Now that Wintersday is over, what did you like, and what do you think could be improved?

[killermanjaro.5670]

Sadly I didn't get much time to play during Wintersday this year, but I enjoyed most of what was available (it's only the bell choir that I don't enjoy, I don't even bother if it's a Wintersday daily).

 

The race was a fun addition, the only potential downside I could see with it, was that on one section I think I saw people switching to the griffon and gaining a big speed boost to get quite far ahead. Personally though that didn't bother me, because I could have done the same if I wanted too, and also it doesn't really matter where you finish anyway. Plus it probably takes quite a bit of skill to steer and not miss the checkpoints at speed.

(edit) - Just thinking randomly, it could be quite fun if the game had some races which actually required switching and using all mounts during the same race. (ie a track with sandportals, a water only section for the skimmer etc)

 

The only addition/improvement I could think of, is it would be nice so there's a message top right of the screen saying "next race in x mins", just so you know if ones due to start shortly, or if ones just finished which would give you time to do the jp etc.

[Raizel.8175]

I'm playing GW2 for approx. four months now, so this was my first Wintersday. I quite liked it. There were also some things I didn't like though.

 

Pros:

* Loved the JP. Netted me enough Gold to buy the T3 Cultural Armorskin for Sylvari/Medium.

* Loved Snowball Mayhem. Finally some change having some capture the flag sPvP instead of always capturing points.

* Tixx was also quite good and fun. Was fun painting Skritt into princesses.

* The race was fun; gotta love mount-races in general.

* Shooting random people with snowballs.

No real Cons there, but some stuff that could be improved:

* Toypocalypse was a bit too long, even though it was fun.

* Was kinda sad that it was impossible for me to get Winters Presence due to the Sigil-problem.

* Didn't quite like Bell Choir kinda.

[Lanthun.7251]

I have to say, because it was my second-first time doing Wintersday in a couple years, I had a blast with the event! Only thing I would of liked to have saw is maybe the event being hosted in another major city (or in all of them instead of one). Overall, enjoyed the event dearly, and I will be excited for it yet again at the end of this year. :D

[notebene.3190]

What about doing something more useful with the random packages in the world and the skritt attacks? I seem to recall that was a much bigger deal with the first Wintersday (or two)? Now it's just kinda funny when someone makes skritt attack during Shatterer.

[Bunter.3795]

The one thing I would change is to lower the requirements for some of the bells achievements. I have no problem doing the bell choir but as a person with carpal tunnel in both hands it's extremely painful to complete one or two songs let alone the number of songs and notes for the achievements.

[Catty.3894]

Snowball Mayhem, the jump puzzles, bell choir are what I enjoyed, Toypocalypse was really funny the first 2 times and remained entertaining for me to a degree, though preferred the first 3 in that order. Infinarium and dailies like hitting people with snowballs, the orphans are rather boring. Maybe let me do the "harder" stuff for dailies?

The race is nice, but more interesting the more mounts and masteries you have for them as you can attempt to min max it, I only have the raptor because I did the story only just enough to get it and then resumed my gradual completion, so I expect it'll be more interesting for me to repeat next time.

 

My favorite activity was Snowball Mayhem, but as some other people that know the mode remarked, fighting over the gifts doesn't work out that well. The trademark "carry" in this mode is picking Scout profession, using nr 5 skill to boost movement speed, get swiftness candle if you can/use dodges, and then stealth with 5 right before picking up the gift. Many allies can proceed to stealth you after, and you move very fast. If the enemy doesn't have control of the area, or they don't pay attention for even 3 seconds, the gift is practically lost to them, very unlikely they'll catch up + damage you enough + move the gift from there back to their base with your allies interfering.

I think it's safe to say, most people that love a mode like Snowball Mayhem is for it's pvp, not to spend most of the time carrying a gift just to be sure they get max rewards/wins. This is what the wiki states:

 

> Killing Enemies: Players will earn three points per kill, while their team gains five points.

> Recovering Presents: Players will earn ten points per recovery, while their team gains 100 points.

 

Present is worth 20 kills. Why not make kills worth 15 points, and gifts 45 (3 kills worth)? I'm thinking about it, but I can't imagine in what way it could make things worse. The point gain should remain sameish so games would end at same rate.

