[Suggestion] Aspect Crystals Scavenger Hunt (Festival of the Four Winds)

I know this is too late for the current Four Winds, but if you ever bring it back, ANet, I was thinking...

Scavenger hunt things are less frustrating (more fun?) when you can track which ones you have and which ones you don't, at least for me. I had a lot of fun doing the Rise and Fall of Kookoochoo flyers, because I could tell which ones I had and which ones I didn't. The Aspect Gatherer (and, to a lesser extent, the Master Aspect Gatherer) were less fun, even following Dulfy's guide (shout-out: Dulfy, you're awesome!), because I couldn't tell which ones I had and which ones I didn't.

So, here's my suggestion. If you ever bring this back, would you consider naming the crystals after people lost in the crash of the Zephyr Sanctum? The tribute marker in the Cliffs lists five people, and I'm sure the writers could come up with more. Just think... instead of searching for Aspect Crystal # 21, we could search for "Amity's Aspect Crystal" and when we find it, it could have that brief phrase: "In memory of Amity, daughter of Squall."

Just a thought! Thank you for all you do! =)

Yea, getting caught in the 1-missing-thing situation with collections is the biggest cause of me avoiding these achievements. Dulfy guides help, but there's only so much they can do and something like this would really help.

I mean, hell, if we can get the helper thing on maps (where you mouse over PoIs and such to get the missing ones on the map to flash for you), why not get something similar to help with collection achieves?

Can you pleeeeeeeeeeeassseee add a numbering system to the Sky Crystals in Labyrinthine Cliffs? Sort of like the Lost Coins & Badges in the Maguuma Wastes? Maybe to the Master Sky Crystals too couldn't hurt, but honestly players would really be able to help each other better find their last few missing Crystals if they were numbered. Other than that, thank you for bringing back this Festival!

I’m missing one.... and I have no idea which. That many badly needs a UI list.

Numbers on the chrystals would be nice. I found nearly all by myself and then had to start looking through Dulfy's list to find the missing one.It was no. 29 on her list, because you don't really see it without knowing where to look. Maybe you are missing this one as well?

Add numbers to crystals.ArenaNet you really wannot know what people saying about you while searching last missing crystal.

It would be helpful. When I was down to three crystals I couldn't find on my own I consulted Dulfy. Fortunately I was able to mark off a number whose locations I recognized so I think I only spot checked six locations before finishing. But that was when my original searching was fresh in my mind.

I do like the sense of exploring required, and the complete lack of aggro in the Cliffs means I don't have external pressure while wandering, but a list would help. I suppose there isn't one because it's a short term event and they didn't want to come up with text clues for each one.

@Auri.1365 said:Numbers on the chrystals would be nice. I found nearly all by myself and then had to start looking through Dulfy's list to find the missing one.It was no. 29 on her list, because you don't really see it without knowing where to look. Maybe you are missing this one as well?

Ugh, Sky Crystal Dulfy29. Ghastly. That was my last one, too.

My last three was 52, 29 and 45. Numbers by Dulfy.

@Auri.1365 said:Numbers on the chrystals would be nice. I found nearly all by myself and then had to start looking through Dulfy's list to find the missing one.It was no. 29 on her list, because you don't really see it without knowing where to look. Maybe you are missing this one as well?

I might have that one. It’s tucked up in a tiny spot where there’s a row of buildings, just past the bridges that are blocked if you don’t have an aspect crystal?

Edit: maybe I don’t have that one. I’ll check it. Thanks.

My last one was 24! The one just under the entrance and hiding in that clutter. I had no idea.

The issue I find it that they sometimes do a numbering system after dulfy does a video and they don't line up ?

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:

@Auri.1365 said:Numbers on the chrystals would be nice. I found nearly all by myself and then had to start looking through Dulfy's list to find the missing one.It was no. 29 on her list, because you don't really see it without knowing where to look. Maybe you are missing this one as well?

And it was that one. Thanks. Got it done. Finally. ?

