Guild Wars 2

After the really awesome Halloween event I looked forward to Wintersday. Here is my feedback which contains some comparisons of both here and there.

First of all: this event is much better than most (if not all events) I saw in other games. It shows love and diligence. But for me it lacks in certain areas. I would like to know if other people think the same or if I am a lone naggler seeing a giant cake and complaining about the missing meat.

Ok, here it goes:

Decoration of Lion’s Arch: We are accustomed to ArenaNet’s greatness in the graphic department and it does not disappoint. I miss the playing children of the Halloween event in Lion’s Arch, though. You know, the ones, who cried: Hello… Hallo… Candy time! To be more general: This Wintersday event LA seems to be more quiet, less busy with the event than during Halloween times. I hear only the event barkers near the snowball most of the time.

Skins: With the exception of the princess wand I don’t like the skins for weapons you can get at all. They are bland and uninteresting. Of course the idea of toy weapons is funny but the execution is all in all so not princess-wandy… Let it sparkle, glitter and shine. Why does the head of the staff not glimmer a bit? It is a piece of wood. As old-fashioned toys were. Which died out for a reason.

Minis: This one is a general complaint. I don’t use minis. I like the concept and I would use them but as of now I think they are highly impractical. Why? Because I continuously click on “Deposit collectibles” when I look into my inventory, and then the minis are away. I have to, otherwise my inventory would suffer from serious overflow. I would so like a right-mouse-click option in the inventory with which you can flag and unflag a specific item as depositable. I know there are special bags for that but those are impracticle for other reasons (I like my inventory as a whole area – “Hide Bags” on). So all parts leading to crafting minis are a bit pointless for me. But it is an extra source of income, which is always welcome.

Tixx’s dungeons (the five town-dependant missions): They are really lightweight dungeons. That is ok; not all content has to be difficult. The rewards are as crappy as the dungeons are easy. For me the content is so easy that I don’t like to do it; I prefer to go into the fractals. I get more fun and more reward in the same time I would get if I did Tixx’s dungeons. I wouldn’t say that the dungeons are outright bad (they are somewhat beautiful designed) but fractals are so much better (and will be even more so when the January update comes). Halloween had the maze as easy-going area. That was much better in my opinion. I liked it when the map instance I were in was full of shouts “Champion spawning in NE” and all players tried to get him down (and succeeded, because that dungeon was also easy, but not THAT easy, and the rewards were good).

end of part 1

Part 2:

Toypocalypse: Yes, I get it. The developers looking at us and smiling gleefully. A good experiment on collective intelligence. Every day the chance to get a pug which can handle the toypocalypse well grows because more and more people get what this dungeon is all about. I am not a developer who can look at it and amuse myself about how the failure rate decreases slowly, I am one of the lab rats who still gets with a not so small chance into a pug which fails. Why, o why is that a pug thing? Why can’t I go in with my guildies whom I know, trust and can scream at in teamspeak? Personally I avoid the toypocalypse. Too much hassle; the dungeon, as interesting as the concept is, isn’t that rewarding and too complicated for pugs. I so miss the dungeon of the Mad King. THAT was a great dungeon and it was good for pugs, too. And of course I miss the Mad King himself, with his really great voice acting.

Snowball Mayhem: I like that. It plays smoothly and in this case it is not that big a problem that you are forced to pug. An improvement to the corresponding Halloween activity.

Bell Choir: The thought behind it is awesome. Now, I never liked guitar hero, but I know that in my guild some people are really smitten by the bell thingies, and I can get why. So, while not catering to my personal, more basic needs, I think that is a good part of the Wintersday event.

Jumping Puzzle: I find it awesome. Of course I cannot do it, but luckily I have my son for things which need dexterity (my fingers are old and gnarly already, my youth is over since the sixties of the last century…). It looks great – as did the clocktower puzzle of the mad king. Personally I would have liked a reward-free “test-mode” without time pressure, but I know, I am at the very low end of jumping puzzlers, so I won’t try to impress that opinion on the developers too much. But if there was, you would see me jumping and jumping and jumping until I could get it right and try my hands in the real thing…

The overland presents: It is better than the doors of Halloween in my opinion. Challenging, and you can expect a free silver piece for your efforts.

