Guild Wars 2

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

When will this be live? I may as well just not do the achievement until then.

if you are gonna reduce the achievement. Atleast 3 o r 4. 1 seems too much

So those of us that busted our butts keeping all 5 alive should have just waited until it was made a gravy train??

The PUG groups I’ve been in for this have been pretty awful. Being able to play and strategize or even utilize basic communication and cooperation skills with my guild mates and friends would make this event more enjoyable for me.

This is all very funny – I went in and realised it was a tower defense style game half way thru the first round, sadly my team lost all the dolyaks by the 2nd round.

Next game, shouted instructions in local chat, ran about like crazy building ballistas around the central platform, and we pulled it off – all 5 dolyaks survied to round 10.

Easy Peasy, and yet people are complaing it’s hard.

Me, I’m still trying to get through the JP after about 6 hours of trying, while others are claiming to have completed on their first few tries.

Horses for courses?

I actually had fun in this dungeon. Took me 3 tries to make it through with 5 dolyaks. But, it should have been designed to allow people to party up for the run. It sucks having to communicate with random strangers through type chat.

Now, if only Anet would make timed jumping puzzles have an easy-mode for us old farts who can’t do mouse-directed movement, but rely on keyboard movement soley.
Please add easy-mode for timed jumping puzzles (you can halved the achievement points for doing it in that mode). The static jumping puzzles I can do taking my time (just broke 4k in achievement points), but there is no hope for the timed ones…sigh.

After 23 tries I landed a group that managed to pull it off – good communication, good teamwork.

I don’t know if I’m just unlucky, but 23 tries to just find a coordinated group that hasn’t lost any yaks isn’t really fun – it was just a lot of hopping in and out and in and out and in and out.

That said I got the achievement the hard way and I would not mind it if people got it easier than I did.

curtegg.5216:

I actually had fun in this dungeon. Took me 3 tries to make it through with 5 dolyaks. But, it should have been designed to allow people to party up for the run. It sucks having to communicate with random strangers through type chat.

Now, if only Anet would make timed jumping puzzles have an easy-mode for us old farts who can’t do mouse-directed movement, but rely on keyboard movement soley.
Please add easy-mode for timed jumping puzzles (you can halved the achievement points for doing it in that mode). The static jumping puzzles I can do taking my time (just broke 4k in achievement points), but there is no hope for the timed ones…sigh.

this page isnt about looking for an easy mode, its about doing activetys like toypacoleps with guildys and friends

To clarify one thing: I think the solution should be allow people to team up with friends/guildies if they want, not make the achievement easier. But since the first option isn’t possible, making the achievement easier is the most accessible solution.

I do believe it is important to voice concerns about things like this – next time around they’ll probably make it possible to join with friends instead of make achievements easier.

Latorn.4209:

Why? Why is having the option for people to play the way they want a bad thing?

The “option” isn’t bad, assuming they keep Pugs and Premades seperate, and keep rewards equal for solo and groups.

But you’ve missed the point completely. Some content is simply not made for you to play with in a pre made group. As a solo player, I’m constantly expected to just live with the fact that much of the game’s content will never give me an option to play my favorite way. While I have no problem with you wanting extra options, it is extra work for the devs to give those options,.

I just find it in bad taste that solo players are often left out of many of the game’s most important content, such as the highest rewarding instances, and even the end of the “personal story” and that seems perfectly ok to group players…. but when things are switched and you have to que for something solo (not even play solo, just que solo) you’re all bent out of shape about it. And then, for you to imply there is hypocrissy on MY PART is just nonsense.

Mizuki Kusanagi.6584:

This is all very funny – I went in and realised it was a tower defense style game half way thru the first round, sadly my team lost all the dolyaks by the 2nd round.

Next game, shouted instructions in local chat, ran about like crazy building ballistas around the central platform, and we pulled it off – all 5 dolyaks survied to round 10.

Easy Peasy, and yet people are complaing it’s hard.

Me, I’m still trying to get through the JP after about 6 hours of trying, while others are claiming to have completed on their first few tries.

