Guild Wars 2

Not sure if I qualify for giving up. See I am a bit older…

Logged in, caught up with my in game mate with whom I have played multiple MMOs since EQ1 in 1999. Asked him about the Clock Tower and his answer was “rage inducing, gonna quit this kitten game”
So I decided to pass, I play to have fun, not to punish myself.

I enjoy a challenging fight, I can do some jumping puzzles, I love Wvw, just didn’t think this clock tower would be worth my time.

And to me yes the MK map had a jumping element to it, not too hard but the first time you get in it’s easy to miss or get it wrong. Especially the sharp edged little island before the last big one. I later skipped that one thanks to fall damage reduction allowing me to do so.

Now I have to say that my 2 main characters are Norns… and I hate the kitten camera (I am actually typing kitten) which forces me sometimes to look through my head, moves around randomly or zooms all the way in for no apparent reason while doing jumping puzzles. This is not a challenge, it’s bad design.

The multi-player aspect of this puzzle was certainly frustrating at first, but it was also built some surprise friendships. I met a lot of people I never would have otherwise if it weren’t for this one thing. If anything, it should stay as multi-player, but perhaps have other characters as transparent ‘ghosts’ so they do not completely block the floor. Do not make it single-player only, please! Everyone racing to the top together is the most unique and wonderful aspect of the clock tower. Don’t completely remove that!

I tried that jumping like 30 times in a row before I said “There isn’t an achievement for this, there is going to be a chest…in the time I have been at this I could have killed the Mad King twice and gotten the chest.” So I left to go fight the king. I found 3 paths down to the bottom, a hard path, a path you jump a little, and one I went flop flop flop on my face all the way down lol but I only died a few times trying to get down and that was discovering different paths to take. Overall I think the clock tower would have been better if it was single player instance like the guy thought when designing it but overall it was really good, challenging but available for those who wanted that challenge and they got a little loot for completing it. Maybe next year they will have 2 versions, a practice room with no timer and a normal room with the reward, let us practice those jumps a little.

I gave up on the clock tower. I also think it’s pretty cool of Josh to come here and say the things that he did. I love most of the jumping puzzles in the game even though I hated this one.

It was one of the easiest and fastest Puzzles ingame…. i thought for once it would be harder :|

For me I would be angered if you scaled back the difficulty, you added extra chests along the way to give that extra sense of acomplishment and at the top you actually felt like you had achieved something.

But before I get berated for this it took me 10-12 hours to complete it the first time, fell off the top 6 times before I worked out the jump through the clock face and yes felt like giving up on more than one occasion.

Went on to complete it a couple of times more after just to prove it was not a fluke the first time but would like to see some thought going into camera views, different races heights etc as these are things that make harder tasks so much more volatile during the heightened anxiety levels.

This definately was a rage inducing befuddlement of blunders for me! But what a time I had. No, I never got to finish it but was okay with that. Although it would have been nice to have more time to practice.
I felt rushed to get it done since we would only have a couple days to do it, life/work committments prevented that and I wanted to participate in the other festivities, not spend what little time I had learning the puzzle.
But all in all, it was fabulous and epic the first time I entered that midieval torture device!! LOL
Would still love to see more of them, for holidays or everyday

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.

Why let them be less prominent in the future? I was planning on asking for this kind of activities to be even more prominent. For example, make more of these activities but then at least 10 times harder and use that for getting the items required for (new) Legendary weapons. At least then skill will be more important in stead just a lot of farming and time.

You can always expect people that are less skilled to complain but dumping games down for those people only make games bad. And you know, then people justly start complaining the game gets dumped down.

So please make more of these activities (not only referring to jumping puzzles) and make then more prominent. And if you make it for things like getting items for you Legendary make them even way harder. Like 10 times or even 100 times harder, so it will be like 1 week before the first player manage to complete such an activity.
I geus that can never be implemented for the current legendary weapons but when new legendary weapons will be implemented that would be way nicer that the farming you need to do now. (not that I hat farming, I love to farm for a nice mini, but I hate farming for money or mats that eventually will get a mini or in this case a Legendary. Doing hard activities for it however is fun)

Yes this jumping puzzle was hard and it took be hours to get it the first time, while I unusually are good at jumping puzzles but ones you know it is not hat hard anymore. Yesterday evening I completed the jumping puzzle on 9 characters.
That also why I dais that if it would be for getting items for legendary weapons it should be way harder. (And that included 3 Asura)

Is there no room for improvement? Yes there is.
- Put only the same races in one instance so Asura will see there own chars. It was doable but a bid annoying.
Make a very low quality version of the jumping puzzle (in the end it is not much more then some 3D block flaunting dot it can easily be of a low quality) so people with low specs can also do it without have the FPS-drop problem. Because that made it really impossible for those people.
In this case (should not be the case if you would do it for Legendary stuff) make the drop also a rare drop on another place so people who do not like to do this still can get the armor in another way.

That’s it.

I will make a separate topic about have these kind of activity’s for legendary weapons and so on.

I gave up within the first five minutes of trying. Not because I suck at jumping puzzles (I’m decent and I’ve come to appreciate them), not even because the large character models of people playing Charr and Norn got in my way (they didn’t), no…

…because the bright colours, flashy environment, quick motion, moving objects and all that together made me very nauseous and dizzy very quickly.