Summary: In some aspects the Wintersday event falls behind the Halloween one. That does not mean that it is a failure but my expectations were very high and they were slightly disappointed. The game has much to offer besides the event, so no harm done.

Heya Claudius,

Your feedback is well written and interesting.
I’m for one very happy about the Winter event. My favourite game is the Snowball mayhem. The jumping puzzle is amazing, but I’m too bad to do it, I only managed to pass 8 snowflakes.

However I’ve a very strong annoyement with all games of this event : impossible to group. Up! I do not mind to not be in my friends/guild mates team, but I want to play with them in the same game. A system similar than the server in spvp should be possible, so friends and guildies could all join "server 342" and happily play together. A game like toymaggedon is not interesting with randoms that even do not answers your greetings. This kind of game would be perfect and fun with a group of friends.

I really hope you can fix this issue for next holliday events. Your ideas are great, your games are fun, but it would be so much better if we could play it with our friends!

Decided to necro this post, because I also wanted to leave detailed feedback on the event and this post was the best I could find for that. This is going to be a long post and I’ll discuss the following topics:

Part 1
Overall
Mini-pets
JP (Winter Wonderland)
Snowball Fight (Snowball Mayham)
Wintersday Gifts
Schedule
Event Finale

Part 2
Festival Hat
Activity (Bell Choir)
Weapon Skins
Decorations
Presents throughout Tyria
Release in Acts
Thanks

Part 1:

Overall
I think the event was overall good. I liked being able to craft the tonics, but this lead to the Glue and Wads to become even more needed which was annoying because you couldn’t really obtain them besides buying them in the TP. There is no fun or sense of accomplishment in simply buying mats and they were way to expensive throughout the event because of the rarity of looting a stack out of Gifts.

Mini-pets
Also I dislike having two different sets of mini-pets during one event. It shouldn’t be RNG if you buy them with gems and if they are obtainable ingame they shouldn’t be in the Gem store. It’s nice to be rewarded with mini-pets for once, but this 2/5 (and later for some 3/5) system isn’t the way. Also they shouldn’t be stored with the same button as mats. This makes them difficult to use.

JP (Winter Wonderland)
When it comes to the JP, I was kind of disappointed in comparison to the Halloween JP. This one was way easier, but I get that after all the complaints you had to try a new approach. Still seperate difficulty modes could be useful, e.g. easy mode gives you 2 minutes to complete, hard only 1 minute. That’s if you want to satisfy the entire player base. But I don’t think that has to be done with every single element of the game. I like having elements that not everyone can complete, because they are difficult. This makes a game interesting and will lead to people pushing theirselves to the limit. but difficulty modes could also work. I wouldn’t suggest holding on to this difficulty level for future JP’s without a harder option. Btw Claudius, I love how you handle this. Eventhough you can’t complete it yourself, you don’t want to take the fun away for people like me who can. Thank you for that. So the middle road with difficulty modes should satisfy both sides.

Snowball Fight (Snowball Mayham)
The Snowball Fight and Tixx instances were great, but as mentioned by others before, we should be able to party up, while also having the option to join alone and be placed into a team. Most don’t like PuG’s, but for some it’s the only option they have at that time.

Wintersday Gifts
I don’t think different sized Gifts for different levels is the right way to go. This way the economy around Gifts was spread over 4 seperate items. In my opinion it would be better to have one size and let the mats be random. Low levels can always use higher level mats, because eventually they will reach that level. High levels can always use lower level mats, because they either have lower level alts or can sell them on the TP to lower levels.

