Guild Wars 2

Velvet.8610:

OK, besides the frustration at having to grind to get 10,000 festive drinks, I have encountered another problem with the Winter’s Presence Collection Achievment.

I purchased the blueprint a few days ago, and the items I had already earned from completed Wintersday achievements immediately unlocked in the collection panel for Winter’s Presence. However, when I completed 2 more achievements today (the JP for the Snowglobe and the Toypocalypse one for the Toy), I received both items, but they did NOT unlock in the Winter’s Presence Collection Achievement panel!! I am afraid to “use” these for the karma reward, since there is no way for me to get these again, so I am not sure what to do.

Did anyone else have this happen to them? Please help!!

-Velvet

Using them for the karma reward is what unlocked them for me.

I started farming the JP some days ago. I don’t have much spare time but I do enjoy jumping puzzles, specially those that last a few minutes. So after a while I kinda mastered it, having 15-16 successes in half an hour. Yesterday I was jumping in auto-braindead-mode for a full hour and then another round started. Got a successful run and afterwards I just jumped from a snowflake into the void. I was like wtf has just happened. Started another run and totally missed a jump, didn’t even press spacebar. My brain send the command, my fingers said HELL NO :P

tl;dr
this is bad for health, go out and spend time with friends and family. Best wishes!

Not complaining here, no problems with the JP (even though I’m bad at them, I did manage to get the achievement), and no problem for the booze farming as we get a whole year for that
I do have a suggestion though, wouldn’t it be much better to get effects like Winter’s Presence and Nightfury in the form of a trinket (like the refractor effect and the queen bee jewel), instead of a shoulder ‘skin’?
The reason I ask this is it that it’d be more interesting to combine these effects with the themed outfits for halloween and wintersday. I mean, the witch outfit or arctic explorer outfit work PERFECTLY with effects like a swarm of bats or a flurry of snowflakes O_O
I really do like the shoulder skin, but I just don’t think it merges really well with most of the armor skins, whereas it’d be perfect in combination with the arctic explorer or fancy wintersday outfit.
Seeing as there was a big at first that turned the queen bee jewels into winter’s presence trinkets, it must be possible to do this without much of a problem ^^’

Tl;dr: Winter’s Presence as a trinket instead of shoulder ‘skin’… Yes or no?

Wolf.4970:

Not complaining here, no problems with the JP (even though I’m bad at them, I did manage to get the achievement), and no problem for the booze farming as we get a whole year for that
I do have a suggestion though, wouldn’t it be much better to get effects like Winter’s Presence and Nightfury in the form of a trinket (like the refractor effect and the queen bee jewel), instead of a shoulder ‘skin’?
The reason I ask this is it that it’d be more interesting to combine these effects with the themed outfits for halloween and wintersday. I mean, the witch outfit or arctic explorer outfit work PERFECTLY with effects like a swarm of bats or a flurry of snowflakes O_O
I really do like the shoulder skin, but I just don’t think it merges really well with most of the armor skins, whereas it’d be perfect in combination with the arctic explorer or fancy wintersday outfit.
Seeing as there was a big at first that turned the queen bee jewels into winter’s presence trinkets, it must be possible to do this without much of a problem ^^’

Tl;dr: Winter’s Presence as a trinket instead of shoulder ‘skin’… Yes or no?

No. Better to give everyone another slot just for these effects instead of trinkets.
There are better trinkets with better stats and don’t want to see it as one with useless stats and without agony resistance.

Hmm true… Another slot would work even better of course.. In any case, since this is more of an effect instead of an actual shoulder ‘skin’, there should be a better way to implement it with your armor / outfits..

Velvet.8610:

OK, besides the frustration at having to grind to get 10,000 festive drinks, I have encountered another problem with the Winter’s Presence Collection Achievment.

I purchased the blueprint a few days ago, and the items I had already earned from completed Wintersday achievements immediately unlocked in the collection panel for Winter’s Presence. However, when I completed 2 more achievements today (the JP for the Snowglobe and the Toypocalypse one for the Toy), I received both items, but they did NOT unlock in the Winter’s Presence Collection Achievement panel!! I am afraid to “use” these for the karma reward, since there is no way for me to get these again, so I am not sure what to do.

