Guild Wars 2

Serophous.9085:

Djinn.9245:

This is a festival – it should be fun, not a chore. And making a game easier has nothing to do with making RL easier.

Its a made up festival that is still IN. A. GAME. How much easier can a game get where litterally, LITTERALLY, you can walk up to a boss and press nothing but the 1 key, and get a reward.

That’s great that you can do this but I don’t know anyone personally who can.

How you can get four out of six achievements simply by talking to someone or clicking somewhere. You’re going to tell me, that you feel like you achieved something, and had fun doing it, by going up to hoho tron and giving him a copper. That is your idea of an achievement and idea of fun? Clicking around on piles of snow is fun and worthy of achievement? Opening gifts is an achievement?

But two other achievements that require you to put in effort, to actually try and put some effort into playing, and all of a sudden ALL of the achievements are undoable.

I’m starting to think that the people who can’t do these two achievements are the type of people targeted by some of the NPE features. They need a compass to hold their hand, percentages are scary, and bundles too confusing.

I agree that the Wintersday Daily achievements you are talking about are too easy. And it would be better if they would rotate among some different choices. But why do you have to insult people who can’t do the Bell Choir or Jumping Puzzles? Clicking with exact timing to something on the screen (for both) is often impossible due to lag. And some people have not played a lot of the type of video games that require a lot of jumping, etc. MMOs to date don’t include this type of thing. I don’t mind a challenge, I don’t like these challenges and unfortunately I don’t have a choice as to what kind of challenge I do because Anet has decided that less choice and directed play is the kind of MMO they want.

Kal Spiro.9745:

How about some tips. I’m shocked that it’s gotten to 3 pages and no one has actually tried to help. So here is some actual help.

If you’re not good a JP you won’t suddenly become good. But you can become good at the choir. The first important key to the choir is to reorient your camera to look straight down. If you’re looking over your shoulder it is very difficult to figure out when the tone needs to be played. But if you’re looking straight down it’s obvious. Play the tone when the light passes the line. Depending on your lag you might have to do it sooner, but once you know the sweet spot you’ll be good.

The next thing to learn is left hand on 1,2,3,4, right hand on 5,6,7,8. Separate them half and half and it’s more likely you’ll get through.

Lastly, go for upper registry. It’s almost entirely 1,2,3,4. There are a few songs with a small amount of left hand use, and one song with a lot. But for the most part it’s easy. Also, go for lower registry, it is probably the easiest one of the lot since it’s primarily the beat. Middle registry is the most complicated.

I’m glad that someone wants to help instead of insulting, but I did read the instructions and have looked for tips. Timing seems to be the biggest issue since sometimes I will accidentally press a key way before the dot hits the blue and not take damage while other times I have to wait for the dot to hit the blue. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the timing.

But thank you.

Djinn.9245:

Serophous.9085:

Djinn.9245:

This is a festival – it should be fun, not a chore. And making a game easier has nothing to do with making RL easier.

Its a made up festival that is still IN. A. GAME. How much easier can a game get where litterally, LITTERALLY, you can walk up to a boss and press nothing but the 1 key, and get a reward.

That’s great that you can do this but I don’t know anyone personally who can.

How you can get four out of six achievements simply by talking to someone or clicking somewhere. You’re going to tell me, that you feel like you achieved something, and had fun doing it, by going up to hoho tron and giving him a copper. That is your idea of an achievement and idea of fun? Clicking around on piles of snow is fun and worthy of achievement? Opening gifts is an achievement?

But two other achievements that require you to put in effort, to actually try and put some effort into playing, and all of a sudden ALL of the achievements are undoable.

I’m starting to think that the people who can’t do these two achievements are the type of people targeted by some of the NPE features. They need a compass to hold their hand, percentages are scary, and bundles too confusing.

I agree that the Wintersday Daily achievements you are talking about are too easy. And it would be better if they would rotate among some different choices. But why do you have to insult people who can’t do the Bell Choir or Jumping Puzzles? Clicking with exact timing to something on the screen (for both) is often impossible due to lag. And some people have not played a lot of the type of video games that require a lot of jumping, etc. MMOs to date don’t include this type of thing. I don’t mind a challenge, I don’t like these challenges and unfortunately I don’t have a choice as to what kind of challenge I do because Anet has decided that less choice and directed play is the kind of MMO they want.

