f13.net

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/events/halloween-2012

Shadow of the Mad King

Oct 22-31: Halloween + Stuff

The world continues to evolve with new events, jumping puzzles, bosses, mini-dungeons, and achievements appearing across a variety of maps.

 :awesome_for_real:

One of the big four new things is the paid PvP tournaments, because that has all sorts of things to do with cashflow Halloween?

Not that I blame them. Just interesting.

that looks like an interesting jumping puzzle (atleast concept art for one)

(spoilered for size)

Picture made my eyelid start twitching.

Looking forward to this.  Hopefully they'll make it easy to find the seasonal events.

I actually love the jump puzzles, so a new big one will be excellent imo.

In GW1 they were very good about advertising the seasonal events and they were pretty inventive about the things they did.

I hope it's not for high level characters only.

Have you done the jump puzzle in Lion's arch? Bet its going to be like that.

God I hope not. Unless they raise the ceiling height significantly. I don't know how much of that clocktower puzzle is inside of course.

Was there something wrong with the Lion's Arch puzzle? The one in the cave with the pirate ghost, right? The ghost bugged on me a little but I found my way through the maze easy enough.

I had no trouble with it as a giant Norn myself, but I imagine the complaint is camera stuff.

Might be thinking of the one in the ogre cave that leads to a small chest. That one's in a tight cave.

Oh, no, the other one that you need to drop into bucket to start. There were two points where Asurans were probably fine, but Humans and Charr kept hitting their head, and Norn, man, no idea how they got that done. Woulda been less suck if you didn't lose so much progress.

I'm just glad the jump puzzles aren't part of 100%-ing the map. There are a couple i've tried which my sanity would not survive another go at.

Except that one in Dredgehaunt for the POI...

There's one in one of the lower level Charr zones as well.

I think I've only stumbled across maybe three of them. Probably not the bucket one (I play a tall human).

Required? I completed the level 1-15 zone without doing one, but maybe it's in the 15+ whatever-equivalent-to-Kessex-Hills?

I've got what feels like an insane amount of time invested in this game so far, easily double any other video game in general since WoW six years ago. But even though I hit 80 a few nights ago predominantly by 100%ing lower level zones such that I haven't fought a mob above level 70 yet, I still have only 51% of world completion.

And this damned new content will probably set me back 4%!

But whose counting?  :grin:

Two 80s, a 50, assorted alts, 75% completion on my top character and there are still four or five zones I haven't touched.

I expect costumes.  Think they'll be town clothes or actual armor?

Yes, required. It's in Diessa Plateau. It's not bad. I can even do the jumping puzzles on Charr characters as well. I can do the borderlands puzzles first shot!

There's at least one required-for-100% jumping puzzle in Orr as well.

e: none of the required jumping puzzles are hard, btw - some can be a bit long, but they're nothing like the one in that cave with the beams, f'rex (fuck those beams, man)

I tend to think more along the lines of "tedious" than "hard" (which I reserve for the how-the-hell-do-I-do-that moments which are rare). Horizontal beams like Fawcett's Bounty are annoying, especially when you need to refight the mobs again and again. But when other people show up it's not so bad.

The ones I've skipped have been either due to being too low a level to fight the veterans in the middle like Swashbucker's Cove or Demongrub Pits, or because they're way too goddamned annoying for the bullshit non-rewards you get at the end (Chaos Crystal Caverns in Blazeridge).

I've got my list once they've itemized or whatever they need to do give me worthwhile rewards.

Ah thanks good to know. Thinking back I'm now trying to remember if there was a discovery point at the bottom of Urmaug's Secret in Lion's Arch, making that required for 100% as well.

No, there isn't.  The toughest explorable in Lion's Arch is finding the path to the Vista overlooking the main market.

Oh, I found that one easy. It was the POI that you access through the broken sewer grate that got me.

Yea that was my toughest as well. Didn't understand the map levels thing well enough yet at that point :-)

Posted a video promo (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/events/halloween-2012/?utm_source=newsletter_gw2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email_).

Cute. That shoulda been their official launch trailer...

Sounds like if you don't mind spending gems, you can get some cool costumes and minipets.  Also six new weapon skins from Black Lion chests.  Nice!

I've never done a GW event, really interested in seeing how it goes.  Especially the new events.

