Guild Wars 2

So if I’m to believe [url=http://dulfy.net/2013/07/07/bazaar-of-the-four-winds-achievement-guide/[/url]Dulfy’s guide[/url] on the topic, the getting to the end of Obsidian Sanctum is once again an achievement.

So, basically, there’s 20pts I won’t be getting. (5pt for getting there, 15pt for the “Learning to Kite” meta).

I say I won’t be getting it, because every time I attempted to get to the Aetherblade cache, I encountered multiple groups from other servers that would just camp out at select chokepoints, and gank anyone trying to complete it.

I do not find subjecting myself to the torment of others enjoyable.

trying to achieve something and get ganked by undesired player that KNOW you only have a fixed time to do the contest before end, remember me so much Korean MMORPG.

In which case mods should just create a sticky topic for players to rant in

I don’t know how helpful this advice is (as it’s pretty subject to luck, and I don’t know how competitive of a server your on). Try running it with some friends/guildmates and stick together though it won’t stop you guys from getting feared/pulled/pushed off of a tight ledge though.

I tried twice for the sky pirates one. The first time, I ran into someone that wanted to duel and I lost, but a day or so later when I got on there were only mostly my server on. And the 2-3 that I saw from other servers just waved at each other and we left each other alone. Not that helpful I know, but maybe try “off hours” (if you can) to see if you can get through without getting ganked.

Another option, which I think some people tried for sky pirates is set up a thread here to try to get a group from your server or to find a mesmer to help port (though anyone that really wants to stop you guys will know the same info). The puzzle isn’t too hard but constantly having to worry about getting ganked while trying for the LS achievements isn’t that much fun.

Really boggles the mind that they’re doing this again.

If you don’t like WvW, then there are a lot of achievement points (not titles, those are practically impossible in a game’s lifespan to obtain) you wont be getting.

What about the WvWer’s that don’t like PvE? Whatever your answer to that question is the answer to your own.

Medazolam.3058:

If you don’t like WvW, then there are a lot of achievement points (not titles, those are practically impossible in a game’s lifespan to obtain) you wont be getting.

Yes, but they are all neatly tucked away in the WvW tab, which I politely ignore, and are not sitting there mocking me on the LS tab, where I’ll likely get all the other achievments without much trouble.

Oh, and I play on a Tier 1 server, where our competitors have 24/7 coverage. A 10 man group trying to get through during Sky Pirates was insufficient to overcome the gankerfest.

And to be clear, if they added a section of the LS achievements that were all WvW or PvP focused, and had a meta achievement to wrap all of those together, I’d be perfectly fine. Having a meta achievement that 90% PvE, but you have to go WvW, is just obnoxious.

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

What about the WvWer’s that don’t like PvE? Whatever your answer to that question is the answer to your own.

The people who do not like PvE will not mind that they cannot complete a PvE thing. I, however, love JPs. I don’t like PvP and I find it very frustrating that they have this PvE/JP in a PvP area. There is no way for me to ‘opt out’ of the PvP.

Imagine they had a PvP type event, say Dragonball. You went in to dragonball, and then camping at the beginning of it were 10 Veterans that instantly kill you. Would you feel that is very fun? No, you are there for PvP, not PvE, what the heck are the vets doing there?

I can’t stand the fact that any of this is related to jumping puzzles.

I somehow can’t shake the feeling that the devs are trolling us now.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I somehow can’t shake the feeling that the devs are trolling us now.

They were trolling us even before the game was released. Remember the “manifesto”?

rodadams.5963:

Medazolam.3058:

If you don’t like WvW, then there are a lot of achievement points (not titles, those are practically impossible in a game’s lifespan to obtain) you wont be getting.

Yes, but they are all neatly tucked away in the WvW tab, which I politely ignore, and are not sitting there mocking me on the LS tab, where I’ll likely get all the other achievments without much trouble.