You don’t have to know personally. Go to a world boss and look around, you can easily spot some range standing back and autoing.

And I think I found the problem with the jump puzzle, you don’t need to click anything till the end.

And MMOs to date don’t have jumping? Last time I check, wildstar had jumping and areas requiring jumping, ESO as well, and archeage to name a few.

Kal Spiro.9745:

How about some tips. I’m shocked that it’s gotten to 3 pages and no one has actually tried to help. So here is some actual help.

There are numerous threads, recently combined I think, that do. I, myself, typed out a long one basically saying exactly what you did as well.

At this point, I think it fair to say that these posters aren’t looking for help per se, but something else altogether.

I’ll just leave it at that.

Djinn.9245:

This is a festival – it should be fun, not a chore. And making a game easier has nothing to do with making RL easier.

It is fun! A lot of it. If you remove the point of Bell Choir, Bell Choir would be boring. I enjoy it. I wouldn’t if it’s trivial or no longer has a point. Why remove fun?

Djinn.9245:

Kal Spiro.9745:

How about some tips. I’m shocked that it’s gotten to 3 pages and no one has actually tried to help. So here is some actual help.

If you’re not good a JP you won’t suddenly become good. But you can become good at the choir. The first important key to the choir is to reorient your camera to look straight down. If you’re looking over your shoulder it is very difficult to figure out when the tone needs to be played. But if you’re looking straight down it’s obvious. Play the tone when the light passes the line. Depending on your lag you might have to do it sooner, but once you know the sweet spot you’ll be good.

The next thing to learn is left hand on 1,2,3,4, right hand on 5,6,7,8. Separate them half and half and it’s more likely you’ll get through.

Lastly, go for upper registry. It’s almost entirely 1,2,3,4. There are a few songs with a small amount of left hand use, and one song with a lot. But for the most part it’s easy. Also, go for lower registry, it is probably the easiest one of the lot since it’s primarily the beat. Middle registry is the most complicated.

I’m glad that someone wants to help instead of insulting, but I did read the instructions and have looked for tips. Timing seems to be the biggest issue since sometimes I will accidentally press a key way before the dot hits the blue and not take damage while other times I have to wait for the dot to hit the blue. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the timing.

But thank you.

Also, I know your little ‘dig’ here is at me for being “insulting”. There have been many posts in threads before about helping before they got merged into that one thread. There were even posts in threads you were responding to with helpful advice.

So, either you decided to ignore said advice and continued to complain and took an opportunity to jab at me, or you are living in a bubble.

On the second day of wintersday, my dear RNG gave me two greatswords glowing and a precursor in a mystic toilet….

Once you master the choir bell with a Charr, you can do it with any character, of any race.

At the beginning I didn’t like this activity at all, but after some practice I mastered it and started enjoying myself.

The key is to completely ignore the way your character moves, because the animation has a delay that can screw up you timing. Just press the button once the glowing ball enters the blue circle: if it helps, do not even look at you character.

Carighan.6758:

Djinn.9245:

This is a festival – it should be fun, not a chore. And making a game easier has nothing to do with making RL easier.

It is fun! A lot of it. If you remove the point of Bell Choir, Bell Choir would be boring. I enjoy it. I wouldn’t if it’s trivial or no longer has a point. Why remove fun?

You do realize that everyone doesn’t find the same things fun, right? Why are you trying to tell me that doing Bell Choir is fun for me when it isn’t?

Maxwell.7843:

Once you master the choir bell with a Charr, you can do it with any character, of any race.

At the beginning I didn’t like this activity at all, but after some practice I mastered it and started enjoying myself.

The key is to completely ignore the way your character moves, because the animation has a delay that can screw up you timing. Just press the button once the glowing ball enters the blue circle: if it helps, do not even look at you character.

Yea, I just look at the balls and the circle and try to press the button when they’re across the line. (I say try because the faster songs its hard to pay attention to all the balls at once.)

On the third day of Wintersday, ArenaNet gave to me . . . three easy dailies, two greatswords glowing, and a precursor for my legendary.

Do you normally have a lot of lag? :-(

Also, if you have a charr, switch to a smaller character, it does help.

Maxwell.7843:

Do you normally have a lot of lag? :-(

Also, if you have a charr, switch to a smaller character, it does help.

