Wintersday Event a Failure with Food Items Removed.

[joevw.1253]

Bags value dropped from 4 Silver and some change, to almost 2 Silver. No one is farming the event, the rewards are boring and the same as every year (which wouldnt be so bad if some farming was viable.) Been here since launch (and GW1 before that,) holiday events were supposed to be OP. ArenaNets tyrannical rampage on anything slightly considered unbalanced is just boring. You have reduced this game to a series of achievements and fashion. Ascended vs legendary gear makes no difference stats wise, events have been nerfed to all hell, expansions are just voice acting packs with one key mechanic. 

Used to be special playing this game during the holidays, really felt like I was doing something I could only do once a year. Now, no point in even showing up. Way to spread the holiday cheer Anet, no one is doing the event but I hope your gem sales are good.

[Randulf.7614]

Whilst I agree removing them is annoying and a stupid decision, it is very much not impacting player attendance. If anything it seems busier nearly two weeks in. Normally hobo toon doesn’t get going at this point and public frosty raids are a no go. Not only are these constant, but the jp and choir are full and finding groups for toypocalypse and infinarium is instant.

Thats EU. Like I said, I dislike their removing the food and want it reversed, but Wintersday is as busy as ever.

[Sobx.1758]

Not really, wintersday gifts price kept going down each year regardless of the food changes. This year it still doesn't seem out of ordinary when compared to the last year/s.

1 hour ago, joevw.1253 said:

no one is doing the event

And that's rather far from my ingame experience, not sure how you concluded that.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[joevw.1253]

why would you do the event when you can farm levi, do some fracs, and just buy gifts? thats what I did, way more efficient. I did the event for a while but just isnt worth it without better rewards.

[Sobx.1758]

4 minutes ago, joevw.1253 said:

why would you do the event when you can farm levi, do some fracs, and just buy gifts? thats what I did, way more efficient. I did the event for a while but just isnt worth it without better rewards.

Because it's seasonal and people clearly like doing it. If you want to do it "your way" (by optimizing gold gain over anything else), you're free to do exactly that, I don't see the issue.

You don't want to do it for whatever reason? Cool. But the claim about players not playing it is just made up.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Randulf.7614]

What has efficiency got to do with the festival? I just want to play the game like most people. If I get a bunch of gifts, bonus!

People are far too worried about optimal routes and ways to farm that it overlooks the core part of playing the game.

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

Tbh it was already a festival event with least players participation.

[Fueki.4753]

22 minutes ago, joevw.1253 said:

why would you do the event when you can farm levi, do some fracs, and just buy gifts?

There's something that's the most important thing in any game. It's called fun.

Many people simply have more fun doing the Jump Puzzle, Bell Choir, Infinirarium, Toypocalypse than they have running the all-year available instances and open world events.

Not everyone thinks only about extrinsic rewards.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Farohna.6247]

1 hour ago, joevw.1253 said:

why would you do the event when you can farm levi, do some fracs, and just buy gifts? thats what I did, way more efficient. I did the event for a while but just isnt worth it without better rewards.

Why farm levi when I can just buy ambergris?  Why do fractals at all?  Because everyone has their own opinion on fun, which is often forgotten for some reason in games.  It's festive, it's once a year for three weeks, and if it isn't of interest to you then don't do it.  

Can't say I see less people than usual, have no difficulties with events that require multiple players like the strike or toypocolypse.  Food is great, and I do wish it was still there, but it's not impacting the festival.  Also I've made a fair coin selling fruitcake that I crafted /shrug.

 

[Debesyla.7102]

2 hours ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

Tbh it was already a festival event with least players participation.

I'm just interested - is that from personal expierence, or is there some gw2efficiency statistic or similar to see? 😮 I wonder which yearly events are the most popular/active 😮 

[Randulf.7614]

2 minutes ago, Debesyla.7102 said:

I'm just interested - is that from personal expierence, or is there some gw2efficiency statistic or similar to see? 😮 I wonder which yearly events are the most popular/active 😮 

Anecdotally Halloween and Wintersday are and always have been the biggest. SAB is probably next along with Queens Jubilee, followed by Dragon Bash and then Lunar New Year at the bottom.

