Guild Wars 2

I never completed it but I loved the challenge it represented, it was one of those that when people did complete it, you could tell they had a sense of achievement. The clocktower was fun!!

You could tell it was designed to be a single player instance but the thing is, it was beautifully designed. There was a LOT of thought and detail that went into it and the thing is,

simplifying things is not always the answer, there are a lot of simple jumping puzzles in the world and there has been requests to have more challenging ones and you did it,the step forward is just anet learning from these things. Have solo instances be solo if that was how they were designed.

So yes, despite my rambles I just want to say a big big thank you for a fun halloween

I support this. Like i said before..never finished the puzzle but i really hope to see future puzzles as hard, or harder (thats what she said) .

No…dont be sorry because YOU DONT APOLOGIZE FOR AWESOME!

I loved the clock tower, the only thing I can say that maybe needed to be different is… It kinda NEEDS to be solo-able. I had no trouble with the crowds since I’m a Norn and towered over everyone else ensuring that I could see where I was going, but I had so many people complaining that I was blocking their view or that there where too many people to see past. The difficulty doesn’t need to be reduced, hell it could even be increased and still be stellar! The only thing is Anet needs to try to find a way to make jumping puzzles like this(timed ones) Solo-able if the player so chooses so that we don’t have quite so many complaints. Just playing devil’s advocate here, as I said I loved the puzzle and think it could have been made a bit harder, actually felt I achieved something when I finished it the first time(rare in almost any game in this generation of gaming). Wish the slippers looked more like slippers than high boots though. :p

The clock tower was by far the most fun I’ve had in this game in a while, and it was easily the best thing about Halloween!

There really was nothing wrong with the balancing of CT, it was perfectly tuned. Big character models blocking the view is a horrible excuse. If you practice it for 9 hours like some have said they’ve done, you should be able to do it blind, unless you simply don’t learn from your mistakes.. There’s plenty of bugged, overtuned or artificially difficult content in this game, but this time the content wasn’t to blame.

It breaks my heart to see Josh so sorry. I and loads of other people found the tower so, so fun. I’d really like to see more similarly tuned jumping puzzles in the game, but alas it probably won’t happen so long as the majority of people just can’t do it.

Dont be sorry at all, you did your job very well and if things start to get scaled back to ensure 100% of the participants get what they want then just mail everyone a legendary weapon on dinging 80.

Having said that some care can be taken on camera views, racial heights in confined and busy areas as being human with Norn & Charr around me was bad, must have been a nightmare for the Asuran brethren.

I also loved the clock tower and in all honesty, it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
After first reading about all the rage in the forums I gave it a shot, and after an hour of trying I jumped into the face of the clock and fell into the green goo of undeath. The next run was successful xD
And like HyDraLiNsK.2470 said, it gave me such a rush to complete it the first time, and kept it going for the next 5 hours, it was beyond awesome.
I really hope we will get to see some more puzzles just like this.
If the Giant in Diessa Plateau taught me how to dodge-roll properly, this taught me how to jump properly.

The puzzle itself was very good, there is no doubt about it. However it was very bad decision to make this group-puzzle. When 10-20 people are cluttering the screen, it often becomes impossible to even see the next landing spot, not to speak of jumping and landing on it in time before the mist swallows you. It would have been 10/10 for me if it was solo instance, but as it was it really ruined my fun of it.

In my opinion it was an amazing event. It took me quite a long time to complete but when i reached the top a charr and a litte asura were with me and we just /dance.
If you didn’t like it just move on and do something else. Seriously why do so many people believe that everything has to be tailormade for their taste and sense of difficulty.
The only people i feel bad for are those that couldn’t participate because they would get motion sick (Fov Issue) .

+1 Josh Foreman and this post

Agreed, I want more truly challenging content like this.

Perhaps in future we could come up with a compromise and have ‘regular’ and ‘prestige’(hard) versions?

This puzzle took me more than 5h , it was frustarting but amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! The clock tower was really the best part of Halloween, i was just a bit sad about the reward.

Agree, the Clocktower was the most fun event during the halloween and not only halloween, the most fun I had in gw2 so far. Absolutely amazing jumping puzzle, I’m really looking forward to more hard puzzles like this

Funset.7893:

No, it was not fun. This is ur personal opinion, OP. Clocktower was awful design and a bad idea for a jumping “puzzle” in a holiday event. Worst idea ever.

Haha. I love how this guy says “that is your personal opinion, OP” then states his own opinion as truth? No one is going to like every aspect of the game. I love coloring my armor, my BF would rather buy armor off the TP. I would rather find it dungeons—he hates dungeons. etc, etc.