[WeedyZeGreedy.8635]

My biggest complaint is the timer in the jp, i don't see the instance is timed when there's no reward in the end, it's just cutting off the run. I tried having the instance right before i could loot the chest. A more reasonable person would probably stand afk when there's 2 mins left on the timer.

 

The reason i only grind jp is because the Bell choir is horrible with instance delay, play whatever you like and a waiting timer for all when any person in the instance is not ready to play

[Lonami.2987]

Bell Choir instances should last 30min, and rotate the sons again and again.

[draconicrose.6213]

Liked:

* Race with option for non-PoF players to rent a mount!

* New achievements in line with the Halloween changes

* New snowflakes!

* Changes to the JP!

 

Disliked:

* Snowflake exhange wasn't fair (though maybe balanced...). If I'd had the opportunity to salvage my snowflakes into the basic ones I'd have millions of the new snowflakes but I got barely enough for two snow diamonds instead. Not fun, I feel like I was punished.

* Toypocalypse still takes forever and continues to not be fun. It's always the same thing, for too long, and the rewards suck.

* Infinirarium is fun, but takes too long as well. No reason to do it more than once because the rewards suck.

* Too many RNG "rewards". Most of the unlockables this year came from some form of RNG or paid in the gem store or in PAID RNG BLC. -.- Add more rewards in like with Halloween with multiple minis, at least one outfit and recipes to unlock.

* We still have PWYL in Bell Choir. Ugh.

[Kal Spiro.9745]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

 

> I haven't asked about Bell Choir, but I will. Both about the possibility of adding new or different songs, and also whether we'd consider dropping the "Play Your Masterpiece" section. I would likely not be able to share the outcome of those discussions, but I can pass along the suggestions! Anyway, here's where I have a question for you: What if the developers feel that it's fair and right for someone to get XX prizes in YY time? In that scenario, simply taking out the PYM would mean that we'd all be getting rewards on a faster schedule that intended, right? So to balance that, would you be content to have the rewards adjusted to accommodate a faster playing schedule? If we earn 18 boxes in 9 minutes, remove PYM, and end up with, say, 12 boxes in 6 minutes, would you be good with that?

 

There is a problem with this scenario. The timing of Bell Choir isn't consistent. If everyone plays sufficiently well on every song and all places remain filled there is no downtime from one song to the next. That means it's already possible to cut out the length of the PYM just by being good.

 

This doesn't even enter in that the Bell Choir doesn't provide a competitive return for time. 18 boxes in 9 minutes doesn't even come close to comparing to 225 in 30 minutes.

 

[Phil.7369]

What I liked:

*3 paths in the jumping puzzle for easy-mode and hardcore-mode. This was great and because of this, I actually sat down and did the JP achievement 5 times for the AP.

*Mount racing and especially the "rent a mount" feature, which promotes POF to new players. Do this the next time in the Mad King's Labyrinth. Really great!

*The snowball slinger daily was really fun! You could stand there for minutes, knocking down people for the lolz. They should expand on this, make a big arena inside Divinity's Reach for snowball slinging or something, this was really fun.

 

What I think could be improved/didn't like:

*The annoying "play your masterpiece" part of Bells, which caused me every single time to enter after the game was finished, then force me to exit and then re-enter. VERY FRUSTRATING!!

*No AP-related achievement for Snowball Mayhem. This is most likely the best minigame of Wintersday and Anet killed it, because there is no reward for playing it. It was deserted. The next time, make sure you put in there a 5x repeatable AP achievement too. Back in 2013 this minigame was insanely full thanks to rewards and it being super fun to play.

*Toypocalypse: 5x30 rounds is a joke... really. This is the most boring and brainless game of the season, basically take hammer, spam 1, build snowmen and catapults, upgrade, gg....

And you ask your players to complete 150 rounds?? I only did 30, and only because it was tied to other achievements. NEVER again did I step in this after the 30 rounds.

*"Donate to progress" events (Hoho-Tron): Unfortunately Anet has still not learned that donate events SUCK and no one touches them after the typical *5 gold=5AP* achievement on their first day. See for example the Skritt donate event on Ember Bay.... Yeah, the one which never completes because it steals your money.