Black lion chests jumped in prize from 3copper to 25copper within the past couple days, i assume it's because of the new weapon skins.

One guildie bought 250,000 of them. And no I don't want to think how many alts they have.

What you don't want to think is how much he is going to be spending on keys.

He had like 2,000 gold before he had his first 80.

It's pretty sick how much he plays the market.  And how successful he is.

Jesus.

I am terrible for making money in this game, I'm perpetually at or around 3g max.

Same here.

I'm not bad at making money but there is just so much stuff i need i never have enough.

I had a gold and then I turned level 40.

I'm guessing he is assuming the weapon skins are going to be tradeable and worth a ton?

I didn't start getting comfy with money until around 60. Barely could afford tier 2 trait book... at 50. Too much "oh lemme just fill this craft tier with some AH stuff" thinking prior.

They just booted everyone for the Mad King content patch. Looks to be pretty big. So much for starting tonight :-)

I made like 15 gold tonight when the price of omnomberries went through the roof briefly. Bought 250 at 3 silver and sold 200 when it peaked for 10 silver.

The crying over the fact that the items from the Black Lion Lockboxes are actually RARE and your $10 of gems doesn't guarantee one is quite amusing.

OMG this is f*cking great.  Morons spending $50 for keys and not getting costumes is making today a great day at work.  Guess Im having  :popcorn: for lunch

Yea, you are much better off buying that much gold and buying the item you want off the AH.

I had 5 keys sitting in my bank from general collection - I don't buy anything with gems except char slots and bank space (though the Witch costume may change that...) - I opened some chests and got a bunch of the usual crap and another key but the 5th chest contained a Greatsaw Greatsword (http://i.imgur.com/kI3dM.jpg) skin (not my char, I haven't used the skin yet, want to buy a new 2H Sword to use it on). It's... berserk. And the chain animates when it's not stowed on your back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=luDBZf_T9Xg). I guess if I wanted to make a quick lump of gold I could sell it - they're absolutely leaping in price on the BLTC.

Oddly I'm less enamoured with the Scythe skin; I think I'll save up candy corn and buy the lantern staff which looks rather cool and swings even when stowed and I believe also casts an actual pool of light.

Candy corn vendor weapons have a 4 hour time limit in case you didn't know. That staff does look awesome.

It's a legendary lite weapon. So ya, huge investment.  I like it more than bifrost.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/11ygfm/crafting_the_halloween_exotics/

EDIT:
http://www.gw2db.com/items/19759-charged-lodestone-s

FUCK! That's like 170g worth of materials and 20+ hours of running one of the most painful dungeons.

Anyone wanting to buy legal gold gem prices are through the roof this week.

Hmm. Next year I should actually have max level characters for that kind of thing. Except it's probably too high cost for my playstyle. Ah, well. MMO.

Oh, didn't realize those were dungeon tokens. So totally walled off for me. Ah, well, redux.

Oh balls. So I see; either 6s or 250 candy corns for a 4 hour rental of an exotic weapon skin that I in no feasible way will ever be able to afford to make. Damn; I really did fancy 'The Crossing'. Ho hum.

Note: that greatsword skin is going for 40+ gold on the TP.

Which makes me sad, I totally envisioned my pigtailed asura guardian cutting people with it.

That said, my HOM skins from GW1 are already 'special' enough, so I don't feel too bad about the exorbitant prices...

After coming from WoW's holiday fun.  I'm finding it a bit.... disappointing? that I can't get what I want through normal game play.  I use a greatsword on both my characters and at 44g a piece.  Yeah that's not going to happen. Also really like the shield.  Again 24g last night and still more gold than I currently have.

I used my 10 keys and didn't get a single Halloween item.  I must admit this is pissing me off a bit.  I've always been able to get the items that I wanted even if it took a little more farming than usual. I'm ok with 2-3 hours of extra work. But to farm up 88 gold would take far more time than I can invest.

If you opened any chests, there'll be something coming soon according to a CM here (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/halloween/22-Chests-opened-nothing-unique/page/21):
That said, I don't really mind not being able to get all the shiny skins etc (they are just skins, and it's not like I got all the wands/masks/helm/sword/mount from the halloween event in WOW either).