Id be surprised if it was a different order. Halloween and Wintersday tend to have the biggest draws (because they are traditional for so many games), have the most activities, the best atmosphere and keep attention for longer. SAB tends to fizzle out in my experience. Queens Jubilee is an odd one because it’s split over two maps so is a bit of a dark horse, but I doubt it competes with Halloween or Wintersday.

[Cuks.8241]

I dont see how nerfing mindless grind takes away from the game. I would say its the other way around. 

[Teletric.3821]

In all honesty, the consumables are pretty cheap to craft so I don't think it matters very much. Plus, less items in the drop table means the other items have a higher chance to drop now (like the candy canes you need to make those consumables).

It's more cumbersome to get them, sure, but it's not too bad IMO.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

6 hours ago, joevw.1253 said:

why would you do the event

For the 50+ APs? 

[Khisanth.2948]

8 hours ago, joevw.1253 said:

why would you do the event when you can farm levi, do some fracs, and just buy gifts? thats what I did, way more efficient. I did the event for a while but just isnt worth it without better rewards.

Those things have always been more efficient and it is not just group related things.

Even if gifts are 5s each you would need to be getting 400+ just to break even other activities.

5 hours ago, Debesyla.7102 said:

I'm just interested - is that from personal expierence, or is there some gw2efficiency statistic or similar to see? 😮 I wonder which yearly events are the most popular/active 😮 

That is  a tricky question. How do you define participation?

For example I generally do next to nothing for SAB but  I am probably still getting counted in the stats even though I don't consider myself to be participating in it.

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

6 hours ago, Debesyla.7102 said:

I'm just interested - is that from personal expierence, or is there some gw2efficiency statistic or similar to see? 😮 I wonder which yearly events are the most popular/active 😮 

that's my personal opinion, the reason I said least is because there's not much to gain from festival currency exchange. Its fun to participate and lfg groups usually fills up. But the yearly achievement and currency exchange aren't worth it.

 

In my opinion, the Halloween one, the queen's gambit one and new year, are both fun and worth it, along with rewarding achievements.

 

I'd say do all festivals and farm in all, who knows where luck might strike, I got lucky to get ice crystal infusion in wintersdsy once.

[Kate Soulguard.7132]

I am pretty unhappy about the lack of food items in gifts as well. Removing holiday foods from holiday gifts instead of exempting them from research notes was a very stupid decision that exacerbates a very stupid problem. 

That said, I wanted to see whether my righteous anger was represented in the market so I jumped jump over into Spidy to have a quick look at gift price changes over time. 

• Dec 2015: 9.04sp December -> 7.13sp January 1 month-to-month -21.1%
• Dec 2016: [no data] -> 5.89sp Jan 11 m-m [#div/0]%, year-over-year -17.4%
• Dec 2017: 7.80sp Dec -> 4.62 Jan 1 m-m -40.8% y-y -21.6%
• Dec 2018: 9.36sp Dec -> 4.91 Jan 1 m-m -47.5% y-y  +6.3%
• Dec 2019: 7.26 Dec -> 4.85 Jan 1 m-m -33.6% y-y -1.2%
• Dec 2020: 5.94 Dec -> 3.79 Jan 1 m-m -37.4% y-y -22.5%
• Dec 2021: 4.57 Dec -> 3.04 Jan 1 m-m -31.9% y-y -18.4%
• Dec 2022: 3.68 Dec -> 2.63 Dec 23 m-m -28.5% y-y -14.3% (to date)

A couple of asterisks: First, we don't have a January 2023 price to use for our stats this year. Second, I am using an arbitrary rule for my start dates. I just eyeball the starting prices and decide where I think they're stable. The end date is typically January 1st of the next year.

