9th Birthday Disappointment [Merged]

[Zephire.8049]

For many things, veteran players need to remember that they're not the only ones playing the game. That's fine and I don't begrudge new players in the slightest or changes to make the game more accessible to new(er) players. However, birthdays have been the exception to this in the past. Not in stat advantages but in cosmetics such as unique armour, weapon skins, backpacks, and titles. Maybe they're not everyone's thing but it was still nice to get them for if/when you had an idea to use them with. Plus the skins were hidden from the bank so you never had the ones that were locked for another year or several staring at you.

 

This year's birthday, the 9th, breaks with all that, though.

 

There are no unique cosmetics for it.

• Year 3 had a finisher
• Year 4 had the first backpack and a mail carrier
• Year 5 had the first weapons
• Year 6 had the first set of armour
• Year 7 had a chair
• Year 8 had an amulet, infusion, and balloon

And those were on top of the previous years' skin rewards, the boosters etc., and a dye kit.

 

Year 9 only has the dye and you can only choose one of six until next year.

 

The feast is overwritten if you eat any other food thus isn't useful if you do metas or world bosses as you either have your own food or there's ascended feasts. The model also isn't unique as it's the standard dessert tray feast model with the birthday cupcake from the Year 2 Birthday Blaster on top.

 

Even the title (Committed) is the exact same as the title for doing Mursaat Overseer on challenge mode.

 

I get that work on End of Dragons is eating up a lot of time, but would it have been so hard to include anything unique in the 9th birthday gift? Yes the dyes are technically unique but you can only get one, so there's no benefit of having multiple characters that are 9 years old—even the previous years included a dye kit that let you pick from multiple Black Lion exclusive dyes per character birthday. This is only one dye for your account's birthday and there's no option if you don't like saturated colours and, unlike the armour and weapon skins, the birthday show up as locked in the dye panel even though it's impossible to get any more of them until next year.

 

Having your account and your character(s) hit the next anniversary is supposed to be exciting but this year's... wasn't. Even a voucher for something in EoD would have been better than this as it would have been something of (future) substance rather than a feast that has no use unless you never eat food and don't have one of the similar dyes already to one of the exclusive dyes. Oh, and a title that's identical to a raider title so people don't know if you're a raider or have a character that hit 9 years old. (And I can't imagine how raiders feel about one of their CM titles being given out to others who may have never even done the encounter, let alone ever stepped foot in a raid)

 

It honestly seems extremely rushed despite there being years to plan ahead for it with the playerbase's response to IBS: Champtions helping to inform of what to avoid, even if just providing a mae culpa if there were development conflicts involved that affected it.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I personally think that the Cake is a better reward ( when fixed) then the 8y amulet + infusion. 

 

Who needs an asc. Amulet and a karma infusion after 8 years? 

 

But I agree with the rest. Pretty "meh" 

 

 

 

 

[metal chill.8490]

i have to agree, the dyes/title were possibly the biggest disappointments imo.

[Zephire.8049]

4 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I personally think that the Cake is a better reward ( when fixed) then the 8y amulet + infusion. 

 

Who needs an asc. Amulet and a karma infusion after 8 years? 

 

But I agree with the rest. Pretty "meh" 

 

 

 

 

The infusion had a unique aurora aura to it as well. Plus the random fireworks when you unsheathed your weapons or started gliding (though I wasn't a fan of those). And while the karma part of it wasn't impressive, an ascended amulet alone was nice if you have multiple characters that weren't fully decked out in ascended or legendary gear.

 

If you stick to a handful of characters I can see why it would be meh, but as someone with had over 30 characters at the time, it was nice to swap out an exotic amulet on whoever I was doing map completion on at the time.

 

A bit of extra passive karma and stats is better than nothing, which the cake effectively is—I don't see how that would be useful to anyone 9 years in no matter how many or few characters you have when there are so many other options that are on par or better than it ranging from free (feasts others put down) to copper on the trading post. It's just a lot of work for no real.

[The Fear.3865]

First time since 2006 I am so disappointed about my character birthday, even the title is a troll.

[Kronos.3695]

I have to completely agree with you, mainly for the part regarding the character gifts since we're getting less than previous years: 5 shards instead of a dye of your choice on a 9 years old char is a joke honestly.

[arafel.9801]

very disapppointed too,

[Kalocin.5982]

Really was expecting at least something kind of cool, pretty much anything that was kind of unique. What bugs me the most is that the cake doesn't even have 9 candles, like c'mon it's low hanging fruit there at least. Anyway, been playing since launch and between Primordus and this I feel pretty shafted. Your oldest vets are the ones who recommend the game on other forums and social media. I'm not going to show off a cake that's missing four candles

[Gehenna.3625]

Somebody unpacked their 9th birthday present live in the map I was in last night. He linked the items...nobody was impressed.

[Asum.4960]

Yea, the Cake just being a (bugged) 30m version of the 10 minute Birthday Blaster that you can spam anyway, and one of 6 super shiny dyes per account is a bit disappointing. 

