Guild Wars 2

Gave up as I don’t have the elite reflexes required for this.

We had one girl in my guild who is so afraid of heights in RL as soon as she saw the MK map she froze up…. we ended up having her stay on the first isle while we finished the fight, then coaxed her down close to the chest isle, and told her to jump down and we would ress her there…. but she kept missing the entire island and having to start over.

After a couple of attempts she gave up and basicly logged off as the falling was to much for her to take.

I would suggest in the future to make a chain ramp down, make it a much longer run so jumping is a quicker route, but there should have been an alternative for people who are hopeless at jumping or have a fear of heights.

As for the tower I would not say I gave up, as soon as I saw it was a jumping puzzle I left, I think i’ve only done one or two in the entire game as they are not my cup of tea

but!

I would not want them removed from the game or anything like that! obviously many people do enjoy them and it would be very selfish on my part to have any aspect of the game taken away just because its an activity I dont wish to do.

I did NOT give up the challenge and I beat it. 3 times. Some of you are awesome at pvp, some at playing the TP – I love jumping puzzles, and I enjoy challenges like this.

No, seriously, you shouldn’t have armor breaking from falling to your death. If that is happening that is a bug. Not in the puzzle, not in a dungeon, not anywhere.

edit – I have never had my armor break from falling, anywhere.

Banquetto.9521:

p.s. clearly one of the skills the Clocktower tests isn’t reading comprehension: “Post here if you GAVE UP on the Clocktower!” =/= “Post here if you want to smugly gloat about completing the Clocktower”

Following the directions of someone who’s trying to protect a biased view is ridiculous. The designer was in this thread apologising for creating a great challenge and if he’s paying attention to this thread he deserves to hear the full community response.

Account.9832:

Also annoying is how the game pops up the “overflow” message boxes right in the middle of the screen during the puzzle.

lol, this happened to me on the final ladder and made me fall off before I could jump into the clock. As you say, a little icon would have been more appropriate there.

Efaicia.3672:

If anything at all needs to change it would be to transform everyone in the group to a uniformed sized creature.

Oh I really like this idea, or maybe just shrink everyone to the same size so we can still keep our sweet outfits. It’s a much better solution than racial separation as I was running it with a couple of friends who were playing different races.

Plague.5329:

The difficulty of the puzzle is this:

3) You can perform the same jump a dozen times and land on three different places because of tiny variations.
4) This one cog you have to make a nearly perfect long jump to, on one of its “teeth.”
5) The “tiny beam.” I always slipped off the left edge after landing perfectly because of the angle.

None of these are actually accurate: I had a lot of difficulty with the Norn and Charr engulfing my character but I found that I could run a little behind the pack to learn the route. @3, you aren’t making the same jump if you’re landing in different places, I hit the same spots 90% of the time so it isn’t random.

@4 the jump doesn’t have to be anywhere near perfect, the problem is getting nervous and rushing the jump from too far back on the preceding block. There’s quite a bit of room for error.

@5 I jump to the beam and not the rock every time, it’s only a little more difficult and you buy enough time by skipping the rock to be careful with your landing.

I found it amazing that even running behind the pace by quite a long way, you can still finish the puzzle. Even in the last properly time-sensitive part, you can skip jumping to the cog with the chest on by curving your jump onto the collapsing/collapsed rubble if you’re running late.

Aajolea.8132:

Aajolea.8132:

Over the course of trying and heeding advice, watching successful attempts, ignoring other players, i think my greatest issue is just age and lacking reflexes i had 20 years ago (and finding that extremely frustrating, knowing I have done all other JPs available).

Update: Completed it after a few more hours just now

Haha! That’s really good to hear. For a while I thought the jumps would be beyond my ability too.

I finished this on a human first, which took me a really long time. I had to zoom in a couple of notches and increase my rotation speed before I could do it. I really liked how the route was completely skill based and there were so many little ways to regain time from errors.

I also did it with an Asuran character and, having memorised the route, that only took a couple of tries. I did find that on the Asuran the camera slipped into a lot more scenery and the only reason I could finish was that I didn’t need to see where I was going to jump by that time.

At the start I was wishing I could run it alone, but when I did get moved to overflow and there was only me in the lobby, I found it really lonely. I liked being able to check out everyone else’s characters and outfits in the lobby and the chat was almost always fun although I didn’t like the people who kept announcing that they’d finished it ‘again’.

Having a lot of people was a great way to learn the route, I was lucky enough to have someone running in front of me making the jump to the cog with a chest on because I might not have thought of that.

“We had one girl in my guild who is so afraid of heights in RL as soon as she saw the MK map she froze up…. I would suggest in the future to make a chain ramp down, make it a much longer run so jumping is a quicker route, but there should have been an alternative for people who are hopeless at jumping or have a fear of heights.”

By that logic, if you had a fear of dragons then A-net should have an alternate storyline that can replace Zhaitan with a big, evil ooze… Or replacing the spider boss in TA with something else for people with arachnophobia.

