Guild Wars 2

inb4 “it’s easy”
inb4 “you don’t have to do it”
inb4 “go back to WoW”

I’ll make this brief,
The only thing I’ve found enjoyable about this event is the snowball fights, and I don’t even do PvP! I found the jumping puzzle to be less puzzling and I found the bell choir to be more difficult than playing “Through the Fire and Flames” on Guitar Hero. And surviving the toys? Have fun with that; it’s a joke of a dungeon. Might as well have put Scarlet back in Lions Arch.

My point here is that seasonal events should be a moment for players to refresh, loosen up, and take a nice break from all the heavy grinding they do on a daily basis. Not for them to sit hour upon hour trying to perfect something in a trial-and-error way. That’s ridiculous.

ANet, seriously take a moment and FOR ONCE make your leisure content…leisurely. Otherwise your Wintersday will continue to be confined to a winters day for people like me; one day. Thats it. A day.

Good day.

Grind? You mean the infinite achievements?

Umm.. I got the “meta” achievement for Wintersday in about 5 hours of casual gameplay spread over multiple days.

I haven’t bothered with the infinite achievements because I know I won’t enjoy it one bit.

I don’t understand. Are you asking ANet to make Wintersday events easier? Honestly, it’s so easy already that the rewards have overwhelmed the market. So much so, you can’t even give them away on the Trading Post.

I don’t know how much more leisurely you can make it. And I’m as casual as you can get.

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

inb4 “it’s easy”
inb4 “you don’t have to do it”
inb4 “go back to WoW”

I’ll make this brief,
The only thing I’ve found enjoyable about this event is the snowball fights, and I don’t even do PvP! I found the jumping puzzle to be less puzzling and I found the bell choir to be more difficult than playing “Through the Fire and Flames” on Guitar Hero. And surviving the toys? Have fun with that; it’s a joke of a dungeon. Might as well have put Scarlet back in Lions Arch.

My point here is that seasonal events should be a moment for players to refresh, loosen up, and take a nice break from all the heavy grinding they do on a daily basis. Not for them to sit hour upon hour trying to perfect something in a trial-and-error way. That’s ridiculous.

ANet, seriously take a moment and FOR ONCE make your leisure content…leisurely. Otherwise your Wintersday will continue to be confined to a winters day for people like me; one day. Thats it. A day.

Good day.

Completely agree!

I’m fed up of wasting 15+ minutes on this stupid bell choire thing that is impossible to complete!

I do not understand when you’re supposed to play the notes. It says in the description “Earn points by playing notes that reach teh stage’s blue circle and stop moving” … well, they do not EVER stop moving, they reach the stage and damage you!

The songs are far too fast-paced and difficult. It’s unclear when to ring the bells. I’ve tried ringing them before the note hits the inner circle, as it hits and after it hits, and all times I take damage no matter what I do.

I’ve tried buttom spamming, still lose, but at least I somehow miraculously hit some notes.

This is silly. All you need to do, if you’re confused, is ask. You press the number of the corresponding circle when it hits the inner circle where you stand. For example, the furthest left circle is #1 on your keyboard.

When that circle hits the inner circle, near your feet, you press #1 or the associated number.

To make this as easy as possible, rotate the camera so you see it from an above your head angle. In this way, your gain the best visual advantage.

For the best method, you place your fingers on the associated numbers across the keyboard. Again, for example, your left pinky finger should be on #1 and your right, pointer finger should be on #6.

It may take some practice, but it’s very easy. To go the easiest route possible, pick the lowest melody (lower part) when given the option.

Higher melodies offers more presents, but it’s also a harder challenge.

Here is a video example of what I’ve described above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCMYgbMphjg

Hope it helps.

Just no. The Bell Choir is still hard. I’ve gone as far as doing everything you said before you even suggested it, and it was still ridiculously hard. There’s just no reason for it.

They are very time-consuming this year than they were before. The PvP one is the worst which I’ve decided to just do off and on throughout Wintersday. Spending 12.5 hours across 25 days is more palatable than spending it all in one go.

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

Just no. The Bell Choir is still hard. I’ve gone as far as doing everything you said before you even suggested it, and it was still ridiculously hard.