I’m not epileptic or any such thing, but I have to say that the design of this puzzle was pretty appalling. Apart from the fact that it would have been better as a non-event puzzle and perhaps a player- or team-exclusive instanced area, any area designed like this should raise a few red flags before it ever goes into a Live build. You can’t tell me that no one in the design team recognised the potential of this area to make players violently ill.

If it’s just players with a certain sensitivity getting sick, that’s bad enough. If it’s even those players who don’t normally have such issues, then it’s really not something that belongs in your game at all, especially not without due warning. End of.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a challenge… but quite frankly I don’t think this puzzle is challenging or that one ANet keyword they love so much- FUN. It was horrible.

Please for the love of coffee take this into consideration the next time new content is designed, because I’d like to see something challenging in the game where the challenge isn’t “don’t vomit, ok?” or something similar. Props to the design team for creativity, unfortunately the execution was, ehrm… somewhat lacking.

Lady Elvea.2847:

I gave up within the first five minutes of trying. Not because I suck at jumping puzzles (I’m decent and I’ve come to appreciate them), not even because the large character models of people playing Charr and Norn got in my way (they didn’t), no…

…because the bright colours, flashy environment, quick motion, moving objects and all that together made me very nauseous and dizzy very quickly.

I’m not epileptic or any such thing, but I have to say that the design of this puzzle was pretty appalling. Apart from the fact that it would have been better as a non-event puzzle and perhaps a player- or team-exclusive instanced area, any area designed like this should raise a few red flags before it ever goes into a Live build. You can’t tell me that no one in the design team recognised the potential of this area to make players violently ill.

If it’s just players with a certain sensitivity getting sick, that’s bad enough. If it’s even those players who don’t normally have such issues, then it’s really not something that belongs in your game at all, especially not without due warning. End of.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a challenge… but quite frankly I don’t think this puzzle is challenging or that one ANet keyword they love so much- FUN. It was horrible.

Please for the love of coffee take this into consideration the next time new content is designed, because I’d like to see something challenging in the game where the challenge isn’t “don’t vomit, ok?” or something similar. Props to the design team for creativity, unfortunately the execution was, ehrm… somewhat lacking.

Well you are the first one I hear complaining about this. It is normally a complain I hear from people playing any game in general that never play games. I think you need to get used to it. It might also been your screen, if you have the color to bright or whatever. You can set any setting in a way everybody gets sic from it. For especially for you they might put an option in to play it black and white.

I tried for over an hour and then gave up. I just couldn’t get the timing right with other people there. I love a great challenge though, so if the devs take anything away from this I hope it’s to make them single-player instances.

This might not apply to that many people but i’ve spoken to a few randoms ingame and even a friend who has the game, who couldn’t beat the clocktower. I’ve farmed this jumping puzzle 100+ times now and never had a problem besides the first few times i ever tried it.

The problem you might be having is that you are not moving correctly. These people i spoke to do not use the right mouse button to move the camera around, they just turn using "A’ and “D”.

When you are moving you should be holding “W” to move foward, holding the right mouse button in to move your character around and jumping when you need to.

I gave up after over four hours of trying, I’m just too old to move my mouse right continuously while spamming wasd and my space bar.

I think one improvement that really should have been added was to either give us the achievement after x number of fails whether we made it or not(my personal preference), or make it a one time completion event where once you complete the climb and get the chest at the end you’re done, period.

Or, this could have gone under the jumping puzzles category for achievements and not Halloween, thus solving the whole achievement problem since most of those who will never be able to finish the tower also won’t be able to finish all the other jumping puzzles anyway.

Everything is easy when you know how to do it, and when you don’t, it’s not.

I have friends that tried for over 5 hours to finish the clock tower. I tried for an hour or so and decided my fun was to be found elsewhere.

I gave up on the clock tower. I think my blood pressure went up 20 points while trying it. It was enough with out the rising goo. It rose very fast the many times I tried it. I saw lots of people trying it over and over and over … That’s a carrot on a pretty long stick.

LOL… I gave up after 20mins. I had a laugh doing it. That’s why I did it the number of times I did. I gave up not because it left me frustrated, but because I only have so much time to play per weekday (maybe about 2 hrs) and I only found out how to access the clock tower last night. I felt that I had better things to do like explore, craft and story. I even tried this wired jumping puzzle that’s around the mystic forge (as a ghost).
The Halloween event is a great laugh but I took none of it seriously (except the scavenger hunt and actually completed part 1 (twice) and 2.) I would just jump in and experience things like the brawl and the other PvP events for about 5, 10 mins then leave (I’m not into PvP). Then I would go back to the non-Halloween parts of the game.
Personally, I really don’t know how people can spend hours on these Halloween events. I really have not been that blown away by any of them to spend so much time on them. They are, as I mentioned a good, enjoyable laugh. It was fun to see LA decorated as it is. The Mad King is pretty cool (did MK 4/5 times now, lost count.) And it was fun to see people running around in costume (I didn’t bother with any, I didn’t even bother with buying BLKs to unlock, my now mountain, of chests.)

All-in-all, I think the Clock-tower and the other events were fun just for their laughable content. For those who made it through, power to you.

Josh,

Speaking for myself only, I gave up on this puzzle after about 20 or 30 minutes because I simply could not see my human feet, or the location I was aiming for, due to so many other players in the zone.

