Upcoming Halloween 2018 Discussion (Likes/Dislikes/Events/Speculation)

With the completion of Festival of the Four Winds, I feel like this year has been pretty spectacular for updates to the festival games and events. The next one slated for return is Halloween! Last year we saw the return of Lunatic Inquisition with several changes that made it even more fun. I figured I'd start a topic so that we can discuss what we expect for this year or are hoping to update for, since this will be the second Halloween since PoF and the resolution of Palawa Joko's story line for now.

Here's a small list of things I think would be nice to have return in some way:

1. Personally I've enjoyed all the events but of particular note that I'd like to return are the instanced story missions featuring the Bloody Prince from years ago.
2. As well as an updated version of Reaper's Rumble. (Essentially an old version of stronghold it'd be nice to see this return in some form.)
3. Hallows Fortune Fireworks! The Magic Find boost is always nice but on top of that having an infinite version that doesn't grant Magic Find would be highly enjoyable as well. Last time it was available in 2016
4. Haunted Gramophone! Albeit a lot less useful than many other musical instruments, a return of this in some way would be quite fun. Last time it was available was in 2014.

What would you like returned or changed in some way?

Last year I spent Halloween trying to get my griffon. Hopefully, I can nab some new cosmetics or something(though I'm not holding my breath). Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I'm looking forward to it.

More story, new supernatural creatures introduced?

More doors and unique enemies/bosses in the labyrinth please!

It would be quite interesting to see how Mad King Thorn responds to the current status of Joko.

Less grind and the ability to earn all festival rewards in less than a week without grinding.I'm just tired of grinding for everything in this game and still not getting most of the items.I've played P2W games with better festival rewards acquisitions (less grind, more mini quest, mini dungeons, mini games in general).

i kinda wish some items would be in the vendors after halloween was over i ended up not getting one of the recipes for the lunatic armor sets now i got to wait. some items i can see yeah no put in a vendor after but couple like recipes be nice, heck we can get the pails after halloween why not recipes or some of the other items.

Well it would be nice to get something new but we all know that the festivals will stay in their sorry state for years to come

I'm hoping they don't add yet another insanely expensive Halloween mini pet. Admittedly grinding/buying thousands of candy corn is preferable to gambling for an account bound one with an insane drop-rate (the mini Gwynefyrdd the first year) but it would be nice to have a Halloween where I don't need to do that. It used to be my favourite GW2 holiday, now it's mostly about running the labyrinth and/or spending money.

Other than that I'm hoping we get something about Joko and Mad King Thorn. In GW1 we learned that the two had a long-running feud and after the events of Season 4 it's possible that will be started up again. At the very least I'd expect Thorn to comment on it.

Halloween is one of the best festival, madking clocktower and lunatic inquisitions are awesome as minigames, I like the idea that all ores are candies! Pumpkin to sculpt.. love it!

But here are little suggestions: I noticed at the labyrinth, not far from one of his side that you can see a floating castle pretty much like the one in Kessex Hills, I wonder, why not use him as a jumping puzzle or another minigame like the clocktower? Would be nice to to be able to knock to some few houses to earn candies or a title or anything. Add olmakhans in lion's arch! And why not a kind of ghost house?

It would be nice if this years Halloween would take the most recent story into account, but I doubt it since the festivals are more or less the same every year now. Besides that, I wish ANet would hand out 500+AP again like they did with the FOTFW, but I doubt it, since the high amount of AP with this festival had probably something to do with the , then reasonable, amount of AP given in 2014. I'd like to see Drooburt gone, the pesky little leech is a boring charachter, far worse than HoHo-tron ever was, I don't see a fanbase around him either so I really don't get why ANet has to bring the sorry excuse for a Quaggan along with every festival. "OOOoOOOOoOOOOOO me sooooooo pOooOoooOoOoOr, gibs me dat...". I'd love to see more ingame rewards, but I guess most of the stuff will land on the gemstore. That's about it.

It would be nice to see an increase in AP, though I believe the AP for the repeatable achievements will not be reset. However who knows what kind of achievements they'll give for the yearly event rather than the customs.

I expect nothing will have changed from last year.

@YoukiNeko.6047 said:Less grind and the ability to earn all festival rewards in less than a week without grinding.I'm just tired of grinding for everything in this game and still not getting most of the items.I've played P2W games with better festival rewards acquisitions (less grind, more mini quest, mini dungeons, mini games in general).

Which would result in dead content after the first week and even sooner with subsequent years.

Do you personally need all rewards immediately in order to use or are you do this as a completionist and they’re just one more item to check off?

Clock Tower....nothing more, nothing less. It is really the only thing in the Halloween events that I look forward too. I have essential tremors in my hands, and gauge how I am doing each year by whether or not I can still do this thing.

Looking forward to being able to get the Witch's Outfit (container) and via that access to Feline Familiar - slowly want to collect them all for my home :> Also build up stocks of candy again - sweet tooth :>

With how FOTFW went this year, I'm quite hopeful for some progressing story! Even if it's just some updated dialog between King Thorn and Prince Edrick. After all, I'm pretty sure we all have "BUT I DIED IN THAT BOX" engraved into our brains by now.No matter what they do, Mad King's Day will surely continue to be my favorite festival.

Mad King Thorn and Palawa Joko have a history. I want something to be done about that in the next installment, even if it's just a brief dialogue by the Mad King.

I love Halloween so much ingame and real life so I prepare for it every year starting around March time haha

Some I’d life would be :

• clock tower challenge mode , maybe make it a once a day try , fail and you gotta wait till the next day to try again hahaREWARD: clock tower infusion , gives the swirling debris effect the tower has around your legs

• spooky masks skins ( I know we have some masks but full head ones)

• Tonicsssssssss haha cause I collect them

• a haunted house mini game, a puzzle event with jump scares , cools mechanics like the new fractal has (deep stone)

That’s all I can think of right now so hope abets reads this haha maybe give them ideas xD

This is just me... but having a whole LS style chapter and Side Story event dedicated to a Joko vs Thorn throw down in the mists. The story missions take place in each of the Halloween maps accessed via unstable Fractal portals, mixing Mad Court and Awakened forces, with the players caught in the middle, all racing to get their hands on a set of McGuffins that could let either monarch loose back into Tyria via the Mad Realm. All this culminating in Old LA, near the central statue, recreating the scene from the first year's Halloween, but leading to a Forgeman style battle between Thorn, Joko and a Holographic Shatterer.

While there is a lot of opportunity for A-class story telling on this one, I kind of doubt it would get that much attention put into it. But it stands as a great opportunity to show the strengths of the writers, revisit old locations for posterity, and bring to Core the kind of quality stuff being done in the expansions. Tie off some loose ends, build something that doesn't need absolute continuity with the expansions, and best of all, add another epic fight thats been built up in the background lore, just waiting to happen.

And if anyone even has to ask "why?"

Mad Lab farming is all I need.

It would be pretty fun to see some kind of battle between Joko and Thorn.