Did anyone else have this happen to them? Please help!!

-Velvet

Even though I obtained most of the items before I unlocked the collection achievement, not a single one were added to it until I used each item to gain the karma from them. So it’s safe to use them any time before or after you unlock the collection. If you use the items and they don’t count you can always contact customer support and ask them to look into it.

The absolutely absurd grind for the shoulders….I really wish I didn’t burn all those mystic coins.

I wish I could go back and kick my past self, telling me to simply sell all the booze as I’d have been much happier with the money than the soul destroying JP/Bells.

I may as well find a low resource using Turn Based Strat game and just play Bells on the side while playing that.

Anet, give us all a 5k xmas booze care package. For at least remaining with the game loyally.

After 3 wintersdays in my memory, this wintersday is frustrating. When Anet went down to korean mmo with endless grind? 10 000 drinks is too much compared to all previous festival achievements.
I’m not enjoying wintersday anymore, I’m just grind, but in the past it was my favorite festival.

This should have been a beautiful event for a special holiday, instead it’s a big Grind Wars for whoever catches more drinks for an achivement and skin special effect.

Where are the good old days when Santa gave players a free item on Christmas?

Just finish it today. Jumping puzzle skill really help me with this :>.

And pvp reward track too.

Nice effect for winter.

Takoyakii.2146:

Nice effect for winter.

Shame most won’t earn it until the summer

I loved the old Festivals which were flexible so that players could gain the achievements doing things they LIKED to do. Imagine that – people doing things they like to do during a Festival.

Now the Festival activities seem “manufactured” by some large corporation that has a hidden agenda, rather than simply fun activities that also reward you with something nice. This year I looked at the achievement page and thought they weren’t too bad except for the JP. But after doing the first 2 stages of the drinks I saw “1,000” and I thought “what?!”. Now I hear the next is 10,000 – how stupid.

And for those who insist that the JP is easy, I’m sure there are things you simply can’t do IRL (sing, do calculus, whatever). Telling those of us who are terrible at JP that we just have to practice is like telling someone who can’t do something IRL that its actually easy if you just practice. And by the way, if you can do the Festival JP you aren’t bad at JP. Bad at JP = I sometimes can’t even get a Vista if there is jumping involved.

Sandpit.3467:

Takoyakii.2146:

Nice effect for winter.

Shame most won’t earn it until the summer

Try next December. Maybe.

When the Mad King’s Clock Tower and Winter Wonderland jumping puzzle first came out three years ago, there were a lot of people who felt that they were unreasonably difficult, particularly for events only available for a short period every year.

At the time, ArenaNet admitted they have been intentionally designed to be unreasonably difficult, but that this was okay because they were purely optional content that was not necessary to complete the holiday events.

Fast forward to 2015, and suddenly the big collection for this year’s Wintersday cannot be completed without doing the jumping puzzle multiple times.

I am extremely unhappy about this.

Stormy Dragon.9210:

Fast forward to 2015, and suddenly the big collection for this year’s Wintersday cannot be completed without doing the jumping puzzle multiple times.

I am extremely unhappy about this.

We are all unhappy about this, because things change, and not the way customers desire.

The only strong feedback we can provide is not completing the events at all, and let only a few die-hard players do them. That way marketing team will feel their holiday decisions in next year statistics.

I foolishly decided to try for this achievement…

since I’m at 90% I’ve been stuck at the imbiber achievement…

I mastered the puzzle so I can do it almost by memory, but I switched my PC to a place that has a much greater latency.. and because of that the two events are almost unplayable… (especially at prime time)

Jumping puzzle: (to summarize: so troll)

The snowballs are not where they are drawn on my computer and I’m not where I think I am in the puzzle .. (hiding on the peppermint I’ve had myself ripped off of it by a passing snowball on multiple runs or even snapped back off the last candy cane at the exit because I’m not really at the candy cane…the server decided I was under the snowball instead…)

I’ve resorted to dodging the snowman even when the blowing animation isn’t drawn (because half the time it’s there even when I don’t see it).
because of the lag/latency I’ve had a mystery bug which decides that I’m not where I should be in the puzzle and it body slams me (the knock over effect when the presents explode) This knock over persists until the snowflakes melt underneath me.. leaving me flopping like a fish to watch the snowflake catch up and kill me..