Horses for courses?

its not really a case of it being hard.
Firstly, you got lucky if people listened to you, so far the 3 times i’ve ran it, i’ve had someone deliberately pull toxx into the middle to kill the dolyaks (round 8, he had to leave and decided he didn’t want any of us to win) I’ve had people afk and people just building stuff in the middle of no-where

But even that I can deal with, there is just zero reason why they should make a LONG PvE battle that is PuG only. this thing is perfect for playing with friends and guilds. real missed oppertnity

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

Why is this needed? In a pug on my 2nd try I successfully kept all 5 yaks alive. Sure, it takes a few times for people to actually understand what’s going on,….but don’t change it after people can’t get it on their first try in the event’s first day live. Honestly, that’s just giving in to complaints. I know of 3 other guildmates that successfully got it today as well, again all pugged up.

I do not like that I can’t play with friends, nor do I like that I’ll randomly join failed matches (only one Dolyak left, near death). Why not just have it be a normal instance?

The problem here is that they admitted the ‘no party’ was short sighted on their end but since they couldnt enable that option for this event at this time, all they can do is change the achievement itself…

Obviously for future reference I don’t want to see dumbing down challenges but this one in particular I accept mainly because this is a coordination achievement aimed toward a uncoordinated environment.

If I could do this with friends in a party I would re-do this for the fun of it, currently I would just be happy to get the achiev done and leave the horrible PUGs behind. There is simply a thousand other things one can do other than praying every single round for the 4 other random players to have half a brain to know not to draw toxx in the circle, to build and upgrade etc etc

After my umpteenth time where I lost a dolyak at round 7 because someone who had toxx’s aggro drew him to the circle, and having myself spend those 7 rounds arduously preventing exactly that and build and build and build some more, the event just lost all its appeal as it currently is now

just completed this. pretty simple. just kite toxx and rebuild defenses. don’t take too long as things seem to disappear after a while.

Fiontar.4695:

Kagosin.8521:

The event just started, and people act as if everyone is going to understand it straight off the back.

Out of the 5 runs i did, only the first 2 was failed, but after the 3rd+ run we started keeping all 5 alive.

The problem i’m seeing with people on here is lack of patience nor teaching. I get that people are disappointed that they can’t run with their friends and that’s fine. What gets me is people shutting out the idea to run with random people.

I log a lot of hours. My friends have a lot less play time. When they do have time, they want to be able to, shocker, play with their friends! It’s pretty simple. In fact, it was an oft touted design principle. We got level scaling, which does work, but guesting is AWOL and now we get a big holiday event clearly best enjoyed with friends and there is no way to actually play with friends.

You can not tell me that they couldn’t apply a queuing system to this that could keep a party together. They can send party members to the same story instance, the same dungeon instance and the same overflow server for a zone, but they can’t send players to the same activity instance? Sorry, I don’t buy that there would be much programming involved at all.

(BTW, why are activities designed with out this functionality by default? Activities are for fun and people have more fun when they can play with their friends. All group activities should have offered party linking by default. That the obvious functionality is still missing, leading to the issues with this particular event, just shows bad planning).

Back to the game. Guess I have to hope my friends with limited playtime don’t decide to log on during the next hour and not looking forward to explaining to them why we can’t do this together. The game is wonderful, but some nights I have to make excuses for the developers I just shouldn’t have to make…

You know that statement wasn’t meant for those with legit complaints about not having a queue system. It was for some of those that comment about never wanting to socialize with PUGs. On a side note, programming can act in many ways you wouldn’t expect, so it slight annoys me when people say “X thing can be easily programmed”, cause you mess up 1 thing, it can cause a domino effect for something else.

Thing is they never said they could never do it at all, it’s that they can’t do it at this time being.