You say this. And other people have been saying it a lot. So I assume that it’s truth and you’re not all trolling. But I honestly can’t understand how you think that. For me, even the first time doing bell choir 2 years ago, it was ridiculously faceroll easy. I can’t even see the potential for difficulty or challenge in it. You don’t even have to be musically inclined… you just hit the right key when the orb gets to you…

Anyway. I think it’s understandable that Anet wouldn’t realise this might be a massive problem for some players.

Different people enjoy different things.

In past events, the meta has been set up so you can pick and choose to a certain extent – you still have to do the majority of it, but if there’s some minigame that you really aren’t interested in, you can do something else.

This year, we’re required to do EVERYTHING. Have an activity that you hate for a rational or purely subjective reason? Too bad, you have to do it anyway!

…And as soon as you’re doing something not because it’s fun for you but because it’s achievement 11 of 11 and if you don’t do it all your effort on the other 10 is wasted, then it’s grind. This is why people are upset. It doesn’t matter if it’s easy or hard – it’s that not everyone enjoys it, and people are being forced to do it regardless of whether they enjoy it or not.

I’ll make this brief,
The only thing I’ve found enjoyable about this event is the snowball fights, and I don’t even do PvP!

Uh huh…. And the only thing I’ve found enjoyable was the Jumping Puzzle. And Bell Choir. And Toypacalypse. And the decorated Queen’s Pavilion.

I found the bell choir to be more difficult than playing “Through the Fire and Flames” on Guitar Hero.

Uhm… Have you even done Bell Choir? You’re really exaggerating.

Just go in for 2 minutes and do 1 round. If you don win, then stick around for 5 minutes until the game resets and gives you an easy one. That is all you do.

And surviving the toys? Have fun with that; it’s a joke of a dungeon. Might as well have put Scarlet back in Lions Arch.

Tixx’s Infirnarium is the seasonal dungeon. What is your point? Some players enjoy it.

Same with Toypocalypse, even more so, since it’s a fun Tower Defense-style game.

My point here is that seasonal events should be a moment for players to refresh, loosen up, and take a nice break from all the heavy grinding they do on a daily basis.

Which is exactly what it is…

Not for them to sit hour upon hour trying to perfect something in a trial-and-error way. That’s ridiculous.

Uhm… What are you talking about?

ANet, seriously take a moment and FOR ONCE make your leisure content…leisurely.

What is not leisurely about the content?

Otherwise your Wintersday will continue to be confined to a winters day for people like me; one day. Thats it. A day.

And Winters Day will be confined to a Winters days for people like me; many days. That’s right. Many days.

Good day.

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

Just no. The Bell Choir is still hard. I’ve gone as far as doing everything you said before you even suggested it, and it was still ridiculously hard. There’s just no reason for it.

Aren’t you being being a bit melodramatic? Don’t know how much easier ANet could make it, given the circumstances, unless you just stood there and the game did the work for you.

What would you suggest be changed to make it even easier?

With you OP. This event is boring and frustrating as hell. I’d forgotten just how bad it was – clearly every year I must just log-out in disgust, then get so drunk over Xmas that any brain cells holding memory of this abomination are killed off.

Then the following year, I remember how great Wintersday was in GW1 and start looking forward to it again.

To top it all off this year, I can’t even do the small amount of new content, because they’ve disabled it.

Am I misreading something? Because to me it looks like the achievements are exactly the same as they were last year.

I’m looking at the ‘A Very Merry Wintersday’ list under Historical achievements and they all look the same: kill 100 toys, play 500 correct notes, survive 50 waves of Toypocalypse etc. The only difference is you have to do 11 achievements for the meta instead of 20.

And I didn’t find it that time consuming. I didn’t time myself but including time spent afk, sorting my inventory, chatting etc. it took me about 10-12 hours over 4 days to complete all 11 achievements. Well, to be totally honest I haven’t done it yet because I delayed the last 2 donations to Ho-ho-tron since they also count for the daily achievements. But if I hadn’t made that choice I could have completed the meta achievement 4 days after the festival started, only playing 2-3 hours a night.

Ayrilana.1396:

Grind? You mean the infinite achievements?

these are a total nightmare imo ..

to get max AP for Snowball Mayhem Participant, you only have to play it a 150 times

thats just.. no

Danikat.8537:

Am I misreading something? Because to me it looks like the achievements are exactly the same as they were last year.

They can’t be the same, because people never complained last year about this . . .