Not a lot. The Wintersday area seems to have a constant small amount of lag though. And any lag is going to affect timing.

I have a similar lag issue but only in this instance. Its a bit weird. I hit the notes when i think i should and lose health, at the end of the song I have 100 points (hit all the notes right?) but no health. Very odd. I normally leave it for a bit and come back and its resolved itself.

Skarpa.8203:

I have a similar lag issue but only in this instance. Its a bit weird. I hit the notes when i think i should and lose health, at the end of the song I have 100 points (hit all the notes right?) but no health. Very odd. I normally leave it for a bit and come back and its resolved itself.

I have heard that there is a bug where you can get all the notes right but still take damage. This doesn’t help with doing the Bell Choir either…

Yes, sometimes it happens with the first song you play if you join in the middle of the session.

i mean, prestige and adoration for you as a player are also a gain, which also happens to be more valuable than some in-game pixels, but anet doesn’t consider that to be a problem so i would think it would be fine.

Crysto.7089:

i mean, prestige and adoration for you as a player are also a gain, which also happens to be more valuable than some in-game pixels, but anet doesn’t consider that to be a problem so i would think it would be fine.

I can’t tell if you’re just playing dumb or…

The idea is simple enough. Just like we have the “Water Fight Balloon Bucket” why not make a Snowball snowman that lets you choose between the three weapons that exist in snowball mayhem but maybe just downgraded to work better in costume brawl. Would be fun to do snowball mayhem out in the real world while waiting for teq or making events out of it with your fellow guildies and friends.

maybe i’m just upset that robots are stealing our jorbs

You may survive first one by doing nothing but not sure,if you are missing all you lose health faster.

Will there been a sale this year? Last year, if I’m remembering correctly, there was something on sale every day. Plus we had the buy X amount of gems and get A and B. But this year, nothing. I have money for guild wars 2 burning a hole in my pocket, but I want the most “bang for my buck”. There’s nothing more annoying than buying something and it going on sale the next day.

P.S. I want to buy Brams shield too. I’ve missed it the last few times dew to bad financial timing.

IIRC a one-day sale of all NPC items was datamined. Can be something different, though.

We will probably get a New Year Sale like last year

On the fourth day of Wintersday, ArenaNet gave to me
Four Norn spirits
Three easy dailies
Two greatswords glowing
And a precursor for my legendary!

On the fifth day of Wintersday, ArenaNet gave to me
Five Gold Doubloons
Four Norn spirits
Three easy dailies
Two greatswords glowing
And a precursor for my legendary!

DeWolfe.2174:

Sometimes I find the choir to become completely lagged out. I can enter and not get a single note right and get ejected. Go right back in and it’s perfectly fine and I have no trouble hitting the notes. So if you are having a lot of trouble, try resetting it by exiting and reentering. Also, I find the “upper” choice to be the easiest or simply the most pleasant to play.

That seems to be a bug. I’ve gotten that in the middle of a “set”. The song before and after are perfectly fine but the bugged song seems to do weird stuff like having notes stop moving in the middle and then just disappearing instead of sliding to the center.

Djinn.9245:

Ayrilana.1396:

Djinn.9245:

This is a festival – it should be fun, not a chore. And making a game easier has nothing to do with making RL easier.

The meta can be completed in a few hours and players are given an entire month. Only the infinite achievements take time and they’re likely long to keep people doing the activities.

I’m glad that you can complete the meta in a few hours (honestly). I’m still stuck trying to get 500 correct bell notes. I wait for them to enter the blue circle and most of the time I still take damage. It is tedious and a chore. I would really rather be having fun playing a game. (Games are supposed to be fun, right? I think maybe Anet doesn’t think so.) With the old system I would do festival dailies instead of this bell choir stuff. Now I either am forced to get 500 notes or just give up on completion. Being so close I’m doing the notes but I’m very resentful instead of having a good time.

Well there is your problem. The instructions tell you to wait for the notes to reach the blue circle but waiting for the notes to hit the blue circle is actually not a good idea. Especially if you have ping like mine(100-200 but usually between 100 and 150). Exactly how much earlier you have to press the keys depends on your ping and your reaction time. With higher ping and/or slower reaction time you’ll want to press the keys sooner.