Oh, and I play on a Tier 1 server, where our competitors have 24/7 coverage. A 10 man group trying to get through during Sky Pirates was insufficient to overcome the gankerfest.

And to be clear, if they added a section of the LS achievements that were all WvW or PvP focused, and had a meta achievement to wrap all of those together, I’d be perfectly fine. Having a meta achievement that 90% PvE, but you have to go WvW, is just obnoxious.

You play on a Teir 1 server that never has control of the jp? Seems like there would be an organized effort to retake it, even my sever got together to retake the jp for people wanting the achievement. Besides that, I respect your opinion on WvW in a mainly PvE meta, but you know what that say about opinions. It is possible the dev may change these types of things in the future.

I usually try to invite or join other people when I see them and let them know I just want to get the achievement. One guy from another server actually helped me kill the aetherblades when he saw my uplevel was having a hard time/taking forever. Most people I encountered while doing that were nice and let me be, only 1 dummy wanted to duel my upleveled mesmer when I was trying to help someone else through it.

A tip that helps enormously: there are stategic fountains that give you long durations of stealth (5m) throughout the puzzle, so you can complete it without being seen.

If this is true, I can seriously care less about the achievement points. 20 points is not worth the hassle of Obsidian Sanctum.

ANet has this insane idea that WVW is a extension of PVE because of some lore elements about a gateway to the mist being punched in LA by one of the human gods as a parting “gift”.

A few suggestions:

Try it in off hours, if you can.

Try it in a group, as someone already suggested.

Try it right before your WvW match resets, when very few people are in WvW.

Wait until a few days after the achievement has been available, since there should be far fewer players in the puzzle ready to troll each other.

When you see an enemy player near the achievement location, don’t attack immediately. Just retaliate if they attack you. Not everyone’s a troll, and I’ve seen many instances where people are just as happy to leave each other alone so everyone can get their achievement.

If you have to, ask in map chat if a Mesmer’s willing to portal. It might make the achievement less satisfying (IMO), but at least you’ll bypass most of the frustration.

Good luck!

Creating new content requires work. Recycling old content in the form of achievements creates the illusion of a substantial content update and keeps players on the treadmills in the game.

I did the JP cache yesterday and despite there being a few enemies in the JP, no-one attacked me. I understand the frustration of achievements being hoarded in these areas (especially when it’s recycled old content, it’s not really a good reason to be there at all) but there are times of the day/month where it won’t be so bad to try it out. I still agree it would be better if they didn’t stick the caches in the EB JP at all (or just created 10 generic caches, only 9 of which counted and one could be the Obsidian Sanctum or some other PvE one).

Okay, before anyone complains again, I have question to ask.

Is jumping puzzle is really that hard? (No, its not. Try the Jumping puzzle on Southsun cove. that one’s hard. The Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle. That one’s hard.)

Do you do the jumping puzzle with a group, or do you blindly try to run it by yourself?
(It IS in WvW, taking a party of three to five people is probably the best way to do it. Doing it by yourself is a darn sure way to meet an early death.)

Do you use Speed boosting skills in the Jumping Puzzle?
(While not necessary to complete any jumping puzzle in the game (and it actually makes it harder to complete some, like the earlier mentioned Aetherblade puzzle), they do help sometimes with bigger jumps.

Do you attack players from other worlds while doing the jumping puzzle?
(You should NEVER do this in the jumping puzzle unless you are attacked first. The other problem is that once you enter combat, the game mechanics make you move slower until you move far enough away from each other to break combat and move at regular speeds. Or you two have to kill each other)

Here is some additional tips::

1. In the Dark room, if you are a character that can equip a torch, you can use that for lighting instead, as well as any other item that gives off its own light. I only reccomend this if you are familiar with the puzzle and jumps, as the light is only enough to see the next jump. If you do this, then you won’t be tempted to set any bonfires anywhere and accidentaly enter combat, making you move slower (and making the jumps impossible.)