. . . I’m sure there were no complaints about it. Ever. Not even one.

guardiaN.1640:

Ayrilana.1396:

Grind? You mean the infinite achievements?

these are a total nightmare imo ..

to get max AP for Snowball Mayhem Participant, you only have to play it a 150 times

thats just.. no

And for funsies, count up how many things need to salvage to max for that: Salvage Master (500) + Agent of Entropy 125 times (125 × 200) = 25500 salvages.

Then there’s Yakslapper

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

guardiaN.1640:

Ayrilana.1396:

Grind? You mean the infinite achievements?

these are a total nightmare imo ..

to get max AP for Snowball Mayhem Participant, you only have to play it a 150 times

thats just.. no

And for funsies, count up how many things need to salvage to max for that: Salvage Master (500) + Agent of Entropy 125 times (125 × 200) = 25500 salvages.

Then there’s Yakslapper

i dont mind em tbh .. as they are not temporary – and especially not over christmas :V

Danikat.8537:

Am I misreading something? Because to me it looks like the achievements are exactly the same as they were last year.

I’m looking at the ‘A Very Merry Wintersday’ list under Historical achievements and they all look the same: kill 100 toys, play 500 correct notes, survive 50 waves of Toypocalypse etc. The only difference is you have to do 11 achievements for the meta instead of 20.

And I didn’t find it that time consuming. I didn’t time myself but including time spent afk, sorting my inventory, chatting etc. it took me about 10-12 hours over 4 days to complete all 11 achievements. Well, to be totally honest I haven’t done it yet because I delayed the last 2 donations to Ho-ho-tron since they also count for the daily achievements. But if I hadn’t made that choice I could have completed the meta achievement 4 days after the festival started, only playing 2-3 hours a night.

Last year, Wintersday dailies counted, and you only needed to do 3 of them per day to complete the daily, so you could choose what you wanted to do. I think there were also some achievements that counted for the meta that don’t exist this year (all of this year’s were carried from last year, but I remember there being some that haven’t).

This year, you have 11 things you need to do for the meta, and 11 choices of things to do to fill out that checklist. Don’t like any of them? Tough luck. Have some bug that’s preventing you from even attempting one of them, like I’m finding with being booted back to DR every time I even attempt to enter the bellchoir instance? Even tougher luck.

Wait. Are we talking about the repeatable, infinite, achievement that is completely optional or the needed one for the Wintersday completion. Because if this thread is to complain about the optional one, because you want the points, there’s a reason it’s not a walk in the park.

Please tell me all these threads complaining about the bell choir aren’t because you guys want the ‘extra credit’ achievement points and it takes to long and too much effort.

Seriously?

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Here is a video example of what I’ve described above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCMYgbMphjg

Hope it helps.

During one of the songs played on “easy”, two of the three players shown crashed out before finishing and the person recording came pretty close to dying, so the claim made by some that this is a trivial requirement seems inaccurate.

The problem, especially with requiring this as part of the holiday meta, is that it’s not consistent with GW2’s playstyle. Jumping puzzles, defense events, minidungeons, PvP… Those are all things that are consistent with standard GW2 playstyle, just with a holiday skin and different abilities.

The bell choir is not substantially found anywhere else in game. It’s just a cheap Guitar Hero knockoff with a poor camera angle, random songs and a limited time to practice. I understand ANet wanting to count it towards the holiday meta, but it shouldn’t be required for the holiday meta.

In all honesty, once I realized that it was required, I abandoned my pursuit of the meta. I rarely get any notes correct and getting 500 was probably going to require giving my account to someone else to do it.

I guess saying I got this achievement done just doing dailies flies in the face, but your time, your call. Play what you want.

I hate the jumping puzzle, and not crazy about the snowball fight. Haven’t stepped into either area. But I’m also not bemoaning that fact with thread after thread of complaints either. Missing three or six achievement points isn’t killing me. I got the eleven seasonal achievements done, and they were easy to do. Took less than a day.

In the bigger scheme of things, will it matter in three to five years? Definitely not. So no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. But, again, your game, your call.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Olvendred.3027:

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

Just no. The Bell Choir is still hard. I’ve gone as far as doing everything you said before you even suggested it, and it was still ridiculously hard.

You say this. And other people have been saying it a lot. So I assume that it’s truth and you’re not all trolling. But I honestly can’t understand how you think that. For me, even the first time doing bell choir 2 years ago, it was ridiculously faceroll easy. I can’t even see the potential for difficulty or challenge in it. You don’t even have to be musically inclined… you just hit the right key when the orb gets to you…

Anyway. I think it’s understandable that Anet wouldn’t realise this might be a massive problem for some players.

