Guild Wars 2

I spent 30 minutes in Southsun; the instance was too difficult for my toon (in yellow gear). Then, there was nothing else to do – no alternative paths.

I spent 5 minutes in Bazaar of Four Winds – that was more than enough time to explore anything I could get to. I couldn’t get to much.

I’m a casual gamer, I play about 10 hours a week. I don’t like jumpy puzzles or PvP at all.

Certainly there is plenty of content for casual gamers in GW2. But it disturbs me that most of these living story events, or whatever you call them, are pretty much inaccessible.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. You could survey the players – or just query your database – and see what percentage of them actually accessed all this new content. I suspect it would be fairly low. It is vital to keep the hardcore gamers interested, of course.

5 minutes?

…

Did you open your mail, talk to Magnus, or find the Transport Facilitator NPC? I don’t know if you have enough time with only 5 minutes…

Completely serious. I’m just checking, sarcasm over text isn’t my strong suit.

I’m a casual hardcore player. I play about 7-10 hours per week, if that, although I’d say I know more about the game than most. It took me 6 months to get a single character to level 80. I don’t do PvP or WvW, although I do like jump puzzles (although sometimes I get the feeling some players here would consider a high-step stairway to be a jumping puzzle).

This content seemed extremely accessible to me. Maybe not 100%, but still really high.

I spent 30 minutes in Southsun; the instance was too difficult for my toon (in yellow gear). Then, there was nothing else to do – no alternative paths.

What about Southsun was too difficult? I can’t even imagine what you’re referring to, I did it with an upleveled character in leveling junk gear.

I spent 5 minutes in Bazaar of Four Winds – that was more than enough time to explore anything I could get to. I couldn’t get to much.

5 minutes? Ok?

I’m a casual gamer, I play about 10 hours a week.

More than I play some weeks, so eh. “Casual” is really meaningless anyway.

I don’t like jumpy puzzles or PvP at all.

So Southsun PvE was “too hard” and you didn’t bother, and you don’t like any of the other types of content in the game? I’m confused. Why are you here?

But it disturbs me that most of these living story events, or whatever you call them, are pretty much inaccessible.

Inaccessible to who? You sound like another one of these guys that log in and say, “Well, all the rewards aren’t just sitting in my mailbox, so I give up.”

I’m casual as well. I can go months without playing. I’ve managed to get on for a few nights and finish dragon bash event when it was here. I’ve only got 2 achievements left to do for this bazaar one also. And I’ve gotten quite good quickly at getting around the zone and doing the jumping around kinda stuff! This is why I’m loving this game. The content feels totally accessible to me as well!

Also for this event I’ve spent a total of 3 nights for 2- 4 hours a time and I’m almost done with the main achievement.

Most weeks I play 10-15hrs and I gotta say that I find every part of the Living World accessible. I haven’t finished all of the Sprinter races or gotten all 40 sky crystals or heck even the parachute pilferer, and yet I still have my meta achievement done.

If you seriously logged on, spent 5min in the Bazaar and left, then you have absolutely no right to say it isn’t accessible. You clearly didn’t even try…

I don’t understand. None of this post makes sense to me. o.O

I’m sorry if this isn’t your cup of tea. I consider myself a casual player and I’m having a blast. The Sanctum is beautiful and worth every fall to my death that the latency caused.

Rick Rodman.9704:

I spent 30 minutes in Southsun; the instance was too difficult for my toon (in yellow gear). Then, there was nothing else to do – no alternative paths.

While I didn’t try much combat, I was able to run my lvl 3-4 guardian with only 2 weapon skills unlocked to the Canch solo dungeon and beat him my first try. Also, in general Southsun is a pain for any level 80 with exotic gear, that’s more of the zone than anything else. Did you try running with the 20-30 other players (at least in my server) that were going back and forth running the events, or the 30+ people working together to hold all 4 camps to get the queen to spawn? Not saying that you would have high damage output, but you would be able to do enough to get credit for most kills.

I spent 5 minutes in Bazaar of Four Winds – that was more than enough time to explore anything I could get to. I couldn’t get to much.

Did you even get past the first waterfall in that period of time, or talk to any of the NPCs? What did you do/how far did you get in 5 minutes? And what made you say “no” and just leave? (all serious questions)

I’m a casual gamer, I play about 10 hours a week. I don’t like jumpy puzzles or PvP at all.