I’ve had a lovely graphical bug where everybody jumps, falls down off the snowflakes and bounces back up to magically snap to the next snowflake (position update not as good as the graphical drawing update so the physics engine assumes they are falling off and corrects itself every jump) tell me that’s not distracting to watch everyone around you yo-yo-ing.. from death to the next snow flake…

needless to say the delay makes it unplayable.. even playing it safe (always dodging the first snowman, waiting at every peppermint for snowballs to pass…) I can manage 1-3 times every 30 minutes.. max. i think I could at least double that with a better connection…

Bell choir: (the consolation prize for gift generation)

I’ve gone from 500-600(nearly perfect) to 200 a round due to latency… since I know the patterns almost by muscle memory I’ve been able to fool the system by ignoring the graphical display and just keying the right sequence in time..(which works unless there’s a delay of my key getting to the server.. than every keypress is wrong)..

I’ve had bugs where the latency has been upwards of 1 second (in other words.. play it before it gets to the circle.. cause its too late at that point) to a hang where the bell choir shoots all of the notes at once in a mad burst to catch me up and outs me from the ring (because in that 1/10th of a second I didn’t play all 10-12 notes).

I’ve also seen notes vanish before they get to the white circle and notes come out of sequence (I only know this because I’ve been grinding the patterns over and over and over again..)

Just tonight it crashed my game twice in a row when closing the instance for a new one… some nights it’s stuck at the wintersday loading screen for DR for upwards of 10 minutes….or until I end the process…

Since I’ll be returning soon to a better internet connection (yay) I’m hoping I can grind out the 8K+ presents needed (in 12 days.. I’m kind of doubtful)… but I can see why some people find the events unfair and unplayable… and beyond those two events there’s not much you can do to actually obtain presents in the quantity needed to complete the achievement

it’s kind of sad that the most efficient way to get the shoulders is not to play the events… but farm gold for those that can farm the events…

it’s far cry from the first halloween backpiece ……. I guess instead of commemorating 2015 wintersday with a skin I can always enjoy the carpal tunnel it caused… that’s a gift that keeps on giving!

Stormy Dragon.9210:

ArenaNet admitted they have been intentionally designed to be unreasonably difficult, but that this was okay because they were purely optional content that was not necessary to complete the holiday events.

Imagine this attitude at a party. “We know that everyone is going to want a champagne toast at this New Years party, but we have intentionally gated the champagne behind long boring lines and tests of skill that many of you can’t accomplish because you have been drinking. That’s OK though because the champagne toast is purely optional. Its not like it is necessary or anything…”

News Flash Anet: NOTHING is “necessary” during a Festival except FUN! Players should be able to do things if they want to do them! And not be required to do things that are a huge, grindy chore or gated behind twitch skills in order to get the “fun Festival rewards” that they want!

If players like a huge challenge for a JP, why not let them choose a higher difficulty if they want? Just like in single-player games you can choose to play on Normal, Medium, or Hard. You don’t get anything extra for doing it, you do it because you enjoy the challenge. But luckily in single-player games everyone isn’t forced to all do the same difficulty.

Djinn.9245:

Imagine this attitude at a party. “We know that everyone is going to want a champagne toast at this New Years party, but we have intentionally gated the champagne behind long boring lines and tests of skill that many of you can’t accomplish because you have been drinking. That’s OK though because the champagne toast is purely optional. Its not like it is necessary or anything…”

What really makes the JP requriment bizarre is how out of sync with the rest of the requirements it is. Bell Choir doesn’t require you to complete all six songs perfectly to get credit. Snowball Mayhem doesn’t require you to win the match 500-0 to get credit. Toypocalpse doesn’t require you to save all five dolyaks for the whole 10 waves to get credit. They recognize some people are good and some aren’t, and give people progress for barely winning or getting partially complete, so that even if they are mediocre, they will get there eventually, just not as quickly as people good at it.