It’s hard because the game does a very poor job at explaining how to do it. Once people realize how it works, it becomes easy.

How people find this Bell Choir mini-game so difficult is beyond me. Hit the corresponding button when the light is in the blue circle… So hard. So impossible.
You’d think from the complaints here that the lights were moving at literally the speed of light and the game was unplugging your keyboard every time you went to hit a button.
While I guess one persons ‘difficult’ is another persons ‘easy’, my cynicism towards the complaints in these forums being what it is, I am more apt to believe that it’s more forum hyperbole then actual fact.

All that being said, I am sure -some- circumstances can happen which makes the mini-game difficult. Lag is one that comes to mind. But that, and lack of coordination (for whatever reason) on the part of the player, is not Anets fault. Sorry, if you have a bad connection, you shouldn’t expect Anet (or any other company for that matter) to come and upgrade your network.

And last, but certainly not least… if it was /really/ that bloody difficult and impossible to do, then why are their people that have accomplished it? If it is that hard, then logic would dictate that only a select few lucky people should have the achievement. In which case, very few people would be able to accomplish the Wintersday meta…
Which is not what I have been seeing so far from people in game.

Seriously, what do people want? A big fat ‘I WIN!’ button? Sheesh…

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

How people find this Bell Choir mini-game so difficult is beyond me. Hit the corresponding button when the light is in the blue circle… So hard. So impossible.

I tried it the other night and there was something up – all my bell notes were coming out about one second or a half-second delay. And it would change. I failed an easy song because it was always hurting me for missing the note.

I’ll still wind up getting it eventually, but it’s going to take a solid effort of making sure I keep plugging at it.

…so glad I took piano lessons for 10 years. _

I had a hard time with bell choir until someone told me to wait for the note to hit the blue circle. Genius, right? A couple of times, it seemed to glitch and make me miss every note, but for the most part I have an easy time. I definitely agree that the meta should have had a few more options instead of 11 set in stone.

Pipra.7580:

Olvendred.3027:

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

Just no. The Bell Choir is still hard. I’ve gone as far as doing everything you said before you even suggested it, and it was still ridiculously hard.

You say this. And other people have been saying it a lot. So I assume that it’s truth and you’re not all trolling. But I honestly can’t understand how you think that. For me, even the first time doing bell choir 2 years ago, it was ridiculously faceroll easy. I can’t even see the potential for difficulty or challenge in it. You don’t even have to be musically inclined… you just hit the right key when the orb gets to you…

Anyway. I think it’s understandable that Anet wouldn’t realise this might be a massive problem for some players.

It’s hard because the game does a very poor job at explaining how to do it. Once people realize how it works, it becomes easy.

I am not in the least musically inclined and, yes, I agree the explanation on how to do it is bad. You have to hit the right key once the orb gets into the blue circle you are standing in.

I managed it on an ergonomic split keyboard. It was not that easy for me but one trick I used was numbered stickies on my screen as I looked down on the keyboard. Also put your fingers on the 1-4 and 6-9 keys as if you were playing a piano. It made it a LOT easier for me as the orbs were coming down to hit the right keys.

It did take a while to get the timing down right and I died a lot at first but I did get better though I will never see a perfect round. This is something I don’t particularly enjoy but I now feel confident enough to do the daily in this. My hubby tried it and just got frustrated. It definitely is not for everyone and is very frustrating when it is not working for you. I tend to have a mindset that if I try long enough I will figure something out eventually.

Only thing I can say is look at what tips folk have on how to do it and if you can find any videos and try again. Sometimes that next try is the one where you get it.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I guess saying I got this achievement done just doing dailies flies in the face, but your time, your call. Play what you want.

I hate the jumping puzzle, and not crazy about the snowball fight. Haven’t stepped into either area. But I’m also not bemoaning that fact with thread after thread of complaints either. Missing three or six achievement points isn’t killing me. I got the eleven seasonal achievements done, and they were easy to do. Took less than a day.

In the bigger scheme of things, will it matter in three to five years? Definitely not. So no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. But, again, your game, your call.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

This actually expresses part of the problem: With the current achievement list, the snowball fight and the jumping puzzle don’t contribute to the meta. At all. A few activities have been designated as mandatory (infinarium, toypocalypse, the donation and dolyak escort cycle, bells), while others are completely irrelevant.