What I don’t get is why don’t people stick around, since it restarts right then and there when it fails? It refers to my patience line earlier. The 2 that i failed from my earlier example, was cause of people starting to learn it, but by sticking around, you understand how to do things. This is by no means an excuse for what’s put in place, but to me some have to learn how to adapt to current situations, send note to devs, and work around for that moment.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

Really was enjoying the winterfest until the ship arrived in LA. Chest/rewards bugged, short of enough cogs to build my 2nd mini , now this. Bottom line is the lead should have nixed this back at design phase and should never have seen the light of day. Not even going to bother with the final today. Hopefully in few days I can complete the final phase when things get ironed out.

Kagosin.8521:

Fiontar.4695:

Kagosin.8521:

The event just started, and people act as if everyone is going to understand it straight off the back.

Out of the 5 runs i did, only the first 2 was failed, but after the 3rd+ run we started keeping all 5 alive.

The problem i’m seeing with people on here is lack of patience nor teaching. I get that people are disappointed that they can’t run with their friends and that’s fine. What gets me is people shutting out the idea to run with random people.

I log a lot of hours. My friends have a lot less play time. When they do have time, they want to be able to, shocker, play with their friends! It’s pretty simple. In fact, it was an oft touted design principle. We got level scaling, which does work, but guesting is AWOL and now we get a big holiday event clearly best enjoyed with friends and there is no way to actually play with friends.

You can not tell me that they couldn’t apply a queuing system to this that could keep a party together. They can send party members to the same story instance, the same dungeon instance and the same overflow server for a zone, but they can’t send players to the same activity instance? Sorry, I don’t buy that there would be much programming involved at all.

(BTW, why are activities designed with out this functionality by default? Activities are for fun and people have more fun when they can play with their friends. All group activities should have offered party linking by default. That the obvious functionality is still missing, leading to the issues with this particular event, just shows bad planning).

Back to the game. Guess I have to hope my friends with limited playtime don’t decide to log on during the next hour and not looking forward to explaining to them why we can’t do this together. The game is wonderful, but some nights I have to make excuses for the developers I just shouldn’t have to make…

You know that statement wasn’t meant for those with legit complaints about not having a queue system. It was for some of those that comment about never wanting to socialize with PUGs. On a side note, programming can act in many ways you wouldn’t expect, so it slight annoys me when people say “X thing can be easily programmed”, cause you mess up 1 thing, it can cause a domino effect for something else.

Thing is they never said they could never do it at all, it’s that they can’t do it at this time being.

What I don’t get is why don’t people stick around, since it restarts right then and there when it fails? It refers to my patience line earlier. The 2 that i failed from my earlier example, was cause of people starting to learn it, but by sticking around, you understand how to do things. This is by no means an excuse for what’s put in place, but to me some have to learn how to adapt to current situations, send note to devs, and work around for that moment.

Sorry, hope you didn’t think my ire was directed at you. I had no problem doing this with pugs. 4/5 first try, as soon as the event went live and an easy 5/5 on the second run with a different pug. For me it’s the decision to separate people who want to play together that is frustrating and actually contrary to the stress they put on the game removing obstacles for people who know each other to play the game together.

I realize now that with us so close to Christmas, we probably could not expect a fast turn around on this issue. That just makes me more frustrated with the developers who obviously anticipated the issue, but chose not to do anything about it when they could have done so.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

I think everyone here gets that you guys are not perfect. However we keep seeing things such as this and it really makes us raise our eyebrows at your internal testing. Do the people testing it realize that it needs to be viewed not from a developer standpoint but instead the viewpoint of random guy/gal A out in the game world you created with THOUSANDS of others also trying to do the same thing along with them.

Take the Karka event it was buggy as all could get out and many people right ‘n’ left were getting booted right at the end with no way back in where they were left off.

~Why is there no timer at all at least 3-5 minutes of an idle character giving them that tiny window to get back in? Why must every DC result in being booted from your activity without a single way to hop right back on the saddle.

~Why was the scaling system on the amount of mobs needed to be killed not taken into account with the maximum amount of players? This just seems like a given so a hard cap could be set in so an event still remains fun not just challenging.

~Why couldn’t the mega-karka event appear three times maybe that day or at the very least during something such as prime time when a majority of us are not at work? Thus still pretty much fitting the one off call. You do not have to make stuff like the lighthouse knockout a multiple time thing but at least maybe the reward things but ONLY during that day or time frame.