The JP is “you’re either completely perfect or you get no credit at all”. You have to get through the entire course and any minor slip up you’re back to square one. The fact the event is so binary, with no space between total success and total failure, makes it completely out of character for the nature of the game.

Axialbloom.8109:

Zelanard.5806:

Honestly, yes, its hard to get… But no harder than 40-80 fractal dailies… And its so worth it!

…what?

you read it… I ran somewhere between 40 and 80 sets of fractal dailies and made enough gold to buy all the 10.000 drinks needed…

Adding a merchant who sold Wintersday Drinks for karma that was account bound would be a great option to help with the 10,000 achi. I just don’t see the amount of drinks required being lowered this far into it, but adding another means to the end wouldn’t negate the effort of others. Karma is another forum of currency and very much involved in this year’s Wintersday.

Allowing such a merchant to remain in a Divinity’s Reach bar after Wintersday was over would be a boon to those who are going to need time well beyond the current holiday season to finish out 10,000 spirited drinks.

Shame ANet isn’t going to do anything about this now. They set this thread up to contain the mess that was spreading on the forum and now it’s a nice tidy corner of the discussions they can happily ignore.

I was just wondering, if Winter’s Presence was a Gem Store item, how much would it be?

Sandpit.3467:

I was just wondering, if Winter’s Presence was a Gem Store item, how much would it be?

I think it would be about 400 gems. But this is not relevant from profit perspective. As it stands now this item costs about 6000 gems converted into gold. This is exactly why we should congratulate marketing team for taking the most profitable decisions at the end of this year (2015).

Besides, if I remember corectly, they decided to not put armor skins for gems, only outfits. Therefore, not having Winter’s Presence for gems does not impact their long term decision, instead it provides a lot of gems income, while gold becomes less valuable (from so much gold being ingame – look at how prices do not drop at the end of the event).

If you want to think smart, start buying gems now, with gold, while nobody does and everyone is focused on those drinks; because after this event is over, there will be so much gold ingame that prices per gem will go straight up like a rocket.

Not sure if this is helpful but for me the JP was undoable for a long time.
I’m using a Logitech G700s mouse, which works fine for me in the game.
This JP requires much more perfectly times turns and I don’t know what it was but I could see I was failing because of an exceptionally short lag period in which I hit the space bar but didn’t jump. Switching to a different mouse without a reticle setup made a big difference.

lest auld acquaintance be forgot

Come on ANet, could do with a response on this one

If you want ANET to respond quickly, post on GW2 Reddit.

Seems to be the forum that they respond to more often.

Most of them are probably gone for the Holidays. I doubt we hear anything before Monday, at the earliest. Probably later than that though.

I’m at 6k. only 10 days left.
I feel i made a terrible mistake

May the gods of tyria bless us all

and on the other hand it is a prestige item. If anyone has it noone will euip it I bet and no drama like this would occur. Also noone would care at all about that skin.

Yeah, I’m just stopping.
The bar is too high for anyone to believe I earned it.
That makes it worthless to me.

Ok, I think my question disappeared in the merging.
Will the essence of snowfall and essence of mischief be doable after wintersday too?

jarieleledan.8249:

Ok, I think my question disappeared in the merging.
Will the essence of snowfall and essence of mischief be doable after wintersday too?

Honestly, I think you should ask in a support ticket about this. I doubt people care that much about a complicated and expensive Wintersday skin to complete this skin after Wintersday is over.

In many players opinions this Wintersday is a complete fail, because last year (2015), a new and powerful beast came into this game and started appearing more often than before; it’s called Greed. This greed makes many players not care about such different achievements, and move on with their fun. If you still desire to be among the few chosen ones to complete such strange achivements, then ask in support, as these are not achivements for casual players or majority of gamers.

• Way too much grinding (or gold sink) regarding the 10.000 drinks. Just not fun.
• A JP that u cannot get into ….

dennie.9237:

After 3 wintersdays in my memory, this wintersday is frustrating. When Anet went down to korean mmo with endless grind? 10 000 drinks is too much compared to all previous festival achievements.
I’m not enjoying wintersday anymore, I’m just grind, but in the past it was my favorite festival.