Changing the game for one or 2 people with phobias is a ridiculous idea.

SolarNova.1052:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Snapdragyn.1238:

It was not fun for me. I will not do it again. I’ve not been bothered at all that jumping puzzles exist for those who enjoy them, but if this sort of mechanic becomes an integral part of the game such as it was here, I’m out.

This is very valuable feedback for me. Thanks. Since the MK boss map is required for completion I’ll go in and make the descent a lot easier for next year. (Assuming that map will even be around next year, which I do not know.) The last thing I want to do is alienate players who don’t like platforming. The point of the relatively small amount of resources we put toward JPs are meant to bring more people in, not trade one demographic for another.

Please for the love of all that exists dont listen to the complainers …seriosly… The clocktower may be deemed hard by those of the past decade of gaming ..but the fact of the matter is ..its still easy compared to the ‘good ol times’ of gaming in the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s.
We need more of this ..not less and/or watered down versions of it >.< hell if GW2 as a whole gets harder you may loose people ..but you will equaly gain people. Making things easier will just loose people. I doubt very much the age range and ability range will get worse than it already is >.< ..however it can rise.

[Edited by CC: Please don’t circumvent the swear word filter by replacing letters with a *]

you are missing a point… He is talking about people like me for example. Guild wars is not a game about jumping and never was. And GW2 has only had a small portion of it so far be about jumping. When this puzzle came along all anyone talked about was it. For the last few days all I hear about are clocktower and holloween weapons “rawr I hate them.” and “yay I like them!”

I’m one of those people that tried the tower and promptly said “Kitten this!” and left. I have no interest in playing a platformer with my keyboard. If I wanted to play a platformer I have 2 consoles for that. I play GW2 because its the sequel to GW you know… that game that was herald as having the best MMO pvp ever? What content was there at all for anyone that loved Wv3 or sPvP? You cant even use those costume parts in sPvP… Hard? Easy? that doesn’t matter to me because im not interested in doing platforming, just like the above poster said. So if every holiday all they keep making are better, faster harder JPs then for us players that have no interest in them they might as well be creating zero holiday content.

This is what he means. All this crap about Clock tower and a lot of us didn’t even care about it at all. Think about what people are saying. the clock tower. The jumping puzzle was the best part of the whole event? The platforming in the MMO was the best part? not the dungeons, not the new bosses not the new zone we got to see, not the costumes (which are supposedly this game’s focus point). I’m glad they are learning from this. Don’t alienate your old fans to bring in new ones. As far as I am concerned no AI puzzle or fight will be as difficult as playing against other human beings. so difficulty matters little to me. Its about which content they decide to focus on.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Aurelian Omenkind.2470:

Tried 4 or 5 times, then said “nope, I’m’a farm some more candy corns.” Been happy since.

When I made this map I was HOPING that people who aren’t into jumping would do exactly this. They’d see a fun Halloween looking environment, maybe get to the first chest and snag a goodie, then be on their merry way. I see now it was a mistake to make the hardest jumping challenge in the game part of an in-your-face update like a holiday event. I’m not going to stop making difficult stuff like this, they just won’t be so prominent in the future. I honestly hate making people upset and have a very high level of empathy. So it’s been hard hearing all the people that are so angry, frustrated and sad because of something I’ve made. But it’s just another lesson learned.

Just going to drop in here and say that this was my first EVER jump puzzle and I loved every second of working on it.

My girlfriend told me about GW2 before it came out and I pre-ordered to play with her. I’d say all told before the Halloween event and the tower specifically I had played MAYBE 5 hours. Now I would say I’ve still only played about 15 hours or so but that is 10 more hours than previously. (Note: not much time to play because of school and the rigors of a masters program)

The difficulty was not a turn off to me. It was AMAZING. Here finally was something that I could do and spend time on and have a BLAST without having to spend hours farming or grinding or doing much really than finding a door and going have some fun. The difficulty simply gave me a feeling of accomplishment after I put in about 6 hours worth of work into it.

Just wanted to post this to say great job and thank you for the puzzle. I’m going to play GW2 way more in the future now BECAUSE of the tower and this event!

Good job!

They just need to forbid giantic ugly morons from entering same instances as normal-sized characters, and tower will become beatable for everyone.

Your puzzle was the most fun I’ve had in this game for a long time Josh. Seriously, I must have completed it 3 dozen times just for fun.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Aurelian Omenkind.2470:

Tried 4 or 5 times, then said “nope, I’m’a farm some more candy corns.” Been happy since.

When I made this map I was HOPING that people who aren’t into jumping would do exactly this. They’d see a fun Halloween looking environment, maybe get to the first chest and snag a goodie, then be on their merry way. I see now it was a mistake to make the hardest jumping challenge in the game part of an in-your-face update like a holiday event. I’m not going to stop making difficult stuff like this, they just won’t be so prominent in the future. I honestly hate making people upset and have a very high level of empathy. So it’s been hard hearing all the people that are so angry, frustrated and sad because of something I’ve made. But it’s just another lesson learned.