~Why does every server have to have the event go off at the same time? Why can’t these events go off during their time zones proper hour so everyone gets a fair shot?

Halloween also kinda fell into this but in different ways so does Wintersday. People may have complained about the Clock tower but it was purely optional. You needed to stick to your guns and keep that level of hard jumping puzzles around. It didn’t give any special gear to do it. Just give people more time with it like you did with the Wintersday puzzle and maybe take race into account when grouping people. As a single Asura with around 7 Norn really stinks as it becomes more about muscle memory and luck then fun ‘n’ skill.

~The skins for Halloween were amazing and giving people the recipes to craft them was a good idea for later in the year. Just drop the mat requirements out of mini-legendary but still keep it harder to craft. Also put it up in the gem store for X amount of time during the holiday giving people every option to get the item during the holiday Should they not with all those options? Tough cookie!

~Keep the quality differences in the skins the same. During Halloween each skin was amazing in that it stood out from the others. Especially the chainsaw yet all the Wintersday skins are pretty much exactly the same. I know keeping them all the same makes quote -everyone happy- but in truth it makes us all clones and hampers your creative juices.

(This one is rather long.) ~RNG has it places out in the world during year round things and with things that are not soulbound/account bound. It does not however make anyone happy to be denied any fair shot at all with the pets like with your Wintersday boxes just because you want to cater to the whales.

Which do not lie that is what it is really about super greed in burst profits instead of steady long term. You had it right with Halloween in letting us get 3 pets for X amount of gems. You even made it so people could combine pets to get another cool pet from that box. It was also at a price that didn’t make you feel ripped off as you got THREE pets. Wintersday hits and you make each toy cost the same as 3 pets gotten during Halloween for a single! Then you cater to the whales by putting even more in a bloody pets in a RNG box.

It’s like you want your loyal fans to stinking quit just so you can make a quick flash buck. That is how that makes me and everyone I’ve talked to feel. It makes me look at you instead of a developer trying to change things for the better but instead a gaming copy of COMCAST. That or yet another terrible Korean (Well aware of your parent corp) company catering to addict Asians that never leave their kitten homes instead of the rest of the bloody world. This is how they treat their kitten customers! Be more Valve less EA/Ncsoft. That or become as irrelevant as SquareEnix in the western market when people get tired of the same abuse.

I do not understand why as an MMORPG you lack things at release such as group play for this holiday event. You said it yourself that MMORPG’s are social games that should bring people together. Not make us bitter to see them because our friends are forced away from us.

Oh.. and maybe as a teenager I’d be okay with waiting a year to get other pets just by waiting on the passage of time. However now I’m an adult and you know what? I’m sick arbitrary limits in games trying to make me stick with them for years for minor rewards.

Oh.. and maybe as a teenager I’d be okay with waiting a year to get other pets just by waiting on the passage of time. However now I’m an adult and you know what? I’m sick arbitrary limits in games trying to make me stick with them for years for minor rewards.I’ve grown up and out of it. You people need to stop pulling that crap. All of you mmorpg people.

Kagosin.8521:

What I don’t get is why don’t people stick around, since it restarts right then and there when it fails? It refers to my patience line earlier. The 2 that i failed from my earlier example, was cause of people starting to learn it, but by sticking around, you understand how to do things. This is by no means an excuse for what’s put in place, but to me some have to learn how to adapt to current situations, send note to devs, and work around for that moment.

Oh I can answer that one – it’s because the achievement is for keeping 5 yaks alive that I didn’t stick around whenever a yak died. I wanted the achievement, not completion, and less than 5 yaks alive wouldn’t give me what I wanted, so I instance-hopped whenever a yak went down.

To put this into perspective, these take about 30-50 minutes a run depending on your group. I instance-hopped 23 times total until I finally got a group that did it. If I had stuck around that’d take me anywhere from half a day to a whole day. I indeed don’t have that kind of patience.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

Been over 8 hours any idea on an eta?