Same here.
Flustration pure: can´t get into the Jp or the Chorgame.
Answer of Support: sorry but cant do anything…..

Why do you do an event I cant do because of Anet server issues????

I have my winter’s presence and I even managed it days before festival ends. I had a lovely holiday season with both my families(mine and my wife’s). If I can do it on my time limit(and all the people I have seen running around with theirs did it.) you can also. this wasn’t meant to be something everyone got. it’s graphical effect is imo on par with what comes with legendaries. and so it should cost that(either in game time or in tp cost) I got presents from karma vendor I did a couple of days farming sw. I barely managed the 3 jp successes but I did get them(so farming jp or any other wintersday event was not how I got it.)

now that said I would like to know if it will be possible to earn after wintersday and where the drinks will come from as my wife saw mine and wants one of her own.

I’m all for a challenge. I like the raid they made. Some people complain that it’s too hard, but that’s kind of the point. It takes good coordination, planning, and skill to execute. I like the winter skin and I want it. I have no problem with the various requirements needed to get it. I think mastering wintersday means doing all of the events – topocalypse, snowball fights, bells, and JP. I know some people have complained about the JP being required, but that’s kind of the challenge of it. Things are more rewarding when they’re harder to get.

That being said, the 10,000 drink thing is a little excessive. There’s no challenge to sitting at a computer and doing 50+hours of bells except perhaps, the challenge of maintaining your sanity. I’ve been doing the JP, instead, as I find that more fun and rewarding, but after 300 times through it, even that is getting just tedious.

And honestly, I’d even be fine with the argument that “not everyone should be able to do this challenge” if people simply couldn’t forego most of the rigor and just buy the drinks needed. It would be nice if the skin actually represented the challenge. Otherwise, why doesnt anet just put the skin on the tp and say “give us 5$ for it!”

Solstace.2514:

That being said, the 10,000 drink thing is a little excessive. There’s no challenge to sitting at a computer and doing 50+hours of bells except perhaps, the challenge of maintaining your sanity. I’ve been doing the JP, instead, as I find that more fun and rewarding, but after 300 times through it, even that is getting just tedious.

And honestly, I’d even be fine with the argument that “not everyone should be able to do this challenge” if people simply couldn’t forego most of the rigor and just buy the drinks needed. It would be nice if the skin actually represented the challenge. Otherwise, why doesnt anet just put the skin on the tp and say “give us 5$ for it!”

I agree. I’ve no problem with this item being expensive, or hard to get. My only complaint is that the expense is focused entirely upon this one tedious and functionally time-limited achievement.

Not sure which I’ll achieve first: three completions of the jumping puzzle or a case of tendinitis.

To have to grind 10k drinks during the Holiday season is pretty nuts. So I can have a thing or spend time with family and friends. Also I hold down 3 jobs so time limitations on my playing is a thing. 5k seems reasonable, it would be tough but reasonable. So to get this done I would have had to not do anything over the holidays but this game. Even know the only thing I have time to do in game is grind gifts because I need 10k drinks. Also doesn’t help that all the events I have to wait in line for and hope I can get a chance to play. This is probably the worst Holiday experience I have had in a game.

And now the arenas are empty. I just had to play a round 2 vs 1 and then completely alone.

It’s just ridicolous and not even worth a comment from anets side. It’s very deceiving.

Everything works as intended, right anet?

Solstace.2514:

I’m all for a challenge. I like the raid they made. Some people complain that it’s too hard, but that’s kind of the point. It takes good coordination, planning, and skill to execute. I like the winter skin and I want it. I have no problem with the various requirements needed to get it. I think mastering wintersday means doing all of the events – topocalypse, snowball fights, bells, and JP. I know some people have complained about the JP being required, but that’s kind of the challenge of it. Things are more rewarding when they’re harder to get.

That being said, the 10,000 drink thing is a little excessive. There’s no challenge to sitting at a computer and doing 50+hours of bells except perhaps, the challenge of maintaining your sanity. I’ve been doing the JP, instead, as I find that more fun and rewarding, but after 300 times through it, even that is getting just tedious.

