Festival of the Four Winds feedback

[Tyger.1637]

The rate of token acquisition I felt was fine. Please don't nerf it.

I had a glut of mats that I got rid of. Next year if the Zephyrites could have a famine so we can do the same for foodstuffs since there is glut of cheap food items clogging the TP. There's loads of cheap veggies that could be purged too like Portebello Mushrooms.

Mounts were welcome. Please don't ban them from areas any more than they have been (the arenas)

The Cliffs are a nice place to chill out. As is the Pavillion in-between fights. If there's unpopulated versions that could be there all-year; I'd love them as hangouts (pipe-dream, I know)

Don't add too many new rewards next year. There's a lot to get for one year and it's ultimately impossible to get all in a single fastival due to the now time-gated favors. Add in that 3 are required for the newer additions; tough choices have to be made.

Kill Drooburt (like for good). He's been getting worse and worse and deserves to be locked up. It's bad enough when it was just candy corn and snowflakes he was after but guzzling a time-gated material is my tipping point for him.

[Ashantara.8731]

The drop rate for super rare items was laughable. Just a single one in over 1,000 boxes, namely a monocle.

[Ok I Did It.2854]

@Ashantara.8731 said:The drop rate for super rare items was laughable. Just a single one in over 1,000 boxes, namely a monocle.

You have way above average drop rate at 1:1000, there are reports that people open 50,000 boxes and got 1 or 2 super rare, it was a massive RNG scam to suck mats right out of the game, and it worked hand over fist, id say Anet could have hand selected the people who where going to get them infusions.

The only good thing to come from this event is the willingness of Anet to use old old content, so there are chances we may see some of Season 1 come back, I know people want the Twisted Marionette event to come back, and it probably should as a world event, season 1 changed the landscape of the game and newer players have no clue.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Ok I Did It.2854 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:The drop rate for super rare items was laughable. Just a

single

one in over 1,000 boxes, namely a monocle.

You have way above average drop rate at 1:1000, there are reports that people open 50,000 boxes and got 1 or 2 super rare, it was a massive RNG scam [...]

Apparently. 50,000 boxes with only 0-2 super rare drops is pretty bad indeed.

[Curunen.8729]

I would like to see the following improvements:

1. More events in Labyrinthine Cliffs - compared with Crown Pavillion which can be reset very quickly by players, Labyrinthine Cliffs in comparison has a couple of races on long timers, a pretty dull treasure hunt and the kind of pointless effigy water balloon event. Sure there are lots of static activities including both griffon courses, the sky crystals, etc, but once you've done these there's nothing much to do in between treasure hunts aside from buy and sell stuff. I'd like to see races be more frequent - at least every hour if not every half an hour. I'd like to see a few more different events - ie dance events on the beach (like that one in the Olmakhan village in Sandswept Isles), an "open world" crab toss style event but similar to the kite event in Dry Top where you're racing against the Inquest - but here it could be maybe against locals or something. Just more variety and interesting events in the map. Maybe an additional way of earning Favour of the Bazaar aside from the daily.

2. Crown Pavillion bosses need to scale more kindly with number of players, otherwise it becomes a ridiculous nonsense of chipping away at a bullet sponge for ages (well tbh this is the general design for pve bosses, but at least they should scale better).

It was a fun distraction though, glad to see it returned and updated with mounts and gliding, and was also a good material sink.

[Moonyeti.3296]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

Lastly, why is a dead person alive? ;)

This one, although minor in the grand sense of things, bugs me the most. I think it is particularly glaring because so many of the other NPC's fill the role of updating us on what they / their culture have been up to since we last saw them, and it was a really nice touch I thought. But along side all of that is a supposedly dead NPC alive with no explanation, it sticks out like a black eye.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Thank you for all your feedback on the recent festival. I intended to make an official feedback thread, but didn't get that set up in time. At this point, all that you've shared here is very helpful, and I will be sure to pass along the link to this thread to the developers, so that they can see your thoughts, suggestions, and general feedback.

Thank you for sharing!

[DutchRiders.2871]

Fun event, my 2 points of critique would be:

-down time at the cliffs

• no rewards for the gauntlet

I do not think the scaling was an issue in organised maps. Perhaps make bronze more easy though, cause bad maps had alot of issues.

[perilisk.1874]

@Zushada.6108 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:P.S. The automatic removal of gambits after each (failed) round is majorly annoying. Reapplying them costs time and you your position in the queue. :angry: (We can remove them at our own will, so why removing them by default?)

It made sense to restrict access when the gauntlet had cash rewards, and some sense when it had gauntlet chances as rewards, but right now there's really not much justification for tickets other than keeping people from trolling by filling up the queue (and why not put it in a separate, low-pop instance anyway?)

[Tyger.1637]

I'd also like to see Zephyr Lanterns added as a reward somewhere as a choice like Seige Decorations are for Skirmish Chests in WvW. Only managed to nab 10 this festival and I'd always like to see more (or maybe add a scribe recipe hunt like was done for Uzolan's Mechanical Orchestra).