2. If you see a large group of enemy players, stay back and observe! Once they move on, you move on. Since they don’t usually want to enter combat anymore than you do, you can sometimes just run right by them if they are stuck in an area and you know what you are doing.

3. There is actually a Mystic fountain at the begining of the Puzzle that will make you invisible for 5 minutes if you can find it. Its long enough for you to make through 1.3

4. Bring a Mesmer along if you suck that bad at Jumping puzzles! Actually, just Bring more than one person along! It is WvW!

5. YOUTUBE A simple google search shows videos for the jumping puzzle if you are stuck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS95GX3Xp-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi6a25J7WR8

And here is a guide from Dulfy
http://dulfy.net/2012/09/23/gw2-obsidian-sanctum-eternal-battlegrounds-jumping-puzzle-guide/

and finally, if there are players camping at the end of the jumping puzzle because their lives aren’t good for anything else,…. There’s a reason I told you to take people along.

A Full run through this puzzle should take no more than 20 minutes, and if you are new to it, it may take up to an hour.

I disagree Chrispy. It differs with people. To me the Southsun Cove JP is very easy.

@Cabosoul, I am not sure if you are disagreeing just to disagree, or not, but my point is that the Soutsun cove and Aetherblade puzzles are generally harder than Obsidian Sanctum(for the vast majority of players who are not godly enough to time their jumps perfectly with platforms that appear and disappear every 15 seconds using a system of 3D movement that was probably not built from the ground up for that kind of thing to begin with).

(and I’m also talking about jumping these puzzles without Mesmers, otherwise, the two I mentioned are among the easiest)

I like those achievements. They give value to the JP area, they put some life in it by attracting players :p

This place isn’t meant to be a dead spot nobody cares. It’s the only real PvP free roam area. The fact there’s nothing much of value to be had there was a mistake. Those achievements are a good idea.

Looks like it’s time to have fun with temporal curtain again.

And yet another meta-achievement that requires WvW. You’d think they’d have learned from last time ….

Oh well.

I guess … let the kittening trolling begin?

NOTE: Self-censored. I didn’t swear.

Oh well, least it looks like theres a billion other things to do so it wont hurt if you just want the meta. My completionist OCD is sad though. Least everything else sounds like a lot of fun.

I like that they are giving a people to revisit a lot of the obscure jumping puzzles (cough not LA cough). So thats always nice, unless you really suck at jumping puzzles. But I have to say that the Endless Battleground jumping puzzle was my most hated (only because of the pvp, and I stealthed a majority of the puzzle only to get camped at the end) when I finally finished all the jumping puzzles and swore to never do it again. And I’m still keeping at that. :P lol

Wish my server would band together and do like a group event of it. But they really don’t even touch WvW. :/

the puzzle is extremely easy on any char if you utilize the perma stealth fountains located at 3 different places.
Achievements being equally distributed for all player types is the best way to go, which is exactly what anet is doing.

A lot of wvw players can cry about achievements only being put in open world but they don’t so quit crying every time an achievement is added for Wvw players.

ZilentNight.5089:

the puzzle is extremely easy on any char if you utilize the perma stealth fountains located at 3 different places.
Achievements being equally distributed for all player types is the best way to go, which is exactly what anet is doing.

A lot of wvw players can cry about achievements only being put in open world but they don’t so quit crying every time an achievement is added for Wvw players.

This isn’t a WvW achievement though. This is a JP achievement in the midst of WvW.

It’d be like having a PvP achievement in the midst of a dungeon, it’s just weird.

It isn’t but it is catered towards the WvW players since its in a familiar territory for them and just unlike the other 99% achievements in the open world.

ZilentNight.5089:

It isn’t but it is catered towards the WvW players since its in a familiar territory for them and just unlike the other 99% achievements in the open world.

It just sucks, because I love this JP and would do it daily, but I hate PvP. I wish I were able to run this without getting ganked.

