Curse

The Shadow · Jan 02, 2008, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Lemme preface this whole thread by saying that I enjoy the Wintersday event every year. Aside from the "Mad King" and "Chinese New Year" events, this one lasts the longest, and, in my opinion, has the most to offer in the form of quests, random drops, rewards, gifts etc.

But there are some things that irk me just a little (and some solutions offered):

Irk #1 - The lag: Now, I did notice lag in LA as well, but nowhere near the severity of the lag in Kamadan. At one of the events in Kamadan (I believe the 6am event), while the presents were dropping the whole district I was in got lag spiked at over 136K ms ping (no I don't have a screenshot to back that up... probably would have taken me a few minutes to get it anyways). There was no lag during the "shard war" between Dwayna & Grenth, so, I'm assuming that the lag is due to the presents being dropped and the all the movement associated with picking them up.

Solution: If you're going to give out presents already assigned to a given player, why not have the gifts just appear in the players inventory like the hat already does. If you are insistant on dropping gifts, don't drop as many, make them unassigned (first come first serve basis) and have them drop at random locations around the city instead of a specific area. This allows for everyone to have equal opportunities to pick them up (even if they didn't play the 9 rings game).

Irk #2 - Presents dropping where they can't be reached: In Kamadan, they drop on the ledges on either side of where the 9 rings game is played. Being behind the scenery, players can't get access to their gifts.

Solution: Either drop them in players inventory (as stated as a solution to Irk #1), allow a passage through the "scenery" to be able to access that area, or don't allow them to drop up there at all.

Irk #3 - Snowman Summoners: Ok... I'm opening a present and get... a wonderful little top hat that causes a snowman to either pop out of the ground or fall from the sky... cute... funny... but gets old really quick (like after 1). They're just a wasted inventory slot in my opinion. Most of my guildies and I just blow them as we get them just to get rid of them.

Solution #1: Make them useful. If you're gonna give them out, make them do something. You could have them act as a "summoned creature" in explorable areas. They could be summoned and throw snowballs that do 5-10 damage. Or, when they're summoned they cause a 33-66% slowing for 10 seconds in the area where they're summoned. Nothing huge that's gonna change the tide of the battle, but at least give us a reason to want them.

Solution #2: You wanna make it interesting - make it so that they're only useable in town with the slowing feature (stated above) to combat those who are hyped on sugar to boost their speed. That would make running for random present drops somewhat of a PvP minigame.

Irk #4 - Yuletide Tonics: (You could lump transmorgifier tonics in here as well). I have over 20 in my inventory right now and what do they do... nothing of significance. Well, I could look like Bob Newhart from Elf for a while, but what does that do me... uh... nothing. Like the Snowman summoners, they're worthless.

Solution #1: Again... make them useful. You could add another title. Shorten the time that the tonic is active (down to about 5-10 minutes or so), and each minute "in costume" goes toward the title (similar to the way the drunkard title is gained). It could be another multi-level title with levels like: "I like costumes" for level 1 all the way up to "Master of Disguise" at level 5 or so.

Solution #2: Again, shorten the time down to about 5 minutes or so. While an elf, you get a speed boost (probably around 66%) to help combat the slowing effect of snowman summoners. Make people want to be an elf while running around picking up those random drop presents.

Again, all in all, I really like Wintersday (along with the other events like Chinese New Year and the Mad King events). But, I think that implementing some of these changes could go a LONG way to making things more fun.

Zeek Aran · Jan 02, 2008, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Make tonics give sweet tooth points, be harsher on team leavers in snowball, replace eggnog with spiked in ALL collectors.

The costume grind title... no thanks.

Mork from Ork · Jan 02, 2008, 05:10 PM // 17:10

The new snowman dungeons were a lot of fun but were only accessible to people with EotN.

That was a problem because straight to the heart dropped more candy cane shards in a short time than any other quest or activity. I made an easy 40k in a couple of hours off the spiked eggnog from the gifts the shards got me. To me, making a single dungeon so profitable and limiting access to it was rather unbalanced - it was many time faster even than collecting termite legs, roots, etc to turn in for spiked nog.

Either open it to any who could participate in wintersday events or increase the drop rate of shards in the 2 rift quests everyone could access to keep it fair.

Oh, and maybe have the event itself on a different day so all the staff at ANet is not gone when technical issues like lag happen.

leprekan · Jan 02, 2008, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Nothing to change other than ... LAG issues. Being able to actually pick up a present drop with your name on it would have been nice.

Steboy93 · Jan 02, 2008, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Maybe make the finale a bit more interactive like the halloween one was, this one was quite fun but it would be good if there was more things to do like emotes and stuff maybe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeek Aran

Make tonics give sweet tooth points, be harsher on team leavers in snowball, replace eggnog with spiked in ALL collectors.

Agree with all of these.

Anduin · Jan 02, 2008, 05:18 PM // 17:18

I don't get how it has "the most to offer in the form of random drops". All that you get as a drop based on the event, in normal gameplay, are the shards and they barely drop at all. At least Halloween gave loot bags that had something useful in them.