I'd be more annoyed if it was stuff with actually stats over what I currently have, but rare skins are rare - I don't understand being upset because you might not get one. I'm not upset that I won't get a fullset of Arah Heavy Armor and I look at it the same way.

I used my keys last night (8) and opened 12 boxes and got absolutely nothing but boosts and the lame transform potions which I immediately ditched and will probably be used to buy the Halloween stuff  :oh_i_see:

If I had the time, I'd recut the opening 20 minutes of CASINO with GW2.  Credits beginl, car explodes, it's the GW2 login music.  The story would be told about how the gem store works, with extra detail on the Halloween event and chests.  Men in back rooms dumping bags of cash onto tables, etc.  Joe Pesci laughing and talking about the mystic forge.

Nobody HAS to gamble, but they sure do don't they!

edit: mining candy corn is a hoot though.  I figure I'll get the "eat candy corn" monthly, if anything.  I hope they improve holiday events in the future, as this is one area in which WoW completely surpasses them.  Even a non-committal casual such as myself has some crazy rare stuff on some WoW toons from holiday events. 

Yeah, I got some cool things in EQ2 from holiday events and I probably won't get much past the devil horns from this one. It was pretty funny running for an ore node and seeing a giant candy corn. I hate candy corn.

I have about 25 locked chests, and finally got a key drop last night that let me open two chests for the usual crap in chests. I did get one self-res orb thingy, which was cool but not halloweeny.

I've gotten two things from the event so far: Vomiting a giant puke puddle from eating too much candy corn and the book from the find the ghosts quest. I didn't even realize the book had a back graphic until I read the forums. It had such low stats I didn't bother to try to equip it. I held onto it because I thought it might be used in finding part 2 of the story.

The ghost hunt was ok. I'd been all those places before so I was able to figure out the clues. Turned off map chat just to be safe from spoilers. Still, finding the exact ghost spot wasn't hard as it had crowds around it.

The weapon skins have the same super grind as legendaries and it's the same big pile of bullshit. I've never wasted money on slot machines or their random box online equivalents and I just gotta shake my head sadly at the reports of people wasting so much money and getting nothing.

The book is supposed to get better as the event goes on.

It's because people can accept very rare drops, and they can accept once-a-year drops, but combining them feels shitty. It has the effect of making you feel like you wasted all your time when you hit the end of the event and didn't get anything you wanted.

EDIT:

Also yeah the wiki has the start dates for the next 3 'phases' of the event: Oct 26th, 28th, and 31st. Presumably the book upgrades, events, and jumping puzzle come during those.

It would be nice if there were some cues in the world to go look somewhere for something event-related. The only clue I've seen that something is amiss is the giant candy corns. And that tells me exactly nothing. Went back into Divinity's Reach to do some crafting and it looks pretty much like every other day.

Lion's Arch is where all these things will start generally.

I get that from teh intardwebs.

But I've been to Lion's Gate once in two weeks (to gamble with a box of greens, I never win). And since that was sunday night, there's a chance I could miss the event entirely based solely on in-game information. Even an email with an event teaser to breadcrumb to LG.

I noticed teaser stuff in the human newbie area last night as well - there's a master carver pumpkin dude, and an asura researcher who tells you to go to LA. Not sure how widespread it is otherwise.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to use my greatsaw skin or not, but I have decided to hold on to it for a while.  I don't really need the gold right now and while I'm sure the exchange rate for gems is probably going to keep going up, there's nothing in the gem store right now I feel the need to buy.  I do wish I'd not destroyed the potions I've gotten out of chests since the game launched, I'm sure the 15 I did save won't be enough for anything good.

Oh and if you don't want to do the mini jumping puzzle in LA that leads to the cauldron over the mystic forge, you can jump off the boardwalk that leads to the vista above it and land in the cauldron.  It will turn you into a glowing green spider, it doesn't have the greatest costume brawl skills but it does haul ass.

Turned me into a skeleton.

Yeah the costume you get is random.

I've gotten spider every time, so I assumed it was fixed.  Have to try again next time I'm on.

GODDAMMIT. I always ditch those stupid mystery tonics and I, you know, used my boosts last night.

Well I spent $10 and opened five BL chests.  Meh.  I'll wait and see what they do with the Mad King chests, but right now I don't see buying anymore keys. 