The loot tables for Gifts should be more rewarding. After opening 10 and realising you basically traded in 100 Ugly Wool Sweaters for 10 Ugly Wool Sweaters will disappoint you and lead to avoidance of them in general. The Halloween loot tables were better in that way.

Schedule
I loved the schedule you made for us with times and places. Keep that up. You really do need to work on the planning for release times. There should be a specific time available when the update goes live. Only giving us a date will eventually kitten people off, because not everyone is in the same timezone and people are waiting. I’d rather have you say a few hours before the planned release that due to difficulties the release has been postponed by an hour then to not know anything at all. Because this is also unfair to the people who can’t sit in front of their pc all day to wait for a release. This way people from different timezones have a disadvantage because they have an unequal chance to be there from the start of the event.

Event Finale
I really missed a big finale… Every event should have a finale to celebrate the fun you had during the entire event. Sure the Ancient Karka finale didn’t work out as planned, but that doesn’t mean finales should be removed entirely. The way finales were/are in GW1 is perfect. Having it repeat for every three hours for an entire day gives everyone a fair shot at it. If people are on holiday, well that was their choice for one. And they shouldn’t complain for having the ability to go on holiday. Especially since the main part of the finales is afk-friendly, everyone could have a shot at it. I personally also love the one-time-only events, but I can understand how it can be cruel if you can’t be there. So just make them repeat for a whole day and this isn’t a big deal.

Part 2:

Festival Hat
To continue with the finales. I dislike the Festival Hat system as it works now. It doesn’t have that “feel” to press O and buy the Festival Hat for 0 gems. They should be handed out during the finales. That’s what makes them special. Me being able to order 100+ of them through the mail is no fun. I did like it that during this event only one hat was given. During Halloween we had the Gem store hat and the finale hat, which also made them feel less special. Still I would have gone with the finale mechanics and not the gem store mechanics.

Now my comments on the Wintersday hat. I didn’t care for it at all. Halloween gives us a Witch’s Hat, which was perfectly fine. It was Halloween and it fits with the story. But how does a Wizard’s Hat fit into the Wintersday theme? Plus it is way too similar to the Witch’s Hat. Also not being able to dye it makes it even worse. This one really needs reworking.

And ofcourse we would need a Town’s Clothing NPC. Not just for people who buy gem store outfits, but also for these event hats. It’s a great place to store them and to create another for a different character. I’m not going to hold onto 5 copies of a festival hat in my Bank so that all my characters can wear it. Last note on Festival Hats, it really is a pity that you can’t wear them in combat. The Costume system in GW1 was more fun, also because switching to Town’s Clothing when in town or out of combat is too inconvenient. This needs a better system.

Activity (Bell Choir)
The Bell Choir was amazing. The only comment I have here is that the Bells should have been rewards from Bell Choir aswell. Being good at it should be rewarded with the item, not with Gifts with a drop rate of less than 1%. It’s great that more Activities are added during these events, but please focus more on Activities that will be there forever now. The base for a lot of activities is already there, but they are still not working. It feels like they are being ignored/abandoned.

Weapon Skins
It was great that themed weapon skins were also available ingame now. The only problem is that the skins should be more similar in awesomeness. I know this is tough, but it doesn’t take a genius to find out that the Princess Wand would become the most popular. This shouldn’t really be the case. With Halloween the Greatsword wielders had it, now the Scepter wielders. It should be more equal so that all weapon types have fun new skins.

Decorations
Decorations were great, but I was missing them in the other big cities. I loved that Tixx would also visit the other cities, but there were no decorations there. It almost felt like Tixx just made some random stops to get some fuel or something. That needs work. Also the things that Tixx or any NPC in other events brings to a new city should be more diverse. That way people will actually explore the city that day, instead of just warping in and out for the instance only. It sad to see such beautiful cities being turned into ghost towns just because there is nothing to do. The Activities would ofcourse help a lot with this problem. But again for these to become popular, the joining system needs to be reworked.