Certainly there is plenty of content for casual gamers in GW2. But it disturbs me that most of these living story events, or whatever you call them, are pretty much inaccessible.

I play maybe ~2 hours a night on weeknights and decent bit more than that on the weekend, but I still consider myself pretty casual (a very relative term). Also, I think there was a thread about this but, the new area is not a jumping puzzle (but I’d consider getting the crystals one). I think to reach the top you need to jump 4? times and use the number3 aspect skill also about 4 times. As long as the skill functions properly (no problems with lag or latency) you can make it to the top really easy. If you are talking about the meta, then yes a bunch of the achievements are either tied to jumping puzzles or Sanctum Sprint. But 6 are tied to just talking to people/watching something with another for making charged crystals, and an 8th tied to finding things in PvE. So that’s half for just exploring/doing whatever you would normally do in PvE. Yes the other ones are tied to either racing (with 3 just tied to playing it, and two for placement) or jps, but if you think meta reward is worth it you find 8 other things to do. I think it took maybe <5 hours for me to complete the meta.

I think the LS has almost entirely been for casuals to enjoy, experience, and at least get the meta. (I don’t want to get into the argument about getting all of the achievements being too hard, but at least the meta has been possible). With maybe the exception of the AR dungeon. It wasn’t too kittence you figured things out, but I would not have called it casual friendly per say.

Rick Rodman.9704:

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. You could survey the players – or just query your database – and see what percentage of them actually accessed all this new content. I suspect it would be fairly low. It is vital to keep the hardcore gamers interested, of course.

Count me as one less player who feels the same as you do. I only have 1-2 hr of play time per day and I still manage to do all PvE content. I don’t do PvP that much nor I like Jumping Puzzle either, but this content is not really a jumping puzzle per se since you can collect skills that helps you navigate around the place.

I think this is just a content/interest mismatch.

If you’re the developer, you know that for a fact you will never please everyone.

Rick Rodman.9704:

I spent 30 minutes in Southsun; the instance was too difficult for my toon (in yellow gear). Then, there was nothing else to do – no alternative paths.

I spent 5 minutes in Bazaar of Four Winds – that was more than enough time to explore anything I could get to. I couldn’t get to much.

I’m a casual gamer, I play about 10 hours a week. I don’t like jumpy puzzles or PvP at all.

Certainly there is plenty of content for casual gamers in GW2. But it disturbs me that most of these living story events, or whatever you call them, are pretty much inaccessible.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. You could survey the players – or just query your database – and see what percentage of them actually accessed all this new content. I suspect it would be fairly low. It is vital to keep the hardcore gamers interested, of course.

Your gear meant absolutely nothing in the Canach fight.

5 minutes in a new area?

It’s not that the content is not accessible, it’s that you don’t care enough to take the time to learn. If you do not care enough to take time to learn, why should ANet cater their content to you?

To complete each living story achievement takes about 5-10 hours. Some players even claim it takes less than 2 hours. Personally I check the rewards and if it not worth the efforts then I skip it (for example: southsun cove).

I think a lot of the problem is that some players get to a new area, don’t see the typical “!” or “?” over someone’s head so they almost freeze because they just don’t know what to do without being told step by step exactly what to do and where to go. It’s the “now what” mindset of gaming. Some players are so used to having their hands held through content that if they get to a zone and it isn’t immediately clear where they need to go, they give up and quit, or go back to something they are more familiar.

I see this all the time. “Ok, I finished this zone, now what?” Gee I dunno, go explore something else? “That’s boring! I shouldn’t have to figure things out on my own I should be told exactly what to do and where to go”

And someone did address this already, but OP, that Canach fight you could literally do naked. It had nothing to do with gear, you just have to kite him into bombs, nothing more nothing less.

Draknar.5748:

And someone did address this already, but OP, that Canach fight you could literally do naked. It had nothing to do with gear, you just have to kite him into bombs, nothing more nothing less.

You still need your gears to compensate on making a mistake…and yes, mistakes happen.

Rick Rodman.9704:

I spent 5 minutes in Bazaar of Four Winds – that was more than enough time to explore anything I could get to. I couldn’t get to much.

I’m a casual gamer, I play about 10 hours a week. I don’t like jumpy puzzles or PvP at all.

