Scrap presents for CC Shards in Kamadan next Wintersday?

For every action there is a equal and opposite reaction; Anet made the move speed of the Grenches that kill presents to fast and as a result people looked for ways to circumvent that.

Trying to farm those presents for CCShards in Kamadan this year I sure saw a lot of those types of shenanigans going on:

I saw some players in virtually vacated dists using some kind of speed hacks it was like they were skating or sliding around at high speed instead of running and out running the grinches with ease.

Players were getting the Grinches stuck by the candy canes for easy present turn ins (which I didn't mind). However that never lasted long because some wiseass would pick up a present and go AFK which caused presents not to spawn killing the event for that District.

There were two warriors literally holding international district two hostage for their own personal present farm. They had the grinches stuck and were farming presents and anytime some one else came a long to farm they would hold a present so they would stop spawning and demand they leave the district.

Anet must have caught on to that because I checked back there later that day and District two had been shut down

I did come across one smart guild farming those presents in one of the Asian districts. They had the grinches stuck and had one member at each of the present spawning areas turning them in as fast as they spawn, they must have racked up a boat load.

Anyway, as much as I enjoyed shard farming I think either the grinches need to be slowed down so people don't go out of their way to look for exploits to circumvent it or the event needs to be scraped in Kamadan next year.

Whut? pls explain .

Better idea: stop rewarding items of value for winning minigames so that the only motivation to play is for fun, or cap rewards by account.

The Guild Wars players that are left anymore generally act like children, so it's time they start being treated like children.

hmm dont know about Kam, but I know in LA the grenches explode if stuck - I would think to stop players abusing the trapping method. Seems strange that they wouldnt do the same in Kam.. I dunno though, found theres much better things to do with my time than that .

Look up Blue Sugar Drinks and Choc Bunny on wiki (+50% speed boost). Also, if I was going to farm these presents, of course Id try and find the most deserted district - thats only common sense......

Fruitcakes; Mandragor Root Cake; Red Bean Cakes; Creme Brulee all give you 25% speed boosts and Chocolate Bunnies give you 50% speed boost in town...

But ain't returning presents for CCS slow as shit?

A game designer's job is similar to that of a cop in a town full of imaginative crooks.

The only way to successfully catch all of the crooks is to anticipate the crooks' moves and catch them in the act. This isn't realistic, because there are lots of crooks and not many cops. It's good that you report this, since it's likely the authorities didn't observe it.

However, if you let this sort of thing outrage you, you're going to spend a lot of time outraged playing online games. It sounds like some entrepreneurs discovered a situation where they had power. It should come as no surprise to you that someone would choose to use that power once it was discovered.

It sounds like there are four potential fixes that don't require removing the game:

1) Present in-hand blows up after a certain time period (easy)
2) Presents continue to spawn even when other presents are held (easy)
3) Respawn stuck Grentches (slightly harder)
4) Reorganize Kamadan so the Grentches can't get stuck (harder)

#1 is probably the superior easily implemented fix. #4 is ideal, but would require more commitment of developer time. #2 might make it easier to farm shards depending on how it is implemented, so it is not necessarily a neutral solution. #3 may or may not be a better solution than #1, depending on implementation

Slowing the Grintches down doesn't imply that people would not engage in the same behavior during the next event. If you reduce the incentive to cheat, but cheating still produces superior results...some people will still cheat.

EDIT: You'd think that botting Strength of Snow would be more efficient than scripting present running, but it's probably more challenging to bot running to the back wall and to script picking up the unassigned CCS's prior to opening the chest.

They were using the Sugar Rush, produced by cakes and creme brulee.

You're killing two birds with one stone, gaining Sugar points from your sugary stuff and collecting CCS.

They probably added some checks on that situation, since previous years saw similar abuse.

You can't be a good judge of that if you're no longer playing seriously this game.

IIRC, it's ok, faster than afking SoS for a chance at MPB (which gives something around 1CCS per min). And it's a nice way to get the CCS you need for a present or wintersday weapon.

Pretty sure Anet is checking for botters and if people learned the lessons of the last few years (recent one being the HFFFers, some of which got very lucky) they won't be tempted to do it.

So I gather you didn't get ANY fruitcakes dropped in the two weeks of the event?

Why would anyone waste their time gathering shards that way? You can waste your time running SoS for shards and Wintersday chest.

I know, I saw people on the sugar rush farming as well, but a couple I saw were different they like slid across the ground at chocolate bunny speed their legs did not move unless I was getting some major lag and did not realize it.

And likewise if I was going to use some sort of speed hack Id try and find the most deserted district so as not to be seen- that too is only common sense......

NEXT wintersday. lol at your optimistic view on how long guild wars will last.

lol... speed hack....