I realize it wasn’t really designed with being a multiplayer zone in mind, but I was not about to spend the hours needed to learn when to jump blindly just to outlast the herd. I can see how this would have been fun to do/try alone.

The GW2 camera did not help, either (IMO it’s pretty bad as MMO cameras go).

One question I have, though – as a human I can routinely fail jumps due to clipping things my character model never touches (that I can see). Is this because every race uses the same size box for collision or something?

I realize it’s probably not easy to make these, but one or two times failing a jump that, as far as I can visibly see, I simply should not have failed (because either due to lag or the visible model being smaller than the collision box and I make an impact that visibly simply doesn’t happen) usually just frustrates me and causes me to cuss out whoever decided to put jumping puzzles in this game (possibly you?). Tree branches are notorious for this.

Anyways, here’s hoping for less griefable puzzles in the future.

Devata.6589:

Lady Elvea.2847:

I gave up within the first five minutes of trying. Not because I suck at jumping puzzles (I’m decent and I’ve come to appreciate them), not even because the large character models of people playing Charr and Norn got in my way (they didn’t), no…

…because the bright colours, flashy environment, quick motion, moving objects and all that together made me very nauseous and dizzy very quickly.

I’m not epileptic or any such thing, but I have to say that the design of this puzzle was pretty appalling. Apart from the fact that it would have been better as a non-event puzzle and perhaps a player- or team-exclusive instanced area, any area designed like this should raise a few red flags before it ever goes into a Live build. You can’t tell me that no one in the design team recognised the potential of this area to make players violently ill.

If it’s just players with a certain sensitivity getting sick, that’s bad enough. If it’s even those players who don’t normally have such issues, then it’s really not something that belongs in your game at all, especially not without due warning. End of.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a challenge… but quite frankly I don’t think this puzzle is challenging or that one ANet keyword they love so much- FUN. It was horrible.

Please for the love of coffee take this into consideration the next time new content is designed, because I’d like to see something challenging in the game where the challenge isn’t “don’t vomit, ok?” or something similar. Props to the design team for creativity, unfortunately the execution was, ehrm… somewhat lacking.

Well you are the first one I hear complaining about this. It is normally a complain I hear from people playing any game in general that never play games. I think you need to get used to it. It might also been your screen, if you have the color to bright or whatever. You can set any setting in a way everybody gets sic from it. For especially for you they might put an option in to play it black and white.

Wow, assumption after assumption after asumption.

1. I’ve heard this complaint from many others, including guildies, friends, and random people in map chat. It’s not just me.

2. My monitor is very carefully calibrated. It’s not that. For that matter, a “black and white” setting would not sort out brightness, contrast issues, motion and other problems.

3. I am not someone who “never plays games”. I’ve been an avid gamer for a very long time, I’ve played many and much varied titles and I’ve never had difficulty “getting used” to anything. Not getting violently ill does not “take practise”.

Just because you, personally, did not experience this problem, or happened to see no complaints, does not mean it doesn’t exist or that you should trivialise it. This problem is real, it affects more people than just me, and it has nothing to do with screen brightness or not playing enough video games. It’s something worth bringing to the attention of developers.

In other news, kudos to the people who managed to complete this.

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.

I think that if you want something to both be accessible and challenging, that you need to have 2 different versions of the same thing. If you make a ‘normal’ mode and a ‘hard’ mode then you get the best of all worlds. I hope you consider doing this in the future.

I think overall the reason people were frustrated with it is because the clock tower was tied to an achievement. People view achievements like crack (including myself) and get frustrated when they can’t get one. Alternatively you could just not tie the challenge stuff like this with an achievement.

I’m just saying there are ways around the issue besides just dumbing down the puzzle and I hope you take this into consideration.

As one of the few who is terrible at jumping puzzles but has actually completed the clocktower… (my hands shake too much to make them easy)
This was the best puzzle i’ve played, It was frustrating, it was difficult, it was unforgiving… it was a challenge worthy of the playerbase and the dev team. You guys showed your colors here. The prize wasn’t necessary, all it was was a semi-decent pair of boots and an achievement. Anyone who is pissed off that they didn’t get it should have tried harder.
I do not want guildwars to turn in to “my first mmo” like WoW did.
Not to push too hard on the subject, but I played that back in the first month, it was brutal, unforgiving, and downright frustrating. The bugs were so bad it made it almost unplayable in places and the “Features” made me want to commit sepuku. Then by the time I hit lvl 60, six or so months later all that was ironed out, and we had a difficult, fun, and challenging experience. Mages and Hunters could now autoattack at range. (no more broken 1 keys :P) But in raids, it was still difficult, you needed 40 people who could work together well… this meant alot of deaths, alot of frustration, but the rewards were great. Look at it today, no “Raids” over 10 man as far as I’m aware (havn’t played since wrath), the difficulty curve is mostly flat, a little bump for hardcore.

As for guildwars 2, there are two games here, there is the normal semi-flat difficulty curve of the main story, few bumpy places, then a sharp curve upwards toward lvl 70. But then there is the steep cliff of dungeons. To me this jumping puzzle was the same thing, a huge difficulty jump that filtered out the casual players from the OCD dedicated :P

Were there problems with the puzzle? of course, I doubt you guys had time to iron out the issues before it was released. Certainly the camera work could have been fixed, strangely enough my asura had it hardest… Moving up to any little edge would suddenly zoom the camera in through my head so I had no idea where I was jumping. But with some practice i was able to jump without my camera, turned the shoddy collision detection in to a challenge and overcame it. (I also taught others to do the same, and guess what, they figured it out!)