You know what I love most about the jumping puzzle?

I didn’t HAVE to do it. It just amazes me that people are complaining about something not even permanent being “too hard.” When did games become nothing more than facerolls? I guess I can blame facebook.

gah, just finished typing a response at the same time a mod changed the subject line.. so my whole response vanished when I clicked send. Can’t even recover it with the back button, because of the way this forum works >:(

Just trying to say that I agreed with what Foreman said. Not that I think he should feel bad, but the lesson he took from all the frustration is the right one. Difficult is good, and its great that he plans to keep making content like that. Holiday events just aren’t the best place for it.

I don’t agree with the sentiments here, that players should just be ignored..

Vzur.7123:

Just trying to say that I agreed with what Foreman said. Not that I think he should feel bad, but the lesson he took from all the frustration is the right one. Difficult is good, and its great that he plans to keep making content like that. Holiday events just aren’t the best place for it.

This I just don’t understand. I mean, I do understand that players shouldn’t be “frustrated” during holiday events…but this is a GAME. Game should invoke challenge and frustration is a by-product of challenge. There were NUMEROUS other seasonal events to do—so what’s so bad about an extra challenge for the players that want it? They didn’t even give good loot at the end!! Seriously, I deleted what I spent 5 hours trying to get. But it was 5 hours of fun I had even if it was difficult.

I imagine the next holiday and what the events will be like if they decide to take away difficulty. You know what I see? A bunch of grinding. The only other thing that wasn’t grinding is PVP, which just isn’t for some players including myself (see how no one complains about seasonal PVP because some like it, some don’t. If you don’t like it, don’t play it).

So would you rather have a jumping puzzle that takes 20 minutes to complete so you can go back to grinding a dungeon?

Have to say that I too totally loved this puzzle, there’s loads of achievements in game that I’m never going to get but this one I was determined to get.

Over the event I’ve spent the odd hours here and there trying this puzzle without success…I knew I could do it and didn’t want to wait a year to try again lol so I was desperate to finish it last night before it went away…

2 and half hours of trying with a guildie we decided to take a 10 minute break and then both completed it on our first run back, amazing really.

Anyway, 8+ hours of my life gone trying this but I wouldn’t change it lol.

Keep the unique and challenging content coming. Thanks Anet.

I loved the Mad kings clock tower. It was frustrating in a challenging way and it made me feel like I actually managed to achieve something. And everytime I actually managed to get a bit further up then before I got nervous but happy at the same time and my heart would beat just a little faster while my head screams “now be careful and dont mess up” just to mess up the next jump and fail. But it was fun.
And yes, I also had to deal with lag that killed me, people blocking my view (never had camera issues considering I always kept my finger on the right mouse to adjust the camera angle so i rarley had to use another key besides W to adjust my jumps).
Eventually I managed to make it to the top, but didnt know that i had to time it so i jumped before the glass broke T.T and i did it again and again until i got it right. Overall took me 2-3 hours to complete but it was awesome and I seriously hope that they will add more jumping puzzles such as this one to the game, simply because I love challenging content.
Also, I did the ct at the same time with a few other people in my guild and we had all fun doing it. . .

To everyone that disagrees and says it sucked: There is plenty of stuff I hate, for example WvWvW. But I dont stand there and write QQ threads about it, demanding that it is made easier so that i can get my epic pvp gear and achievments. Somethings just arent made for everyone so please stop complaining and move on and leave that content to people that actually enjoy it.

With that being said, great job Josh and im looking forward to an equally if not more challenging puzzle for the november update, or x-mas. Preferably for both

coffeeisyum.5297:

Vzur.7123:

Just trying to say that I agreed with what Foreman said. Not that I think he should feel bad, but the lesson he took from all the frustration is the right one. Difficult is good, and its great that he plans to keep making content like that. Holiday events just aren’t the best place for it.

This I just don’t understand. I mean, I do understand that players shouldn’t be “frustrated” during holiday events…but this is a GAME. Game should invoke challenge and frustration is a by-product of challenge. There were NUMEROUS other seasonal events to do—so what’s so bad about an extra challenge for the players that want it? They didn’t even give good loot at the end!! Seriously, I deleted what I spent 5 hours trying to get. But it was 5 hours of fun I had even if it was difficult.

It’s because its an MMORPG, not a platformer. That doesn’t mean it can’t have some platforming elements, but the devs need to understand a lot of their players might not appreciate those elements, or want that particular type of difficulty. Especially when it’s also that degree of difficulty.