Certainly there is plenty of content for casual gamers in GW2. But it disturbs me that most of these living story events, or whatever you call them, are pretty much inaccessible.

Judging new content by walking around in it for 5 minutes, haha, 5 minutes doesn’t even get you to the first part where you have to jump to proceed, and it certainly doesn’t get you to Sanctum Sprinting.
Even so, this update isn’t even about jumping puzzles or PvP. No, jumping from platform to platform isn’t a puzzle. It’s making use of basic gameplay mechanics. No, the Sanctum Sprint isn’t PvP. You can play it ignoring any other player in there and do just fine.
Maybe you should try out content by actually playing it before saying you don’t like it for reasons that don’t make sense whatsoever. Being a casual player, really? What does that have to do with anything?

Southsun was horrible. The amount of time and effort required to kill anything just provided negative reinforcement against completing the achievements or ever wanting to step foot in that place ever again.

I found this even a lot better. Though I did follow the dulfy walkthrough video to find and reach the 40 crystals and died many times along the way, I got through it.

I definitely despise the way Adnul the Norn was designed for the drinking masters portion. Some players are taking hours to finally beat him, some never do and any element that frustrating really has no place in this game. I don’t know anyone who wants to waste that mount of time on bull-kitten “content”. It almost seems to be deliberately designed to convince casuals that this game is a complete waste of time.

I also think that too much emphasis was put on jumping puzzles. It might have been better if there had been a better mix of easy JPs with harder ones, so casuals could make progress towards the meta with out too much frustration, while those who like JPs could complete all the related achievements. It might also have been cool if the JPs linked to the event had allowed temporary access to aspect crystals for the duration of the event, to make difficult puzzles a little simpler for the limited time.

I think this is one of the better events of 2013, but there is still a lot that is groan worthy which holds back the entire experience and, sadly, continues a trend of content likely to drive people from the game, rather than keeping them playing. I sort of thought the point was to provide fun content to keep people playing the game, rather than finding creative new ways to ensure burn out and rage quit.

I did 16/16 in two days, playing maybe a couple of hours each day.

Anyone who says the Bazaar achi is not accessible should just give up gaming or just play some Facebook games.

Seriously.

Rick Rodman.9704:

I spent 30 minutes in Southsun; the instance was too difficult for my toon (in yellow gear). Then, there was nothing else to do – no alternative paths.

I spent 5 minutes in Bazaar of Four Winds – that was more than enough time to explore anything I could get to. I couldn’t get to much.

I’m a casual gamer, I play about 10 hours a week. I don’t like jumpy puzzles or PvP at all.

Certainly there is plenty of content for casual gamers in GW2. But it disturbs me that most of these living story events, or whatever you call them, are pretty much inaccessible.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. You could survey the players – or just query your database – and see what percentage of them actually accessed all this new content. I suspect it would be fairly low. It is vital to keep the hardcore gamers interested, of course.

Totally agree if you’re not into jumping puzzles it’s not even worth trying – I’m lucky that I have an amazing guild with people who have helped me out but if I was on my own with no support the whole thing is nothing but an exercise in frustration.

The sprint is just beyond frustrating as you are constantly knocked off after doing a series of jumps and tumbles and then continue to be knocked off until the only route is to log off the game before tossing your pc out the window in shear anger at the game.

I like the mini missions and this area has very little to do besides the jumping puzzles and pvp racing.

There may be a few token achievements but what the point if they give you nothing,

I love gw2 but I HATE the 4 winds crap!

Tom Gore.4035:

I did 16/16 in two days, playing maybe a couple of hours each day.

Anyone who says the Bazaar achi is not accessible should just give up gaming or just play some Facebook games.

Seriously.

And game a___oles like you are the reason most people never try mmos

Tosser!

Aurrynthea.7581:

Tom Gore.4035:

I did 16/16 in two days, playing maybe a couple of hours each day.

Anyone who says the Bazaar achi is not accessible should just give up gaming or just play some Facebook games.

Seriously.

And game a___oles like you are the reason most people never try mmos

Tosser!

Great job! Calling people names always strongly reinforces your point!

Aurrynthea.7581:

Tom Gore.4035:

I did 16/16 in two days, playing maybe a couple of hours each day.

Anyone who says the Bazaar achi is not accessible should just give up gaming or just play some Facebook games.

Seriously.

And game a___oles like you are the reason most people never try mmos

Tosser!