I normally would have really enjoyed these achievements. I think it was an excellent way to showcase how gliders and mounts have made exploration and movement not only easier, sure, but also much more enjoyable. However, sadly this experience was ruined by the fact that the collection only numbers how many crystals are gathered, but does not detail which crystal has been gathered, like some newer achievements. So instead of exploring the area and grabbing every crystal as I see them and then looking up a guide for any crystal I missed in the end, I'm forced to pause and play Dulfy's video guide and follow along, a process I've always found excruciating. Then, nothing is worse than getting to the end and finding I'm missing one of the 52 crystals, and not knowing which crystal I'm missing, so I have to scrutinize the video crystal by crystal all over again. This system has turned an otherwise enjoyable exploration experience into an utterly excruciating chore.

Sorry, but nobody is forcing you to go the Dulfy route but yourself. The crystals were not always obvious, but none of them was hidden badly enough to make a walkthrough necessary.

I have done the achievements myself with just casually exploring the area, as has my 12 year old daughter and several of my friends. None of us has spent an exorbitant amount of time on the map. Of course there was the point for all of us when we were only missing one or two crystals, but those were easily found by just keeping our eyes open within a day or two of just playing around on the map for dailies and general exploration.

@Rasimir.6239 said:Sorry, but nobody is forcing you to go the Dulfy route but yourself. The crystals were not always obvious, but none of them was hidden badly enough to make a walkthrough necessary.

I would have said that the one Dulfy's guide calls 29 was close to that bad. But it's the only one I used the guide to find. Once I had just one left, and no sufficiently obvious sign of it, I cranked round the numbered guide in the text part of the guide(1), and found that 1-28 were already found, and where's 29? Oh, up there. Jump jump done.

(1) Video guides in general make my eyes bleed and my teeth itch. Sorry, but it's true.

This was the first time I did the achievement without help or a guide (it wasn't exactly the same as 4 and 5 years ago, but was similar). The first two iterations of the festival... the mechanic was the same. The game didn't provide a way to check which ones you had already done in the achievement panel. Worse, the first year (maybe the second?), if you logged out or swapped characters, you couldn't tell which had been completed either. It was simply easier to follow a guide (even if in an inconvenient order) and do them all again to make sure you didn't miss anything. To top it off, waypoints weren't free (and many of us found gold harder to come by) and falling always resulted in death.

In short, we really did walk uphill, both directions and in the snow, to get to school.

I'm not sure why ANet decided to to backwards this year and not provide their own numbering system and tracking guide within the achievement panel. (My guess: it made the UI messier, but I'm not really swayed by that.)

@Drecien.4508 said:The issue I find it that they sometimes do a numbering system after dulfy does a video and they don't line up ?

She'll probably just update her videos if that happens, I wouldn't worry too much. That or just find a Taco overlay for it, those are usually far better than any online guide imo, since you don't have to keep looking back and forth.

@Doodleplex.3752 said:

@Drecien.4508 said:The issue I find it that they sometimes do a numbering system after dulfy does a video and they don't line up ?

Well, she hasn't updated the one for Go for the Gold from before HoT, so I don't think it's likely she'd update any others, either.

I'm not criticizing her for that, though.

@"Doodleplex.3752" said:Can you pleeeeeeeeeeeassseee add a numbering system to the Sky Crystals in Labyrinthine Cliffs? Sort of like the Lost Coins & Badges in the Maguuma Wastes? Maybe to the Master Sky Crystals too couldn't hurt, but honestly players would really be able to help each other better find their last few missing Crystals if they were numbered. Other than that, thank you for bringing back this Festival!

I actually suggested something pretty cool for this here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50565/tentative-suggestion-for-aspect-crystals =)

The poster achv is numbered tho.

I hope that for any such future content, they could go back to rework the achv a little, just number the crystal locations, no clues needed, no need to provide hints for each location unless they really want to.

I was gathering them while running around exploring, intending to use a guide to finish off the balance, only to discover...

@RoseofGilead.8907 said:

@Doodleplex.3752 said:

@Drecien.4508 said:The issue I find it that they sometimes do a numbering system after dulfy does a video and they don't line up ?

I thought I heard she was going to updates those? Eh, either way there's only 52 crystals in one relatively small compact map, relatively easy compared to the 120+ total of the lost coins/badges/golden badges in 2 very large maps. Either way, this is a wait and see what happens next year.

Thanks Gaile! And yeah I saw you running quite a lot in Labyrinth Cliffs. =)

While we are at it with suggestions. Add aspect arena as a daily that can rotate in.