How would you feel if the arbitrary selection of what counts had been different, and the parts you hate (or simply don’t care for) had been on the “required” list? Because that’s how some people feel about bells.

Now, if there was a snowball related achievement for the meta and a JP-related one, but you could afford to ignore a couple, then people would be able to choose how to go about fulfilling the meta. (And if someone is happy to do ALL of the activities, they can avoid paying the three gold plus silver meta tax.)

Your point is moot. Last year, they were required. And I did them without complaint. In fact, the requirement for the snowball fight was no walk in the park either. And the year before that as far as required achievements? Let’s not even go there. So, your example, was reality. Hated the jumping puzzle, since I’ll admit I stink at that, but I managed to do it.

Point of fact is, none of this is required to begin with. If you choose not to do them, you’re not punished for it. And if you do them, you get something of a reward.

It’s that simple.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Wait. Are we talking about the repeatable, infinite, achievement that is completely optional or the needed one for the Wintersday completion. Because if this thread is to complain about the optional one, because you want the points, there’s a reason it’s not a walk in the park.

This is about the one that is required for Wintersday Completion – “Ringing the Right Notes”

ShinjoNaomi.1896: How people find this Bell Choir mini-game so difficult is beyond me. Hit the corresponding button when the light is in the blue circle… So hard. So impossible.

It is when you literally only have one hand to play with. It is quite easy to accomplish every other feat in this game with ease using a gaming mouse….. Throwing an achievement into the meta that requires two hands and absolute coordination…. Yeah – Unfortunately it is an impossible feat.

Your point is moot. Last year, they were required.

Last year achievements did not require you to complete the Bell Choir in order to achieve Wintersday Completion. I am sure of this because I am looking at the historical log in the Hero Panel.
The point of all this is, they really should have considered throwing in another “optional” achievement in order to achieve Wintersday Completion. Instead, they have made it impossible to get completion for anyone who is literally unable or doesn’t wish to spend hours in the choir.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Your point is moot. Last year, they were required.

Nope. Last year, doing the Wintersday dailies counted towards advancing your meta. This meant people could skip some of the other achievements they didn’t like.

I’m talking about it being required for the Wintersday achievement. Specifically, the Snowball fight which was cited as example of counterpoint. Again, that makes his point moot since the snowball fight was required for the Wintersday (overall) achievement. I remember this, specifically, because I despised it and the requirement to not only win, but carry a present back to base at least X-amount of times and stopping a gift-carrier also X-amount of times. (Gift Stopper)

Edit: I looked at the historical achievements too. The first year has the Wondrous Workshop. This had four tiers for bell choir called Become the Bells. The second year was called A Very Merry which had Ringing the Right notes which required 500 note being played correctly. The exact same as this year.

While I’ll grant you that one could work around that, saying they were not part of the required achievement is misleading since they actually are a part of the choices for the requirement. Obviously. But I’ll agree that this year had no workaround, if that’s your point.

But, as I said earlier, that was also the case for the Jumping puzzle and the snowball fight in year(s) past, but I’ll not rehash that point since I’ve already addressed it.

ourplague.7196:

It is when you literally only have one hand to play with. It is quite easy to accomplish every other feat in this game with ease using a gaming mouse….. Throwing an achievement into the meta that requires two hands and absolute coordination…. Yeah – Unfortunately it is an impossible feat.

I tested this theory of impossibility. For an hour, I played the bell choir one-handed and used only the mouse. I selected the Southeast corner and played the lower melody. I will admit it was much more of a challenge. In the beginning, with easy pieces, I missed a note or two. With medium pieces, three or four. The hard pieces were brutal. I missed more than I can remember, but I did still survive and received a gift box.

After fifteen minutes or so, I had almost all the songs memorized given my previous experience. At that point, I got perfect scores, one-handed with a mouse, on easy and medium pieces. With the harder pieces, I still missed two or three if the notes were at opposite ends.

I suspect, given more time, I could even get those songs perfected. But I trust the point is made.