For multiple characters, rather than at least more of the dyes it's just the boosters and a bit of karma - meaning for the next 3 Years it looks like Birthday Gifts will just be left over Birthday Weapons + 5 years of 1 Dye as Account Gift, with 2 Birthday Boosters in the character gift. 

 

After the Armors, Chair and Infusion a bit of a let down. 

 

The reuse of the Title is genuinely something though. Even though I don't care much for the Titles, come on Anet.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Asum.4960

[T G.7496]

There is very little that has impressed me at about the development of this game since the so-called templates garbage dropped.

It makes me sad.

But then, I suppose everything has its natural life span, waxes and wanes.

I'm not in the least excited about EoD; I mean... fishing, lel.

The 9th birthday stuff seems par for the course at the moment.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

2 hours ago, Zephire.8049 said:

The infusion had a unique aurora aura to it as well. Plus the random fireworks when you unsheathed your weapons or started gliding (though I wasn't a fan of those). And while the karma part of it wasn't impressive, an ascended amulet alone was nice if you have multiple characters that weren't fully decked out in ascended or legendary gear.

 

If you stick to a handful of characters I can see why it would be meh, but as someone with had over 30 characters at the time, it was nice to swap out an exotic amulet on whoever I was doing map completion on at the time.

 

A bit of extra passive karma and stats is better than nothing, which the cake effectively is—I don't see how that would be useful to anyone 9 years in no matter how many or few characters you have when there are so many other options that are on par or better than it ranging from free (feasts others put down) to copper on the trading post. It's just a lot of work for no real.

 

I can put down the cake for new players. 

It's also a quick and free food effect. 

 

It will definitely see use. 

 

The amulet and enrichment will forever take up a bankslot. 

 

The cake is something unique. 

 

The amulet and enrichment are something that most people already have alot of. 

 

The Aura effect is sadly tied to the enrichment and Karma is not the best choice. 

Edited August 23, 2021 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Ronnie Hu.1694]

this is saddest birthday i ever had. what the
i m so kittening sad

is this the best anet can give for the 9th birthday? u guys dont even put effort into it.
u know how important the birthday present mean to us?

Edited August 23, 2021 by Ronnie Hu.1694

[wheelsonheels.1937]

I am in full agreement with all the above. This has got to be the worst birthday.

And making the dye just one for the account and not per character means that it's going to take us another 6 years before we can get the whole set. 

So choose your dye wisely.

[Phineas Drayke.6381]

Wow. I get it, you are working hard on EoD but Come on Anet!! 

You don't have the time/ressources to desing some new item, than drop a voucher in it... This is just lazy and disappointing. 

[Tiamat.8254]

I've not had mine yet. Did they remove it due to disappointment?

[Flapjackson.1596]

The title being the same as Mursaat Overseer CM is just embarrassing oversight. Change the MO CM title to something more fitting Anet! 

 

It’s also disappointing that the dyes this year are just one and the cake isn’t an ascended food. You could have it be ascended buffs without any prefix modifiers like peppercorn or cilantro and the stats could be slightly lower than regular ascended cele food.

 

If this is where we go on year 9 after year 8, I shudder to think of what year 10 would be!

[Sen.7530]

Not trying to be elitist or something but it's just sad to see veteran having this kind of underwhelming useless stuff. 9 years is a long term commitment for a game. A dye or two and some unique never before seen items wouldn't hurt at all. Instead we are getting what? 20 spirit shards  .. I have tons of that lying around not being used and I am sure I am not the only one.

[Randulf.7614]

Well that’s underwhelming

[Presler.2561]

Yep not to excited about this one, it is kind of a thing to forget this year, when my second char didnt get another dye pack all excitement was gone, shame anet, shame.

 

Nothing special /shrug

[Mik.3401]

I mean the dye is cool but it’s not like - groundbreaking. The title sounds extremely uninspired like someone just wrote it without paying too much attention.

 

it’s funny how little work they sacrifice for presents and how much for gemstore skins

[SeaMonsterGuy.5032]

After last years gift I was really hoping Anet had turned a new leaf and started caring about the player base again. I guess I was wrong. This really was a final straw for me, if EoD doesn't live up to its promises even a little bit, I don't think I can keep supporting this company.

[Pyrin.2741]

Why on earth is the dye only one per account? I happily picked a color expecting to be able to get some other colors on other characters, like has always been the case. I'm so disappointed. It's just a dye. Don't my other characters deserve fun rewards for being 9 years old, too?

[Yggranya.5201]

Why do any of you care? I could concievably make a character as extra storage. It'll eventually be 9 years old and i'll get the birthday rewards for having a naked bank character which i never use for anything else. Free stuff is free.

[Astralporing.1957]

I was actually looking forward to my 9th birthday gift. Then i got it and unpacked it. Something that i fully expected to be a high point of my gaming day ended up to be a massive downer.