Guild Wars 2

I remember seeing this article linked to a while back. It really put the finger on one of the things that I really liked about GW2.
http://kotaku.com/5945347/guild-wars-2s-subtle-mind-control-makes-me-actually-like-other-people

A quote: We really wanted every player, when they see another player, to be happy to see that other player, [Isaiah] Cartwright said.

Is that what’s happening here? People glad to see other in their fourth hour of trying to complete this puzzle? People glad to see Norn and Charr? Norn and Charr finding other players glad to see them and giving them friendly hellos? Players glad to sit and wait after they’ve failed while other players proceed?

Wreave.2138:

I remember seeing this article linked to a while back. It really put the finger on one of the things that I really liked about GW2.
http://kotaku.com/5945347/guild-wars-2s-subtle-mind-control-makes-me-actually-like-other-people

A quote: We really wanted every player, when they see another player, to be happy to see that other player, [Isaiah] Cartwright said.

Is that what’s happening here? People glad to see other in their fourth hour of trying to complete this puzzle? People glad to see Norn and Charr? Norn and Charr finding other players glad to see them and giving them friendly hellos? Players glad to sit and wait after they’ve failed while other players proceed?

Thank you so much for finding this URL. I looked via Google and couldn’t figure out good search terms earlier. After five hours of fail yesterday, and six more today, I wanted to note that I had realized today what bothered me most about this jumping puzzle portion of the holiday ‘festivities.’

I don’t mind hard work, I don’t mind failure to achieve success. I don’t mind having to work hard and long to get to something that others gain quickly because they are better than me at it. Life isn’t ‘fair’ and I’m not demanding that everything be equally ‘easy.’

However, I sold this game to two long-time friends on this whole ‘MMO where it’s not horrible to see other players’ concept. And here I am in an event where not only is it horrible to see most other players, but it’s also horrible to hear from most other players.

People are bad-mouthing players with larger character models.

People are griefing by summoning elite adds and dragging them into the puzzle with them (still not “fixed”).

People post videos of completing it ‘blind’ — grats, but I’m not you.

Remember, the ability to advance and progress, improve, at something is facilitated by the opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes. To correct behavior and get feedback, to correct the behavior. If I am forced to make the same mistake 1000 times because I can’t get past the first obstacle due to some reason many find trivial, where is the fun? How does that work with the philosophy I sold your game on? Why did you design something with the intent that only 5% succeed?

Hard is good, but limiting the opportunities for others to improve is an epic failure on your part. And engineering community abrasion goes against the grain of how I sold your product, why I am loyal to it, and why I spend money on it.

Oh and by the way, somehow I ended out of overflow and into the ‘main’ instance. With one other player. Two for a while. I made more progress in that hour than I did in the other 10. So I keep trying, acting out the definition of insanity, hoping to do something ‘better’ or less wrong, but waiting to find my way into that magical fantasy land where there are fewer people again… so I can really break through and have a chance to do what I know I can do under the right circumstances — beat the puzzle, just like I have most of the rest of this game.

The jumping puzzle was surprisingly easy. I hadn’t played the game in a week and came on to check this tower out. Took me about an hour and a half to beat it then I beat straight after a second time. Took another 5 tries after that to beat it the third and final time.

With that said it would be nearly impossible if you had some physical disabilities.

EDIT: I am a Human made it easier.

god, this is hard.

Whatever were they thinking? I’m sure there are people who enjoy these sort of things, but I think a vast majority of us went in there expecting that this was content meant for all of us to enjoy.

Are we having fun? If you call gritting your teeth and shouting obscenities fun… I’ll let you be the judge of that.

I agree with most of what everyone has been saying. It is an event that meant for light hearted fun time and not super difficult puzzle. If you want to implement challenging difficult puzzle, do it at a normal map at the end of the game. Not on event time because most people wouldn’t have the time to play due to family, school and work.

The timed puzzle and combined with group is the worst idea that Anet has. Like many already said, you cannot see the jump and when it is timed, you basically relying on your luck whether you make it past the group or not.

Lastly, the stupid cutscene is horrible and is killing me!!! Most annoying of all, personally I am already annoyed by the group with everyone blocking your view and on top of that I am annoyed by the timing, it is literally base on your luck on the jump.