And people like the OP make all games become facebook games where you get your achievements by logging in and clicking “yes”.

I don’t want “most people” to come to my favourite MMO and turn it into a zero-challenge “game”.

I don’t even have a level 80 yet – my highest was level 61. That character is now level 74, I think – and a lot of that came just from fighting any Veteran or Champion that came on when I was in the Bazaar.

I play usually 1-2 hours a day, but not all days – and on some days when stuff is new I’ll maybe even play 5 or more ! I have one of each Profession – so I’m sure I could have had one 80 by now, but I spread it out and play whichever one I feel like.

But, whatever, the point is I’m a pretty “casual” player.

But I got 40 of the optional-to-find crystals in the first two days (originally I told myself I’d do 10 a day, but I got a little caught up in it) and I think I got the 16/16 a few days after that.

The day before I’d given up on the Aetherblade jumping puzzle because I just wasn’t getting it. I took a Mesmer portal to the dive on the first day, but I went back for personal satisfaction and was able to get to it myself. I think this map is a lot easier than a “Jumping Puzzle” – maybe some people will still have trouble with it, but I think it’s significantly different.

I don’t think playing a low number of hours a week is something that will deter a person from enjoying or being able to complete the BotFW. And, anyway, if a person is totally “casual”, why do they care if they get all the Achievements or the Node ? What use would it be ? I had a lot of fun AND I got the stuff – but I was having fun even after the first day when I didn’t have squat.

The only place I can really see a person getting hopelessly stuck on the way to the airship is at the #1 jump bridge. And if you were really stuck you could ask and people would tell you there’s a #3 crystal under some stairs right by it that makes getting across involve barely any skill.

Aurrynthea.7581:

Tom Gore.4035:

I did 16/16 in two days, playing maybe a couple of hours each day.

Anyone who says the Bazaar achi is not accessible should just give up gaming or just play some Facebook games.

Seriously.

And game a___oles like you are the reason most people never try mmos

Tosser!

Hate to agree with Tom here , but if you seriously can’t get these particular achievements done for the meta in the two weeks, you really should re-evaluate your gaming skills. Most of the achievements do not require finishing a jumping puzzle.

Sanctum sprint you can come in last and still get credit for finishing. You may not be able to get the achievements for coming in top 3 or in first, but that’s just 2 out of all of the achievements. Anyone who quits because they keep falling is just that: quitters.

Heck, the group I was running with took a poll of who still needed the achievements before the race started then we all just let them get those achievements. This isn’t typical mind you, but you’d be surprised how willing people are to help casual players complete more difficult content—only requirement? TRYING IT.

A couple of the JPs really aren’t that bad. The ones that refuse to even touch JP content, I have a feeling they haven’t even tried some of the JPs. I mean Kites of the Night or whatever achievement for example, I think you jump once, maybe twice before you get to the kite. The kite in the fractals? That’s not even a JP! You get the kite doing the normal Colossal fractal!

It is so easy to get the meta in this LS and the ones complaining about it seriously haven’t put in any effort, otherwise they wouldn’t be complaining about it. They see that a JP is involved and it’s like “welp, not even gonna attempt this, I hate all JPs even if I haven’t tried them, this is BS Anet you made these achievements impossible for casual players!”

The Adnul fight is the only thing I will agree is utter BS, but you can google or check the forums for real easy ways to beat him (using Box O Fun and such).

I agree with the title 100%. This thread is absolutly not worth bothering with.

And people like the OP make all games become facebook games where you get your achievements by logging in and clicking “yes”.

This.

I’m sick of the “appeal to a wider audience” crap in gaming now. Games end up being Farmville because you guys camp the developers 24/7 whining about Every. Single. Little. Thing.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It’s been like this from the dawn of time. The quiet person who just works and doesn’t complain will not get special treatment. The person who complains constantly and yells the loudest will get special treatment.

Sad but true.

Companies get taken advantage by “savvy” consumers this way. It’s like the people that buy things from Wal-Mart, use them for a year, then return them for a full refund. If you don’t refund them they make a scene, so they just refund them. Or, and this is no joke, someone buying a roasted chicken, eating 3/4 of it, and returning it saying they didn’t like it for a full refund. <— this actually works in most grocery stores.

It’s easier not to deal with the headache of whiners than to argue with them.

I hope the same doesn’t start applying to GW2 and forum QQers.