I did the book hunt, pretty fun.  Opening doors right now.  Also enjoyed the mini-dungeon, was fun to see folks roll in there full blast and then beg for a rez :)

Mini Dungeon?

Would have thought you'd use Lion's Arch as a travel hub  what with the free travel option.

I don't travel much. I tend to stay in the same area for long periods. Remember, I'm only playing maybe half an hour to an hour a day. There are DE chains longer than my ability to play :)

I was in Queens because I decided to level artifice with my warrior after finding out it makes potions, so I needed low level mats. Just been cruising around harvesting and doing DEs there.

Ya the game designers seem to rarely consider casuals.

Lion's Arch + Overflow = Ezmode Pumpin Carving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WHDuFiOvi4

Which is ironic in what is probably the best casual mmo to date.

honestly, ppl are broken.
saw a guildie run around in ghostly shield... Wall of the Mists.
'bought from AH 30g.'

That's nice, what's the stat?
He links it.

'Wait, it's the same as my wooden shield exotic...why did you-'
'It glows.'
'And- ?'
'It glows...and looks cool.'

 :uhrr:

Same thing in GW1. You could get max-stat items relatively easily (even easier than in GW2), but people still wastedinvested completely ridiculous amounts of money and time into skins that looked cooler: any of the elite armors, some rare weapon skins, etc etc. If you saw someone in full obsidian armor, you knew he was either a super-hardcore player, really good at playing the market (GW1 didn't have a TP, so it was done via 3rd party sites), or bought gold.  :why_so_serious:

I like it, it allows me to concentrate on wvw without needing to grind (endlessly) for better eq.

I think it's an awesome way to do it. As a semi-casual I am decked out in almost total exotic gear. Yeah, I have a more generic look that someone running dungeons, but I'm not behind statswise and that's pretty great.

So I did have enough mystery potions to make a Mad King Chest and ended up with the Scythe skin which I promptly sold on the BLT and now have more gold that I have ever had in the game. Enough to get all my exotic jewels and have a bunch left over.

Curious if the price of the event skins will start to drop now. I debating holding onto the skin, but I needed the cash now.

Karma booster + Monthly reward is awesome. Thanks for that tip.

The first time I mined a candy corn spawn I thought of this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKk_kPmAk4 now I can't get it out of my head.

While I like the way there is access to decent statted gear for 'casual' players (if you have a level 80 character, you're probably not a casual :p), I like to have access to different cool-looking gear but I guess at some point you need to make something the carrot for the hardcore players. But if anything pushes me away from the game, lack of access to the cool skins will be it.

I dunno, the whole halloween event is fucking confusing. I went to Lion's Gate, there was some thing where I got some scanner I couldn't make heads or tails of, then there was a table with people throwing pumpkins, so I did that for a bit but it just seemed random and I kept losing so...my half hour was up and I logged.

Also, I didn't see my boosts in the menu for the mystic forge, I could probably make 4 mad king chests if I could get it working.

There was one of the boosts that didn't work - kill boost or something.

The mail that comes with the scanner tells you exactly what to do. If I can figure it out, it can't be that complicated :p

In general:  There's tons of lower-level good looking gear.  Even the more rare weapon skins are obtainable for pretty cheap.  Transmutation stones mean you can have just about any look you want.

Equipping the scanner takes a piece of candy corn.  You get four uses per equip.  Signal strength tells you if you're near to an active site.  Using one of the four modes will uncover the ghost or a suspicious location.  Suspicious locations can lead to tricks or treats.  Two caveats:  Ghosts are in fixed locations and often up because other people have uncovered them.  Treats are gotten through a chain of suspicious locations.  Very often they can be looted for several bags at once.

Personalized Trick or Treat bags have a higher chance of giving you goodies in the form of rare holiday crafting material, recipes, food, or really rare items.  You get these through the scanner or trading candy corn to kids in costume.

Other things to take note of/try: get into a group or crowd trick or treat farming the haunted doors in Gendarran Fields/Kessex Hills/Queensdale. Not only will it mean you're far more likely to receive credit for the Monster Hunter achevement, you'll also end up with a lot of trick or treat bags, opening which will also lead to an achievement. I got both done within about an hour and a half last night as opposed to the feeble ammounts I'd managed while playing normally the previous nights.