Wow come on you can’t do that! :S
This was one of the funniest things I’ve done in game up to now… At least make some hard content for us who enjoy it, the game is very casual and forgiving in every other aspect.

surprised so many people hate this puzzle. thought myself kinda wishing that green mist would of been slowed down just a pinch but all in all I had a hell of a time trying, sadly without any luck actually finishing but hey always next year. only real concerns I had was the speed being a bit much for a very troublesome puzzle set up, and the large mob of players moving along with you that would pretty much cover the ground making it difficult to even know where solid ground was XP

But all in all a very fun puzzle.

To the developer of this puzzle:

It took me 8-10 hours to get this one done and I loved every second of it. I actually think it was the best part of the Halloween event. I am not an elite gamer or master jumper, I just was focused on mastering each part of the puzzle without worrying about what other people thought about me. I think some people really need to look at themselves in the mirror and stop blaming everything on other people or things beyond their control. You see videos of people easily doing this puzzle, so obviously it is not too hard for them. I bet there are even some people that think it was too easy!

Keep up the good work.

Just don’t have the time to try to finish it. Still it’s a very impressive looking mini-game and it was nice to just give a few tries to see what it was like. I’m okay with there being really difficult content as long as -everyone- has a chance to give it a try regardless of level/gear/whatever.

Aurhia armor doesn’t take any damage from deaths incurred by falling and hasn’t for a while now. That might be why someone accused you of lying.

its true, it has a long learning curve, but really, it isnt that hard.
ive tried 2h untill i finally figured out how to jump.
you need to jump at the right spots at the right time.
i did it on the biggest norn and had 1 and a half turns around the tower time to enjoy the view and time the last jump. actually after i knew what to do i finished it with all my 9 characters in less than 30min. i liked the challannge and it kept me pumped and on adrenaline. i think you did everything right. if people cant figure out how to jump there they dont deserve the slippers. and if they think farming candy was a better way to kill time then they made the wrong decicion at first…

also its called the mad tower and people really got mad for not beeing able to make it.. i think it was just perfect…

It was the greatest activity in whole Halloween. Slaying mad king didn’t give me as much hype as finally competing Clock Tower after 3,5 hour of trying. Every time i got platform further was great success.

There is no point to challenge if it can be done be everyone with a little of effort. I hope for more such challenges in future events.

Doing Clock Tower wasn’t mandatory, so people who complain because they couldn’t do it and expect that everything should be given to them are simply ….. . People always like to blame others for their own failure…

I am actually surprised how many people didn’t succeed in getting to the top. I remember reading that “about 5% of players will complete this puzzle” and though “Hmm? Naaaaaaaah! Bo**ocks!” I tried the jumping puzzle and failed for about five hours but then just… did it (And I’m a tiny Asura!) And once I’d done it, most of the attempts after it were successful. It was also extremely handy for farming Trick-or-Treat Bags :p

As for people who claim that being a small Asura hindered their ability to complete the puzzle: regardless of size or race, ALL player characters move the same speed and jump the same distance. The only annoying thing for me was the 1203849743 feet-tall Norns covering my screen.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m one of the people that screwed this up for you. I like to complete content. No matter what it is, annoying or impossible, I want to complete it. I get satisfaction from that. In this respect, your Clock Tower was a tremendous success, and I do not in any way, shape, or form, wish to discourage you from making more things like it. Aside from camera issues and collision detection, the puzzle was very well done.

The thing that made it a chore was the limited availability. There were other things ticking down that I wanted to do, guild parties I wanted to run with, but the Clock Tower was for a limited time only, which, if I wanted to achieve my goal, forced me to keep at it long after frustration had pushed out all the fun.

As for Ascent to Madness and jumping; if you’re going to give safer paths to people, please give those of us who do enjoy the platforming aspects rewarding shortcuts through the place (and I don’t mean placing chests on hard to reach areas :P). While some people bought GW2 because they liked GW1, some of us bought GW2 because we want to get away from the static nature of fights in MMOs. I actually want to see a dungeon that is nothing but boss fights within a jumping puzzle, honestly, and I think MK was a good preview of what that could be like.

When the clock tower became available, I did my best to attempt this puzzle with my female norn, whom I had created to be as tall as possible. I took frequent breaks after an hour here and there on days. I then finally completed the puzzle Monday afternoon, and I will not lie, I sat there and cried (had so many close calls, and had even made it to the clock tower opening only to be brought back to the beginning). lol I was so freaking happy to be done with it. Then Tuesday, I decided to attempt it again on my fiance’s account, with his male human character. I did it after around 45min. An hour after that, I attempted it on my son’s account, male sylvari… and completed it on the 3rd attempt. Admittedly, this was crazy, insane difficult and I was worried that I would break my laptop. lol BUT, it was so much fun once I finally achieved it. And on a plus side, my hand/eye coordination just got crap tons better because of it… well maybe. lol

Ziggy.7319:

[…]
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.[…]

I still have that screenshot of my Asura being buried beneath a heap of Norn and Charr. I’d say it affected everyone but more so if your character was literally invisible for a moment. Also keep in mind a lot people fail early because exactly for the reason that they cannot cope as good with this as others. Which is no problem since it is neither a game mechanic nor intent of the encounter. Thus removing it from the equation will in no way diminish the difficulty at all.