I would have vastly preferred a dungeon-style Toypocalypse to the hot-join style. I have had people coming and going, I’ve joined one with only 2 dolyaks alive and 1 other person in the party, I’ve had pugs just sit there at the entrance and do nothing while I joined in after toys already were attacking the dolyaks, etc.

It’s a bit maddening because joining can just put you in the middle of an already in-progress (and largely failed) event, with people leaving and so it’s basically me just attempting to complete it solo with maybe a pug off shooting something with a gun. I don’t feel as if I had a choice in controlling even being able to join at the very start of the event.

I did this dungeon while waiting on some guild mates to get online. Ran through it twice while still in the dungeon and had different characters show up on the second run. No one I knew but just did the entire thing as support and it went ok.

Would have liked it better if our group could have gotten in together.

I’m pretty disappointed by this and all activities being unable to allow you join as a party. It’s kinda sad when you get your friends together for the holiday event stuff and you can’t even play together. I hope this is something they look into changing. I don’t understand why Toypocalypse wasn’t just a dungeon however, I was expecting a sort of Mad-King instance finale.

It’s a pretty simple tower-defense game concept. It’s well designed, In my opinion.

My pug group just completed “Toypocalypse Canceled” with four people. We hardly even coordinated at all either, just concentrated on building catapults and snowmen early, and continued the rest of the time. I don’t think the nerf is called for, honestly. Take some lessons from the forum thread about it, it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

MithranArkanere.8957:

This activity is horribly designed.

- Enemies take too long to kill and hit too hard. You are there mashing skills like crazy while they have lots of time to kill a dolyak.
- Recovery around the center takes too long.
- Players have to run around all the time gathering stuff.
- You can’t join with parties and coordinate a strategy beforehand.
- Walls are pointless as enemies can go right past them.
- You can’t force enemies into a path.
- You are not given time between waves, not even a timer telling you how much until next wave.

Now, what I am getting?
- Players running around like headless chickens.
- Player standing still doing nothing.
- Players kittening about what you are doing when it doesn’t follow some stupid bad strategy they had in their minds.
- People leaving as soon as one dolyak dies, because they want the achievement.
- Not a snowball’s chance in the Fissure of Woe of getting the last achievement.
- Frustration where there should be fun.

These guys should have checked games like Dungeon Defenders or Orc Must Die before doing this.
- First and most important of all, you should have been allowed to enter in a party.

Couldn’t agree more with this person.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choir, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

I don’t have the slightest clue as of why did you guys thought using that system was a good idea to begin with. It would be nice if you could elaborate on that. Maybe we could start to understand what are the conceptions you have about groups, and community in general. Because I get the message of you guys wanting us to play together as teams, as guilds, but you’re not giving us the right tools to do it and ironically, those tools already exist in the game.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Respectfully, you’re blowing this way out of proportion.

1000x this.

It’s a holiday event. They had a hard deadline. You cannot know how much work this may have required unless you are them.

With my very limited game design/programming experience, “simple” things are rarely actually simple. They already acknowledged that it could be done better. What more can we ask?

So now they will make it easier to get the achievement and those of us who pulled our pants up got down and dirty and coordinated and managed to do the event in a pug will of had a harder go, yet get the same achievement as the people who are not even trying?

It is the first few hrs, you have till Jan, by that time everyone should have a clue how to do it. Yes it is hard, that is the point. We need a new title able to get just by whining on the forums or inworld. Lets call it crybaby and all you need to do is scream for a change cause it is difficult.

I read a guide, some info from people who did it before me so was ready, once in I passed what info I had as quick as I could, we survived and all our doylaks were alive, and very healthy at the end. It was not complicated as long as people knew what to do.

Personally, being able to do activities with my guild mates is the very highest priority. I can put up with content issues and bugs, because we can make our own entertainment and make the most of it.

Very disappointed that this isn’t something we can do together – sounded fun on paper.

I do not believe anyone here is complaining about the difficulty.
At least I did not even try the thing after I saw it had to be played with a PUG.