[Plautze.6290]

Thank you ANet, for letting some of us witness the Festival of the Four Winds for the first time!I spent more time there than I actually wanted and I don't regret a single second of it. Please make it annual :)(and if you do, make the tokens go into the wallet :p )

Thank you so much!

[starhunter.6015]

I had fun was a blast visiting the cliffs again.

• Did miss the aspect boss fights on the cliffs, I under stand why they where removed. But maybe shift them to the Gauntlet next year ?
• I enjoyed the races on the cliffs but the Gauntlet race I feel needs a lil rework mainly in the pirate zone. Once you get onto the ship it is way to easy to get hung up on pretty much everything.
• Rewards could use a lil boost, mostly got blues an greens.

[ReaverKane.7598]

My Feedback:Festival is awesome, it's one of the best contents in the game since it's inception. But i don't understand some decisions that were made, and i feel were detrimental to the overall quality of the festival:

• Why remove Belcher's Bluff and it's associated achievements? It was a fun pass-time in the game that is now kinda forgotten by most players because it was only introduced in the festival, and i believe you can only get the skills from the festival... So it's kinda harsh for new players.

• Why remove rewards from the Queen's Gauntlet? When it was announced, me, and other people like me, thought now we would have a chance at getting that Chaos of Lyssa recipe. Not only did you take it out of the reward, you pretty much removed the rewards altogether.I ended up not even completing all the achievements in the Gauntlet because i wanted more tokens for rewards, which didn't really drop there. Also completely removes the point to gambits. Basically, you turned the most fun and rewarding part of the old festival into the least rewarding, and "meh" in turns of fun because power creep...I mean gambits do make some fights interesting, but there's no incentive to using them any more.

• Why no achievements for the other Special Tier bosses besides Turai? It just doesn't make any sense.

• Timers were a bit too widespread for the events in the Cliffs. You managed to schedule the whole festival at "crunch time" in a project i was working on, so, having a restricted schedule it felt frustrating to not be able to engage in a lot of things, or even complete dailies.

• Last time there was a festival we didn't have a wallet, or at least not as developed... Maybe it's time to add Tokens and Gauntlet tickets to the wallet?

• Finally why did it end? Seriously? I know you had informed us of a schedule... But if you didn't have anything to replace it with, why not keep it going? For the life of me, i can't think of a single reason why not keep the festival going until you have something new to offer, or the summer ended. Since neither happened, it's just like with everything else in the game lately... The formula is set, and it's just followed, like Arena Net is ran by robots or something...

You could have kept it going, and then cap it off with the anniversary celebrations, and end it then... No.. Just close it, and let players go back to playing that other game they play when GW2 has nothing going on.

[Etria.3642]

Tokens. Wallet.

[Chorne.8195]

I'm a newer player and for one I am so, so happy I got to see this event. In general, I loved it. Only a few things ticked me off but I will go into those things in detail because they would be more helpful than gushing about the things I liked.

Positive Things

• I finally have a use for festival vendors.
• The skins are much better to use with outfits than all the tacky garbage from most holidays, ( especially SAB. ) ( Also please make more skins like that in the future, I find very little incentive with most special events because the rewards just aren't very appealing. This was a breath of fresh air. )\
• In general there seemed like there were more rewards, if only because the festival merchants are essentially S2 merchants.
• This seemed like there was a lot more effort put into it than any other special event I've ever witnessed, which was great. It almost felt like a new living world episode, with the new content and map. It's a bummer it didn't stick around...
• The griffon courses were a blast.
• The map was absolutely AMAZING. I loved all the touches like the boat, band and references and it was in general a blast to explore.
• The majority of the events were really pleasant and entertaining.
• The Boss Blitz was okay. THE FIRST TIME.

Negative Things

• The Boss Blitz achievement was awful. Doing the Boss Blitz once is all I ever want to do it. But TEN TIMES? It became agonizingly repetitive by the third go. It's especially awful since the singular bosses take so long to kill. I could barely finish it in time because eventually I found I had very little incentive to. The amount of SOUL-CRUSHING that it dealt overpowered my desire for the Aspect Gloves. It was time-consuming and it WAS NOT FUN. And this is a video game. It's supposed to be fun. But that. Was not. Fun. By any definition.
• The Crown Pavilion race was agony for multiple reasons. 1) Tremendous lag caused by the massive parties of people there for the Boss Blitz. 2) The sharp turns on the pirate ship. They were made even worse by the aforementioned agonizing lag. 3) Enemies and hazards everywhere. Which would have been fine on any other map, except for the aforementioned lag. 4) To try again, you have to go through the agony of the Boss Blitz all over again. I'm seriously questioning whether the entire event chain was deliberately devised to torture players as much as humanly possible.
• There was no way of tracking which crystals you had. So, when I got hung up on the very last one, I had to look at a video guide and explore the map all over again to search for the singular crystal. In general it was fun but that one, last crystal was a downer.
• My inventory is now flooded by tokens. But please add them to the wallet in a patch before the next FotFF. Because I think the amount of space they are currently taking up will drive me insane by then.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Chorne.8195 said:

Negative Things

• The Boss Blitz achievement was awful.

