I am a casual player, and sorry if I made some wrong interpretations.
I do not spend much time on seasonal story-themed events; so, I spare them in this post. But I love open-world events which do not force you to focus kitten the whole event to achieve something (skin, tonic, mini, etc.). Halloween 2014, Wintersday, and then a Chinese-themed new year event. These were the last three events I remember before the devs fully concentrated on HoT and gave up everything else. I can only wish this event was as charming as the former open-world events, but it was a huge disappointment after months of no-event period.
I do not believe Anet staff will ever care all these posts but I want both to criticize this so-called event and will bring my own suggestions one by one.
Criticize: Event duration was unacceptable. Four days, total six lap per day, each lap includes three 30-minutes invasions with a 30-minutes break after each invasion, and an another one-hour break per lap. As being a casual player, I can only interpret this to keep the player online for more hours. But hey, I chose this game to play just because it is casual-friendly, not because it is a grind-fest mmo.
Suggestion: A 15+ days event, not based on invasion-laps. Better yet, these maps can be invaded all the time during the invade and the events can be like toxic-alliance invasions or the “closing the doors” type invasions which we see during Halloween. From time to time a huge boss can spawn which can be killed via a smooth cooperation only. This kind of event can rejuvenate LFG-taxi tool as well.
Criticize: Acquiring the currencies is a pain for both hardcore gamers and the casuals. I am not against new currencies as long as they stack right into the wallet (such as the bandit crests were stacking by 250 before the big patch, it was very annoying and time-consuming). However, the currencies should be easy to acquire. If a merchant pops-up and selling stuff for new currencies, the first thing to take into consideration must be the ways and means of acquiring that currency.
Suggestion: All the monsters in those invaded areas can randomly drop currencies during the event time. Considering these bad-guys are also plants, the plant nodes can give blooms by chance when the player gathers them. The mobs during the active invasion can drop bloom-containing bags. A PvP reward track can be added for the ones who do not like PvE much but have desires for those skins.
Criticize: What is that stacking buff for God’s sake? It does not fit with the GW2 mentality. What I have seen in this game is these kind of buffs are always beneficial for the players. But this buff makes people stressed.
Suggestion: Buff stacks mentality is wrong. But if you want to implement no matter what, it can either be implemented like Silverwastes MF buff, or like Dry Top map-covering buff which can increase the drop rate of blooms and lower the prices of merchants.
Criticize: Event mobs do not give loot, exp, coin, karma, bloom.
Suggestion: It cannot be hard to add a loot table for the mobs. Yes, the events might be some grind-fests and the map will be outnumbered by guardians with their ‘lootsticks’ but everyone loves loot. Plus, if the event lasts for a reasonable number of days, sooner or later everyone will benefit. And this might be a good way to cohere veterans with F2P players too.
Criticize: I do not believe Anet developers play this game regularly with regular accounts. I do not believe they know the game mechanics of the game even they design the game mechanics. I do not believe devs know the GW2 community; their expectations, desires, wishes, etc. I have felt this for a long time but these last 15 days we passed have almost proven it. Even a casual player can see this with the anniversary sale and this failure event.
Suggestion: N/A.