I could click on the next drink.

Did that for the whole title – now that’s hardcore amirite??

Or they can remove that achievement but the collection awards you the recipe which then requires you to spend the same amount of gold in components.

Grindy stuff is great for those of us that don’t care. It makes it much more profitable.

Loosmaster.8263:

25004 Karma. Wtf is up with the 004, bad key strokes?

Karma is ridiculously easy to acquire this Wintersday. Each song in Bell Choir was giving something over 1000 karma and wrapping presents for karma easily doubles the input costs. If you stack karma boosters, wrapping presents alone is something like 100k karma.

10k is low for the new HoT standards.

Firelysm.4967:

ZachAttack.3957:

Guys. Nightfury was hundreds of times worse than this. The ONLY costly part is the drinks. Just about every component of nightfury was costing in the hundreds of gold. And think about it- what kind of “special” item would it be if just about every player in the game could get it? You don’t HAVE to get it- heck, I don’t even really care about it because I don’t feel like having no shoulder skin.

You forget that this game is not getting enjoyable, and it’s getting contradictive of what anet have said! They promised us that we won’t need to grind like we grind in other games… But the reality is even worst, we have go HORD AND GRIND. There is not a single event or thing … that would let us enjoy content…

Why cant they give 50x win every event in wintersday, then you get your achievements done… why do we need 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 drinks?

I’m hardcore player, and i find this absurd due to one reason, there is a lot of enjoyable content in this wintersday holidays, and we should do events to accomplish achievements, not toasting 10.000 times where is the fun here?

This ONE achievement brought ABSURD BAD GAMING EXPERIENCE to literally every player that came to the point where he needed to get 10.000 junk drinks.

I’m sorry, this is just bad design team that decides what and how many things we need to acquire to get the desired item.. If you ask me they could remove 9900 drinks… keep 100 drinks in, and rise the event expectations to win.. from 3x > 50×.. and this would be a lot more enjoyable!

It kittenes me off that i was growing up with ArenaNet and now they became backstabbers.

EDIT:
There are things that are fun and awesome, mostly 95% of the content, and there is this 3% that we are ok with, and there is 2% that destroys every kind of gaming experience that was pleasant warm and fuzzy.. gone in a blink of an eye!…

Ehm… ANet said that all of the grind should be OPTIONAL, not that there would be no grind at all. Heck, look at legendaries- those are a hell of a grind! You do not NEED the shoulder skin- while I agree that they could lower the amount there is literally NO point in having a cool skin if everyone else in the game can get it. When you feel something is an acceptable place in regards to grind:reward, the odds are a lot of other people will too- which then makes you no longer a special snowflake (literally, because everyone else will have the snowflakes too and yours won’t be special xP).

I havent taken a look at what that thing needs, but if they removed the RNG out of it then it’s all good.

ZachAttack.3957:

Ehm… ANet said that all of the grind should be OPTIONAL, not that there would be no grind at all. Heck, look at legendaries- those are a hell of a grind! You do not NEED the shoulder skin- while I agree that they could lower the amount there is literally NO point in having a cool skin if everyone else in the game can get it. When you feel something is an acceptable place in regards to grind:reward, the odds are a lot of other people will too- which then makes you no longer a special snowflake (literally, because everyone else will have the snowflakes too and yours won’t be special xP).

So it is less cool when others have it too?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Caladrius.6594:

Soooo… basically if you’re a casual gamer and/or have something more to do the coming days you’re not getting the shoulders… that’s great, well done Anet

(Looks at the requirements for the Nightfury shoulders)

You didn’t actually think that they would have this new Holiday shoulders easily available for the masses now, did you? So far that’s not what they’ve been doing.

Nightfury isn’t a very good comparison considering the acquisition of Nightfury isn’t timegated. I think people have a right to be upset about 10,000 drinks – it is asking a little too much for those who would love the skin but can’t commit 100% of their time to the game. I don’t foresee the drinks going down in price either considering, like I said, it’s timegated.

The drinks really are not time-gated though. Not like the ones that require the Wintersday event to be active.

Don Hayga.4763:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Caladrius.6594:

Soooo… basically if you’re a casual gamer and/or have something more to do the coming days you’re not getting the shoulders… that’s great, well done Anet

(Looks at the requirements for the Nightfury shoulders)

You didn’t actually think that they would have this new Holiday shoulders easily available for the masses now, did you? So far that’s not what they’ve been doing.