Maths are not my strong suit so I'm sure the statisticians, bean-counters, and sudoku-solvers here on the forum will pick my methodology apart. Who cares, it's Christmas Eve and I've been drinking.b

So I guess to conclude... I don't care anymore. I will ignore all statistical indicators that either fail to support or outright contradict my feelings. I will show solidarity with the OP. Wintersday sucks now. A fart on Thomas Putnam. by April 1st, the anet art department needs to modify all character models to be 20% thinner because they ate 80% less calories from holiday food this year. on the plus side i can work on other roleplay goals for my character since she doesn't need to work on a new year's resolution to lose weight anymore. omg is that a plus? thats totally a plus

Edited December 24, 2022 by Kate Soulguard.7132

[Shuzuru.3651]

10 hours ago, joevw.1253 said:

why would you do the event when you can farm levi, do some fracs, and just buy gifts? thats what I did, way more efficient. I did the event for a while but just isnt worth it without better rewards.

So if you are so into optimizing, when was the last time you did Wintersdays ? 

I mean, if you look at something like Lab farm, the gold/h is around 11 to 13, even before they removed food, wintersdays is no better, from what I remember. 

Most meta farm are often at 30+ gold/h, why are you even farming it last year or the year before? 

 

Also, if you look at the data, you'll see that the trend for the gift is to decrease in price every year, this year is no different on that point. 

[Tukaram.8256]

This post made me go try the festival - I always hated that the boxes were full of useless food.  I logged in, collected a bunch of gifts, opened them... all food & tonics.  What got removed? 

[Ashen.2907]

ANet's cynical nerf of holiday gifts left me disinterested in the holiday as well. Deprived of its sense of celebration it became just another collection of minigames without the cheer and flair of the season (all of this is just from my perspective) so I am skipping it and think less of ANet as a company and of those in positions of leadership within the company as people.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Randulf.7614]

27 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

This post made me go try the festival - I always hated that the boxes were full of useless food.  I logged in, collected a bunch of gifts, opened them... all food & tonics.  What got removed? 

The food. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wintersday_Gift/historical

What got left in were the drinks and candy cane

[LSD.4673]

The other year individual drinks were 90c and over on the tp, and gift bags were over 5s each. Complaining about tp value of rewards is meaningless.

[Moradorin.6217]

I would think the price bumb the gifts normally get will be muted/reduced this time because IMO a big reason they rise in value is due to the things like fruit cake having a steady value year to year because its a useful consumable item. The only things left in the boxes are skins with very limited demand outside the event itself and skins have a steady deminishing value more than the food because they are a once per account unlock vs a per hour consumable.

 

I would guess the infusions value and skins will bumb back up but always in a slowly decliding max value and softening market sort of a way because most vets have a bunch of each if they wanted them cause they are like 80g each now.

[draxynnic.3719]

Personally, I don't see the point in removing them at all. People have already optimised ways to get the price of a research note to under a silver, and even at their lowest the wintersday/holiday food was usually not much under a silver on the trading post. Maybe it would have made research notes a little bit cheaper for the event, but I don't think it's exactly going to ruin the research note economy if they're 60c rather than 90c (or whatever) until the price of Christmas food drops rises above that of svanir potions.

Just feels like a kneejerk reaction to an imagined problem.

[Moradorin.6217]

14 hours ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

This post made me go try the festival - I always hated that the boxes were full of useless food.  I logged in, collected a bunch of gifts, opened them... all food & tonics.  What got removed? 

all the stuff people actually used was removed. IE the MF + gold from kills food, the power, condi and concentration utility consumables.

 

These days I play less but I have a cake for cheap MF food and still have a large stock of fruid cake, icicles, and mint oil or what ever its called. I just miss being able to restock and those drops + the super rare rng gamble fun was what motivated me to collect and open them before. I really am not interested in collecting them JUST for the super rare RNG gamble. That I always have mixed feelings about, at best, anyway.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Moradorin.6217