I believe what everyone is asking the most is make it solo-able and not in a group.

My blood pressure is through the roof right now. You have to be absolutely flawless to complete this puzzle. SLOW DOWN THE kitten MIST! Seriously Anet! SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!

Do you guys even test your own game? Did any of you at arenanet find this puzzle fun?

This is the best jumping puzzle ever. Sure it was most challenging and I spent hours raging, failing and learning, BUT that was so awesome to complete it, I felt like super hero thank you anet, you did a great job! And please don’t nerf it, as nothing compares with completion of such challenge, that’s the real achievement

Finally beat it! Was worried about it being too hard, but after about 3 hours I finally made it. Then beat it twice more in under 15mins, once you’ve mastered it, it gets easy, muscle memory I guess!

I did ENJOY most of it. Got frustrated a few times but after beating it… felt like a million bucks, worth every attempt!!!

The puzzle IS fun. It’s well made, and a blast to play.

What isn’t “fun”, is how players are tortured with trying to even see what they are doing. This needs to be instanced, or at the very least capped in size to 5 (like a dungeon).

I’d like to see Anet’s staff try the puzzle with a smaller model character and 15 Charr/Norn characters rubbing their backsides in their faces while they try. In fact, I think they should be FORCED to do it. Put the Anet staff’s paycheck in the chest, and make them finish it before they get paid that week.

See if they like looking up Norn skirts and sniffing Charr butt for a change!

I love the jump puzzle. It’s fun and like many platforming puzzle games outside of MMO’s, it’s challenging.

Also to OP and numerous others, it’s not something you have to do. All you get are boots that are easily upgraded and some candy bags + an achievement. All of which aren’t necessary for endgame progression.

I however agree that it should be instanced or have it where it turns everyone into something that isn’t huge like a Charr or a Norn.

Here’s hoping Anet doesn’t nerf something that is fun and challenging due to so many people who just can’t do something they don’t have to do to begin with.

Nerodon.8602:

Finally beat it! Was worried about it being too hard, but after about 3 hours I finally made it. Then beat it twice more in under 15mins, once you’ve mastered it, it gets easy, muscle memory I guess!

I did ENJOY most of it. Got frustrated a few times but after beating it… felt like a million bucks, worth every attempt!!!

Things are a lot more rewarding when it’s fun and hard isn’t it?
Game makers needs to stop spoon feeding on their piles of cash and make a game for gamer’s. Anet seems to be doing just that.

Coldkiller.3152:

Do you guys even test your own game? Did any of you at arenanet find this puzzle fun?

Do you preview your own thread replies?

i both hated this and thoroughly enjoyed it. The social aspect of it was possibly the most amazing part for me. I had a few groups all routing for eachother, giving tips, determined to see everyone make it to the top. Very impressed

Viales.6895:

god, this is hard.

Whatever were they thinking? I’m sure there are people who enjoy these sort of things, but I think a vast majority of us went in there expecting that this was content meant for all of us to enjoy.

Are we having fun? If you call gritting your teeth and shouting obscenities fun… I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Can’t please everyone. But actual gamer’s will most likely love this. It’s just like a mario level. Who didn’t love mario? People who didn’t like video games, that’s who. >:O

Oblidion.8631:

Viales.6895:

god, this is hard.

Whatever were they thinking? I’m sure there are people who enjoy these sort of things, but I think a vast majority of us went in there expecting that this was content meant for all of us to enjoy.

Are we having fun? If you call gritting your teeth and shouting obscenities fun… I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Can’t please everyone. But actual gamer’s will most likely love this. It’s just like a mario level. Who didn’t love mario? People who didn’t like video games, that’s who. >:O

To me it is like Bit.Trip Runner, but not as fast or long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoQa2A_ITVk

I really hope they don’t make this any easier. The timing on this thing currently is spot on. There is a real adrenaline rush knowing that you can’t delay, and the green mist is always catching up to you, licking at your heels.

People have said this is harder than super meat boy, super mario 64… seriously?! Super Meat Boy is frustratingly hard. WAAAY harder than this. This is simple! Try Griffonrook Run (With a bomb in your hands for the endchest).