Most of the problems we had with the puzzle were NOT a fault of the puzzle, but a fault of the engine at large, its buggy collision detection, the shoddy camera, and so forth.

The few things I would have changed with the puzzle, is of course everyone going at once… Really should have been a personal buff.. that you had to reach certain checkpoints to recharge the buff. IF the buff dropped while you were in there, you died. Also the part where it makes you wait for the clock tower to rupture out and make a pathway was silly, just broke the flow of movement and forced everyone to group up. I frequently pulled out ahead, and would have done fine if not for that, because suddenly as an asura I couldn’t see myself. XD

Also to anyone who might point at asura’s having an “Easy” time…
After I figured it out, I finished it in one try on my Charr next, some 30 or 40 tries on my Norn, 2 tries on my sylvari. And then when I went back to run it again on my asura, it was still stupidly difficult. My norn was just impossible, never seemed to land where I told it to land, like its feet weren’t where I saw them and constantly collided with things that didn’t exist.

Now, the fact that you had to run constantly, not stop for anything, and had to learn by trial and error? that was genius, that was the best jumping puzzle I’ve seen in there because of it. It felt closer to Parkour… I want to see more like that, alot more like that. With a few fixes to the physics and camera I think it could be freaking amazing. (Also potentially with being able to ‘grab’ walls and things as you land near the top and pull yourself up. Landing on the side of something and just slowly sliding down or bunny hopping up, is kinda silly.. If I can get up, let me get up.. just slow me down a little for not landing properly.)

TL;DR: Amazing work, pity about the mechanics, this is worthy of an achievement more than any other puzzle in the game. I hope to see more in the future!

/rant

P.S. Moar Plz! :O

P.P.S. as for those not wanting an achievement for this… It IS AN ACHIEVEMENT.. thats the point I think. This is difficult, it better kitten well have an achievement. :P getting an achievement for hitting 100 mobs with your dagger is a lame achievement.

Lady Elvea.2847:

Devata.6589:

Lady Elvea.2847:

I gave up within the first five minutes of trying. Not because I suck at jumping puzzles (I’m decent and I’ve come to appreciate them), not even because the large character models of people playing Charr and Norn got in my way (they didn’t), no…

…because the bright colours, flashy environment, quick motion, moving objects and all that together made me very nauseous and dizzy very quickly.

I’m not epileptic or any such thing, but I have to say that the design of this puzzle was pretty appalling. Apart from the fact that it would have been better as a non-event puzzle and perhaps a player- or team-exclusive instanced area, any area designed like this should raise a few red flags before it ever goes into a Live build. You can’t tell me that no one in the design team recognised the potential of this area to make players violently ill.

If it’s just players with a certain sensitivity getting sick, that’s bad enough. If it’s even those players who don’t normally have such issues, then it’s really not something that belongs in your game at all, especially not without due warning. End of.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a challenge… but quite frankly I don’t think this puzzle is challenging or that one ANet keyword they love so much- FUN. It was horrible.

Please for the love of coffee take this into consideration the next time new content is designed, because I’d like to see something challenging in the game where the challenge isn’t “don’t vomit, ok?” or something similar. Props to the design team for creativity, unfortunately the execution was, ehrm… somewhat lacking.

Well you are the first one I hear complaining about this. It is normally a complain I hear from people playing any game in general that never play games. I think you need to get used to it. It might also been your screen, if you have the color to bright or whatever. You can set any setting in a way everybody gets sic from it. For especially for you they might put an option in to play it black and white.

Wow, assumption after assumption after asumption.

1. I’ve heard this complaint from many others, including guildies, friends, and random people in map chat. It’s not just me.

2. My monitor is very carefully calibrated. It’s not that. For that matter, a “black and white” setting would not sort out brightness, contrast issues, motion and other problems.

3. I am not someone who “never plays games”. I’ve been an avid gamer for a very long time, I’ve played many and much varied titles and I’ve never had difficulty “getting used” to anything. Not getting violently ill does not “take practise”.

Just because you, personally, did not experience this problem, or happened to see no complaints, does not mean it doesn’t exist or that you should trivialise it. This problem is real, it affects more people than just me, and it has nothing to do with screen brightness or not playing enough video games. It’s something worth bringing to the attention of developers.

In other news, kudos to the people who managed to complete this.

1 See: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/assumption
The only thing close to an assumption is suggestion that it might be the monitor, but thats an suggestion not an assumption.

I did not hear the complain from any guild-members, friends. I only hearth if from one random person.

2 You said “because the bright colours, flashy environment” well you should get rid of that with black and white. And yes it would also help with the brightness, contrast issues because it then really comes down to your monitor calibration. How white is white and how black it black. It will nor help with the moving objects but well, it’s a game. There are moving objects all the time. And because the black and white screen takes a way a lot of the information your brain needs to process it should even help with that a bid.

3 I understand I just say that people who can not handle moving objects in generally will almost never normally not play games. So just the moving objects by itself are not the problem for you else you would also have this problem playing the game.

“Not getting violently ill does not “take practise”." Well it might, people who can not handle a lot of movement on a screen can get used to it.