It was anything but impossible.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I’m talking about it being required for the Wintersday achievement. Specifically, the Snowball fight which was cited as example of counterpoint. Again, that makes his point moot since the snowball fight was required for the Wintersday (overall) achievement. I remember this, specifically, because I despised it and the requirement to not only win, but carry a present back to base at least X-amount of times and stopping a gift-carrier also X-amount of times. (Gift Stopper)

But it wasn’t required. I just checked. I didn’t step foot into the pvp snowball fight at all the second year because I don’t find it fun. Same as how I skip Lunatic Inquisition or the Dragon Ball game during Dragon Bash.

Also, I saw you complaining about today’s dailies regarding fractals. Talk about irony. I’ll quote you regarding that to play devil’s advocate. “Point of fact is, none of this is required to begin with. If you choose not to do them, you’re not punished for it. And if you do them, you get something of a reward. It’s that simple.”

Since you want to go there, I said:

Not crazy about today’s daily. Two of the four, PvE one, are fractuals. . . .

There is a world of difference between saying “I’m not crazy about something” and “This is impossible” or “I’m not doing it because X, Y, Z” or “ANet needs to fix this because I find it annoying.”

And, please note, I did the daily regardless. So, I suggest the next time try to go that route, and take something arbitrary as poor man’s attempt at a personal attack, you best rethink it.

Because all that did was show just how petty and personal you’re taking this discussion.

Keep the topic on point please.

Again, snowball mayhem was part of the choices for the requirement. Don’t know how much clearer I could make that. But, believe me when I tell you, there won’t be any further interaction between us given your ‘attempt’ at discussing me instead of the actual topic.

ourplague.7196:

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

ShinjoNaomi.1896: How people find this Bell Choir mini-game so difficult is beyond me. Hit the corresponding button when the light is in the blue circle… So hard. So impossible.

It is when you literally only have one hand to play with. It is quite easy to accomplish every other feat in this game with ease using a gaming mouse….. Throwing an achievement into the meta that requires two hands and absolute coordination…. Yeah – Unfortunately it is an impossible feat.

For lack of a nicer way of putting this…
If you are playing this game with only one hand (due to a physical impediment,) then that puts you in a minority.
And even then, as Ardenwolfe has pointed out above, it’s not impossible. The point and click method works. Or remapping the 1 through 4 buttons so they are right under 6 through 9, and able to hit with one hand with practice.
Unlike console gamers who are much more limited with their options, PC gamers have a ton more freedom with their keyboard and mouse. If you choose not to take advantage of that, then that is all on you.

I admit, the bell choir frustrated me for a long time. Something that seemed so easy was pretty dang difficult. Well, as I was talking to my guild mates, expressing my frustration, they pointed out how it was really supposed to work. Once I fully understood the mechanics… it is easy as pie. I am not a musician, don’t even play an instrument… but now I understand it, its pretty easy. The glowing ball drops… you follow it and when it reaches the inner circle you are standing on, you hit the note. I had always thought it was reversed, when the ball appeared, hit the note. Once I understood, finished the achievement pretty quickly, in less than 1/8 of the time I had spend being frustrated about it.
As for the other events, they are basically just that events, don’t like or dislike them. Not a big fan of JP so have not finished that one yet.
Overall, I have found this Wintersday pretty tame, but enjoyable.

A quick note (if you’ll excuse the pun) on the bells mini game. If you have a high ping, like me because I live in Australia, you will have to hit the notes a little bit before they enter the central blue circle. So with a ping of 300, hit .3 seconds before. And listening to the music is pointless for us because of that delay.

On the plus side, you’ll probably be enough out with your timing that you’ll ruin it for those with a low ping (lucky so and so’s who don’t know what it’s like in Australia, having to pay more money for a product that doesn’t work as well)

I’m one of those people who has a lot of trouble with the bell choir. I know how it works, but the timing rarely works out right. It would be nice if there was a practice event/place/something so that we could work on getting it right without having to wait forever between attempts. It’s just a time waster to me.

One thing I have found about the Bell Choir is that some find it as easy as breathing, while others see it as difficult as having to explain Schrödinger’s equation to a 5th grader. Those who find it easy are never going to be able to comprehend why anyone would find it difficult, while those who find it insanely difficult will be frustrated to the point of throwing their PC out a window (irony!) and cursing Anet for forcing people to complete this mini-game to complete the Adept Toymaker achievement.