I’ve tried the ‘press key when notes reach the blue circle’ approach but it gave me terrible results and I went back to what I was doing previously.

On the 6th day of Wintersday my RNG gave to me, the 6 watching over me.
Five Gold Doubloons
Four Norn spirits
Three easy dailies
Two greatswords glowing
And a precursor for my legendary!

Well we did have deals during Black Friday weekend. But I agree with Asuaka, I would expect a sale sometime this week/weekend.

I hope so, I want those bunny ears.

On the seventh day of Wintersday, ArenaNet gave to me
Seven Mystic Clovers
The 6 watching over me (this one does not seem to fit, maybe something like Six Human Gods would be better?)
Five Gold Doubloons
Four Norn spirits
Three easy dailies
Two greatswords glowing
And a precursor for my legendary!

On the eighth day of Wintersday, My RNG gave me
eight lemurs leaping (Asura… it’s what I call them in game)
Seven Mystic Clovers
Six Human Gods
Five Gold Doubloons
Four Norn Spirits
Three Easy Dailies
Two Greatswords Glowing
And a precursor for my legendary

My friend and I were trying to get this and we destroyed everything in the dungeon, but no achievement.

Is the requirement that everything be destroyed while your in it or is it that YOU solely destroy everything in the dungeon?

Also there is this mini wall that looks half stuck in the hill near the NE of the zone, and after 20 mins we decided it wasn’t possible. (Is it?)

Thanks!

Everything in the dungeon has to be destroyed, it doesn’t matter who destroys it (although you do need to be in the instance).

Certain things in the dungeon are invulnerable mostly the really big cultural sights, but tbh if you missed something it was a probably a tree… Those things suck and some of them are actually hidden.

that wall seems to eb a piece that counts but isnt. You most likely missed a tree. check behind the cities or in paths that you can go on the paths behind the decorations.Check also the little lightpost leading to the center, they are breakable. each year, all 3 of em , i spent 10 minutes searching the last piece . Just be patient and do either clockwise or counterclockwise together and move on when u destroyed everythign of a section.

I hope you get it.

Happy holidays.

Use some area attacks or broad-swinging melee attacks. Staff Guardian can do it real easily, so can Rangers dropping Barrage everywhere . . . Warriors hammering all over the place . . .

Staff Guardian is the way to tackle this achi.

Chimneys, on those toy houses, count too believe it or not. Found this out the hard way last year. But, yes, usually it’s one tree missing.

Remember, there’s now a counter telling you how much is less as you get closer and closer to the goal.

sometimes u can miss a little wall … just have to go through all over to check. happened to us, we thought we destroyed everything but no achievement but later found a sneaky small wall we thought it was destroyed.

Lishtenbird.2814:

IIRC a one-day sale of all NPC items was datamined. Can be something different, though.

Thanks I’ll t y and hold some gems back for for when that is.

…don’t play winders-day event, and buy Gems for price of new mouse that would cost me 40€ at last but not least.

Gifts.. sorry to say are full of junk.. it only makes you click and break your mouse
Ty anet for the spam.

sooo the wintersday event is giving you a soooo many rewards that you broke your mouse?

why is that a bad thing?

In gw 1 i farmed sooo many wintersday gifts and i got sooo many snowman tonics (that i wanted to use all cause of my party animal title) and you dont see me complaining

Also if you dont like the junk the gifts you are clicking are giving you sell the gifts for around kitten each…

My conclusion of wintersday event in 2015 is :

-scavenger hunt was fun
-got a new home instanced xmass tree nod
-got a item that eats imperial shards and gives me rewards ( so far just random greens and 1 unidentified red dye that i sold for 8 gold)
-tons of wintersday giant gifts i sold on tp
-doing daily wintersday achievement got me a lot of laurels
-i FINALLY finished wintersday JP…take that game!
-got me kinda into pvp, and it rewarded me with 1 minipet and a special rebreather
-if i continue with my pvp schedule ill get 3 more minipets before wintersday ends,getting 5/5 minipets +1 mini skritta claws

Gaile Gray.6029:

Merged several more topics into this collective feedback thread.

Thanks for posting your thoughts on Wintersday in this thread so that the devs can review everything in one efficient topic.

Why merge the Twelve Days of Wintersday song too? It just makes it scattered across the thread and less noticeable.

