how many hours of my life will I have to waste to find a gold snowman?

Another holiday event. Another example that SOE cannot learn from mistakes. These scavenger hunts are an unfun grind. Up the spawn rate and locations or give us more directive options. For ***** sake.

I spent 2 hours flying in locked Esamir and haven't found!

They likely don't spawn in a locked continent.
Much like the pumpkins, they likely got blocked \ despawn instantly, to prevent after-lock hunts.

In this thread, people who complain about the way they choose to play the game.

Yeah, they disabled pumpkin spawning on locked continents during the Halloween event. That probably carries over into this Winter event's snowmen.

I ******* hate these events.
Halloween was almost good. Flashes were a cancer, but the invisible infiltrators were fun too kill... Too bad that killing them didn't actually give you any progress on the directive.
Had they done that, it would have been a lot of fun.

For the current event you don't even get the required mask for free, like you did on Halloween.

I spend ~60 min on one golden snowsolder.

Tip, you don't have to do anything

You don't have to hunt snowmen. It's optional.

it's not. you either have to spend cash on a cosmetic and then do a whooping 12 roadkills or find a golden snowman.
thats literally the most cynical "hey why not spend a few bucks to reduce the 20 hour search to 5 minutes of driving" i have wver seen

I haven't spent a penny on the holiday directive (I burned my DBC at the Jackal) and I don't have to hunt snowmen.

ah yes then please explain to me how you did the roadkills to complete the 4th tier of the directive

Holiday Bow? It was in my inventory when I last checked. Or am I missing something?

spending money in a prior event does not mean you didn't spend money

The bows were awards for something IIRC. It's been in my inventory for years.

so as i stopped playing after the second anniversary and only recently came back i have to spend money

I haven't looked into it but I'll bet that anyone can complete the directive without spending money.

yes, by finding a golden snowman....

You can pretty much skip that until the last tier.

There is still about a month left for you to find a golden snowman.

PS: snowmen don't de-spawn during the bombardment after continent lock, so I guess they stay, unlike pumpkins.

i've been at the last tier since 3 hours after i started working for the directive

I reckon holiday bows will become available somehow before the event ends also. Somethings haven't been implemented yet. Ammo packs don't look like Xmas presents yet for instance.