Some people do appreciate it, and that’s great. The problem is just that when you put it into a holiday event, apparently, a lot of people will feel compelled to do it, even if its not really their thing. I didn’t even try to do it, and that was fine with me, but I can understand, people get carried away by the festivities and don’t want to miss out on any of it.

You can argue that they shouldn’t feel that way, but the fact of the matter is that they do, and trying to debate how people should or shouldn’t feel isn’t going to go anywhere. I don’t see anything wrong with the devs being sensitive to that. I applaud them for it, as long as they don’t take it too far, and make the whole game too easy, and that sort of thing.

If they decided not to do content like that at all anymore, that would be terrible, but that’s not what he was saying.

Vzur.7123:

You can argue that they shouldn’t feel that way, but the fact of the matter is that they do, and trying to debate how people should or shouldn’t feel isn’t going to go anywhere. I don’t see anything wrong with the devs being sensitive to that. I applaud them for it, as long as they don’t take it too far, and make the whole game too easy, and that sort of thing.

If they decided not to do content like that at all anymore, that would be terrible, but that’s not what he was saying.

I disagree. I did not like that one mini-game with the pumpkins. Something rumble? I played it once and hated it, and…I left and found something I did enjoy. I agree that maybe the Clock Tower shouldn’t have been tied to an achievement because some people may not enjoy that type of gameplay. Or there could be an “easy” mode or “hard” mode.

Wanted to create a topic like this right after I’d seen Josh Foreman answer in that “Post here if you gave up” thread. Shame on you, people, his work is amazing. The puzzle itself is challenging and interesting, and to be honest I’m not sure if it has to be a solo-instanced challenge. I loved to be there with others, way more fun than solo. Yes, it took me 2 hours to complete it for the first time, but all that time we were making fun of ourselves and encouraging each other. And when we finally did it, it felt GREAT. After that first successful run it’s just easy, even with wardrobe-sized norns and charrs. Hell, I was jumping all day yesterday in someone’s charr model, from the beginning to the end. Turned out to be a nice person, so it’s just stupid to say that all those who play charr or norn are bad

So, I just want to thank Josh and Anet for this event and ask to make more challenging puzzles like the clocktower in future.

PS And I apologize for my english, not my first language.

coffeeisyum.5297:

I disagree. I did not like that one mini-game with the pumpkins. Something rumble? I played it once and hated it, and…I left and found something I did enjoy. I agree that maybe the Clock Tower shouldn’t have been tied to an achievement because some people may not enjoy that type of gameplay. Or there could be an “easy” mode or “hard” mode.

You seem to be saying you disagree, because you don’t personally feel that way? Did you notice that I said I had no problem skipping some of it, too? Doesn’t mean I’m going to go telling other people they should be more like me. In my experience, that just isn’t ever productive.

coffeeisyum.5297:

I agree that maybe the Clock Tower shouldn’t have been tied to an achievement because some people may not enjoy that type of gameplay. Or there could be an “easy” mode or “hard” mode.

I’m not into PvP, can we please get rid of all those pvp and wvw achievements? /sarcasm off
The clocktower achievement isn’t needed for the title, so what’s the problem? I’m pretty sure those who don’t like JPs can just skip it. Just because they don’t like something doesn’t mean everybody else shouldn’t be able to do it. The more different activities in the game – the better, it’s not all about achievements.

I’m not sure that you will necessarily read my comment, Josh, but it might be interesting to see more jumping puzzles, especially future holiday ones, designed around group play like this one was accidentally forced to be.

While I can imagine that it sucks to have a jumping puzzle that you worked so long on to be solo all of the sudden forced to be run with multiple people when the puzzle clearly wasn’t designed that way, there certainly is something positive you can gain from this, and that is your new experience in designing group puzzles. What worked out well? What didn’t play out so hot?

I can imagine some very fun holiday puzzles if they are designed around a group dynamic in mind.

For me, finishing the clock tower was like killing a difficult raid boss on WoW after some 1% wipes used to be. My hands were sweaty, I was a bit shaky and I actually cheered IRL and was grinning like an idiot.

Finishing the clock tower is not only my favourite memory of this Halloween, but of GW2 so far.

I feel really bad for Josh having to read some of the posts around the forum talking about his work, which he’s very clearly put a load of effort into.

I loved the clock tower!