All the Clocktower requires is practice, and it even respawns you back at the start instantly the moment you fail! You can’t get much more forgiving than that.

Its shocking how little people are used to a challenge that requires practice, timing and memory. Maybe these people should spend some time behind Demons Souls or Ninja Gaiden for an hour, to be reminded that there are games that require you to learn it. Yes, that means redoing it countless times till you know it by heart. That’s how these things work. If you don’t like that kind of challenge, then don’t do it.

Have you had it bug yet? All night tonight, cutscene lag voiding entire runs, random resets when you’re running on a platform well ahead of the mist, random resets midway through a jump you were easily making, falling through solid objects, bony hands reaching up and grabbing people before the mist had gotten there. Not fun times.

I can see how people get frustrated with this event, It took me also about two ours to get the timings right and finally finish it for the first time. At one point I was pretty frustrated with myself. BUT! Once I’ve done it, It felt very rewarding. It felt better than anything I’ve done before in GW2.

Since then I did it with all of my eight characters (one for each class if you’re wondering). I even enjoy doing the puzzle just for fun and for farming bags.

I have to admit, during the 11 hours of my try on this event, it was fustrating, agnoizing, and really something where u would smash your mouse, keyboard and monitor.

Was really on a verge of giving up, but with just alittle persistence and preserverance, this is still doable, i would say its fun if you complete it and look back at the entire process.

Good luck to all.
Cheers

Took me well over 10 hours (prolly more like 12-13?) between Friday and Saturday nights, but in the end I finally did it!!

And like others have said, the feeling you get when standing in front of that chest is just amazing – best thing I’ve accomplished in GW2 by far

Am not having fun either. My main toon is a Norn and i’m finding it hard (like other Jumping Puzzles – due to camera), theres bad AI and Collision data on some of the blocks which is causing me to miss or get blocked while jumping. I’ve tried it with my human and cant see infront of my due to norn/charr.

I fund it hard enough on most jumping puzzles (their not my cup of tea) but the speed that the green ooze comes up just make this impossible for me, combined with the fact you cant do this solo. i’ve pretty much given up on getting the halloween title.

Also from reading most of the post that average time spent on this alone is 10-15hr in attempts. That to me does not equal fun

Made it!! In 30-40 minutes, was loads of fun. Was prepared to fail a lot of times and patience and concentration payed off.

I can honestly say, this is the least fun I’ve had playing a game in a long time. I normally love jumping puzzles, but this insane. 2+ hours now I’ve been trying. The rest of the halloween events are great, and I love the idea of the clock tower, but making everyone rush with a time limit is beyond stupid. It’s now reached the point where since I’ve sank this much time into the kitten jumping I may as well keep going til I get it.

“And in the words of Josh Foreman, who designed the level. “I only expected about 5% of players to complete this jumping puzzle, I didn’t think there’d be a success video on the first day”.”
5%. I really am kind of speechless why you would DESIGN something for the halloween event that only 5% of players are expected to succeed at.

“Its shocking how little people are used to a challenge that requires practice, timing and memory.”

Can’t quote properly and don’t get a reply button…anyway – it’s hardly a challenge when the very second the cutscene ends, you’re back at the start. Something is obviously wrong but it’s not doable for me, I can’t even move my character before it fails. I’ve just given up on this one.

I don’t know why ppl have such a problem whith this it’s a great puzzle. I finished it with my asura 1h and 30min after it was patched. There where 20 other ppl with me doing it but that doesn’t mater if you jump the 10th time over the same place you should be able to do it with closed eyes.
I don’t write much but i’m really geting annoyed by all the whining on the forums.
If your nereves can’t handle it do something else and come back later jesus

Not even remotely fun.
I hope that we wont have anything like this in future.

It really isn’t.

And before you troglodytes out there call me “bad,” or tell me “l2p,” I HAVE FINISHED IT. And I was HAPPY because I knew I didn’t have to deal with it again after that, not BECAUSE I finished it.

Therein lies the problem. The victory is hollow. I didn’t really achieve anything through skill of my own, I won a war of attrition.