I guess the best way to put this is that it feels out of place.

Imagine if they came out with a new PvP map where you had a Lupicus Gigantus sitting on top of each control point, and before either side could cap the point, Lupi had to die first.

Having the various facets (PvP, WvW, PvE) in the same game isn’t the problem. Mixing the rewards is. And no, I most certainly do not agree that WvW is an extension of PvE.

The puzzle itself is not terribly difficult. A bit long perhaps, but not overly difficult. Having people around who can do remote knockbacks and such, just because they happened to start off 10 minutes before I did, is not PvE.

I tried following all the various hints posted above concerning how to get the achievment. However,
After queueing to get into EB for 40 minutes, my group of 8 guildies, plus some world mates who joined in, were able to get to the colosseum, where a pack of 15 opponents were laying mass AoE and marks just outside the exit.

I suppose I could try and find a time where my server zergs up to power through… assuming I see the right thread in time… and am able to play at that time…. and can get into the map anywhere close to the time….

I hope the new back pieces being released in BOTFW glow in dark just like the fire book back piece which can be used to complete the dark room without going out of stealth.

edit: The Fire book back piece can no longer be acquired tho ;(

If that is the case then completing this puzzle will be a breeze, even for people who don’t like pvp.

If you seriously are an achievement hunter, you will have to put yourself through anything and everything.

If you seriosuly want all the achievements (which isn’t even needed for the meta) you WILL have to do them, otherwise, ignore the ones you don’t want to do.

Achievements are put in all areas of the game to push and reward players from participating in all the activities the game provides. It’s normal to see some of those temporary achievements pop up in the PvP jumping puzzles.

Jemmi.6058:

ZilentNight.5089:

the puzzle is extremely easy on any char if you utilize the perma stealth fountains located at 3 different places.
Achievements being equally distributed for all player types is the best way to go, which is exactly what anet is doing.

A lot of wvw players can cry about achievements only being put in open world but they don’t so quit crying every time an achievement is added for Wvw players.

This isn’t a WvW achievement though. This is a JP achievement in the midst of WvW.

The sad part is, it’s not even that any longer, since it has become its own map. It’s just a jumping puzzle with PvP enabled that’s coincidentally accesible through the Eternal Battlegrounds (and rewards WvW stuff, I’ll give it that).
It’s a nuisance for PvE and WvW players alike.
PvE palyers don’t like it because it’s PvP.
WvW players don’t like it, because the PvE crowd takes up server space transfering to the puzzle.
The only people who truly enjoy it are those who get a kick out of bashing players who are neither equiped for nor interested in PvP battles.

Like stated above, its an achievement. Some will require you to do stuff you may not enjoy, others might.

It is optional like almost everything else in the game.

Huge tip coming from someone who camps sanctum:

Ask you’re server when you get in if there’s someone you can tag along with. A lot of people run the puzzle at least once a day (sometimes more) for the chest and the “free” kills. They’ll show you things like the location of invisibility pools and shortcuts as well as provide protection.

An enemy actually invited me to a party during the aetherblade thing and asked a question about the dark room, so I showed her the rest of the way through the puzzle as well as called off the people we had camping the arena.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Jemmi.6058:

ZilentNight.5089:

the puzzle is extremely easy on any char if you utilize the perma stealth fountains located at 3 different places.
Achievements being equally distributed for all player types is the best way to go, which is exactly what anet is doing.

A lot of wvw players can cry about achievements only being put in open world but they don’t so quit crying every time an achievement is added for Wvw players.

This isn’t a WvW achievement though. This is a JP achievement in the midst of WvW.

The sad part is, it’s not even that any longer, since it has become its own map. It’s just a jumping puzzle with PvP enabled that’s coincidentally accesible through the Eternal Battlegrounds (and rewards WvW stuff, I’ll give it that).
It’s a nuisance for PvE and WvW players alike.
PvE palyers don’t like it because it’s PvP.
WvW players don’t like it, because the PvE crowd takes up server space transfering to the puzzle.
The only people who truly enjoy it are those who get a kick out of bashing players who are neither equiped for nor interested in PvP battles.