I agree that it's repetitive, but it isn't even quite as annoying if done correctly (6 Commanders, killing the bosses at once).

• The Crown Pavilion race was agony for multiple reasons. 1) Tremendous lag

I loved the race (my favorite one of the three), but the FPS drops were indeed terrible. It felt like a slideshow at times, and because of it you often got stuck in the spikes in the Centaur section.

• My inventory is now flooded by tokens.

While I agree that a wallet currency would be preferable, I am still curious: Why did you keep tons of tokens instead of spending them?

[Vavume.8065]

The festival was great for AP but nothing else.

[otto.5684]

I think this is currently the best vestifal. Improvements:

Make all currencies go to the wallet.The Gantlet needs better rewards. Once I finished all the bosses once, that was it.The pavilion bosses need improvements (not made easier to be clear).Improve rewards for the bosses.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Others have mentioned it, but I wanted to echo the complaints over QG rewards. The token rewards for defeating each boss daily were nice for those of us who are seeing the festival for the first time. But once you unlock all of the skins, what do you need those tokens for? And what's the deal with gambits? It would have been nice if there were more achievements involving them and worthwhile rewards. But aside from 2 achievements, gambits seem to me like nothing more than a waste of tickets! Why?

If you provide proper incentives for QG and especially the gambit system, more people will participate in the boss blitz as well. Give players a reason to play! Just a thought for next year.

[Mithos.9023]

Seeing my favorite festival return, Bazaar of the four Winds, made me excited. The combination with the gauntlet also added to it, as it gave more options on what to do.But when it comes to the Labyrinth Cliffs I had the feeling that there is far less to do then in the previous time the festival was here. The events have long downtime in between and some of the small events are missing this time. Therefore, the Labyrinth Cliffs felt not as alive as they used to.

When it comes to the other part of the festival, the gauntlet, I had the feeling that boss blitz is a little over tuned. As I had not much time I could not join a bigger organization, I think I haven’t seen one map turn to gold reward because of this.

Last to the gauntlet itself. Here I can’t believe that the setup was not changed from the last time as it has still one crucial flaw: It is a violation of the manifesto. Explicit the rule, you should never have a problem with seeing another player.But when it comes to the gauntlet now somehow every other player becomes a nuisance and steels your playing time. The more players there are the less time you have to experiment with the bosses, as far more time you stand around doing nothing and getting bored. I even have witnessed a huge increase of toxicity as some start to insult and shout at other players to keep the queue short. This is unacceptable in the mmo gw2 is now and has to be changed. You should never compete with other players about play time. Therefore, I advocate the gauntlet is changed. My solution is, that only the first player to arrive gets to stay in the local arena in the same map. Everyone to arrive later should get the option to get ported in a new instance no longer on same map. This would on the one side prevent queues from happening and keep the part where you could watch other players doing their fights.

Therefore thank you for bringing back this festival but it needs some changes desperatly.

[Ashantara.8731]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Others have mentioned it, but I wanted to echo the complaints over QG rewards. The token rewards for defeating each boss daily were nice for those of us who are seeing the festival for the first time. But once you unlock all of the skins, what do you need those tokens for?

Indeed. I used mine on Obsidian Shards.

Unique, exciting rewards for the Queen's Gauntlet would be a sweet inprovement. Would have played it more often had there been such.

[Blocki.4931]

Keep in mind you can put tokens into a bank tab and they will show up at a vendor, so you don't need to carry around 7 stacks of them to buy one of the more expensive skins or if you're still saving up and don't have much inventory space.

[Deimos.4263]

Overall really well done. A few minor points:

1. Drooburt's Ghost must die. Ok he's already dead, maybe Aurene can eat him. Whatever.
2. Festival Tokens need to be put in material storage or wallet.
3. The lag from the huge numbers of people doing Boss Brawl below seems to negatively impact the Queen's Gauntlet fights at times.

[juhani.5361]

I loved, loved, loved the cliffs. I spent a lot of time sightseeing both aboveground and in the water. I took daily boat rides-- so relaxing! The skimmer race, despite the odd choice of music, was probably one of the most chill events I've ever experienced. The crystal hunts were fun. Never got the hang of the dolyak race, but I've never really grokked Drytop either ;) I hope the cliffs come back sans events as a nice little hangout spot for the rest of the year.

I really needed the cliffs after dealing with the Pavilion. The Boss Blitz design and scaling encouraged lots of negativity even when the event had already failed. The Gauntlet fights weren't really my cup of tea, but I did a couple when the daily demanded it. I hated having my fights end up as a public spectacle, and there was little warning when you got transported into the ring. Combined with the darkness, the annoying gauntlet race, and players sniping at each other on the map, the Pavilion was one of the last places I wanted to spend any time.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the festival. I hope it comes back next year with a few Pavilion scaling tweaks and instanced Gauntlet fights.

[sorudo.9054]

it didn't pull me to do anything, some achievements are really easy but beside that i got bored and never looked back.