This was all too clear after the long drop. I cleared the second half without a blink or stutter. The stress of the rising tide and the obstruction of running with a crowd made it all more difficult than it really is, let alone the various cheap shots (intended or no) like a schizophrenic camera, hidden geometry snags and random failureports back to the start that can ruin an otherwise inspired run. The bugs and the design choice to make this a group event really cast a black mark over this jump puzzle.

People are welcome to think that the jumping puzzle wasn’t fun, etc., and I actually understand how problematic it is to have it be part of an achievement that won’t be available for much longer. This is because it took me 8 hours to finish the puzzle, and I know many other players needed around that much time to do it. Some of us aren’t so fortunate to have that much free time to use on a jumping puzzle.

However, I’m all for having more jumping puzzles of this variety in the future, not necessarily just for holidays. It was a blast, and I loved the sense of relief after I finally got to the end and got my reward. Even when I was having trouble, it was fun bonding with groups over how close we got, or sharing tips, etc.

I really enjoyed it, it was challenging but after practice and persistence you can easily learn how to do it. It took me well over an hour to complete it on the first day however when running through it this morning I did it on my first attempt.

It would be a shame to reduce the difficulty.

I had a blast with it. Looking forward to more. I do not believe that all content should be nerfed to be completable by everyone… I suck at PVP, and I think it would be an awful idea if they started applying handicaps to other players just so I could “win”… I also haven’t built the proper reflexes yet for the dungeons, that’s on me to learn and get better, not on the company to make it easier so I don’t have to. Leeroy dies, in case you never watched the vid.

The time window for jumps is way too small. 1-2 seconds in the start is just too little when you have to wait for other people to move out of the way so you can see your tiny asura from behind the gigantic charr and norn models

Maybe I should roll charr for this event to get it done?

Another thing is the waiting times. What’s the reasoning behind that? Why not just let everyone try as many times as they want rather than force them to wait for about three times the time it took them to fail

oh, and i’ve been trying this for the past 4 hours, now im just dissapointed and angry for such a trivial reason..

Uuni.3561:

Another thing is the waiting times. What’s the reasoning behind that? Why not just let everyone try as many times as they want rather than force them to wait for about three times the time it took them to fail

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the timer reflects the length of time it should take to finish the puzzle. If you fail near the end, the puzzle should reset almost immediately upon reentering the “lobby” room.

bluewanders.5297:

I had a blast with it. Looking forward to more. I do not believe that all content should be nerfed to be completable by everyone… I suck at PVP, and I think it would be an awful idea if they started applying handicaps to other players just so I could “win”… I also haven’t built the proper reflexes yet for the dungeons, that’s on me to learn and get better, not on the company to make it easier so I don’t have to. Leeroy dies, in case you never watched the vid.

PvP is completely different from jumping puzzles. This is just poorly designed jumping puzzle as people in crowded servers cant complete it with smaller character models

XiaMae… pretty sure you are wrong. The timer is actually variable, because it follows the progress of the person in front from what i can tell, and the puzzle resets when the last one falls. I’ve timed it more than once, it rarely runs for the exact same amount of time. And when I know I am the last one to fall, it always immediately starts a new round as soon as I get back to the gate.

bluewanders.5297:

XiaMae… pretty sure you are wrong. The timer is actually variable, because it follows the progress of the person in front from what i can tell, and the puzzle resets when the last one falls. I’ve timed it more than once, it rarely runs for the exact same amount of time. And when I know I am the last one to fall, it always immediately starts a new round as soon as I get back to the gate.

That’s probably correct then. I’ve also seen the timer jump at some points (as players fail in bunches?), and my game doesn’t lag very much at all.

In my view its the best and most fun JP in the game

I have done it on a Asura, Charr and Human.
Each race has it’s advantage and disadvantage during the puzzle.

I understand that a lot of people find it hard, yet it is easier once you memorized the steps. Sure you will fail a few times but you will get further each time you try.

Find a group that does not have to many big people and let everybody take off there armor. Just be polite and explain it instead if yelling. I was in a good group when i got it the first time and everybody was supportive.

The more you do the puzzle, the more you learn the steps to take and before you know it, you will be jumping through the window.

So don’t give up!

I realise now that I’ll probably never get this done, I play one character and one character alone and it’s an Asura so apparently the camera is already working against me.