WvW players must only feel that way on very high population PvE servers. Whenever PvE people have to go to my server’s sanctum we just feed on the free kills. Badges rain from corpses like mana from heaven.

ZilentNight.5089:

Like stated above, its an achievement. Some will require you to do stuff you may not enjoy, others might.

It is optional like almost everything else in the game.

As the great Sheldon Cooper said: “We have to take in nourishment, expel waste and breathe in enough oxygen to keep our cells from dying. Everything else is purely optional”
Yet, something tells me that a life that’s reduced to fullfilling the non-optional tasks would be pretty boring, don’t you think?
The point I’m trying to make is: The fact that it’s optional isn’t really a reason for people not to want it to be good and entertaining.

ZilentNight.5089:

It isn’t but it is catered towards the WvW players since its in a familiar territory for them and just unlike the other 99% achievements in the open world.

It caters to the WvW players, all right, but not the way you say. It’s there to give WvW players free targets.

And here i thought that Anet actually learned something after aetherblade obsidian cache…

How does dulfy get access to this before it comes out?

Astralporing.1957:

ZilentNight.5089:

It isn’t but it is catered towards the WvW players since its in a familiar territory for them and just unlike the other 99% achievements in the open world.

It caters to the WvW players, all right, but not the way you say. It’s there to give WvW players free targets.

And here i thought that Anet actually learned something after aetherblade obsidian cache…

That’s exactly it.
I just read the hint up there that a lot of players will run the sanctum almost daily for the “free targets”. I can say from experience, that this is simply not true for the more succesful servers in WvW (I’m playing on a top-3 server in Europe). On a succesful server you’ll find find a lot of resentments against running the jumping puzzle because there are a lot more “free” badges in open combat than in the JP.
To me this seems to be the classical case of the man who gets yelled at by his boss and then yells at his wife at home, who yells at the kids, who kick the dog, which barks at the cat, etc.
The servers that aren’t as succesful in WvW simply resort to the jumping puzzle to farm people who aren’t interested in PvP and who aren’t supported by their servers who are actually doing fine in WvW.
It’s grief play, if you want to put it drastically. But that’s what it is. And it’s encouraged/supported by the unneccesary achievment.

Gotejjeken.1267:

How does dulfy get access to this before it comes out?

Since she’s done much for the community and ArenaNet acknowledge her, she’s most likely invited to a test server to try it out.

Sort of hilarious that you get a good portion of all the achv. points I get from WvW by just climbing up that silly puzzle. (Something I have done like 100 times before it was cool!)

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

ZilentNight.5089:

Like stated above, its an achievement. Some will require you to do stuff you may not enjoy, others might.

It is optional like almost everything else in the game.

As the great Sheldon Cooper said: “We have to take in nourishment, expel waste and breathe in enough oxygen to keep our cells from dying. Everything else is purely optional”
Yet, something tells me that a life that’s reduced to fullfilling the non-optional tasks would be pretty boring, don’t you think?
The point I’m trying to make is: The fact that it’s optional isn’t really a reason for people not to want it to be good and entertaining.

This is a silly counterargument. When people say “it’s optional,” they usually mean that the consequences of NOT doing it is minimal. For example, taking a shower is purely optional, yes, but the consequences of not doing so is quite significant.