By the way the reason why they had to do this that way was because they could not do individual instances for technical reasons.

Well after my last post I went back and tried again, I moved the camera to look more down but starting getting dizzy/sick again, think this time it was because I was seeing the green swirly stuff, went away when I put the camera back to normal.
I was lucky enough to get into a small group of maybe 6 and got a lot further than before but simply ran out of time, so a smaller group made a big difference for me .

I am not sure why you would have issues with fighting the mad king, as a group just let the better people get down and throw yourself off and get a rez. I actually liked the fact that people fell off it added more fun to it, certainly when you get feared and you realize you are about to walk off the edge and can not do anything about it. The jumps in it were certainly of the very easy level compared to jumping puzzles.

So now that the holiday event has ended I can pretty much say it was well put together and a lot of fun. Certainly a lot more content than I thought was going to be involved. Had a nice build up as well.

1/treasure hunt- loved sneaking my level 30s down to pirates keep and plenty of people helped out. Lots of community working together there.
2/ mini games pretty much good fun, clock tower would have been great as a single player or if we all got turned into skeletons or even better jumping spiders.
3/ mad king did loads of runs , only downside was when the waypoint stopped working only happened to me in the group so no idea why, fixed by doing a restart, but everyone else thought that was highly amusing as I would get all the way to the bottom and the mad king would teleport up a level leaving me stuck and having to kill myself to get back up.
4/ labyrinth area was great farming and good fun rampaging around with a huge group of people. Tons of loot
Never got any of the mad king gear, I did get avian shoulders or something and also got the scythe skin from mad king chest which I sold for 24 gold so that was a great bonus.

They put a lot of work into this and there should have been at least something for everyone, what would you rather have the tired old formula of 4 quests and some new pets or hats. For the first holiday style event it was good, a few bugs certainly but most were fixed quickly enough. hope the Xmas one will be on the same scale.

Funny thing about the jumping in MK dungeon, I only started screwing up the jumps after he was dead (or after running it multiple times to the point where I stopped paying attention).

Yeah figuring the best way down for your hp pool was bit tricky (ie. a guardian can take few liberties that a thief can’t), but beyond that it was certainly more interesting than a less vertical map would have been.. the scarecrows really work well with the map too.

John,

No! Do not listen to these people. You made the puzzle 100% optional even if it was part of a Halloween event. Nobody was forced to do it and all the people complaining? These are either the same people that got WoW ‘n’ other games ruined due to wanting it all on a silver platter or a completitionist that has to have it all done or they are not happy. These are not the people you should tilt an ear to in design.

Sure, it was hard and sucked a little. I kittened hardcore when I started it as I LOATHE being timed in anything. Timers are something I feel should have been left back in the 80’s in Mario. However I could still appreciate the unique design and how it fit directly into the whole Halloween event. The fact the Mad King had a puzzle that in your face was just perfect. Hell, my friends from GW1 were giggling like school girls with enjoyment of it grinning from ear to ear. You left it as an optional thing to finish and they just need to accept in a game where you guys are going to make one off events? That you are going to miss things sooner or later. Just how it is!

Even if someone like me kittenes to no end you keep up the good work in placing designs like this right where they need to be. Which is right where it is now!

Small PS kinda thing though… I will never be okay with stuff like the skins based off RNG for a Halloween event though but there is a good reason. Picture this… you’ve been gaming for 13-14 years in MMORPG’s all of which have had some sorta RNG in their major events or holiday themed events. You try your best in every game and every year to get something. New people come along ‘n’ get it instantly while with you or you hear about it always dropping for others so they at least get to see it to roll on it, etc.

However you? No… you get nothing every single year. So you cave and start bribing people in whispers with ingame money to get things, you end up almost begging friends to pass rolls, you try to guilt trip people, you even think of ninja looting something. All because it’s been 14 YEARS of nothing. Even if you do get something from using ingame gold for a bribe, auction house, etc? The item now feels a little hollow as you had to use what you saved up for awhile on something else just to have a real memento of amazing from the event. As all you ever get is the items even a level 1 can get. The common as dirt kinda stuff or the moderate effort kinda stuff. There is no super cool item for the dedicated player. Just RNG….

That has been my experience since UO and EQ. Toward the end of your event I actually got the chainsaw skin and you know what? It felt more bitter then cool as I had to wait 14 kitten years to see something like that without going to extreme measures to get it. This is what RNG in a holiday feels like. Only those new to a game ever condone it or the lucky or always get everything. They have never been burned for a very long time.

There are better ways to make something rare or desirable over RNG or RNG money grabs. The only thing I’d make an appeal to you to change is this. You’ve changed so much about MMORPG’s already. Why not toss out this last very very old and terrible model?