I agree. It really wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. I was picturing 20 mins of pure jumping plus all the resets from the falls, but its nowhere near that ridiculous. For me it was about 2 hrs due to falls, but only like 3 minutes of jumping. Took a while to get the hang of the first half, but I actually got through the second part on my first try.

Thank you so much for making this challenging and fun jumping puzzle!

Clock Tower was good. I spent 3 hours raging at it, but it made getting to the top worth it

I didn’t do it, had a few tries then I decided I cant be bothered, but don’t have a problem with it. No one is forcing you to do content you don’t like. Keep up the good work.

How about raindeer slippers for Wintersday?

I gotta say though, the clock tower was amazing to me. It was really difficult, but it brought back nostalgia of video games from my childhood. The days where games were released as is and were never changed and you would spend countless hours trying to beat certain parts. Then when you finally beat it, it felt amazing. There were no achievements for these and often times there were no trophies or rewards.

I think this concept really drives a strong sense of accomplishment that you rarely see in games these days. It’s that feeling where, even with no reward, just beating it is rewarding in itself. I hope Mr. Foreman lets his imagination go without limitation in future jumping puzzles. I like the idea of having easier ones that anyone can enjoy, but also having really challenging ones like this. I hope to see the clock tower again next year as well as maybe any new additions they come up with.

I must admit, Although i did complete everything.. no matter how much i deny it… MAN this was an awesome frikken event. I never had so much fun playing in an MMO ever before. Props to all them devs.

side note: Can we see a less bugged event in the future? I mean, i had fun and all, but why was it like an entire day that the Mad king Realm was blocked? Anyways, less bugs in future events and many many many thanks. I actually didn’t eat my dinner twice due to this event (and trust me my wife was pissed!)

I did try the tower a few times, and while I never got past the first part, there was one thing I really liked. As I sat in the lobby several times waiting to go again, listening to the doomsayer npc’s, I really felt like I was in the lobby of a Haunted House about to meet my demise. It gave me that cool spooky scared Halloween feeling more then anything else in the event!

Clock tower brought me back to something from Mario, which I really loved. Like Mario, once you got it, it was a lot easier to do. Some of the most fun I’ve had in GW yet. Can’t wait for winter festivities.

Hats of to Mr Foreman!

Amazing event!

Never been in anything so challenging as that tower and it was extremely rewarding!
I Even Play we are the Champoions song from Queen!!!

Great Job!

Quaggan likes Josh. Coooooo

@Invictus

The Clock Tower isn’t necessary for the Emissary title.

Thanks for giving us a challenging puzzle to tackle!

While I was on the luckier end where it only took about 30-50 minutes to complete it, I enjoyed it enough to spend the entire rest of the day perfecting it to where I was able to complete it nearly every attempt. After hours of successful runs (and finding some interesting little quirks involving sitting at the top of the stairs), it was still the most enjoyable jumping puzzle I’ve done so far out of all of the current puzzles in the game.

I hope to see more challenging content like this and more in the future

The clock tower was amazing! It will definitely be remembered as one of my favorite moments in an mmo. Whoever created this masterpiece should NOT apologize, you should be proud of yourself! (and trying to think of new ways to challenge us!!) one of the reasons it was so fun was because of the random people i was doing it with, they were ALL there for the entire duration and we had some great laughs failing together, i made some good friends and i believe that event was 10x better BECAUSE there were people with you. I didn’t have any issue seeing myself, but maybe an option for later would be to have everyone be semi transparent except for yourself or something so people with bad spatial recognition won’t complain. Thank you again!

Just wanted to add my support here. I loved the jumping puzzle! Best thing in the event (although I loved almost all of it).

Loved it. That is all.

I really enjoyed the clock tower.

My girl friend and I spent hours competing with each other (and everybody ells) to see who would get up first her or me.

I won and beat it 3 more times before she got mad and gave up but we had a tun of fun with it and it made for a really great event.

I will say though… This event made me hate the heck out of Norn and Charr, who would make it so hard to see myself or where I was trying to jump.

Great job over all and I hope each holiday has puzzles just as hard.

Just wanted to say that I enjoyed the puzzle. Was able to complete it on both Asura and Charr character and various classes. My only gripe was the seemingly random deaths without explanation (I’m guessing it was the random skeletons reaching out to grab or maybe lag actually making me fall when it looked like I was safe).

Don’t ever apologize for aiming for the stars. The Clocktower was awesome.

The Clock Tower is amazing, loved doing it with other people. There is a sense of camaraderie when working together to figure it out.