Khisanth.2948:

Djinn.9245:

I’m glad that you can complete the meta in a few hours (honestly). I’m still stuck trying to get 500 correct bell notes. I wait for them to enter the blue circle and most of the time I still take damage. It is tedious and a chore. I would really rather be having fun playing a game. (Games are supposed to be fun, right? I think maybe Anet doesn’t think so.) With the old system I would do festival dailies instead of this bell choir stuff. Now I either am forced to get 500 notes or just give up on completion. Being so close I’m doing the notes but I’m very resentful instead of having a good time.

Well there is your problem. The instructions tell you to wait for the notes to reach the blue circle but waiting for the notes to hit the blue circle is actually not a good idea. Especially if you have ping like mine(100-200 but usually between 100 and 150). Exactly how much earlier you have to press the keys depends on your ping and your reaction time. With higher ping and/or slower reaction time you’ll want to press the keys sooner.

I’ve tried the ‘press key when notes reach the blue circle’ approach but it gave me terrible results and I went back to what I was doing previously.

I see. Well its nice to know that its not just my reaction. Its hard to complete an activity where you are told to do something that doesn’t actually work due to normal things that the developers should know can happen. I’ll try pressing keys earlier and see what happens.

bell choir was horrible… getting to 500 really hurt my wrists/hands. At one point I had to give up for the rest of the day, and come back the next day to finish it.

I really hope jumping puzzles don’t become a requirement for future holiday content, but the ones we had to do we’re so bad. (I didn’t do the wintersday one, just the ones for the ornaments)

I liked most everything else. Kinda overloaded with Runes/Sigils. And the runes are lousy. We should be able to forge them into something.

IKR? What is with Superior Sigil of Mischief? They drop like flies and are, as far as I can see unless there is some weird application in PvP I’m unaware of, absolutely useless.

My consolidated feedback on Wintersday 2014:
There’s many things that ArenaNet does right. Wintersday 2014 was not it. If I was feeling very charitable, I’d grade this as a C-, at best. It’s like going to your favorite restaurant, ordering something you know you like, enjoying the first bite, but then finding a hair in the food on the second bite.

1) Bell Choir. Buggy and frustrating. At least half the time, I join and every note I play is wrong, but if I stop playing notes, I don’t take damage and get a perfect score and not credit. Most of the rest of the time, I enter an instance which is or nearly is completed. So between these two problems, I spend most of my time in loading screens, “waiting on additional players”, and not enjoying the activity. For something that is identical to last year and should not have changed, this is a complete failing grade, F. Suggestions: Fix the bug, lower the waiting time between songs, and don’t allow new players into an instance that has started the second song.

2) Winter Wonderland JP. Only small changes from last year, and I’m fine with them. There seem to be a lot of people complaining about lag, but I was not one of them. Only real problem I see is the falling damage on the candy cane. Grade: B+. Suggestion: just turn falling damage off for the whole instance – everything else is highly scripted so it shouldn’t make any difference anywhere else in the puzzle.

3) Grawnk. Perfect. Short, sweet, light-hearted. A+ Need more things like this.

4) Toypocalypse. It’s not Wintersday if I can’t play with my friends. I realize that code changes were required for PvP (and I’m enjoying PvP more than I used to, so that was good). However, it was entirely a choice to not devote resources into fixing this activity. Why it is even in the competitive activity format is kind of a mystery to me anyway. I’ll be generous here and grade this as a D. Suggestion before next year: allow me to join with friends, of course. Or if I’m asking for the stars, a complete competitive activity overhaul. I’d like to play with my friends in other activities as well. Parties should end up in the same instance – not necessarily on the same team, as that may make some things like Snowball Mayhem and Keg Brawl unfun going up against a premade – but at least put us in the same instance so after I launch a snowball volley at a friend I can laugh about it with them on teamspeak.

5) Snowball Mayhem. No changes needed with the exception of what I just said above, as it can be difficult to get into the same instance as friends. Grade A.

6) Infiniarium. Seems there was some variations or additions for some of the tasks – this is a good thing. And as always, running around doing the SMASH EVERYTHING thing is so cathartic. A+.

7) PvP reward track. Perfect. A.

8) Divinity’s Reach, Ho-ho-tron/Dolyak Event. Again, perfect. A.