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rising Dusk.2408:

You know, no matter what happens, Josh, someone is going to have a tough time with it due to their own inability to complete the content.

This is true. But I have to keep in mind the proportions that our game mechanics have created, and work within that framework. We have platforming and swimming, but these are ancillary mechanics compared to the emphasis that defines the game. Think of a mixing a song. You might really love cowbell, but if you keep turning it up louder and louder, to the point where people who want to hear the singing can’t, then you haven’t mixed your track well. You’ve forgotten the core of the song for a detail.

I DO think that it’s a pretty small percentage of people who couldn’t manage the jumping in the boss map, and I’m not going to go in and make wheel chair ramps everywhere. But there are other spatial design tools I have at my disposal to communicate the way down and ease them along without significantly nerfing the whole experience for everyone.

It’s reassuring to hear you say that, and I agree with what you’re saying. I do think that it’s important to keep a healthy balance of secondary mechanics to support the core combat mechanics. I definitely don’t think that these secondary components should overtake the core mechanics, but I think that much of the current content in the game forgoes these secondary mechanics altogether, which is a travesty, for they add a great deal of diversity and excitement to the combat. I think the MK boss battle is, perhaps, the first true instance in the game where the two have blended together seamlessly into a stellar experience, and if you should take anything away from this, it’s that you’re on the right track.

Thanks for all of your hard work, as always.

I loved all of the puzzle, right from the start! Loved the challenge!
I ran it for several hours a day during those days just because I enjoyed it that much, big thanks!
Hope you get to make equally as awesome and challenging jumping puzzles in the future
Love your work!

I gave up on the Clock Tower – I tried a couple of times on different days, had fun until I started getting frustrated with myself or laggy, but I never did get to finish it. Presumably it’ll be around next year to try again – and I’ll manage to fail similarly. I’m so very very glad that it wasn’t necessary to get the title and that I was able to pretty much ignore it unless I felt like some good ol’ fashioned fun dying to the corrosive stomach acid of a million Tyrian children hopped up on player mined candy corn.

As for the Mad King Dungeon, I thought that it was amazinglingly awesome!!! It was the most fun holiday dungeon experience that I’ve ever had (of course I still died due to falling alot – okay, honesty time – I think it was every time… I suck at jumping LOL). I loved that Mad King Thorn would jump down to the different levels, I loved the mechanics of the fight itself – especially the Mad King says and the scare crows. It was just crazy fun. The graphic elements were lovely as well – I would have been happy to simply stay there hanging out if I’d had more time in game to do it. I just wish that I hadn’t missed two days of it because of Sandy :/ I would have like to run it a few more times.

Evo Sapien.5298:

Aurhia armor doesn’t take any damage from deaths incurred by falling and hasn’t for a while now. That might be why someone accused you of lying.

If that’s the case then why was I getting messages saying it was damaged and my armor kept getting those orange shields on it (not to mention a substantial repair bill and my armor breaking a couple times so it was invisible…)? Maybe I was taking damage from other things and only noticed the messages about damaged armor when I died? I don’t know. But the message kept popping up on impact so that’s what I associated it with (the death, not the falling. I just died a whole lot more from falling than anything else). Regardless, I had a much steeper repair bill than the kind of silver that was coming in, and I must have had about a hundred deaths from just trying to rejoin everyone where jumping was required to get to them.

To be clear, I wasn’t saying it should be different or anything. I thought it was a great zone, and I hope we get more like it! We’ve all got things we’re bad at and for me, platforming is one of them. I was just really surprised that something designed with mandatory jumps that result in death if you miss wasn’t considered “a jumping puzzle.”

I “gave up” on it, but in truth I didn’t spend much time at it, so it was more due to a lack of commitment than it was frustration. My issue with it was the lack of instancing. I would have liked to have done it on my main, who is Norn, but I didn’t like that I was bothering other players and I didn’t like being bothered by the somewhat anti-Norn/Charr sentiment that some other players were expressing. That alone was enough to put me off of it, although it really did seem like it could be quite fun. I hope they find a way to address that next year, as I look forward to taking another crack at it.

For xmas can we get to do horrible things to the kids in lions arch, knock them over with snowballs or something if they are carol singing, I would have loved to do tricks on the kids wanting candy, pour a bucket of water over the ghost, trip up the running kid or drop kick the pirate into the water. itching powder or candy that made them throw up.

The problem of the clock tower was not down to any one single factor, but a convergence of different elements.

Time constraints – almost no other JP have this and even when they do it’s nowhere near as stringent. Suddenly it’s not just a matter of being able to execute the jumps, but having to do so in a set amount of time.

Limited Availability – If it were available all year round, people would have done exactly what you described, come back later, but since it was very time limited, people tried far harder than they would have normally. Which only led to more frustration.

Bad Flow/Difficulty Curve – It’s a given when working on something like this that the first part will get played more and thus the testers will get better at it. This bias then leads to an lopsided difficulty curve. By far the hardest bit was int he beginning where time was a far more pressing factor and the jumps were more “wonky”. After the second half, the visual geometry better matched the collision/logical geometry and expectations of the players (fewer irregular sized pieces) so it became easy going.