Presents throughout Tyria
The presents spread throughout Tyria was a nice touch, but it would be more fun if an Achievement was made for it. But the whole idea of using the now mostly abandonned maps was good, it could just use a little more diversity. I also missed the scavenger hunt here. If the presents were more like that people would travel from map to map more instead of finding the best farm spot. People that complain that low levels can’t reach the areas, should either try harder to level more for it, join a guild to get help from friends or accept that after playing a game for a week you can’t expect to participate in all content from the start.

Release in Acts
All in all it was a long event, which I think was great. But especially because this event was so long, gradually releasing content would have been better. The way the Halloween event changed and increased in size over time was amazing and kept it interesting. I fear that many abandonned the event halfway now because the content already started to get old and only became a grind fest. I don’t mean to say here that less is more and you should have smaller events, but content should be released more over time to keep it diverse and interesting. Also a new explorable area like we had in Halloween would be great for Wintersday aswell. But with more to do than just farm/grind. Especially if it changes over time.

Thanks
I want to conclude with thanking you at ANet for another great event and I hope you take my feedback and that of others to heart for the next one I hope the other races can also have a great festive event in the upcoming months!

Regards

Hi everyone,

We have moved this thread from Wintersday to General Discussion so you all can give us your feedback on the event for further improvement.

Remember as always to be constructive and helpful.
Thanks for your understanding. Let the feedback flow!

Wouldve been nice to see other skins besides just a hammer for a candy cane skin. Was really looking foward to having a sword or for gw1 vets a gingerbread focus and other items that made the winter holidays nostalgic. Vets could show off their skins and remember times past(heirloom item passed down from our previous chars ) and new folks would have the same fun by killing the undead risen while making them smell minty fresh.

Really enjoyed the winter pvp game. Wished i had played that more as it was reAlly rewarding to take folks down you normally wouldnt be able to based on profession.

Didnt really bother with the jumping puzzle as after a few tries it wasnt really my thing. Regular everyday ones arent based with having to stay moving due to puzzle deteriorating behind you(i know a few have things similar like the one in metrica but it doesnt make you keep moving 100%).

Not that im a huge crafting fan/user but ibelieve the devs need to QA the recipes they release so things dont happen that can be exploited so long without fixing (the stuck open haunted doors were fixed within hours. I know it was first event and there was probably a lot of supervison on that).

The wooden skins just plain out suck as far as looks. Maybe im partial to wanting those candy cane ones but still.

HunterFox.2578:

Wouldve been nice to see other skins besides just a hammer for a candy cane skin. Was really looking foward to having a sword or for gw1 vets a gingerbread focus and other items that made the winter holidays nostalgic. Vets could show off their skins and remember times past(heirloom item passed down from our previous chars ) and new folks would have the same fun by killing the undead risen while making them smell minty fresh.

Really enjoyed the winter pvp game. Wished i had played that more as it was reAlly rewarding to take folks down you normally wouldnt be able to based on profession.

Didnt really bother with the jumping puzzle as after a few tries it wasnt really my thing. Regular everyday ones arent based with having to stay moving due to puzzle deteriorating behind you(i know a few have things similar like the one in metrica but it doesnt make you keep moving 100%).

Not that im a huge crafting fan/user but ibelieve the devs need to QA the recipes they release so things dont happen that can be exploited so long without fixing (the stuck open haunted doors were fixed within hours. I know it was first event and there was probably a lot of supervison on that).

The wooden skins just plain out suck as far as looks. Maybe im partial to wanting those candy cane ones but still.

I agree, I miss candycane weapons across the board… and peppermint shields, lol.

I think they should make like a easier version of the jumping puzzles for people like me that are bad at them but make the reward less but give the achievement

Overall to was a good event.