I have played Guild Wars since the launch of GW1 over a decade ago, was the leader of a GW1 guild and sizable alliance, and have been guild leader and active GW2 player since day one. I now have L80 chars of all professions, have completed every dungeon path numerous times, explored every inch of every map (including every JP), and am able to complete L50 fractal runs without breaking a sweat. I mention this not to declare prowess of any kind, but merely to point out that the comments below are from someone who has spent a considerable amount of time playing this game and therefore does not meet the definition of noob.

That said, I personally find the Bell Choir to be FAR from fun, as I am atrociously hideously bad at it. Like so bad that others who watch me attempt it are baffled that someone is even able to suck so badly without intentionally trying to fail. Why I suck so hideously at it is unknown, whether it be because of a complete lack of musical ability, or whether there is some other underlying cognitive limitation when it comes to glowing orbs on musical discs.

Having spoken with many others about this, I know that my difficulty with this mini-game is far from unique. Anet clearly knows that some will have difficulty with this mini-game, hence the announcement at the entrance which touts its predilection for the “musically inclined,” and yet, they chose to make this a REQUIRED activity for the Adept Toymaker achievement rather than giving people credit for the first completion of the repeatable achievements (I still have not seen any reasonable explanation as to why the first completion of the repeatable achievements doesn’t count towards the title – but until we get someone from Anet to actually respond, I guess it will be one of life’s many mysteries).

Ultimately, after many many attempts, all ending in failure (even attempts where I placed numbered Post-It notes on the screen to visualize the number of each of the 8 orb channels), the only way I was able to complete the achievement was to get my wife to tackle it for me. Even though she isn’t a gamer, something in her DNA apparently gave her the ability to better coordinate with the falling orbs, and eventually complete the achievement for me.

With the achievement behind me, I am left to wonder why Anet hasn’t bothered to do a few VERY simple things which could have made this so much more workable for those like me who are Bell Choir challenged. Why not have a lower level of the game with numbers on the wheel so that people can better visualize which orb is on which slat? Why not give more leeway for people to press the button so that the orb doesn’t need to be just past the white line for the key press to count (a tiny leeway for lag would be nice)? Why not allow people to choose between low, mid and upper range songs as they see fit so they can actually get to know the game easier and maybe make them want to get better and then move to something more challenging? Tutorials with lower difficulty are a huge part of multiple other parts of this game, so why not have a lower difficulty/lower reward level for those who have far less than Mozart level key proficiency? Mini-games with multiple levels were used back in GW1 (e.g. Rings of Fortune vs. 9 Rings), so why not here?

One can only hope that Anet will actually listen to comments like those posted on this thread, so that a greater number of people can actually enjoy the special events like Wintersday.

If there was a way to pay someone to do this dratted achive for the meta I would do it in a heartbeat, I can only do the first song – god knows how many games ive done to get to 250, and I still have 250 to go..

I should have videoed myself and sold it for torture purposes.

JET.9471:

Anet clearly knows that some will have difficulty with this mini-game, hence the announcement at the entrance which touts its predilection for the “musically inclined,”

You’re reading far too much into that.

With the achievement behind me, I am left to wonder why Anet hasn’t bothered to do a few VERY simple things which could have made this so much more workable for those like me who are Bell Choir challenged. Why not have a lower level of the game with numbers on the wheel so that people can better visualize which orb is on which slat? Why not give more leeway for people to press the button so that the orb doesn’t need to be just past the white line for the key press to count (a tiny leeway for lag would be nice)? Why not allow people to choose between low, mid and upper range songs as they see fit so they can actually get to know the game easier and maybe make them want to get better and then move to something more challenging? Tutorials with lower difficulty are a huge part of multiple other parts of this game, so why not have a lower difficulty/lower reward level for those who have far less than Mozart level key proficiency? Mini-games with multiple levels were used back in GW1 (e.g. Rings of Fortune vs. 9 Rings), so why not here?

There’s a pretty good amount of leeway, actually. At least that I’ve found. I press groupings of notes differently to notes that come on their own, such that my exact timing per note is quite different, and it still gives me credit.

You can choose between low, middle and upper. That exists.

The game itself is a tutorial. The first couple of songs are easy, with only about 12 notes in the entire song, with large gaps between them. Then there are two medium songs, which are a bit harder, then there are 2 “hard” songs, which are a bit harder yet, but still stop several thousand orders of magnitude below “Mozart key level proficiency.”

i dont see anything grindy in wintersday events..