Raincrow.1840:

Latorn.4209:

Raincrow.1840:

Latorn.4209:

It’s not just one event, it’s the snowball mayhem and choir bell events too, there isn’t much else to Wintersday besides the dungeon; a majority of it is made up of solo activities.

Snowball is not a “solo activity” lol. If anything the event is too much forced grouping.

I agree that Toypocalypse should have allowed groups, as long as balance wasn’t effected….but snowball is perfect as is.

You can join Snowball Mayhem in groups, rather than being randomly assigned team members?

This is what I meant by solo activity, you cannot play it with your friends/guildmates.

A group of random team members is still a group. Just becuase you can’t be with established friends does not mean you’re playing it solo.

Might as well be solo when nobody talks, not even to discuss what we need to do.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

Bull.

Make it a dungeon. Problem solved.
Make it a tournement (it’s using the random PvP systems already). Problem solved.

Changing the achievement is not fixing anyone’s complaints about this. That’s not what people care about. I belive what you’ve done is commonly reffered to as “Cutting off the hand to spite the face”, or “Completely missing the point.”

I think I’m realising that ANet is actually a very immature software house with a great concept and a lot of hype that they’re steadily living down from. I guess I just have to accept that they’ll keep missing the obvious. (Like using a decent bit of forum software rather than (apparrently) rolling their own, so you can’t keep logged in, or the whole ascended fiasco.)

Oh well, I guess I’ll keep playing until my friends realise this too.

Joined twice, both times getting into games that were well underway. Left both times and won’t be bothering again because I don’t intend to spend my time looking at alternating loading screens for LA and Toypocalypse.

Raincrow.1840:

Latorn.4209:

Why? Why is having the option for people to play the way they want a bad thing?

The “option” isn’t bad, assuming they keep Pugs and Premades seperate, and keep rewards equal for solo and groups.

But you’ve missed the point completely. Some content is simply not made for you to play with in a pre made group. As a solo player, I’m constantly expected to just live with the fact that much of the game’s content will never give me an option to play my favorite way. While I have no problem with you wanting extra options, it is extra work for the devs to give those options,.

I just find it in bad taste that solo players are often left out of many of the game’s most important content, such as the highest rewarding instances, and even the end of the “personal story” and that seems perfectly ok to group players…. but when things are switched and you have to que for something solo (not even play solo, just que solo) you’re all bent out of shape about it. And then, for you to imply there is hypocrissy on MY PART is just nonsense.

I think you’re missing the point of the second “M” in MMO.

Illiander.8049:

I think you’re missing the point of the second “M” in MMO.

I think you’re missing something more important than a pointless acronym.

Raincrow.1840:

Illiander.8049:

I think you’re missing the point of the second “M” in MMO.

I think you’re missing something more important than a pointless acronym.

Yeah… no. It’s group content, we should be able to choose our groups. That’s pretty much all there is to it. A big part of playing together is teamwork, or at the very least communication. I imagine people would have much more fun if they could be doing these fun activities with friends. I get that you like to play solo… but most online games are online so that a person can play with another real person – so forgive me if I don’t care about your solo-style all that much, and I don’t see how it’s relevant here. Pre-mades are not an issue here, or in the bell choir. I don’t even have an issue with them in the PvP related activities.

I just want to play with friends and guildies… and every time ArenaNet comes out with these restrictions, players are turning away from the game. There’s not a single person I know that would rather play with pugs than their friends/guildies.

“wah wah, I did it with 5 this isn’t fair!”

You’re being utterly childish. This thread is about the issue of being unable to complete this with an organised group of your choosing, it’s not about how kitten you are about a kitten Wintersday achievement.

Mizuki Kusanagi.6584:

Me, I’m still trying to get through the JP after about 6 hours of trying, while others are claiming to have completed on their first few tries.

Horses for courses?

The difference with the jumping puzzle is that it’s only your own skill that’s stopping you from completing it (I haven’t either btw), whereas with the Toypocalypse it’s often the skill level of the randoms that the broken party system pairs you with.

Raincrow.1840:

Illiander.8049:

I think you’re missing the point of the second “M” in MMO.