Adding on to the pumpkin carving video above, there are a lot more than that guy finds in Lion's Arch, like 30+. They're not hard to find and even if you're trying to be efficient you'll pick up more than him within a few minutes. Once you know where they are it's easy to form a routine; that said I haven't bothered doing the whole zone-swapping business. I just do the rounds when I'm in LA.

Tonight I think I'll try doing the Mad King trails so far.

Yeah, see. I've pretty much written off bothering with this kind of stuff. It's counter-intuitive to the way I play the game. It just sucks to lose out on cool stuff, but from the sounds of it I wouldn't be able to get anything cool even if I wasted a couple hours a night on it.

Killstreak booster was the one that didn't show up for me.

EDIT: And honestly while I've been doing this stuff, it really kind of pales in comparison to the holiday events in WoW or even the world events in SWTOR so far. Grindy and unrewarding for the most part. I'm hoping Acts 2-4 that open over the next few days are more interesting.

I gave up on seriously attempting to find any skins and decided to just make as much money as possible off the event. Thus far I've made ~3g selling candy corn and Halloween crafting components on the TP. Not a fortune, but it's a fair amount of money to a level 35 Necromancer. Going to all the places in this list (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/11zzng/earn_5_personalized_trick_or_treat_bags_for_the/) netted me about 40s last night - took about half an hour to find all the locations since some were unfamiliar. Should take less time if I decide to run through it again tonight, especially since it looks like some of them aren't repeatable anymore.

Relevant portion here:

You're probably better off just chaining doors if you want to gather treat bags rapidly.

You can't get skins from those bags right?

The skins are from black lion chests and mad king chests only.

The Clock Tower is fuckin' EVIL...

Edit:  Ignore the chests on your way up.

I'm digging the labyrinth, too. Lots of neat stuff in part2... looks like a lot of work went into this event.

The survival thing was fun too.  If i ever make it to the top of that clocktower it will be my greatest achievement in any game ever.

Got to a spot past the first chest where i had no clue what to do...ugh.

Guild Wars 2 Mad King's Clock Tower Jumping Puzzle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=kXRTfI06pXY


top comment:

Well after getting through it twice i can say it is not really all that hard once you know where to go and what's coming next.

Is it timed?

Yes.

/face melts like that Nazi dude

Someone finally got the hint (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/halloween/Halloween-Guide) that understanding where to start for the Halloween stuff was hard  :grin:

The clock tower jumps aren't THAT hard (even with the timer), it's just that Hell is other people there are 4-5 huge norns/charr in the tower at any given time blocking my view, and I can't see where my asura is... leading to a lot of missed jumps that I'd be able to make otherwise.

It didn't start off well when they ask you to look for the little ghost girl.  But she was bugged to me and didn't appear, so I ran out of candy corn and had to go out and figure out how to find more.  Terrible way to start their event, but I do like the book hunt. 

Finally finished the clock tower.

I'm considering doing it on alts for the free boot.  I think it drove me insane.  Well played, Thorn, well played.

Well, people should listen to me :p

I'm still finding it such an unrewarding and confusing mess that I haven't even played in a couple days.

Bang goes my idea of coming on earlier to try the Clocktower Jumping Puzzle when there was less of a moron-zerg getting in the way. You can't even get in to the Mad Realm as of the last couple of hours. Great. I simply can't see where the fuck I'm going because of the inordinate ammount of Norns (usually naked in an attempt to lower their sillouhette, which I can appreciate) or Charr bodily blocking any sort of view. The less said about the mental cripples who spam speed boosts or cast pets on the way up, the better.

Had to go online to find the start of the 2nd book hunt.  This is all a giant mess. 

It's almost like we're back in *gasp* Everquest again.

Except for the fact that you can't do either of those things.

I finished it on two chars last night. Once you get it the first time, it's not that bad.

Gotta get ahead of the pack so the norns and charrs don't screw you up.

Including the zone lines!

Finally went into the mad king's realm. Two meh pvp games, the labrynth of finish-your-kill-achievement and the jump puzzle. Only lasted three attempts on the puzzle. I just hate having to repeat stuff over and over. Add in the wait and that was it for me. Fortunately I checked in on massively so I know there's a 1 time only event tomorrow at 3pm edt. Not like something like that was in game or on the login page.