You can get the whole meta chivements within a few days of normal gameplay (assuming the gameplay you do is wintersday events)

The fact that all of the events are repeatable doesnt make them grindy either.

If you wish to get a boat load of gifts then you will have to grind something over and over and over again. But thats one of the definition of grinding…doing the same thing over and over to get more rewards…

There are plenty of people who didnt get to experience the wintersday event last time so its all quite new for them.

So far ive done the meta achievement, got my wintersday weapon collection up, a mini skritta claws, and ive been doing all daily wintersday achievement within 15minutes or less for the laurels.

Ive also casually pvped (just enough to get all my pvp daily achievements→3-4 games..)
to get the special rebreather from the reward track.

The ONLY thing im FORCING my self to do and to grind is to do at least 2.6 parts of wintersday pvp reward track every day untill wintersday ends. Im doing this so i can get all the minipets.

And i personally dont think playing pvp is grindy since i look at each match as a diferent separate game. And it can be fun to play with your guildmates

Halloween > Winter’s Day

I pretty much agree with the OP.

Halloween had a leisure element along with flexibility which for me added to its enjoy-ability and sense of accomplishment in time spent.

I ran MKL for the reward and FUN. The dailies were casual, I didn’t have to sideline my whole gaming agenda for the day in order to pursue the festival daily requirements.

For Winter’s Day:

Toypocalypse is a mostly awesome event but perhaps overly long with too many stages.

Jumping puzzle…I generally don’t do JP’s that have frustration/aggravation components as part of their design.

The Bell Choir was just of-putting from the start, I just don’t do music or music related puzzles, sorry.

The giant gift wrapped boxes should have been rolled into a daily in some way and also some variety to the encounters as well.

Winter’s Day is way too grindy overall and locks the player into a rigid number of tasks.

Looking forward to the end of the event, gifts sell well on TP though.

Yeah, my main issue with this release is that I can’t understand why Wintersday dailies don’t count toward the meta, and there isn’t even any choice as to what achievements you have to pick up – it has to be all of a predefined set – thought we moved away from those sorts of meta-achievements 2 years ago…

I gave up on the meta when dailies required you to do choir bell or the jumping puzzle – both of which I simply cannot do (And yes I’ve tried – many times).

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Again, snowball mayhem was part of the choices for the requirement. Don’t know how much clearer I could make that. But, believe me when I tell you, there won’t be any further interaction between us given your ‘attempt’ at discussing me instead of the actual topic.

I only ever played snowball mayhem the first year, since I decided I didn’t enjoy it (and yet I enjoy aspect arena, go figure), and I got 2013’s achievement. This is also the first time I ever stepped into bells, and again, I got 2013’s achievement.

I also, incidentally, avoided at least Golden Generosity (I may have got Silver for the Season as part of getting donation-related dailies, but I definitely didn’t have to hand over gold).

If you thought it was required, you missed the alternative options that were available in 2013. 2014 gave no alternatives.

suggestion for wintersday 2015
add daily wintersday things to the dailys like:

pvp: get one reward fro mthe wintersday reward track in pvp

pve: (any of these years cycling through from jp over bell choire etc)

wvw: uhm.. i havnt thought so far… hey what about finish.. its also pvp huh?..well u can add finsih people in wvw with a intersday finsiher uhm… gathering is in wvw but shoul not eb daily!^^ is there a wintersday themed buff food? then maybe something like this? i hope u get the general idea to allow players to leisuerly get the meta reward byactively logging in each day andstill doing.. at least a bit of effort into their areas

if they want more than jsut the meta reward
they can go out of their own comfort zone by themselves okay? thanks

For some of you in the bell choir, it could be that you’ve bugged and for whatever reason you actually can’t play the notes correctly. This happens to me in 2 out of 3 instances. I’ve had to spam-load myself into the chorus every day since launch in order to actually play any notes at all.

I’m not going to lie, I rock at the bell choir. I know it’s not that after getting perfect scores twice in a row I suddenly lost all ability to hit glowy bubbles. There’s a very clear glitch that I can’t reliably reproduce.

And I sympathize with people having a hard time with this activity. Last year it took me 10-15 rounds of abject failure to get the timing down – hint: it’s later than you think it is. Don’t listen to the music because that just throws you off.

If the Wintersday jumping puzzle was required, I would rage quit right along side the rest of you. I suuuuuuuck at jumping puzzles