“This problem is real, it affects more people than just me, and it has nothing to do with screen brightness or not playing enough video games.”
So what does it have to do with and why would making the screen black and white not help?

I gave a possible solution and you complaint that I made assumptions and that the solution would not work. Maybe try to come up with a solution yourself? One that does not dumb the puzzle down.

I gave up on it, well more like there was too many other things to do, so I had to choose whether to spend hours honing my jumping and getting to know the clocktower. Not terribly good at jumping puzzles, still enjoy them from time to time and just the knowledge that I can do content that is so different if I feel like it is worth a lot.

Which is probably what makes people so vocal about this particular jumping puzzle, by that I mean of course that it is going away for at least a year… and I can’t just try it again next weekend. Which makes it all the more special, but at the same time I had to choose which of the (more or less special) things that will not be there tomorrow morning I really want to do and focus on.

I like the premise of holiday content, and the fact that it is special, but at the same time seeing content like the clocktower or the halloween pvp games go when the event ends makes me just a tad sad in a way.

Tried around 10 times and then gave up.
I want to have fun while playing, and the clock tower was not fun for me.

I’m definitely not a jumping puzzle pro, but I do enjoy the simpler ones. When timing comes into it, I fall apart — I panic(for lack of a better word) and make mistakes and fall. I’ve always been like this, within a wide variety of games. I like to take my time, and when a timer is introduced, my enjoyment goes way down.

When we first heard about the Clocktower, I was really excited to give it a whirl… It was the first thing I went to do when the update went up, in fact. After 10 attempts or so, I knew it wasn’t going to happen for me. The(for me) frantic pace was only made worse by the horde of players flailing about in front of me. Once in a while I would think “I should give it another go” but then I’d see people talking about how they spent 5 hours there, and just decided that I would be a nervous wreck by that point.

All this said, I do recognize that for some people, the challenge was really enjoyable. I quickly got over my disappointment and moved onto other events which suited me fine. I’d have loved to finish the puzzle, but it just wasn’t for me.

Also, I was able to do the MK “jumps”(falls, really) with little difficulty. Some of them were pretty tight, but still doable even by a klutz like me. When someone did miss them, we all just laughed.

Josh don’t feel bad for designing something as great as this. It’s not going to be for everyone so you can’t please everyone. It was hard and took me around 6 hours to finally get to the top. But it was worth it and it’s nice to see something that you have to work hard for instead of it being done in a minute. I thought it was the best feature for the halloween event even if it did cause me to curse alot! Also it was nice to feel really nervous when reaching the end and praying that I manage to do it!

There was a few issues like the camera but at least Anet knows about them now and will be able to fix them

Josh Foreman.8250:

I do, truly feel bad about this. From the ground up, we designed our game mechanics to encourage cooperation and altruism in the community, and this JP’s mechanics broke that design aesthetic. It was an accident, but I still accept responsibility for it.
[…]
Well, ideally we will continue tweaking our camera until this is not a problem. Throughout the development of GW2 I was very purposefully pushing the boundaries of spatial layout and mechanics, because I believe you can’t know what your limits are until you pass them. One of the themes I tried to explore in a couple places was claustrophobia.

Heh, I figured out after first time I chilled that it must be an accident and not intent. It wouldn’t make sense philosophy-wise! To be honest in the end I liked having players in the lobby. Just after they became a temporary nuisance during the first jumps. I know the effects have been…controversial but I have trust that you’ll iron out the issues over time.

The phase I usually have most troubles with is the beginning phase as it has a spike in difficulty factors namely camera, weird blocks and player models and thus I fail most at start. After that I am forcing myself to slow down and then it feels just like a normal jumping puzzle again which are definitely doable even by the lesser skilled ones.

As an Asura player I find it frustrating that camera snaps at several parts in the beginning and I figured it’s because their vertical position exceeded the body height but I think camera is something more of a generic problem at the moment and been my main nuisance,yes, more than player models which I could avoid through choosing an overflow with smaller people.

Otherwise I have to say I like the tower concept. I was able to get as far as the part where you have to jump down to the first chest and even if I can’t make it before event ends today I know I will next year if you keep this kind of challenges coming for more training.

I am playing with a motoric impairment which I have since childhood so I have to rely on visual factors more than muscle memory so to speak but I genuinely and harshly blame all mistakes I made on myself and that’s the most of them. So I think the issue was more that we lacked time to practice this, some people do this puzzle with eyes closed at their first visit to the instance, some people need days of relentless practising to beat it. Lacking these days makes them feel more emotional about this I believe.
So I have to say: Please not less of those but more because the more we are doing these the more we learn the easier it gets the more likely we will laugh next year about these silly mistakes we made!

I have two ideas myself which I may post at some point in suggestions forum.

Kojiden.8405:

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.

I think that if you want something to both be accessible and challenging, that you need to have 2 different versions of the same thing. If you make a ‘normal’ mode and a ‘hard’ mode then you get the best of all worlds. I hope you consider doing this in the future.

I think overall the reason people were frustrated with it is because the clock tower was tied to an achievement. People view achievements like crack (including myself) and get frustrated when they can’t get one. Alternatively you could just not tie the challenge stuff like this with an achievement.

I’m just saying there are ways around the issue besides just dumbing down the puzzle and I hope you take this into consideration.