And honestly, I’d even be fine with the argument that “not everyone should be able to do this challenge” if people simply couldn’t forego most of the rigor and just buy the drinks needed. It would be nice if the skin actually represented the challenge. Otherwise, why doesnt anet just put the skin on the tp and say “give us 5$ for it!”

that’s basically what I did, I didn’t farm any wintersday activity, I bought tonics lots and lots of tonics, I also cashed in about 2 million karma I had sitting around. didn’t take long between that and sw farming.

The lack of response to this thread is very disappointing. Really makes you think this thread was created purely to hoover up the discontent for easy ignoring.

Hopefully as Gaile plays catch up, she’ll peruse the new posts and see about finding some answers to our questions.

As I said…hopefully…:)

The other problem with this item is it gives bots yet another reason to exist again. I don’t know how bad or prevalent they were in the JP; I don’t even think I could identify one if I saw it.

The fact that the actual skin itself would require someone to do the activity thousands upon thousands of times reaks more of a bot’s behavior than an actual person. The flip side is buy the drinks, well what better way for someone to make money than to bot the JP and sell the gifts/drinks.

If Anet actually tied this achievement to tasks and took the focus completely away from gold, the bots would practically be non-existent.

CAN YOU MAKE THE SNOWFLAKES BIGGER?

They look like dandruff at the moment. thanks.

DeadlySynz.3471:

The other problem with this item is it gives bots yet another reason to exist again. I don’t know how bad or prevalent they were in the JP; I don’t even think I could identify one if I saw it.

Very prevalent…at times kept the jump puzzle full and no one could access it. My longest wait was like 45 mins at one point. Granted that could have been just bad timing on my part, but I am sure the BOTs contributed to the problem.

The ban-hammer fell quite hard once they got back from the Holiday.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Bots-invade-Winter-Wonderland-JP/page/3

DeadlySynz.3471:

The other problem with this item is it gives bots yet another reason to exist again.

Good point, the more repetitive grind ANet puts in the more likely the players will be tempted by automation, or the more likely to buy from real money traders. Wasn’t that all supposed to be what GW2 was NOT about? Reward players for playing rather than grinding?

Anyway, too late now, players have been totally ignored on this issue, Event nearly over, GG ANet, look forward to next event grind.

I know its been posted already but I also busted tail to “grind” all the drinks needed for the Winters Presence shoulders just to find out that they will not even show through my gem store Armor/outfit. A fix for this needs to be made! If its not fixed why would anyone plan to buy gemstore outfits if they hide special effects from items. Its going to be a loss of gemstore revenue for Anet in the long run. I sure won’t buy anymore outfits and I know plenty of others that won’t either.

The thing I disagree with is the theory that ANet makes you grind. The decision to grind is yours not theirs. Nothing stops you from playing as you want during Wintersday and buy the drinks you miss if you want the skin or sell them if you rather make some gold.

In fact getting 10k drinks is pretty much the derandomized version of getting the Batwing Brew for the Halloween skin and I find it much more preferable as it spreads out the benefits and doesn’t limit it to a few lucky people.

There are several ways to grind in this game, but it’s always the players’ choice to do it. Most things can be obtained by playing as you like and then trading for them, but if you really want to remove even the option to grind, you can use diminishing returns much stronger by reducing the average drop of every activity by 10% every few repetitions, I just doubt that this would be very popular.

Macilien.3078:

The thing I disagree with is the theory that ANet makes you grind. The decision to grind is yours not theirs. Nothing stops you from playing as you want during Wintersday and buy the drinks you miss if you want the skin or sell them if you rather make some gold.

In fact getting 10k drinks is pretty much the derandomized version of getting the Batwing Brew for the Halloween skin and I find it much more preferable as it spreads out the benefits and doesn’t limit it to a few lucky people.

No, the collection as means of acquisition was the “derandomization”.

It seems like everyone who compares this skin to Nightfury forgets the rest of the collection exists. There’s an item you buy, and there’s three items you craft. That’s where the gold cost belongs.

About the “Winter’s Presence” aura: Nice idea, bad execution. Anet is obsessed with outfits yet the aura gets disabled when wearing outfits. There should be a separate slot fot this item.