I had that happen to me a few times in normal speed, was the game lagging and glitches

It just wasn't worth the trouble this year. Those presents only give one item. The ones you get from the festival guy for trading in ccs give for example 2 fruitcakes, 2 snowman etc. On top doing the Sos quest gives around 15 ccs + chest stuff every 7-8 minutes. In LA the grentches exploded and respawned, making it unpossible to get them stuck. All in all, not worth the time and not as much fun as previous years. (when there was no tard holding the present ofcourse, because that was a problem)

They can leave it in or take it out, I don't care.

I just hung out and did normal present runs to Scrappy Jhim in LA, he gives you actual presents.... much better then CC shards IMO.

People said that ^^ last year. Wintersday 2008 showed up didn't it?

im sure if you get the sugar rush you would get the enchantment appear by name also

Who cares anyway, those presents were rubbish. Even the Winter Gift from Scrappy jihm was crap, no good stuff in them and the amount of shards you could get from those things was null compared to SoS.

Leave the presents in, not like they are hurting anything.

LOL i played the pick up present for about an hour with out using any speed boots and i did just fine.

Running Grenth Presents: Srs Bzns

They're under a Sugar Rush and you're lagging.

They blow up on their own after a while, so it won't work for long anyway.

Griefers? In GW? Never, I don't believe you. :rollseyes: Nothing is keeping you from /reporting them and/or changing districts.

See above.

Or their mommy told them to go to bed, seems far more likely. If support were going to punish them, it would likely be after the holidays, once they've had a chance to look through all the game logs(and all the other flags/reports piling up).

So tldr translation:"I don't have a lot of sugar items, so make it so I don't have to compete with those that do or remove from game."

I was using Blue Sugary Drinks to run Scrappy Jhim while waiting for presents to accrue after Lion's Arch events, and saw the behaviour you describe regularly (my computer had a nasty habit of lagging just after picking up a present. Sometimes it registered the movement and slid, sometimes it didn't and I got caught by the Grentches. Very frustrating.)

Didn't bother much in Kamadan - individual shards aren't really worth the effort, and SoS gives the Wintersday Chest (including the chance of a polar bear mini).

wow, O.o major QQing.

/Not Signed.

If the players chose to do that, good luck! as for me I can't stand the boredom waiting for presents and run around in the town, i do however pick them up if they happens to drop at my feet while i am there, and do not remove this activitie, it is good! At least it gives players something to do while leveling up their sweet tooth title, I sure do hope something is tie in when you stand idling leveling up drunkard title...

Maybe tweak it
1) when new present drops the one that is hold by the previous players will explode

I'm sceptical about having an arbitrary timelimit on presents - it could be frustrating to be just about to turn one in when the timer expires. Making sure the Grentches remain an active threat seems a much better compromise.

lol i was glitching the green guys and then turning into a tonic and runing around with it , ooze was the coolest the prsents floated beside you

I could not possible care less. The only time I pickep up a present was either if it happened to drop at my feet when passing by in Kamadan, or when I had 4 shards left after playing and wanted to trade them for a present.
/notsigned

Yep same here when grenchies get stuck in Lions Arch they explode so the ole exploit of luring them up to castle keep doesn't work anymore either. Plus, I got my fair share of presents this year because of that and nobody can stand there and hold the presents anymore like before. I got well over 250 presentesss in Lions arch as well as shards this year from just playing in newbieland. I got a bunch of presentesss the last day also. I wasn't disappointed in this years results at all. As far as players sliding across the terrain they were most likely using the speed burst powerups like gingerbread or those from Nightfall that make you go faster. I used them a lot and skated my way to lots of presentesssss.

I thought a new present only dropped when the old one was turned in or exploded by grentch contact. At least, that was my experience in LA (didn't go to Kamadan).

CC SHARDS??? Are you NUTS? Turn them in for PRESENTS!!!

I must have seen 50 people giving the gifts to the children. Dumb dumb and dumber were on. SCRAPPY in Ascalon took them for PRESENTS Winters Green Presents.

My wife was doing this. She went to district like 85 or something and stayed there. As long as there was someone in the district it kept the district open.

She ended up with 500 presents on sat going into Sunday night - more than a stack of spiked eggnog's and worked on the sweet tooth title. She ran so fast with the blue drinks. Made me laugh


What idiot would get shards?


She made over 250K at winters day and I did not do all that bad myself farming skulls and trading them for spiked eggnog's.

but cc shards. Why go through all of that for shards? People are creatively stupid

Ummm some presentsssss gave you 10 shards as well when you opened them. Plus I got most of my shards farming newbieland for the 2 or 3 items needed for green candy canes. I gots lots of stuff and the rest of you got switches and coals. I laughed at anyone trying to play the snowball fights for shards what a rediculous waste of time. I could get 5 shards in less than 5 minutes easy and those snowball fights lasted way longer than that for just 3 and you HAD TO WIN to get those 3.