9) Achievements. Mostly fine, but more thought needs to go into the cap for repeatable ones. 30 rounds of Snowball Mayhem for 3 points? With 5-10 minute matches, plus starting/loading times, that’s about 6 hours. That’s just a bit silly. Grade B.

10) Wintersday Presents. I feel like I’m being trolled by Arenanet here, even after the update. It’s like some awful meme: “Yo dawg I heard you like RNG boxes, so I put RNG boxes in your RNG boxes, so you can risk getting banned for using an autoclicker while you rage about RNG.” Seriously, Arenanet: stop it. RNG lottery isn’t fun. Boxes in boxes is absurd. No grade for this, please go to the principal’s office for detention.

Tamasan.6457:

My consolidated feedback on Wintersday 2014:
There’s many things that ArenaNet does right. Wintersday 2014 was not it. If I was feeling very charitable, I’d grade this as a C-, at best. It’s like going to your favorite restaurant, ordering something you know you like, enjoying the first bite, but then finding a hair in the food on the second bite.

1) Bell Choir. Buggy and frustrating. At least half the time, I join and every note I play is wrong, but if I stop playing notes, I don’t take damage and get a perfect score and not credit. Most of the rest of the time, I enter an instance which is or nearly is completed. So between these two problems, I spend most of my time in loading screens, “waiting on additional players”, and not enjoying the activity. For something that is identical to last year and should not have changed, this is a complete failing grade, F. Suggestions: Fix the bug, lower the waiting time between songs, and don’t allow new players into an instance that has started the second song.

2) Winter Wonderland JP. Only small changes from last year, and I’m fine with them. There seem to be a lot of people complaining about lag, but I was not one of them. Only real problem I see is the falling damage on the candy cane. Grade: B+. Suggestion: just turn falling damage off for the whole instance – everything else is highly scripted so it shouldn’t make any difference anywhere else in the puzzle.

3) Grawnk. Perfect. Short, sweet, light-hearted. A+ Need more things like this.

4) Toypocalypse. It’s not Wintersday if I can’t play with my friends. I realize that code changes were required for PvP (and I’m enjoying PvP more than I used to, so that was good). However, it was entirely a choice to not devote resources into fixing this activity. Why it is even in the competitive activity format is kind of a mystery to me anyway. I’ll be generous here and grade this as a D. Suggestion before next year: allow me to join with friends, of course. Or if I’m asking for the stars, a complete competitive activity overhaul. I’d like to play with my friends in other activities as well. Parties should end up in the same instance – not necessarily on the same team, as that may make some things like Snowball Mayhem and Keg Brawl unfun going up against a premade – but at least put us in the same instance so after I launch a snowball volley at a friend I can laugh about it with them on teamspeak.

5) Snowball Mayhem. No changes needed with the exception of what I just said above, as it can be difficult to get into the same instance as friends. Grade A.

6) Infiniarium. Seems there was some variations or additions for some of the tasks – this is a good thing. And as always, running around doing the SMASH EVERYTHING thing is so cathartic. A+.

7) PvP reward track. Perfect. A.

8) Divinity’s Reach, Ho-ho-tron/Dolyak Event. Again, perfect. A.

9) Achievements. Mostly fine, but more thought needs to go into the cap for repeatable ones. 30 rounds of Snowball Mayhem for 3 points? With 5-10 minute matches, plus starting/loading times, that’s about 6 hours. That’s just a bit silly. Grade B.

10) Wintersday Presents. I feel like I’m being trolled by Arenanet here, even after the update. It’s like some awful meme: “Yo dawg I heard you like RNG boxes, so I put RNG boxes in your RNG boxes, so you can risk getting banned for using an autoclicker while you rage about RNG.” Seriously, Arenanet: stop it. RNG lottery isn’t fun. Boxes in boxes is absurd. No grade for this, please go to the principal’s office for detention.

Awesome report card, I lol’d. Regarding Bell Choir: don’t make something so affected by latency a required part of completing the event achievements please. In the past it wasn’t an issue because I could do Dailies instead. For Wintersday I am +*still+* doing Bell Choir trying to get 500 correct notes. All the helpful hints from people in this thread have really made a difference (mainly to help me understand its not me and not rage quit) but it is still not fun- its a chore. I wouldn’t bother at all except I completed the rest of the Wintersday required achievements so I want to get a completion on the Festival.