But where is the fun in achievements if it is easy to get them? I agree that it might be a better idea to not link a temporary activity to an achievements. Aldo I don’t know what happens with these achievements after Halloween. It might even be an temporary achievement.

Linking it to an normal achievement might not be a great idea.. then again, you can still go for it next year.

Winther.7108:

Tried around 10 times and then gave up.
I want to have fun while playing, and the clock tower was not fun for me.

I totally agree. You do what you like. You did not like the jumping puzzle so wend doing something else that I maybe don’t like and I did like it so I did the jumping puzzle.

The problem with all this complaining that it was not doable is that they might dumb it down and then there really is reason to complain.

I gave up on clock tower, i could only try so many times before it made me queezy (probably the spinning) , i tried several days but gave up on it today after getting to the top and missing the last jump :S

I admit I gave up: I kinda sux at jumping puzzles and this was past my abilities. I found it epic fun nonetheless, because it was the material representation of madness

I gave up in the end, when i tried to do it at a quiet time the events were either bugged or there was not enough people to get the doors open.
At more normal times the runs were so full that I could not see my toon meaning it was almost impossible to judge where you were or where to jump.
Most of the charr/norn guys did go naked and so did a lot of other people however multiple times and groups there were very large norns and humans who even when asked in a nice way refused to remove even their shoulder gear and they pretty much blocked the entire screen, also came across quite a few who were doing things like jumping on the spot at the first stop to block people even further.
The first day it came out I too almost threw up and had a major dizzy spell, I am pretty sure that was because I was watching the tower , I was fine later attempts when i just focused on where to jump and never really looked at the tower. First time I have had that in a game.
As for it being fun, well it was a great jumping puzzle and a good event but the fun was removed by having so many people on the screen at once and certainly large Norns ect. They should have maybe changed everyone into skeletons or other creatures on entering to stop the issues of people not seeing anything.

I have to make it once but i don’t see a way. spent my entire Halloween evening on it and just do not know what to do. it is the last thing for the achievement but it looks like i will miss something else again. i do not know if i should just give up all together.

Don’t give up! i didn’t and after 1 hour, i’ve made it. The secret is to watch a video about the clocktower and you will know what to do.
Just don’t give up, is not so hard.

heydayhero.1230:

I have to make it once but i don’t see a way. spent my entire Halloween evening on it and just do not know what to do. it is the last thing for the achievement but it looks like i will miss something else again. i do not know if i should just give up all together.

It’s ok, dude, holiday events are meant to be frustrating

Hi, I give up. I finished that, got the achievemnt but thank to bug no kitten slippers… I got teleported back to the beginning… so I give up, because even if you make it, there is no guarantee that you get the reward… Screw the clock tower

I wouldnt change a thing!

Seriously the Jumping Puzzle Tower was difficult but thats what is so great about it. Its not one of those things that you do a couple of times (for most) and then it becomes a farm mode item. I loved it and want more of these types of things in game now!

As for people complaining about the Norns/Charr blocking their views and it being impossible on smaller characters, not so.

I completed the Tower on 2 Norns and 1 Sylvari. Sylvari was by far the easiest as my large Norn characters ou hit angles or areas where the camera would pop in and out on them. Sylvari just ran right through.

BraxKedren.8941:

I wouldnt change a thing!

Seriously the Jumping Puzzle Tower was difficult but thats what is so great about it. Its not one of those things that you do a couple of times (for most) and then it becomes a farm mode item. I loved it and want more of these types of things in game now!

As for people complaining about the Norns/Charr blocking their views and it being impossible on smaller characters, not so.

I completed the Tower on 2 Norns and 1 Sylvari. Sylvari was by far the easiest as my large Norn characters ou hit angles or areas where the camera would pop in and out on them. Sylvari just ran right through.

Yes its harder to do jumps on charr/norn but the issue was you simply could not see anything 2 norn and you might as well quit, you either need to get in front or lag behind which gets you caught by the goo. I simply could not see my guy at all, so had no idea where he was or where and when to jump alot of the time.

Yeah I gave up on it, only because of the loading times between tries, I’d have stuck at it otherwise. I’m impatient especially when the loading/retry times seemed a tad long.

Devata.6589:

*snip

1. You ASSUME that I am the only person experiencing this, you ASSUME that it’s my monitor calibration, and you ASSUME that I probably never or barely ever play games. I don’t need a dictionary, but perhaps you could use some more time learning about phrasing and semantics. Let’s drop that part of the discussion, we’re not likely going to agree.

What’s more pressing: I’m not the only person- even within this very thread- complaining about the issue. You conveniently ignore that, or you just haven’t really looked past this thread. Which is fine, but don’t mistake my point for just another person complaining that it’s hard.

2. Black and white settings don’t take away contrast issues. Bright colours will simply be replaced by various degrees of harshness in greyscale. It wouldn’t necessarily even make the puzzle simpler, it may make it harder (less distinguishable detail). So as such, it’s not viable. It’s also not JUST bright colours, but the entirety of the puzzle and all the little things combined. Making a monochromatic version does not tackle that problem. It also doesn’t take care of environmental flashes. It just makes them a different colour.

3. Again, you completely miss the point. It’s not the moving objects alone, and I never said that it was. It’s a combination of factors and you conveniently choose to ignore it by trying to split it up into individual issues. It’s everything together that makes it nauseating and there is no getting used to that. Ever. It’s also extremely bad design philosophy if you put something like this together and then hope that people will just “get used to it”. People shouldn’t have to get used to nauseating experiences, especially not when it’s supposed to be fun.