Ugh, guess I am going to miss that one.

If it's the dinner party from the achievement list, they're fucking insane. I'm betting it's just some special event for laughs with the statue breaking.

The one-time event has no achievement associated with it - the one sensible decision they've made about its implementation. All their other reasoning behind doing it only once is derpville territory.

Incidentally, neither the Clocktower nor the Pumpkin Carving achievements are required for the meta-achievement.



I wouldn't have mentioned it if that was the case. There are other 'pet' entities besides Ranger pets and speed buffs come from all over the place.

So I'm just coming back to the game after a while away; is there a guide to the Halloween stuff somewhere? Also what's the event happening today at 3pm? I should be on and would like to see/do that at least.

This one (http://dulfy.net/2012/10/24/gw2-halloween-event-guide/) is pretty good.

Ah, well, if it isn't the "party" then whatever, I guess.

I'm enjoying the chaos of the Labyrinth. Helps me practice my field/finisher combos and timing, and it's a much better source of Candy Corn than the regular zones.

I won't be doing the Clocktower again though. I've never been a good completionist anyway.

Haven't done the Mad King zone PvP stuff, but have done a number of the costume ones. They're 60s-era TV Batman fun. I also finsihed both books (stupid lack of level on the second one prevents slotting of my better gems). I have no idea how well I'm doing on pumpkin carving, but I'm way over 100 at this point.

All in all I'm enjoying it. I think they pulled it off well, except for the lack of explanation. That will go better next time I'm sure.*

* And yea, shit, that's me being optimistic. For an MMO. Haven't felt that in 6+ years  :awesome_for_real:

Nice cut scene, crashed as soon as i tried to zone in.

PSA: there is a chest at the very bottom of the dungeon.

The dungeon took about 10 minutes, maybe less. It was fun.  Apparently there is a part 4 to this event.

The chest is after the final kill of the mad king right? I got junk. Someone in chat got the bow shaped like a spider.

I got a level 76 exotic the first time, and crappy greens the second time.

And yeah, it's fun. Headless Horseman eat your heart out!  :awesome_for_real:


e: The 'big event' was just a cutscene which is probably on youtube in a few hundred copies by now. They could've just made it a "click this statue to view" cutscene like they did in WOW so latecomers could view it whenever they wanted, but... yeah.

The first run of the new instance will get you a free 10 slot bag, by the by. Every other run will give you a decreasing number of candy bags.

It's worth farming if you want a whole shitload of greens. SO MANY. Random exotics as well, but the absolute worst I've gotten from the last chest is 4 greens.

PSA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cS35PyIZdY) :-)

Wouldn't that be descent into madness though?  :oh_i_see:

I soloed it 3 times now, once on Mesmer, twice on Thief. 

Is there a third scavenger hunt?

Just ran the upgraded book quest, level 54 was baaarely enough to do the last zone. I hadn't even been to two of the zones in the quest, so it took a while running around. But the level 55 mobs at the end of this chain make me think I probably won't be able to handle any further iterations.

The second back book is a nice upgrade for me, though.

Went through some portal in LA only to get trounced by tons of mobs quickly. That wasn't fun. Nor was the repair bill.

Did you not see the "suggested players: 5" on the zone message?

I think my distance from the server is going to remain the glass ceiling preventing me from ever completing the Clocktower. I have wasted more of my life trying to do it tonight than I would have ever allowed myself usually. The cameraderie with other players helped keep me going but tiredness, latency and again, idiot trolls casting their elite pets just as the group is shifted to the tower weren't helping. Hounds of fucking Trollthazar.

I came to the same conclusion after half an hour or so. (I also play on a US server from Europe) Server distance + a whole lot of norns / charr bodyblocking the view made me a sad asura.

There's actually no repair bill in the Mad King area, must have been somewhere else. I think it's a nice touch since the low level characters get boosted to 80. The short nature of it and quick fights make it my favorite encounter.

I did the MK zone once but I dislike the platforming elements so I'm unlikely to repeat it.

Group not required, I soloed him 3 times last night and by the third time I had it down to 20 minutes and only died twice from being feared off platform.  You can easily get out of combat with him, just walk away far enough, regen to full and go back in.  I modified my build to add some healing so I could stay in longer and boom...dead king.  I would of done it all night but rewards seem to get worse with each kill. 