Very Hardware Intensive – Nearly all of the people i know who finished this have boss machines. All of the people I know with old machines could not get past the first few jumps. I’m somewhere in the middle, but all those players in tight quarters and the effects on the “water” cause my FPS to plummet (same thing happens in LA).

Lack Of Ease-In – In any game/activity one gets a feel for the difficulty/progression and expects content to follow that. Obviously you can have harder or easier encounters/activities, but they should not be too many standard deviations away from the norm. The difference between ClockTower and the second hardest jumping puzzle is HUGE.

All that having been said, I think the Clock Tower is amazing in and of itself. And you should not take the feedback as a reflection upon your work. As far as I’m concerned, you did the best job you could (make a good looking and very hard JP), it was up to whoever is in charge of overall design to see that it was not ideal to be put in the game the way it was.

i came here today for just such a thread. here are my thoughts:
i tried on 3 occasions for a few hours and am at peace with quitting. i had fun with comaraderie (sp). it was esp adorable when a cauldron appeared. it was pretty funny how people seemed to have the same basic responses to the experience, and when you were there for a long time, you got to see the same reactions over and over. i have nothing against this puzzle. i love jumping puzzles! i have sought them out in every world i come across and persist until i get them. this puzzle was too hard for me. the speed was extremely fast, the terrain was very tough, the crowd-style play made visibility poor, and the ability of some players to bring golems/oakhearts/enormous caped coats and huge-brimmed pimp-hats made visibility even worse. here are my humble ideas:

1. don’t require this for the halloween event achievement. like a food fight, leave it optional. everyone here saying “it was really awesomely easy!” is full of crap. it was hard core. it took my friend approx 12 hours to advance past the FIRST BLOCK. he mastered it by studying youtube and being a persistant dude… over the course of 3 days. he has blisters, lol. i would never want gw2 to lose content… just don’t make it required for the title because that blows peoples minds.

2. build in practice runs. what if the stairs to the big forge-cauldron were an EXACT replica of one part of the tower? then a new puzzle up to the top of the bank was a DIFFERENT part of the clock tower? complete with disappearing stairs. not every part needs to be represented, but 3 or 4 of the chunks so that people felt a certain confidence.

3. after completing all the awesome parts of the halloween event, we expected a reward for the set, along the lines of the daily achievement box that jiggles in the corner. when the day of the final party event came, my friend was frankly dumb-founded when he learned that he’d spent 3 days getting the clocktower to complete all the halloween achievements… and it netted nothing. even a little bundle of ToTs would have salved his ego. the halloween title did NOT cut it.

4. give everyone in the instance a default look. make us (normal movement) mummies or something. but no capes, no hats, no oakhearts, no golems. i’m not sure i believe the norn and charr have to be banished because the crowd is part of the clock tower experience, but drawing the line for the ridiculous add ins would be helpful.

since the discussion has also bird walked into the MK dungeon I’ll share that i had never done a dungeon before the mad king. my friend and i enjoyed it. we figured it out. i did not feel it was too hard or too easy, and i liked how as you fell you could see the clock tower in the distance, lol. we did lose out on the chest once because we fell on the way to get the chest and as we were coming back down one of our party left—which ended the instance. so that is something i’d suggest—that people be allowed to stay behind even if someone leaves. another issue we had was that when we were down to our skivvies from damaged armor, some of the jumps took all our life so another person had to be there to rez you. not sure if there’s a way around that considering we weren’t really level 80. but we worked as a team and figured out how to “fix” that. i thought it was a terrific, very satisfying experience.

AJP.8610:

I am actually surprised how many people didn’t succeed in getting to the top. I remember reading that “about 5% of players will complete this puzzle” and though “Hmm? Naaaaaaaah! Bo**ocks!” I tried the jumping puzzle and failed for about five hours but then just… did it (And I’m a tiny Asura!) And once I’d done it, most of the attempts after it were successful. It was also extremely handy for farming Trick-or-Treat Bags :p

As for people who claim that being a small Asura hindered their ability to complete the puzzle: regardless of size or race, ALL player characters move the same speed and jump the same distance. The only annoying thing for me was the 1203849743 feet-tall Norns covering my screen.

So it took you five hours of just doing this one jumping puzzle over and over, and yet you think that is reasonable and are surprised that other people didn’t make it to the top?

After spending over 24 hours total just jumping to get the Clock Tower done, I felt relieved when I reached the top because I did something that was challenging on my own. The only problem I faced with the puzzle was the lag which would cut my jumping short. Another thing that really annoyed the heck outta me was the little clock tower scene before you get in the actual jumping puzzle! I must have spent a total of 40 minutes watching that thing. Once was enough for me. Other then that you did a really good job designing this =) I’d do it again next year. Hopefully it wont take me as long!

Rising Dusk.2408:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rising Dusk.2408:

You know, no matter what happens, Josh, someone is going to have a tough time with it due to their own inability to complete the content.