So:
You have completely failed to see the point of my original post. I’m not asking for this puzzle to be changed, removed, or dumbed down. I can live with never finishing it and not getting the achievement. Really, life will go on. Big whoop.

The issue for me is that it’s a poorly designed bit of content that raises some very real and very serious health concerns that should have been taken into account- and were probably overlooked due to time constraints. I don’t want that to seep into the rest of an otherwise amazingly awesome game. If a healthy, non-epileptic player like myself can get nauseous trying to do this, then people with greater sensitivity to such health problems will definitely have a problem.

A few things that may help?

1. Release the puzzle as a single player or team-based instance next year. It will limit the amount of additional feedback from dozens of other (and large) characters moving about at the same time.

2. Tone down the colour palette of the area. The rest of the game has a very beautiful, very pleasant overall aesthetic that is neither too bright and cartoony nor too pastel and dull. Why can’t the same go for this area? You can go a long way towards solving the brightness of the colouring without having to resort to implementing a greyscale mode.

3. Minimise the number of environmental flashes from the sky, the goo and other objects. Tone down their harshness.

4. Reduce the number of unnecessarily moving objects. The tower can move, a few platforms you need to jump on can move, but anything that’s just there for looks need not move. Awesome as it may seem, chances are it’s wasted on the player anyway as they will either not notice or get sick.

5. Don’t expect your playerbase to adjust all their settings, in-game and otherwise, for one single area. Chances are they won’t and they shouldn’t have to anyway. The look of one (temporary) area should never define on what settings the rest of the game is viewed. For me, the rest of the game looks perfect on my current settings. I’m not about to ruin that for one single puzzle. If the design leans towards serious changes of settings… change the design instead.

6. ISSUE SOME KIND OF WARNING. Seriously. If you’re not going to change anything else about the area and the puzzle, the least you could do for your players is adding a WARNING pop-up upon entering the area. Players will be able to make a judgement call about not trying it without having to find out the hard way.

None of these suggestions would dumb down the puzzle, all of them would contribute to a more pleasant way of viewing the area, and all of them should contribute towards a far less nauseating experience. It’s the bigger picture that’s an issue, not any one specific detail.

I love the concept of the puzzle, I’d like to reiterate that before people get the wrong idea. I think it has potential and it’s definitely creative. It even has the potential to be challenging. It’s just that it makes me, and other people, sick. I want to raise some awareness for that, because I fear it may get drowned out among the overall “omg this is hard” going around.

BraxKedren.8941:

As for people complaining about the Norns/Charr blocking their views and it being impossible on smaller characters, not so.[…]

It’s not impossible but harder. Is driving your car with a cow sprawling on top of your windscreen impossible? No but it’s definitely harder.

I congratulate those that were able to complete it. That puzzle was definitely a challenge. Alas; it was too much of a challenge to my patience, even with the FOV beta format (which is FANTASTIC! btw..no more camera bouncies or geometry blockage). I’m one of those that has difficulty with the stationary JPs, this moving one was a bit much for me. I hope future event puzzles will have a stationary option. I might have stuck this one out if not for the racing format.

@ Josh Foreman

The clocktower is by far my favourite memory of this Halloween. My guild & I have already been getting hyped up about what you’ll do for Christmas, we were really hoping for some kind of giant spinning Christmas tree! You did a really great job on the puzzle. We had fun doing it together and last night I went back to do it again by myself and ended up chatting to 2 strangers who also made it to the top. They were also very enthusiastic about it all and saying what a great job you guys have done this year.

I was nervous going into the tower the first time & was giving my guild orders that they aren’t allowed to laugh at me when I fall. I refused to leave until I got it though, and now I can do it pretty consistently. I felt very proud that I’d actually done it and it’s given me confidence with the other puzzles, which now seem really easy.

So please don’t think you’ve made everyone upset. You made my Halloween with that puzzle. Thank you for your hard work and I’d love to see more like the clock tower.

Lady Elvea.2847:

Devata.6589:

*snip

-

Really want to start this discussion?

1. “You ASSUME that I am the only person experiencing this” Lets see what I said “Well you are the first one I hear complaining about this”. So where do I assume the only person experiencing this? Thats something you decide for yourself. But if you want to know what I assume.. I assume that most people do not experiencing this.

“you ASSUME that it’s my monitor calibration” Lets see what I said “It might also been your screen” So I say that is a possibility, I do not say I assume thats your problem.

“you ASSUME that I probably never or barely ever play games” Lets see what I said “It is normally a complain I hear from people playing any game in general that never play games” I just state the fact that it is a complain I hear from people playing a game that normally don’t play games. So if you would try to get an assumption out of this (even do I am not making one) it would be that I assume you do play games because you are complaining about this referring to the jumping puzzle and not to the rest of the game.

“I don’t need a dictionary, but perhaps you could use some more time learning about phrasing and semantics. Let’s drop that part of the discussion, we’re not likely going to agree.” or you need a bid more time learning to get better reading comprehension.

“Let’s drop that part of the discussion, we’re not likely going to agree.” Fine by me however it is not really about agreeing because it was not about an opinion but about what I did or did not say.