I understand that it’s supposed to be a troll puzzle, it is the Mad King after all but I’ll now not be able to finish all the achievements in the event, disappointing but life goes on, I haven’t managed to do it and there ain’t nothing I can do about that

In my honest opinion as someone who is not classed as disabled, but still suffering badly with movement in my left hand as I broke 3 bones in it and am still awaiting a second operation to try and restore proper movement in three fingers, that I loved this puzzle. Yes at times I almost gave up, my reflexes are slower than normal now, and it hurts to do jumping for any period of longer than 5 minutes. But it is a brilliant design, totally innovative, it took me 7.5 hours over a few sessions to complete this on an asura eng, no speed buffs involved, lots of complaining on ts and getting annoyed at the screen, but what worked the best was when I got really annoyed to take a break, go do some stuff in rl and come back to it.
As someone in my guild said (who is brilliant at jumping puzzles and laughs at how often I die in them) the dev that made this puzzle deserves a raise and a punch, I agree totally with that.

Xia, if you fail at the last jump, you miss the closest restart and have to wait for the entire bar to fill up. A bit annoying, but hey.

Was this challenge hard? Did it have my pounding my desk, swearing at the screen and have me walking off in frustration? Gods, yes. It took me maybe 8 hours, each time getting a little farther and learning the path.

When I finally got to the top, I was elated. I didn’t feel I’d won through attrition as someone else said, but I was skillful enough to beat it. Through attrition, you’re guaranteed to win eventually because of the resources you put in, in this case time. That’s simply not true, there are some people who will try for 20 hours straight that won’t make it.

Gear was secondary. I didn’t feel relieved, I felt a massive sense of accomplishment.

As a person which is affected by a motor skill disorder I can sympathize with the issues. Here the challenge becomes a real challenge because you absolutely have to focus and coordinate harder. However I enjoy a good challenge even under such circumstances and despite all this I tend to play the role of a sniper in FPS games.

With that said I think the problem should not be a decrease in difficulty as a whole.
But the whole encounter feels like a raid with a mini-lockout on a boss.

First I am suggesting to remove the ooze and have the ground pieces you stand on vanish the same way as they appeared. You could really have a time window depending on the length of the piece for both appearing and disappearing which means the player still has a lot of time to coordinate, jump and collect their bearings. This would also remove the need for a timer because now each ground piece to jump on is on a different timer.

Secondly I suggest all races being turned into a random ooze at the beginning with your own one being a red ooze and all others shown as transparent greenish version. At the risk of being asked what I am smoking: It removes the character size issues and does not remove ooze from the design formula. It also removes the character occlusion/obstruction issues.

Thirdly the camera issues need to be resolved. It feels like the final boss of the encounter really because a lot tries I have failed were because the camera locked onto an edge of a model and I had to wiggle around to get it back in place and thus losing time. It’s really not fun doing jumping puzzles with that camera in general. Least of it this tone.

I believe that’s all there needs to be done and turned into what I believe a fun encounter. I am sure I will go back and try again but not as form of fun or entertainment but as challenge to beat in order to get those 10 achievement points.

you will only be satisfied when everybody is equal in all respects and all races and classes are easy to play with no difference in gameplay because if you are going to continue complaining that one is easier than the other … short, while “you” do not win is not good

Ravenblade, I am sorry to hear about your disability and I do hope you have been enjoying the events thus far.

As fair as your ideas sound, it would mean they’d have to completely rehash a puzzle that they’ve probably been working on since well before release in an afternoon for that will only be up for Halloween week.

I didn’t really have issues with the camera, right-click and move the mouse, adjust on straight parts.

I don’t know if it was addressed earlier, but if you guys look at the GW2 wiki the Clock Tower is not needed for the Emissary of the Mad King. Next, I know this was a difficult challenge, but I made it twice after 2 hours of practice. The key to this challenge is practice, practice practice. Don’t sit there and roll your eyes each time you fail, learn why you failed. At first it was difficult, because I had to go through and disable certain controls, then I had to learn the track itself. By the time I was finished with this challenge, I could navigate through my camera spazzes and make the next jump blind.

This puzzle isn’t hard, just sit back, relax, yell at a few Charr and Norn like I did, and then just do it. Just be glad ArenaNet isn’t punishing you for falls like all the other puzzle challenges.