*The junkie Quaggan which likes to torture the player's OCD for AP in exhange for gold. Every single freaking time... Haloween, Wintersday, Dragon Arena, Anniversary... every time this stupid achievement is there and Anet is trying to create a meme out of it even in Reddit. "Oh, feed the poor Quaggan 50000 candies to help it move on... P.S. the Quaggan has some bad habits.."

Not cool and not funny. Remove such cash-grabs from your game they only makes it worse.

 

What else, I guess the last thing is adding a bit more "Wintersday" feeling to the entire GW2 and not just Divinity's Reach. Make every mob, everywhere drop Gifts, decorate a bit every map and not just Divinity's. We all know Anet is biased towards humans and 50% of all stories revolve around human politics and drama/romance, but you squeeze your entire population in this Map, then it lags (obviously) and every year it becomes less fun and more repetitive. "2018- oh it's the Divinity's Reach gathering again... yay!"

I think you should be a bit more creative and spread the event across multiple Cities. Make 5 mount racing events, each in every city for example and add a district-wide event like "Mad King Says" in every city. We have charrs, asuras, norns, sylvaris... but nop! We are stuck for years with the human capital.

 

[Seriously.7953]

1. Bring back snow to Divinity's Reach. I really did not like the lack of snow and the dreary glum look this year.

2. Alter the snowflake paths in the Winter Wonderland JP (angles/locations). Leave the easy path the same so that players who find JPs challenging won't have to learn a new path each year.

3. Add a more difficult version of toypocalypse

[Martnor.1746]

I would love another variant of the mount race. It's pretty much like the adventures in PoF but instead of collecting supplies around the map, you are distributing gifts to kids (or adults as they deserve gifts too) around Divinity's Reach. It gives everybody a chance to play Santa and puts a Christmas twist to the mount races. This could be introduced either as an adventure (time trial) or as an actual race between players.

 

I would love a Secret Santa feature to be introduced too. Where you can gift items to random players. A system that allows you to join a Secret Santa participating lists and then you get allocated a random player. It doesn't have to be a fancy gift. Just a little something although maybe not "Broken Claws" The mere act of receiving a gift is always nice. Especially during Wintersday! Maybe include an option to give out more than one gifts if there are matching number issues.

[Shirlias.8104]

It was like Halloween ( i played only for JP ) but way less fun.

[NeyteriKiyeri.4207]

I really loved the race this year. B) and that there was snowing in big parts where race was.

[Shard.4791]

What I liked:

* Jp update, mostly

* The race was long.

* uhhh.. probably more but it's hard to remember the positives

 

Below is what I disliked in no particular order. Honest feedback. My perspective.

* I got only 2 winter wonderland solo instances. The first one I waited for 8 days.

* The anticipating feeling of the inevitable changes to WW player models. Please no MKCT treatment. It would kill my enjoyment of the only thing I enjoy about the festival.

* Winter Wonderland afk timer was my worst enemy when casually spending my day in WW. Not only does it kick you out of the instance but you also go back to the character selection screen.

* The event was short. Now there's 0 JPs that give rewards anything close to WW. SAB is the next festival jp but there's very limited money making opportunities there.

* Saw 0 devs. As usual. In a time of celebration it would be nice to see people with the anet tag. I suggest giving anet staff free transfers between regions.

* Did the race once and bell choir 0 times. Keybind templates would have made me try the bell choir more than 30 seconds. I'm too lazy to keep changing my keys back and forth. The problem with the race was that as far as I know none of the races still print out the ending time to chat. I'd be more motivated to play it if I had easy way to know how fast I was.

* I wish I would have wanted to speedrun the race. None of the races are competitive, among other flaws, so I didn't want to put myself through it.

* The feeling of emptiness after it was over.

[Westenev.5289]

Personally, I would like to see teams rewarded for "playing their own piece" in bell chior. I think it's fun and quirky when done with the right people, and it would be sad to see it go.

[Daddicus.6128]

Forgot one huge downside to Wintersday: the thievery of our higher-tier snowflakes. Those who followed the direction ANet gave us under the old system (exchange for higher-tiered snowflakes) were deprived of thousands of new snowflakes.