Nightfury isn’t a very good comparison considering the acquisition of Nightfury isn’t timegated. I think people have a right to be upset about 10,000 drinks – it is asking a little too much for those who would love the skin but can’t commit 100% of their time to the game. I don’t foresee the drinks going down in price either considering, like I said, it’s timegated.

Perhaps read what I said, especially the part where I said easily available for the masses, unless you’re arguing that an item where one component is a short supply is easily available to the masses.

In short, you missed the point I was making which was each year they’ve been making one item not easily available to everyone, but the method how they do this varies.

i wonder if op has been around for past festivals where the achievements were actually as grindy as he is suggesting they should be and if he remembers the grindyness complaints.

No, im dead from alcohol poisoning

Rin.1046:

Aomine.5012:

If we stick to your logic, that every new cosmetic need to be gold-sink , and every event skins are gated behind 1000 gold, we’d never get anything. Period.

Stop using cosmetic as an excuse. This Wintersday day adds absolutely nothing other than this one new skin, and yet they don’t want to reward people with the new skin they make, but rather want sinking thousand of golds because it’d benefit their Gem sale. Can’t you still not see the trend of Anet’s current direction, and keep on blindly defending this?

You need to stop putting words in people’s mouths. I never said every item. There will be other skins that are not so grindy to get, but there needs to be SOME cosmetic items that are prestigious and difficult to get. You cannot expect to get everything easily.

there is nothing prestigious about a skin which is simply traded for. Prestige is from earning stuff. 10,000 drinks is only realistic for people with enough gold, or enough cash to buy gems and sell for gold, to buy the drinks. It is literally pay 2 win, not prestige.

What bugs me the most isn’t the amount, but availability. It will be gone when Wintersday’s over.

Rin.1046:

I think you are reading far too much into this. Just because they are adding ONE hard to get skin with the seasonal events is NOT a sign all future items will be like this. I think you are overreacting and jumping to conclusions. Also, it would be a very foolish move on Anet’s part if they made every cosmetic tem difficult to get. A large portion of their customer base are casual players, and they would be the first to go if Anet implemented such a tactic.

The fact is, there are and will be cosmetic items that are easy to acquire, and there also needs to be some items that are not so easy to acquire. Anet added Nightfury to appeal to those who like to have something to work towards, and the same is true for he Wintersday Presence. This is not a doomsday sign that all items will be impossible for casual players to get. You need to reel it in a bit I feel.

And if things do get to a state as you suggest (which I do not believe it ever will), then I too will join those in complaining about it. But I simply cannot see that happening, and it is far too early to make any kind of judgement in this regard in my opinion.

To be fair, this is nothing hugely new.

But you are also confused, methinks. Not every cosmetic item in this game is difficult to get. However, a large part of the ones that are the most showy in their design (particle effects, high-def shiny textures) are super expensive and time-consuming. Giving a “you participated” consolation trophy to those who don’t want to grind out the big stuff is not the kind of game you’re describing, but it is what a lot of this game is.

The only skins that are “easy to acquire” from wintersday this year are the green skins that you can buy off the TP for like 10copper year round and they are dull, brownish skins. Cute designs in their own right, but not exactly showy or flashy. Not the sort of thing that you’re going to notice while running around hacking things.

In other words, the balanced state of “hard to get” and “easy to get” that you think is a reality is fantasy. It doesn’t exist in this game and probably never has. The reason it doesn’t exist is because Anet knows very well what kind of designs will be desirable to the highest number of people and they put the majority of those designs behind massive walls.

If we’re talking pure numbers, then you may be technically right, but number of skins doesn’t define what people want. If there are (purely making up the numbers here) 500 skins that are easy to get and 50 that are super hard to get, the 500 is pretty meaningless if peoples’ interest in the 50 outweighs their interest in the 500 by a big margin. Once again, Anet knows this, which is why hard to get rewards are not abandoned by most players in favor of easy ones.

It’s not just prestige that makes this stuff desirable… it’s the art design.

I just realized, I’m not sure if you’re asking other forummers whether they’re mad, as in angry, or you’re asking Anet whether they are mad, as in crazy.

It could be either.

This is the question of the century.