This is true. But I have to keep in mind the proportions that our game mechanics have created, and work within that framework. We have platforming and swimming, but these are ancillary mechanics compared to the emphasis that defines the game. Think of a mixing a song. You might really love cowbell, but if you keep turning it up louder and louder, to the point where people who want to hear the singing can’t, then you haven’t mixed your track well. You’ve forgotten the core of the song for a detail.

I DO think that it’s a pretty small percentage of people who couldn’t manage the jumping in the boss map, and I’m not going to go in and make wheel chair ramps everywhere. But there are other spatial design tools I have at my disposal to communicate the way down and ease them along without significantly nerfing the whole experience for everyone.

It’s reassuring to hear you say that, and I agree with what you’re saying. I do think that it’s important to keep a healthy balance of secondary mechanics to support the core combat mechanics. I definitely don’t think that these secondary components should overtake the core mechanics, but I think that much of the current content in the game forgoes these secondary mechanics altogether, which is a travesty, for they add a great deal of diversity and excitement to the combat. I think the MK boss battle is, perhaps, the first true instance in the game where the two have blended together seamlessly into a stellar experience, and if you should take anything away from this, it’s that you’re on the right track.

Thanks for all of your hard work, as always.

But that’s exactly it! The secondary mechanics didn’t overshadow the core mechanics, I think Josh did an excellent job! The only thing that would have made it better is if the Mad King goes down to the next area via the jumping platforms as well! That’d be hilarious!

I must say, I don’t enjoy many of the truly agonizing jumping puzzles…and seeing this was one of those….two attempts were enough for me to just say NO.
I know some people made it…and I guess I’m glad I could get the title w/o completing this one.

Wow Josh. So sorry you felt the need to apologize for an amazing experience. I enjoyed the entire Halloween event, and I chose to spend the last few gaming hours I had during this event falling off the clock tower. Dude it was hard, but oh so much fun! I think I completed the tower a total of 5 times, and probably spent a good 15 hrs there total. I am not someone to whom it came easy, which is exactly why I really wanted to master it. How am I do grow, to survive as an individual if I can’t fall on my face, get up and try again? My 6 yr old asked me why was I still trying when I kept falling off. I answered because even though something is hard, it doesn’t mean I can’t achieve it if I try hard enough or practice long enough. I am very happy I left her with the message that persistence pays off, and I didn’t whine and cry because it wasn’t handed to me on a platter. People are not tea cups. We shouldn’t break under the slightest pressure!
Edited: spelling

kKagari.6804:

The only thing that would have made it better is if the Mad King goes down to the next area via the jumping platforms as well! That’d be hilarious!

I love that idea! Though, part of the fun was when he disappeared and everyone was “where the kitten did he go this time!?”

oh and i have dreams about taking the asura lionguard who keeps repeating “tick tock the mouse ran up the clock” and chucking him over the gate. i think that would be a great addition. let us pick him up and do stuff to him.

Josh I just wanted to say that the moment I beat the jumping puzzle was the biggest moment in video game history for me. I have never experienced elation like that from a video before, thank you!

“We had one girl in my guild who is so afraid of heights in RL as soon as she saw the MK map she froze up…. I would suggest in the future to make a chain ramp down, make it a much longer run so jumping is a quicker route, but there should have been an alternative for people who are hopeless at jumping or have a fear of heights.”

By that logic, if you had a fear of dragons then A-net should have an alternate storyline that can replace Zhaitan with a big, evil ooze… Or replacing the spider boss in TA with something else for people with arachnophobia.

Changing the game for one or 2 people with phobias is a ridiculous idea.

I know that I have several friends who are afraid of spiders and don’t enjoy any games with spiders in them (but still play most of them). You can’t coddle everyone, some people just need to learn to push past their own problems.

I DO think that it’s a pretty small percentage of people who couldn’t manage the jumping in the boss map, and I’m not going to go in and make wheel chair ramps everywhere. But there are other spatial design tools I have at my disposal to communicate the way down and ease them along without significantly nerfing the whole experience for everyone.

All you really need is one more rock somewhere between the middle and the bottom, so that the falls aren’t so suicidal to characters without fall damage traits.

Jihoko.3927:

Focksbot.6798:

No one chooses to be angry and impatient. That’s self-help waffle. You have some limited control over your emotions, but it’s foolish not to look for the exterior source of them and try to confront it.

Uhh… what? How is being an adult and taking some responsibility for your emotions “self-help waffle”?

That’s a separate proposition to ‘choosing’ your emotions. Don’t conflate the two.

Taking responsibility for your emotions just means managing them and not using them as an excuse to be unkind to other people. It doesn’t mean that when you have to deal with extremely frustrating situations you can simply ‘choose’ not to be frustrated.

Once again: ArenaNet are wise enough to know that you should avoid frustrating players, and that while this is, to some extent, unavoidable with such a wide playerbase, it would be foolish to simply wave away angry players with, “Oh, they should just deal with their emotions” when the root of the problem is often design, and when there are often solutions that mean you can avoid annoying players without ‘nerfing’ difficulty.