Just to point out : this puzzle is called “The MAD King’s Clock Tower”
What i want to say is that that mad there isn’t just for show, it does reflect the difficulty of it so to those that are complaining about not getting a achievement … there will be plenty others you won’t get ; if you actually get all achievs, gz to you and condolences to you life (yes i’m being sarcastic) .
Just for info it took me 2 hrs til my first complete (on a human) and afterwords 2-5 tries on 2 asura and 1 norn for each (and yes i had norns and chars in bulk in every group).

Firstly, IT IS NOT A JUMP PUZZLE, it is gauntlet of death with a harsh time limit.

I finally managed it after 15 or so hours of trying. In the final run what got me through to the end was:
1)Focus , focus, focus, clear your mind of all other thoughts
1A) Imagine that the other players are graphical effects of the sludge and going to vanish soon
2) Find a jumping rhythm and direction that works for you (usually staying close to the right side works.)
3) Memorize your jumping plan and do it every time— the repetition will pay off big time.
4) Stay calm, play relaxing music if you have to. Because if your heart gets giddy or you get frustrated— you have a low chance of making it to the end.
5) LAUGH AT YOUR MISTAKES

What I posted yesterday stands, I still feel that this “jump puzzle” is too hard and the designers have stated that it is only got the top 5% off the player base. I won’t be doing this puzzle again for kicks, I hate the thing and now I don’t have to go back. What’s even better is that my perfectionist side is satiated, yay.

I hope that they don’t introduce any more elitist content into the game.

Completely agree with topic starter.

This is not puzzle, andt this is NOT FUN at all. After 10 pointless hours of trying – this thing starts to annoy.

I know that u were trying ur best, but such things shouldn’t be a waste of time.
Solving puzzles and riddles makes fun, even if takes a lot of time it still makes fun.

But this thing is not a riddle, not a puzzle, it’s just a… brainless pressing of one button 10+ hours.
I’m very disappointed.

I can only say – not fun. Too hard. The more I keep trying to learn it the sloppier I get, all the while getting abuse from the odd kitten who is probably also annoyed as hell at this puzzle.

I think it should have been slightly easier timewise. Slow down the ooze a bit… Give us time to breathe. Don’t expect us to run it as a pack…

Shouldn’t be loosing my sanity trying to do a puzzle, even for the Lunatic King…

Twaddlefish.6537:

Ravenblade, I am sorry to hear about your disability and I do hope you have been enjoying the events thus far.

As fair as your ideas sound, it would mean they’d have to completely rehash a puzzle that they’ve probably been working on since well before release in an afternoon for that will only be up for Halloween week.

I didn’t really have issues with the camera, right-click and move the mouse, adjust on straight parts.

I usually don’t even mention it because people tend not to notice it unless taking a jab at my performance because I have to work twice as hard to achieve what others see as norm. I’ve raided with this in WoW, healed and tanked, and that’s because I’ve learned to accept the challenge in itself. However since you are more vulnerable to distracting/obstructing factors in these situations your performance rapidly declines as their impact adds up exponentially.

The biggest issue I am seeing is: Crowd-jumping while nothing new is one major factor, everyone who’s done encounters like Thaddius knows that but here the designers were aware of it by splitting up the number of people and allowing spacing out as well adding no time constraint to it. The thinking is that everyone jumps as you do and they jump as everyone does which means there’s a chain-lagged reaction which gets visual obstruction by bigger characters super-imposed on it because you have to time your jump on based on the timing of others while not knowing where your character is looking at. Therefore this enforced break as everyone rushes to the same spot at the same time is the first hurdle. The question is: Is this design really without alternative? Is it intended with the side-effects and negative factors in mind?

But you are right it would require a rehash but I would not suggest it if I hadn’t seen developer companies overhauling a design based on feedback. It’s part of the iteration and they have got a whole year to do that. I realize the principle of the encounter is that the whole group gets one try and then resets which is fine on paper and would work out if they addressed camera issues which exist and are completely randomly occurring (unless someone has a secret recipe for how to make the camera stick). Also the character obstruction issue needs to be tweaked, heck it would be as simple as making all ground pieces to jump on visible from the start.