Whereas not doing the one Obsidian Sanctum achievement has….minimal impact on your gaming experience.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

That’s exactly it.
I just read the hint up there that a lot of players will run the sanctum almost daily for the “free targets”. I can say from experience, that this is simply not true for the more succesful servers in WvW (I’m playing on a top-3 server in Europe). On a succesful server you’ll find find a lot of resentments against running the jumping puzzle because there are a lot more “free” badges in open combat than in the JP.
To me this seems to be the classical case of the man who gets yelled at by his boss and then yells at his wife at home, who yells at the kids, who kick the dog, which barks at the cat, etc.
The servers that aren’t as succesful in WvW simply resort to the jumping puzzle to farm people who aren’t interested in PvP and who aren’t supported by their servers who are actually doing fine in WvW.
It’s grief play, if you want to put it drastically. But that’s what it is. And it’s encouraged/supported by the unneccesary achievment.

Are you certain it’s not just because you’re on a European server? It’s my experience that people are more chivalrous on the other side of the pond.

‘Cause my server’s been all the way up to tier two, and there is always SOMEONE camping in the sanctum. It’s always a great place to pick up kills (as long as you know what you’re doing) because of all the Zerg builds running through along with the PvE people trying to farm badges for legendaries.

Lothirieth.3408:

Really boggles the mind that they’re doing this again.

they are very clear with their stance on this.

i guess the ones complaining will need to accept it and deal with it themselves.

It may be optional, but what good is coming from it?

It gives wvw players a way to participate? fine, but then reduce the meta achieve requirement by one. They did this with the south sun scavenger hunt, (so you didnt have to do the jp to get the flower backpiece) would make sense here.

It encourages people to try wvw? What pve care bear would want to go back in to wvw after that experience. It is possibly the worst introduction to wvw you could have.

It’s optional, but that doesn’t mean it’s not bad. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss a fix for it, especially when the fix is so easy and would prevent so much frustration.

Astralporing.1957:

ZilentNight.5089:

It isn’t but it is catered towards the WvW players since its in a familiar territory for them and just unlike the other 99% achievements in the open world.

It caters to the WvW players, all right, but not the way you say. It’s there to give WvW players free targets.

And here i thought that Anet actually learned something after aetherblade obsidian cache…

Yeah. That we’re stupid enough to try it, even though we hate the idea.

I decided to give it one last try. The last time I tried to get through Obsidian Sanctum, I couldn’t even make it to the dark room. Not because I can’t jump – but because I don’t enjoy jumping while PvPing.

Decided to try it again. Of course, this was my first time making it to the dark room – thanks to some help from a guild that was working it’s way through (thank you, [Miz]!).

Almost to the end of the dark room (remember, my first time this far through), after an hour of being nice to all the opposing server folks jumping through, and a team from that server decides to take me out.

Glad you got your free kills on the poor PVE’er who only plays WvW sometimes, guys.

Hope it was worth it in the long run.

‘Cause all this type of thing is doing is convincing me that nope, I don’t want to do PvE content in PvP, and the more ANet tries to make me do so, the less I want to play the game.

Too bad. I loved GW1, and I want to love GW2. But I’m not in love with story in the middle of difficult dungeons that go away before I have time to get my guild together to learn them, and I’m really not in love with forced PvP if I want to complete a PvE achievement.

Zanshin.5379:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I somehow can’t shake the feeling that the devs are trolling us now.

They were trolling us even before the game was released. Remember the “manifesto”?

While I though after all the negative feedback from the previous one they wouldn’t do it again, it really isn’t that hard. That or the servers you usually confront are very mean, my server is usually among the highest tiers and when I did it with just 1 guildmate, they weren’t fighting back and we’re supposed to be at a very competitive tier.

You can always try to get the invisibility buff from the mystic fountain.

Something I usually do when I’m running WvW jumping puzzles, to show I’m clearly “respecting the JPs truce” is use my Plush Griffon Tonic (that thing is tooooooo adorable to die!!).

Another tip would be to disable auto-attack to avoid accidentally attacking a player from a different server after using a skill close to him, so he doesn’t accidentally believe that you’re a threat.

Then, of course, you can try to get some guildmates/friends/group that are desperate to complete it and run it together. Or be lucky and find a Mesmer porting your allies.