If you are at all interested in the costume brawls use a zombie tonic, they are massively OP compared to the other costumes.

This. I was just testing if it was doable. Not with my build, and I'm not going to waste money respecing to try.

Why not group for it? It's super easy and done in ~10-15 mins even in the worst groups. There were groups going constantly around the statue when I looked, and joining one is as easy as typing any of their names into the 'join' window (top left corner) and pressing join. Not as easy as Tarvu, but...

Cause I prefer the challenge of doing it solo?  Honestly the first time I did it was at the event at 3pm, so I just jumped straight in and didnt realize it was a group thing until I was inside already.  After I did it once on my Mesmer I decided to try on my Thief solo, then I wanted to see how fast I could do it solo.  This is the kind of stuff I enjoy in MMO's, something meant for 5 people I do by myself.  Reminds me of EQ1 on my Enchanter when I would mind control MOBS and kill things that I wasnt really meant to on my own. 

I'm having a blast with this event now that it has unfolded.  There was always 70% or so of holiday content that I'd ignore in WoW, and the same is happening here.  I'm going straight for the dungeon and labyrinth, and ate a bunch of candy corn for the monthly achievement and vomit animations.  

The dungeon is easy enough, but I've managed to get feared off the cliff 5 out of 7 times after the MK is downed.  Pretty lame to have crows spawn and fear 20 seconds after he's dead and everyone is at the chest...which is at the edge of the cliff.  At level 71 the first completion gives around 110k xp, on my level 14 it was around 800.  So, while you CAN do it with lowbies, it's far less rewarding and I spent most of my time being revived.

Labyrinth is - you guessed it! - another zerg, but thanks to bumping everyone up to 80 and not having to group, just join the fun and rake in the loot.  Key word here is fun.  Far more rewarding on higher level toons even though everyone is bumped to 80.  Bags fill up with blues and greens faster than you can salvage them.  Can't wait to see what they have for the holiday season.  Frosty the Snowman Elementals?

Got the 150 pumpkins carved for the achievement, so I think I'm caught up and just need the 'Attend the party' achievement. Felt cheesy doing the pumpkin carving as I just had all my alts in Lion's Arch and spent about 30 min running a circuit to get it done. I know that the pumpkin carving and clocktower didn't count toward the Emissary achievement, but it would have felt unfinished to not have done it.

Also, if you missed the cutscene, it repeats itself at random intervals at the dungeon port-in. The Mad King will surge out and be pushed back, exactly the same way as the cutscene.

The dungeon was pretty easy and quick to run, we did it with 3 level 80s without much trouble.

I dunno, I grouped once with Helm or someone. It's too distracting mostly. Groups have names?

You do take equipment damage when you get killed by the creatures in the dungeon, dieing by falling damage never causes equipment damage so you take no damage when the king fears you over the edge.  I did a solo run with my 80 warrior and it was painful but I was able to finish it. 

I meant the name of the person spamming 'lfg/lfm mad king'.

my daily dungeon grp decided to just do MK tomorrow.
10 mins per chest. Shit's too good to pass up. The Ranger got the Arachnophobia Bow...
3 out of 5 got an exotic each. Level 78, but whatever.

I'll keep going till I got something cool too. so I can fund my Divinity Rune set.

Only the 'quest' rewards get worse, the chest stays the same.

Ah. Unless they do it in /say I wouldn't see it, as I have the area chats turned off.

I just made a new tab with guild, party, and say on it, so I can go back and look at map if I need to, it comes in handy surprisingly often (for an MMO) outside of the place where I actually want to use it - I left it on since it is pretty much required for WvW.

I find it a bit funny how many Mad King groups are demanding 80s for an encounter that is pretty trivial to run quickly as long as people are above like, 10.

This is exactly what I do too - I go to the /map tab when in WvW or I want to know what's going on in the area I am in.

I'd do the same except the only chat I ever see is /map and /say. The three guilds I've represented have been dead quiet until dead completely :-)

Thank you for posting this. I had ran it once already and figured had to wait to run it again. So after doing three more runs I lucked out with two of those exotic spider shortbows. I went from broke to having over 40 gold after selling them both. Also me (80 Warrior) and an 80 Elementalist were able to easily duo it.