What can be improved for the event next year.
*add some of the lore from GW1 Wintersday.
*add large fully decorated areas it the other cities.
*add some Wintersday event chains in-world with large Wintersday themed meta event bosses.
*improve rewards for gifts.

joe.9815:

I think they should make like a easier version of the jumping puzzles for people like me that are bad at them but make the reward less but give the achievement

IMO that is backwards. I’d rather that they be equal to players by being able to complete stuff on an easier difficulty and receive the same material reward, but NOT get the cosmetic achievement unless you are able to complete the prescribed difficulty. The sole point of an achievement is to achieve it, not have it handed down to you for free.

joe.9815:

I think they should make like a easier version of the jumping puzzles for people like me that are bad at them but make the reward less but give the achievement

You should use your mouse for movement. If you are not doing so now on JP’s

Wintersday was pretty good except it kinda ended early. I was done everything way before actual christmas.

I would like to see more guild wars 1 lore themed events for wintersday, yeah. I know that the gods are around less now, but Balth did show up once to open a gate to the mists; surely Dwayna and Grenth can have their old wintersday rivalry for a few days!

In general, though, I liked the event.

Ill keep this pretty short so I can get back in game
Snowball Mayhem
Fun but I think possibly exploitable through balancing sides. Shouldn’t offer voluntary balancing by players. Still I enjoyed it.
Jumping Puzzle
Still too hard (even though not as bad as the Clocktower). Couldn’t do. I’m not physically disadvantaged in any way, I’m not that old (though been playing computer games since Vic20)so based on this alone and the fact many players will have some disadvantages it was too hard but more so badly implemented. Difficulty levels could and should have been applied.
Bell
I’m rubbish at this too. The difficulty curve was sharply increasing on this after the first song. So I didn’t like.
Tixxs Infinarium
Played all but became boring as it was just the same basic stuff repeated with another level added.
Gifts
Fun but rubbish rewards. Also some of them should have been huge with multiple veteran or a champion mob.
Rewards
Pathetic, most of the the things that could be traded for were gotten much more easily in some events without too much hassle and they were far too simply designed even if they were just wooden toys. There still could be glitter, some nice intricate carving, more colour.
*Cant comment on Toypocalypse didnt do it
*Got two minis but couldnt be bothered with hassle trying to get more, not worth it.
*I was busy at this time and was frustrated to miss out on a lot of Wintersday but thats not necessarily Anets fault. It did add to overall frustration as the jumping puzzle and bell game required so much time i didn’t have if I had wanted to play them until I won.
*Anet needs to think does it want to make events E-Sport like and therefore too difficult for a large number of its player base or more activity like and have easier modes.

I am posting about the unbreakable choir bells.

They are irritating when spammed in town.
Please ring your bell responsibly.

Sincerly;
ophidic.1279

Leablo.2651:

joe.9815:

I think they should make like a easier version of the jumping puzzles for people like me that are bad at them but make the reward less but give the achievement

IMO that is backwards. I’d rather that they be equal to players by being able to complete stuff on an easier difficulty and receive the same material reward, but NOT get the cosmetic achievement unless you are able to complete the prescribed difficulty. The sole point of an achievement is to achieve it, not have it handed down to you for free.

Would you rather have a cosmetic reward or rewards that can tip the market?

I thought the Wintersday event was a smashing success – loved the decor and music and games.

For Snowball Mayhem I would like to see being able to join with friends. I understand you would not want pre-made groups going against random pugs, maybe 2 versions of it? I would have played it ALOT more than I did if I could have gone in with friends and coordinated on vent or TS against another premade.

Endless Tonics felt very RNG-ish and sad to report I never did get the Plush Griffon tonic that I wanted so very badly. Maybe if we had a way to work towards it, earning some kind of token for it, maybe from playing the Toypocalypse?

Keep up the great work, looking forward to seeing what you folks give us in the future.

Minis in general should have their own panel where you can activate them. Something similar to what Rangers get for their found pets. Ditto for Town Clothes. I hesitate to buy Town Clothes because it means I have less space in my bank that could be used for more useful things.

I love love love the Slingshot skin for the Shortbow.