I think you’re missing something more important than a pointless acronym.

And if you want to play solo go grab Plants Vs Zombies or something. Don’t come to a game designed to be played with friends and complain that people want to play with friends.

Glad they are changing it…I was is a group for about 20-30 mins and had people in my group just standing there not doing anything then we lost a dolyak.

So it will be team instance? Awesome! It’s impossible to do with random people (well almost). I had a nice try yesterday till Toxx came and was knockbeck back inside center…. 5 sec later we had no def…… Doing this with friends would be not only easier but also much more fun game experience

Northelius.5381:

So it will be team instance? Awesome! It’s impossible to do with random people (well almost). I had a nice try yesterday till Toxx came and was knockbeck back inside center…. 5 sec later we had no def…… Doing this with friends would be not only easier but also much more fun game experience

No, due to the limitations of the sPvP system (or somesuch) it is impossible. They will instead make the achievement very, very easy to get.

It’s not that big of a deal as most make it out to be. We have 5 versions of the dungeon we can do with a party, and one version of it we can’t. Sure, it’s the version with the most potential for fun, but still… Not to mention that it’s all part of brand new content that we’ve been receiving constantly since launch day, for free!

Random people or not it can still be done. The only thing that sux is having the bad luck of getting in groups that have lost dolyaks already.

I have nothing against this matchmaking system. It’s very easy and fast to get in a group at least. In future though such and similar activities should be doable both ways.

You’d be able to choose to go at it with a random group, and with your own team as well.

Also, activities that need longer time to complete should be split up in more fragments, and reward achievements for completing them flawlessly one by one.

So in toypocalypse this would mean: every time all dolyaks would survive a wave, you’d get points toward the achievement. The dead dolyaks would resurrect after each wave, hence starting every wave with a full set.

It would require a bit of balancing but this way people wouldn’t leave only because one died, and it wouldn’t be a problem either if someone had to leave mid game, because it would only have an impact on the current wave.

How about some more constructive criticism instead of only whining?

Amos.8760:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive.

Oh come on.

Do we get anything for having done the achievement the right way? In a complete PUG I got this done in our first full run.

^This. I got it on my second time though (lost one my first time in). All the Achievements for this Wintersday are quite easy, why not have a hard one?

I love this activity in theory. In practice, it’s FAR too long. It takes about an hour to complete one game, and as others have said, you’re working with 4 other random strangers who are probably not talking to you. It would be a lot more fun with friends, and the length might not even be as bad (more like a dungeon).

I think it’s balanced for PUGs, which is nice, although the un-changed achievement is nearly impossible – glad to hear it’s being changed to basically just winning. Overall, it’s probably the weakest event in Wintersday, but that’s still high praise since this is the best event so far!

If Toypocalypse achievement is made easier to obtain, then I must insist that I also receive credit for the jump puzzle achievement, even though I have incredible difficulty completing that.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It does matter. It is one event. Not fifty. It’s not a requirement as far as character progression. There’s no noteworthy reward. As far as never being added, I disagree.

I suspect that this was added in this way for the casuals who returned to the game for the holidays and to see what’s what. So, in a way, it’s to help those without a guild, group, or friends who aren’t playing the game with them.

Yes, you can voice your disappointment. But, please understand just because you dislike something, doesn’t mean it’s game-breaking or a tragedy because it was added.

I know quite a few casuals who are grateful they didn’t have to beg for a group before trying this. And, if this lasts a week or so, the chances of getting group thins quite a bit.

That’s probably another reason for this.

There are PvP systems in the game that allow for a partial group to be finished with randoms. What they have done with Toypocalypse is display incredibly poor and short-sighted game design. Since it is their business to design games this is a rather serious issue. It calls into question the company’s ability to make core decisions such as which system to use to create new content. That’s a pretty basic concept. It isn’t just about one instance in one event — it’s about competency in game design.

Having played Guild Wars 1 I would have sworn that A-Net was one of the best game designers in the world, but this company, as it exists now, isn’t very good at what they do.

Joined 5 games, all had 1-2 Dolyaks alive.