If we want to play whatever we want on bells there’s plenty of options outside of the bell choir activity now. Getting ported into instances of the minigame that are in free play mode is frustrating and wastes time going through 3-4 loading screens to try for another instance. The game is OVER at the point free play starts and people just leave, which ports other people wanting to join a map into this dying map with no purpose.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
Sorry, the ship has sailed. Otherwise I agree in theory (should never have wen’t FtP) but in practice backsies on such decisions would be controversial and generate negative feelings in people on the other end. I can already hear cries of, “But you said I could have played for free!”
You might try reading the post first next time.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
Way to respond just based on the title instead of actually reading the post Agemnon.
I’ve always hated “free play” time during Bell Choir. Most of the time people just sit there and do nothing anyway, barring the few easily amused players who like to spam random notes like a caffeinated squirrel. Its a waste of time. I want to play songs, not sit around for a minute twiddling my thumbs. There’s already enough waiting between rounds as it is.
Heck, I don’t even think its good for players who may actually want to play random stuff on bells, since then those people have to put up with playing all the actual songs first and only get a minute of free play. No one wins, really.
Add a “free play” mode that you can pick when first entering Bell Choir from DR. That way people who do want to play random stuff can do so without a time limit, and people who just want to play the actual music can do that without putting up with losing time from free play itself.
The thing is it’s not even just waiting around because when free play ends it kicks you back out to DR. It’s completely pointless, like you can’t even just stomach the minute and the game starts again, you get kicked out and have to try and zone into a new instance.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
If we didn’t have choir bells, and extremely affordable unbreakable choir bells for that matter, I would think free play serves a purpose. As it is, however, I think it mostly just slows down rounds for people who want to play the minigame.
~The Storyteller – Elementalist – Jade Quarry~
Agree with the OP. Please remove the free play round for next years copy/paste (or even this year if its possible…). The amount of time just standing around can really add up.
Darkhaven server
Please give us a keyring…
Way to respond just based on the title instead of actually reading the post Agemnon.
I’ve always hated “free play” time during Bell Choir. Most of the time people just sit there and do nothing anyway, barring the few easily amused players who like to spam random notes like a caffeinated squirrel. Its a waste of time. I want to play songs, not sit around for a minute twiddling my thumbs. There’s already enough waiting between rounds as it is.
Heck, I don’t even think its good for players who may actually want to play random stuff on bells, since then those people have to put up with playing all the actual songs first and only get a minute of free play. No one wins, really.
Add a “free play” mode that you can pick when first entering Bell Choir from DR. That way people who do want to play random stuff can do so without a time limit, and people who just want to play the actual music can do that without putting up with losing time from free play itself.
The thing is it’s not even just waiting around because when free play ends it kicks you back out to DR. It’s completely pointless, like you can’t even just stomach the minute and the game starts again, you get kicked out and have to try and zone into a new instance.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your post, but if you’re getting kicked out to DR between every round then something is wrong. Maybe you’re getting hit with the AFK timer or something or having some sort of bug, I dunno. Either way, I just played a half dozen rounds of Bell Choir back-to-back just fine. You just have to stick around until free play ends, then wait another 15 or so seconds as the scoreboard comes up before the game shuts that round down and starts a new one.
It may seem faster to just exit out of the instance and try to enter a new one instead of waiting, but between load times and getting into instances that are already close to ending themselves… I’ve never found instance-hopping worthwhile for Bell Choir.
it’s kicking me out every time I’ve tried sitting through it.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
If we want to play whatever we want on bells there’s plenty of options outside of the bell choir activity now. Getting ported into instances of the minigame that are in free play mode is frustrating and wastes time going through 3-4 loading screens to try for another instance. The game is OVER at the point free play starts and people just leave, which ports other people wanting to join a map into this dying map with no purpose.
What if I told you I play this game for more then 3 years, i have crafted 2 legendarys and sinked thousand something hours in it, I have allmost 3 wintersdays behind me and still can’t play bell choir to save my life which results quitting the minigame over and over again. But feel free to pass judgment over f2p people by all means.
Uh.. reading comprehension dude.
Nothing about F2P players, or F2P as a system. It’s all about the Free play phase of the bell choir.
Anet’s restrictions on F2P players have been one of the most thorough things I’ve seen Anet do. Every possible way I could think of where an F2P player could damage the game economy, or damage the community was covered. The result? Prices on the TP weren’t jacked up by F2P player influx (John Smith’s manipulations of the economy on the other hand..), and Map chat is still in English and I didn’t start getting bombarded with more gold spam than I already was getting from them getting stolen accounts.
Compared to many other games that have gone F2P.. I haven’t even noticed any impact of F2P players, not negatively anyway. In other games the chat is now 60% portuguese and they start harassing you in portuguese whispers if you speak English, and the economy gets hammered by F2P accounts farming gold using daily events and sending it to main accounts and more gold spam whispers.
So to Anet… A+ on your handling of a Free to Play system
C- on your design of the Free Play phase of bell choir.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
Agreed, this is one of the many things that prevents Bell Choir from developing a proper competitive #esports scene.
Great, if it stops yet more esports garbage in this game then leave it as it is.
Don’t worry, even without Free Play, Bell Choir won’t be esports. The game keeps score but you don’t get anything more from winning or losing as long as you can survive the songs.
Free Play does however, interfere with normal people being able to play the minigame because as I said, people ditch the minigame as soon as the last real song ends and they get their reward, they don’t sit through free play, and then you join their now emptied instance when it’s in the free play, can’t play the minigame, and then it kicks you out to have to try for another instance.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