I gotta say, though, Tixx’s dungeon = boring. It was interesting the first day, and then it turns out that you have to do this 5 times with events in a different order.. yay.. I did it once each time to get the reward, then never looked back.

The jumping puzzle is fine. It was much easier than the halloween one, and it gave you three paths to keep it somewhat interesting. Those Peppermint Sticks that you jump on are misleading, though. They seem wider than they are. I keep slipping off them. People will have difficulty with Jumping Puzzles, regardless of how complex they are. I don’t think making it harder or easier really makes a difference.

I wish Bells had a better sync. Even if I 100% a song, it just sounds like noise to me. Fun, but audibly confusing. I don’t know if you can even do anything about this.

Presents were so disappointing. The best thing I got from it was a snowflake, and I don’t even do any crafting. There was nothing in the trade shop I wanted (I already got my minis, and skins were selling for pennies on the TP). I kept opening boxes, and traded in for more boxes, and I basically came out with nothing. It was completely unrewarding, so I stopped looking for boxes altogether. I didn’t feel like getting mauled by level 80 toys just to get more ugly sweaters.

In addition to my really long feedback posts I wanted to add that the Mystic Forge recipe for combining 4 Endless Tonics should just have given you a high chance of getting Endless Gift Dolyak Tonic and a small chance of Endless Toymaker’s Tonic.
It’s very expensive to craft the Endless Tonics because you almost get no Glue or Wads so you’ll be forced to use the TP and the success rate is pretty low.

It took me a total of 25 tries to get my 4 Endless Tonics (and from what I’ve heard I might even have to consider myself lucky). This cost me 12.500 Glue+Wads (total), while you only get 1.250 from Tixx. I looted only 75 Wads from the Gifts, because the drop chance is horrible resulting in me having to buy 11.175 Glue+Wads (total and I’m not even starting about the time spent keeping track of the TP prices). And all that to get the fifth Endless Tonic I hadn’t created yet, which pretty much forced me to forge that into the mini because the Endless Tonics are account bound. Also with the merchant not selling frames anymore, this was the only chance I had to craft me a better tonic.

It basically feels like a kick in the crotch to see that forge result pop up. So please for following events, not every-kitten-thing has to be RNG with horrible odds.

Overall – Was a good event

Mini-pets – Worst part in my opinion, took me $100 to achieve all the Mini Pets due to poor RNG luck, they needed to be non account bound and sellable, or come in a trio like halloween.

JP (Winter Wonderland) – This was easier than Halloween but still a great time, and I enjoyed the extra things we had to watch for like the rolling boulders, exploding presents etc.

Snowball Fight (Snowball Mayham) – Way better than halloweens, had a ton of fun doing this, just wish it would have counted towards PVP rank.

Wintersday Gifts – A higher drop rate of things would have been nice, I think I only got 10-15 items out of 500+ gifts opened.

Schedule – Enjoyed the advance notice, and the pace was able to ensure I saw everything as often as I wanted.

Event Finale – No complaints but preferred the dungeon of Halloween by far.

Festival Hat – Just 1 more for the bank

Activity (Bell Choir) – Loved it, even though I am usually not a fan of this type of thing, just wish it was easier to tell when to play the notes, and skipping the 5 key was odd.

Weapon Skins – First decent pistol skin, so didnt mind them.

Decorations – Could have been more, but over all looked very nice.

Presents throughout Tyria – All depends on what spawned, was fun running for my life because it was princesses.

Release in Acts – Continue this, a longer event was great and spreading out each event was wonderful, I could spend an hour a night catch up on everything without feeling over whelmed or that I missed something.

Overall I greatly enjoyed the activities, JP was AMAZING, and Tixx’s airship was beyond cool, even just to look at. Only let down was the skins, they were very bland, and I think maybe they shot themselves in the foot by making the Halloween ones SO AMAZING, like it’s hard to follow up with anything like that. Especially the shield and the greatsword ^__^