Dev responsible for the clock tower apologized for making it too hard:


Personally i think he and the complainers are completely wrong and i hope they continue making stuff like this.

There's no problem if they do it in a fixed world type thing. I can totally understand being upset when you tie it to a limited time event and aren't transparent about whether it counts for the meta achievement, etc., though.

That's disappointing. I thought the Clock Tower was awesome and would love to see more things like that.

Well it's a good thing he said he wasn't going to stop making stuff like that, then.

The clock tower was awesome, but I took me a day of frustration to get to the point where I actually liked it, and I still groaned when a Norn or a Charr was around, which wasn't very fair to those players.

Once I had the beginning down to the point I could ignore everyone else, it was great.  I even got my Mesmer through it in one try.

Next year I will pay you a shiny gold piece to run one of my dudes through then.  :-P

Like you'll have a shiny gold piece to spare.  :why_so_serious:

I have almost 10 right now!

and how many helms full of antlers do you own!

None yet, I need my exotic suit(s) before I transmute!

Seems like it wouldn't have been that big of deal to have a version with a slow timer and a small reward, so people could experience content and not feel like they missed out on part of Halloween event.

Oh, come on, now. I didn't do it, couldn't do it, will probably never be able to do it, and I certainly don't feel cheated. I haven't done any of the jumping puzzles, save the pirate one in LA. I'm not good at them.

This isn't even like a WoW dungeon which tells a part of a story. It's the top of a tower and a pair of crappy shoes. It's okay to have some things in really big games which are geared to different competencies.

I like the jumping stuff but I didn't even see the clock tower, no idea where it was.

I didn't bother to even get into the Mad King's Realm.  Then I forgot that I hadn't done parts of this holiday.  Oh, well. 

Part of why I like GW2 is because I don't really have to care about anything in GW2. 

Yeah, the whole thing kinda messed with the flow of the game. Suddenly there was a reason to be someplace, to do something in a limited amount of time. Like, woah, man, harsh on the mellow.

I tried for about 20 minutes, got to about 50% (according to the progress bar anyway), and decided to do other stuff instead. The timing is really tight*, so my Euro -> US ping was a big hindrance -- not being able to see my asura in a sea of norn and charr was getting old (even though most of the pack tended to fall off at about the 3rd-4th jump in the second part). OTOH the rest of the event was really solid fun, and there was an insane amount of content for what was basically a one-week thing (recurring, but still). 2 pretty-fun unique pvp minigames, a public dungeon, a 5-man dungeon, a jump puzzle, all those event chains in the newbie area, the trick-and-treat mechanic, etc. It was just really impressive, especially for a f2p game.

(*NB: this was before I knew of the 25% passive move speed elementalist air trait trick, but it didn't move me from the "meh" position. Maybe next year when guesting and/or personal instancing for puzzles like this will be working?)

Run speed is not much help, if at all.

This was a decent holiday event.  I enjoyed the book hunt but I didn't bother with the tower jumping puzzle.  I knew it would piss me off.  Failed to do the MK dungeon due to scheduling and prior experience with GW2's dungeons.  

Overall, I think the event was great, but their communication SUCKED.  They give a list of achieves and then half are not explained.  They make areas and then don't fucking bother to tell anyone.  I have to google and search around.  Give me a bread crumb ffs.

fake edit: I'm much more pissed off by this than I should be.

I appreciate him apologizing. To me they could have made it group-only, group-timer only, or timer only (and therefore singleplayer). All three and it being a signature piece was too much.

I like the jump puzzles but I need to approach them at my own pace or I just won't bother.

Customr of one of course...

I don't do jumping puzzles but i did take a shot at the clock tower, fortunately one failed try was enough to finish out the Halloween title.

I couldn't do the Clocktower. I had a damn good go at it though, and I really appreciate the effort that went into making it so unique. But as an EU player on a US server, my latency was always the elephant in the room and I had to accept (after many attempts where it looked to me like I was doing well to suddenly find myself flat on my arse in the waiting area) I wasn't ever going to beat it because of that.

That said, as the designer notes a few posts later in that thread, no one told him it was going to be treated as a general zone - he thought he was making a puzzle for a solo encounter. Hell really was other people at the Clocktower.

Sure.  I'll run several of them through for a gold piece each.