VOLKON.1290:

Quaggan likes Josh. Coooooo

LMAO!!!

its a very cool jump puzzle, i do a lot of jump puzzle in other mmorpg games too and this one stands out from others. only the camera is bothering me but, guess it will get fixed

I for one, LOVED the clock tower. It was exactly what it was meant to be: a challenge with a curve.

I don’t want a jump puzzle that anyone can do because it would ruin my accomplishment.

I found it very fun and I actually hope that there will be a ton of jumping puzzles such as the clock tower in the future as well.

For those complaining about your race for being too big or too small, i really don’t get it. the only issue there was is that everyones characters were covering each other in the beginning, but that effected everyone and had nothing to do with race. after the first few seconds it didn’t matter as others fell and things started to spread out more. to solve this, there can be individual instaces, though i actually prefer being with a group of people/friends cause it makes it more fun.

The only thing that disappointed me was that there was no exclusive title for this achievement (yet there’s a silly pumpkin carving title -_-) i really wish there’d be more jump quest titles. Especially for jump quests that are out for a limited time like the clock tower, or else people would have an infinite amount of time to practice until they finally get it. jumping titles would be amazing.

I’d also like to see some more jumping puzzles with moving platforms/objects/ etc…

Please Josh Foreman, don’t let these people stop your creativity and making actual challenges.

Josh Foreman for GW2 lead Developer !!!

More content as difficult as this ..in fact ..HARDER ..not just JP’s ..but everything. Bring back old school gaming ..To hell with EZmode !!

So, after reading the thread where Josh Foreman was speaking out about the design and what not, I decided I’d come post here.

I, personally, thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle. To all the human players complaining about not being able to see, I use the shortest Asura model possible, and one of the smaller body types. I fill your pain, but I like the extra challenge it added. It took me approximately 1.5 hours to master it, and I have since completed it well over 20 times (all on my Asuran). I’m good at these puzzles, so I understand I am not the norm, but I definitely don’t believe doing it as a human was hard. It took me all of ten minutes to do it on my wife’s human (was waaaaay easier, both because of the model size and the camera (personally, though, I don’t see why people complain about the camera, I’ve never had troubles with it, so I may be missing something?)).

I’m not trying to turn this into a “I’m better than you” post, but I just want to make the point that most of the complaints, albeit semi-valid, can be overcome, and if the items that are causing the complaints weren’t there….I would have hated the puzzle, it would have simply been too easy.

Also, please don’t make them instanced. I love racing other players farming the trick or treat bags. Made a few friends this way, too (always fun to make fun of each other when we made stupid mistakes and fell to our demise ).

Anyhow, the Clock tower was by far my favorite part of the Halloween content. I hope to see more stuff like this in the future.

P.S. Josh Foreman, I think you did an excellent job with this, so please don’t discredit your design choices. There may have been slight issues, but overall it was a magnificent way for me to waste away my night

Funset.7893:

I recomend ur next expansion to be The Madness of Josh: Jumping Puzzles. Make a whole continent only with jumping puzzles.

Haha, I’d be so there for that.

It took me about 4-5 hours to finish the JP, and I thought I’d never do it again, but the next day I went back and did it with my four other chars. I had fun with it, thanks!

It took me eight and a half hours to complete it the first time. 8.5 hours glued in my chair, no breaks, no pausing, just 8.5 hours of sheer determination. I am not good at jumping under pressure, but I was determined to learn. I finally got it, and I went to bed. The next day, I came back and did it 35 times on every character. It had gone from a grim task to my favorite thing in GW2. I will sorely miss the clock tower. If there was some way to leave it in the game, I’d do a few runs every day, even with no reward. It’s just that fun.

I just wanted to add my 2 cents and say that the CT is my favorite of the Halloween Activities. This was the first real challenge that I have experienced in an MMO for some time and I really enjoyed it. I hope you will do more like this. My only suggestion is to remove the randomness of having everyone start in a group. I finished the CT on my Asura the second time and the disadvantage of being a small character model was very noticeable. Not that I was not able to overcome it (and it felt great) but I really empathized for my other Asuran brothers and sisters. Anyway. Great Job!

P.S. I think I actually was buzzing when I reached the top and waited for the clock face to spin around a second time. Good Times…

Teep Stormshadow
Thief – Gates of Madness
Phoenix Ascendant [Ash] – Founder

It took me 2.5 hours to beat the first time. At first I was very frustrated because it was hard, but now I’m glad it was such a challenge. It made it much more meaningful when I actually beat it. Learning the paths to take took practice and timing. I wish the puzzle was staying in game so I could play it some more!