Guild Wars 2

I must say i’ve been pretty disappointed with the updates since the new year. Of the big monthly events/updates since the game’s release, the following are in order of my most to least favorite:

1. Halloween

UPs:

• I loved the spooky makeover of LA, with eerie wind, ghosts in the air and floating candles. I loved the costume brawls, cauldrons and mad king jokes (i miss halloween whenever someone breaks out the halloween consumables at an event).
• The fight with the mad king was super fun and semi-epic (at least the first time, in comparison to the tons of relatively small bosses parties face).
• I liked being reminded that the Halloween event was running wherever i went because of the candy corn nodes.
• The mad king labyrinth was cool. Its nice to have a unique map to run around on.
• Halloween had some of the best weapons in an update, IMO. I still use the greatsaw.

DOWNs:

• The gambling for BLC weapons kitten a lot of people off.

2. Lost Shores

UPs:

• Added fractals, which is one of the few things in the game i regularly play anymore.
• The one time events, while painfully flawed, at least made me excited to log in every day during the event. I would think about coming home just to see what was going to happen all day at work.
• Rewards. I still use the 20 karka box on my main. I felt rewarded for showing up for an epic event.

DOWNs:

• Ascended gear controversy. The addition of a potential gear grind kitten off a lot of players.
• Horrible, horrible, horrible technical issues. The idea of huge, one-time events that change the world in real time is awesome but the execution was hugely flawed.

3. Wintersday

UPs

• Loved the wintery makeover of LA.
• Like how easy it was to get permanent event items like pets or weapons that you actually wanted.
• Liked the variety of stuff to do

DOWNs

• Found the “dungeon” boring and suuuuper repetitive. After a few times, i really didn’t want to go back to finish the whole string of events.
• Not enough “wow, awesome” takeaways, compared to some of the halloween stuff.
• Let down by the fact that the ship was supposed to bring people to different capitals, but completely left any interesting seasonal stuff out of the cities. People just showed up to stand by the dungeon entrance.
• While there were a decent number of activities, nothing personally interested me that much and i wasn’t really excited to get on just to see what was developing.

4. Frost and Flame

UPs

• Um…well… i guess it comes tacked onto some good system updates like customizable achievement tracker and name changes, so that’s good, right?

DOWNs

• Completely underwhelming. They told us we would get something nearly as big as an expansion (original statement was Jan/feb, the pushed back). Its the end of march and there has been 40 min worth of content added.

So what are your favorite updates so far, and why?

Launch, because the game was at its best at that time.

I’d add “Foostivoo lottery” as a Down for Wintersday(I spent 7k gems to ge Foostivoo) and gemstore skins as an UP(500gems each and you could get any skin you wanted).
Also Halloween minies as an UP(1k gems and you could get all minies you wanted. acceptable) and Flame and Frost Ticket lottery as a Down(this is the worst of halloween skins(RNG based) and Wintersday(accountbound) combined).

Also I’d say that Flame and Frost update is not done yet so I think there is more to add there.

And I’ll go with Halloween. I’m not a fan of RNG items, but at least Halloween skins were tradeable so you could sell them on tradepost if you didn’t liked them. Also Mad King’s Clocktower > Wintersday Wonderland

1. Halloween

UPs:
Great decorations in LA
Labyrinth accessible to everyone without grouping
Great skins that weren’t account bound.
Flaming backpack (backbook)

DOWNs:

Not a fan of candy corn everywhere.
Gambling for skins.
I didn’t do the quest for the flaming backbook
No Zojia!

2. Lost Shores

UPs:

Playing the event chains was fun. Open world, so no need for grouping.
20 slot box – only one I have

DOWNs:

Fractals/Ascended gear – Horrible to stick AG only in Fractals.
Ascended Gear – Horrible addition to the game that is still a pox on people with alts or don’t run fractals.
LF1MFractal10FullExoticsBerzerkerBuildBassBoatPleaseSendPictureofBoat nonsense that seemed to start here and expand to all the other dungeons.
Disparity in drops from karka box.
No Zojia!

3. Wintersday

UPs

Lions arch looked cool.
Mini toy golem and endless toy golem tonic.
Skins purchasable from Gem Store
Toy skins were easily acquired and slingshot and wand were great, popgun OK
Snowball fights

DOWNs
Skins sold in store aside from bows were kind of useless outside of Christmas.
Candy cane, wooden dagger, wooden sword skins of limited use after event.
Had to gamble for my toy golem tonic.
Dungeons needed grouping or mad luck and skill (I facerolled the first one solo, then got bored trudging through the second after a few tries).
No Zojia!

4. Frost and Flame

UPs

I don’t mind the story.
Fused weapons are great.
Still hope that final reward will be a ticket for a fused weapon.

DOWNs

Rewards are “meh” so far.
Fused weapons are only attainable by gambling.
Unless the event gives out a ticket, I’ve invested as much as I can gambling and I’m pretty much certainly not going to get a fused weapon.
No Zojia!

My favorite update so far is the Flame and Frost: The Razing. Why? The cutscenes are great (Although needs improvement) and they actually fixed culling! Yipee!

1. Halloween

UPs

• MAD KING CLOCK TOWARRRRR
• Very fun minigames
• Nice weapon skins.
• Nice backpack skins and nice quest too.
• Spooky doors, candy corn nodes, pumpkins all around.
• The maze & dungeon were actually cool.
• Awesome decorations in LA.

DOWNs

• Imba-expensive weapons/gamble with bl chests sucks.
• Doing costume brawl without a costume meant you were cannon fodder.

2. Lost Shores

UPs

• Added FotM, one of my favourite dungeons.
• Added Southsun Cove, a cool area with one of my favourite JPs.
  ( Lost Shores has only 2 UPs but they are permanent content so they have more value to me)

Downs

• One-time event handled badly, technical issues.
• Both FotM and Southsun unfinished.
• Ascended gear doesn’t add anything to the game for me.
• No decent background/story.

3. Flame & Frost
(I’m placing this third just because the story arc isn’t finished yet. If April’s update is at least as good as this one then it might even be 2nd. If it’s disappointing, I might place this update 4th)

UPs

• Well presented, promising story that will probably affect how the world will shape in the future.
• Fused weapons look great.
• I have high hopes for the 1st of April.
• Decrypting the messages was nice, and the reward letter(s) made me chuckle.
• Very important fixes such as FotM disconnects, the death of culling, improved dailies.

DOWNs

• Another RNG rip-off
• Living story feels drawn out.
• Consists of 4 different updates so gets an heavy penalty when compared to single updates.

4. Wintersday

UPs

• No RNG rip-off on weapon skins.
• Nice activities.
• Easy-to-acquire tonics-minis-skins.
• Cool decorations in LA.
• Decent JP, not as good as MAD KING CLOCK TOWARRRR
• New songs to go with Wintersday mood.

DOWNs

• Non-existant story.
• Infinirarium got boring way too soon.
• Cash-shop weapon skins weren’t that great.
• Toypocalypse was disappointing. No playing with friends? Boo!!! Half an hour at least to complete it? Heck no.
• No MAD KING CLOCK TOWARRRRRR.

Halloween…strictly because of the Mad King’s JP.

Halloween seems popular!