The Shadow · Jan 02, 2008, 05:34 PM // 17:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anduin

I don't get how it has "the most to offer in the form of random drops". All that you get as a drop based on the event, in normal gameplay, are the shards and they barely drop at all. At least Halloween gave loot bags that had something useful in them.

I stated that... aside from Halloween & Chinese New Year... I was basically alluding to the other "events" Anet has hosted in GW; like the Easter event with the golden eggs, the St. Patricks day with the clovers & green ales, or even the "weekend buffs" for scrolls etc. Not saying Wintersday is better, just saying that aside from the other 2 "main events" it has more to offer...

Prowlinger · Jan 02, 2008, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Snowmen Summoners DO have use... (as do Ghost in Boxes)

They will draw the attention of the enemy when used. SO in the heat of battle throw down a Snowman Summoner and the enemy will get confused and target them instead of you. Granted it is only like 2 seconds... this could help tremendously at certain spots when you need to interrupt enemies or draw their attention so you can spike them before they spike you.

Tonics on the other hand... useless.

WinterSnowblind · Jan 02, 2008, 05:43 PM // 17:43

I don't like the snowman idea. They're just a bit of fun, like the fireworks and whatever else we get at other festivals. They're pointless and have no real use, but who cares?

I'm not sure how I feel about the presents. The lag killed the event, but having them spawn right into your inventory completely ruins the point. I think there's more chance of removing them altogether. If there were less AFKers, and more people actually picking up their presents, there wouldn't be a problem. As was said, maybe the event should be changed to be more interactive, like with the Mad king, and only those who actually take part get them?

Ouchie · Jan 02, 2008, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Shadow

Solution: If you're going to give out presents already assigned to a given player, why not have the gifts just appear in the players inventory like the hat already does. If you are insistant on dropping gifts, don't drop as many, make them unassigned (first come first serve basis) and have them drop at random locations around the city instead of a specific area. This allows for everyone to have equal opportunities to pick them up (even if they didn't play the 9 rings game).

Sorry I must disagree - if they go into your inventory then you could afk the whole day to get presents and never actually participate.

They allow you to get the hats that way - but draw the line on the presents which is fair.

Making them unassigned is a horrible idea - the people with the better connections take all the gifts and others get nothing - not to mention age ranges - the fastest on the button gets 100's of gifts and gets rich. The system we have works fine - however this year the lag was sad - the reason being people finished in LA and warped to Kamadan for a 2nd round of gifts giving Kamadan twice the population it anticipated for the event and only 1/2 the districts it needed to spread people out.

Quote:

Irk #2 - Presents dropping where they can't be reached: In Kamadan, they drop on the ledges on either side of where the 9 rings game is played. Being behind the scenery, players can't get access to their gifts.

Solution: Either drop them in players inventory (as stated as a solution to Irk #1), allow a passage through the "scenery" to be able to access that area, or don't allow them to drop up there at all.

Agreed but I have to say it was much better than last year - I only saw a few presents drop up top on the side you can't get to.

Quote:

Irk #3 - Snowman Summoners: Ok... I'm opening a present and get... a wonderful little top hat that causes a snowman to either pop out of the ground or fall from the sky... cute... funny... but gets old really quick (like after 1). They're just a wasted inventory slot in my opinion. Most of my guildies and I just blow them as we get them just to get rid of them.

Solution #1: Make them useful. If you're gonna give them out, make them do something. You could have them act as a "summoned creature" in explorable areas. They could be summoned and throw snowballs that do 5-10 damage. Or, when they're summoned they cause a 33-66% slowing for 10 seconds in the area where they're summoned. Nothing huge that's gonna change the tide of the battle, but at least give us a reason to want them.

Solution #2: You wanna make it interesting - make it so that they're only useable in town with the slowing feature (stated above) to combat those who are hyped on sugar to boost their speed. That would make running for random present drops somewhat of a PvP minigame.

Some people love these - just becuase you don't doesn't mean they should be taken away from people who do. Save a stack and advertize them for sale in July - you'll get some great offers.

Also not everyone wants a PvP mini-game and anet does a great job of not forcing people to PvP or PvE if they don't want to

Quote:

Irk #4 - Yuletide Tonics: (You could lump transmorgifier tonics in here as well). I have over 20 in my inventory right now and what do they do... nothing of significance. Well, I could look like Bob Newhart from Elf for a while, but what does that do me... uh... nothing. Like the Snowman summoners, they're worthless.

Solution #1: Again... make them useful. You could add another title. Shorten the time that the tonic is active (down to about 5-10 minutes or so), and each minute "in costume" goes toward the title (similar to the way the drunkard title is gained). It could be another multi-level title with levels like: "I like costumes" for level 1 all the way up to "Master of Disguise" at level 5 or so.

Solution #2: Again, shorten the time down to about 5 minutes or so. While an elf, you get a speed boost (probably around 66%) to help combat the slowing effect of snowman summoners. Make people want to be an elf while running around picking up those random drop presents.

Although I am always for new titles I have to repeat my answer from IRK 3

Quote:

Again, all in all, I really like Wintersday (along with the other events like Chinese New Year and the Mad King events). But, I think that implementing some of these changes could go a LONG way to making things more fun.

I love Wintersday - the one change I would make would be letting my character keep her hair when she wears the hats.