“You conveniently ignore” no I don’t, you think I do because you assume that I say that you are the only one with that problem.
Pictish.3410 also said he had the problem but that when he focused on the jumps he did not have the problem anymore.
So that is like learning a way to get rid of that problem.

2 Well like I said, when it is black and white the monitor settings might help. How black is the black and how white is the white. You talk about “harshness in greyscale” but the grayscale is just a ‘less white’. So if you think it is to bright (with black and white you really only have have the difference between brightness where 100% is white and 0% is black) you can then easily turn down the brightness of your monitor a bid to a brightness that suits you best.

“less distinguishable detail” That’s true and indeed in some cases that will make it harder, in other cases it might also make it easier. “but the entirety of the puzzle” that’s a big vague but if you mean the twirl of the puzzle. That is an essential part of this puzzle so I would never suggest to take that out and like Pictish.3410 you can avoid that problem by focusing on the jumps.

“It also doesn’t take care of environmental flashes” I’m not sure what you are referring to, I did not notice any environmental flashes but I think they can take that out in a black and white version. Taking that out will not harm the puzzle in any way.

“It also doesn’t take care of environmental flashes. It just makes them a different colour.” Well it makes it one color (white) because black is nothing else then the absence of the white. And it will not tackle all the thinks but I might tackle a few and maybe that is enough for people like you do not have the problem anymore.
Like you said yourself “but the entirety of the puzzle and all the little things combined.”. Well taking the whole puzzle out is not an option in my opinion but taking a few of those little things out is possible and that then might be enough.

However I also think that Pictish.3410 answer was very valid and it is something you can learn by doing it. Just like he did.

Lady Elvea.2847:

Devata.6589:

*snip

-

3 “Again, you completely miss the point. It’s not the moving objects alone” no you say it’s the combinations of thinks, so I suggest to take a few of them out of the equation so it might help.

Moving is one of the things but that is one we can not take out of the equation. That is what I am saying.

“It’s a combination of factors “ Yeah I got that the first time and that is why I suggest a way that I believe might remove, not all but, a few of those factors hoping that would solve your problem.

“It’s also extremely bad design philosophy if you put something like this together and then hope that people will just “get used to it”. People shouldn’t have to get used to nauseating experiences, especially not when it’s supposed to be fun.” On this part I totally disagree with you. Some people can’t sit in the back of a car because they get sic of it, some people can’t watch computer screens because they get sic of it and so you can go on. Then that would all be bad design and they should not make it? A lot of people don’ t have the problem and a lot of other people are able to get used to it. You can try to find a solution for most of those people who still have the problem (and that’s why I posted a suggestion) but in the end you can not please everybody, and you should not, because of that, don’t make it available for the rest.

The suggestions you now posted can at least be useful.

Though I too feel that having larger characters in the same instance makes the challenge harder, I understand that it was an unavoidable obsticle. That said, I achieved the tower as a human with a group including 3 Norns that must have been set to the heightest scales possible (they were huge). I also managed to do the puzzle as a Norn myself. Having other players blocking your view does not help, but it does not make it impossible. And playing as a Norn (though they phycologically feel slower) did not make the JP any harder than doing it with a Human. To me, I just saw it as an extra challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I was not perfect and it took me a couple of hours to do it the first time, with much swearing and frustration. But that made its success even more sweeter.

I do agree that content this difficult should really be a more permanent and optional feature, rather than being part of a holiday event. I would love to see a JP similar to the CT as a permanent feature somewhere in Tyria. But I also like that there is a small part of the holiday content that caters to the hardcore jumpers out there.

@Josh,

Please don’t take every negative comment on here to heart. What you created was the most amazing and memorable JP I have seen to date and the achievement of completing it will stay with me forever. So thank you very much for creating it.

If I had half your design talents I would be a very happy man indeed. Please do continue to create content like this. Can’t wait to see what is in store for the next event.

Completion is not doing everything that is available to you, completion is doing everything that matters to you. Of course, if doing everything that is available to you is what matters to you, then you only have yourself to blame.

Best part of the event!!!!

I’ve felt like I was playing Dark Souls in my XBox, it was so hard, but I’ve just keep trying and trying and trying, taking a break, then trying again…

The feeling in the end that you made it after so mainy fails was unique and great!!!!

Thank you very much for designing this Mr Josh Foreman!!

I could say i am on the verge of having to do so, with so little time. I’d like to do the tower but a little hiccup i have is my motorskills. It has something to do with the frontal lobe of the brain. If my right hand does something my other will follow.

Example; If i crush a piece of paper in my left hand, i’d do the same with the right hand. It can be annoying, but i cannot use it as an excuse, even if it makes the tower whatever % harder for me.

It’s just one of those ones i’ll likely never get, i tried for so many hours over days solely on it.

Needless to say, i’ll never give up!

Shakki.3219:

It was one of the easiest and fastest Puzzles ingame…. i thought for once it would be harder :|

you silly troll….

seriously i gave up on that thing. Way to hard for me. just do not have the patience.

Thanks for the video! it saved me a couple of hours because i would have never made that.

grats to all that did it!

Post here if you GAVE UP on the Clocktower!

Why ppl go offtopic?! So we have this thread abt ppl who completed this jumping…thing, and u dont see me to post there right?

So if u finished the puzzle, please avoid posting in THIS thread, thank you.

Very frustating, wast of time.