Players who think that the reason they aren’t frustrated is some kind of superior human quality (whether you call that being more ‘mature’ or anything else) should take their own advice and practice some humility! ;-)

I gave up after maybe a couple of hours attempting it. It’s not like I probably couldn’t get it if I put in 2-3 more hours, but I just don’t want keep having my view blocked by the other players. If this was a solo instance, I’d been done a long time ago. But I simply can’t see through a Norn fanny like I’d want.

Besides, there’s a growing “lurch” or “lag spike” that seems to hit every other time. It’s not uncommon for me to just be standing on the first wait point and then disappear back to spawn.

That just added insult to injury. So maybe next year.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rising Dusk.2408:

You know, no matter what happens, Josh, someone is going to have a tough time with it due to their own inability to complete the content.

This is true. But I have to keep in mind the proportions that our game mechanics have created, and work within that framework. We have platforming and swimming, but these are ancillary mechanics compared to the emphasis that defines the game. Think of a mixing a song. You might really love cowbell, but if you keep turning it up louder and louder, to the point where people who want to hear the singing can’t, then you haven’t mixed your track well. You’ve forgotten the core of the song for a detail.

I DO think that it’s a pretty small percentage of people who couldn’t manage the jumping in the boss map, and I’m not going to go in and make wheel chair ramps everywhere. But there are other spatial design tools I have at my disposal to communicate the way down and ease them along without significantly nerfing the whole experience for everyone.

Ok…so you are talking about the MK Realm instance and not the clock tower…just want to make sure that’s what I’m reading here. If that is correct, I don’t think that having some mechanics that require movement and jumping up or down is a bad thing. That is part of the ‘harder’ content experience.

Remember, this is what people wanted. Challenging content. Not content that was based on challenging logistics from the other MMO which required 10-40 players to see it.

People having issues jumping down to the lower areas…I don’t see how that is an issue or considered needing hand rails?

I think the community would love to see the % of players that completed the MK Tower Jump puzzle also.

Please keep making challenging content like this…even more challenging IMO…but I hope that the puzzles/zones are instanced better and explained a tad bit more.

My first major problem I got was the camera bugging the hell out right after the first early “pause” BUT it was because I had my camera set to be over my char’s right shoulder! I changed it all they way to the left and no problems then (except the already mentioned people in the way and long wait time between attempts). So point being, please test the JP with various camera settings .

Second biggest problem I had with it was the time limit. I see JPs as more strategic than execution but here it’s all about the execution but you also must learn it with no time to spare, forcing hours of learning when execution alone would be hard with such time limit.

Yes, I’m one of the ‘quitters’. When it comes right down to it, I’m old. The twitch reflexes aren’t as good as they used to be, so jumping puzzles aren’t going to be something I excel at any more, and certainly not without many, many attempts.

I tried at least a dozen times, lost count actually, but I know I was in the zone for at least an hour, and every time I got caught and dropped back to the beginning, I waited for the timer to put me in again. Never got much past the initial gear platform where you’re waiting for the blocks to come up. After an hour of that, figured I wasn’t going to get anywhere, and so went off to do other things.

That said, given more time (both in terms of the puzzle timer itself and its availability) and a clearer field of view (love me some Norn, but not their backsides in my face when I’m trying to find the next jump point ), there’s a slightly better than snowball’s chance in Hades that I could have made it.

Eventually I’d like try again. Hope to see the clocktower same time, next year.

I honestly think its a fair puzzle, ASSUMING you get in an instance with good ping. CHECK that the ‘burst’ animation right at the beginning is smooth, and relog if not.

Spent ~4hrs, and now I can get chests 2 and 3 on the way up, so about 20 bags/run + 3 min afk + repeat, and if I do kitten up, its usually right at the start when I can barely see my asura.

Biggest ever advice is to never ever let go of W until you jump down onto chest 3 – you must get away from the crowd, so no stopping, do your best while moving, and get reflexes required to complete this!

Also, start is crucial – jump when you see the burst animation starting, Use mouse to steer and move camera so that it is at 45 angle. Finally, remember to jump just as your character begins to fall for max distance – the animation are deceiving sometimes.

However, I am annoyed by the bugs that were not fixed, such as that you are invulnerable once you get to the top and can go farm chests unfairly….rrrrr….

mima.3095:

just don’t make it required for the title

It wasn’t required! Neither was pumpkin carver, though I wish that was clearer… Had given up on the title when I accidentally found it the two to me impossible achievements to finish in time wasn’t needed <.< . (Ended up with the title in the end though, yay.)

Duker.8496:

mima.3095:

just don’t make it required for the title

It wasn’t required! Neither was pumpkin carver, though I wish that was clearer… Had given up on the title when I accidentally found it the two to me impossible achievements to finish in time wasn’t needed <.< . (Ended up with the title in the end though, yay.)

Achievement titles should a list of what is required for them. That wasnt obvious for many.