Guild Wars 2

People would complain less about camera and big races if they properly placed their cameras well above their heads and somewhat far in the first part of the puzzle. Besides you get a much better view of where you are stepping into that way and can jump better.

Funset.7893:

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.

Because the designer answered here. That it why.

And a lot of those people who finished the puzzle do not like to see the next jumping puzzle being dumbed down because a lot of people gave up on this puzzle.

On my charr I had given up after hours and hours of trying. On my charr, I couldn’t deal with all the camera issues, I was cussing and raging. After seeing how good the xp was in the labyrinth I jumped on my alt (sylvari) did 10 levels, got master carver and everything else but the jump puzzle… So I was like what the hell, I’ll give it another shot, on my 3rd try I did it, no camera issues, no issues with charr/norn being in my way (yes they were there also) but it was so much easier!! I think if the camera was better, people would have a better shot at the puzzle. Some people are just bad at jumping puzzles like my friend. I told him you could get these [item link of slippers] and he was like “I’d love to have those, but I suck at jumping puzzles” Give it a shot? Sure he said.. dead-dead-dead-F-THIS!!! AND OH WELL!!! was his answer, but he knew going in he sucked at jumping puzzles (established this in WoW wall jumping)

1 you are bad at jumping puzzles.
2 you’re having camera issues.
3 you are not comfortable with the games layout. (where your character centers)
3½ you lack patience, or easily frustrated.

*Edit

After completing the puzzle I felt zero accomplishment, I was just glad I didn’t have to do it again.

I tried for about an hour and gave up, mainly because I spent more time waiting in between tries than doing the actual jumping. Having a horde of people doing it at the same time and blocking my view didn’t help either. Plus I had to adjust the camera every time after entering the puzzle, which was annoying.
A very un-fun experience.

Josh Foreman.8250:

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.

JOSH!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Don’t change a thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*infinity :-P

the amount of rage and whining i have seen from the community in game and on various forums over this very awesomely designed NON-COMPULSORY made for fun for 1 week jumping puzzle is quite frankly disgusting.

some people just seem to want to log in at level 1 and have everything just given to them (how boring would a game be if it was like that?), the reward for the tower isn’t a game breaking must have either so if you can’t do it you’re not missing out!

and please please please add more of these puzzles, i had so much fun doing it and kept doing it just for fun once i knew how to get to the top

Bezayne.6459:

Plus I had to adjust the camera every time after entering the puzzle, which was annoying.
A very un-fun experience.

Let me guess, you aren’t playing with your mouse at all XD I’m not trying to be mean or all but I do really think that if you aren’t controlling your camera facing for the whole run with your mouse, I don’t think you can finish the puzzle at all. If you insist on keyboard turning, save yourself some stress and give it up.

Gave up after 30 minutes when my best try wasn’t even halfway there.

I am glad I did considering how some people spent 6+hrs on it and still couldn’t make it to the top. I am also glad that you don’t need that for the Halloween title.

im on the opposite situation, i do this “puzzle” a lot of times to farm the bags.
Yeah you need practics, but ppl really cant complain for this.
you cant pretend to do things like this in the first 10 minutes, you have to study the route and the timing for jumps, even if it means try the same jump ALONE a lot of times, when you have achieved this 2 things, you can do the tower easily even with 20 charrs on the screen.

stof.9341:

Bezayne.6459:

Plus I had to adjust the camera every time after entering the puzzle, which was annoying.
A very un-fun experience.

Let me guess, you aren’t playing with your mouse at all XD I’m not trying to be mean or all but I do really think that if you aren’t controlling your camera facing for the whole run with your mouse, I don’t think you can finish the puzzle at all. If you insist on keyboard turning, save yourself some stress and give it up.

I am actually using my mouse to turn, thanks very much. What I had to adjust was the zoom level of the camera, which got old after a while, even doing it with the mouse. When running a puzzle like this one, all fast and furious, I prefer to not change the zoom in mid-run, got enough else to do already.

Adjust it at the forced pause part then TBH, with the new FoV beta option i find the default zoom level to be perfect to do the puzzle.

I put in 90 minutes worth of attempts before calling it. I’m not as bitter as most though, I see nothing wrong with Having a event that not everyone can complete. Perhaps in the future there will be a event that i can complete that others can not. I do feel the reward for completing this should have been MUCH BETTER though. The real reason I gave up was because in my opinion those lame looking boots were not worth the amount of time i was going to spend completing this puzzle.

What really screwed this jumping puzzle up for most was the time limit. Had they not put in the rising ooze i think 90% of players would have completed this.

I was emensly proud and shocked and awed when I FINALY after 7 hours made it to the top. It ws a rare day off from work, AND I told the family ARGHH LEAVE ME ALONE, yes hubby was grumbly at me for it) But I have not been so happy to acomplish ANYTHING in a game for SOOOOOO long!

Thunderstruck.5368:

What really screwed this jumping puzzle up for most was the time limit. Had they not put in the rising ooze i think 90% of players would have completed this.

Of course almost everybody would have made it then. It would the be an easy jumping puzzle. But we do not want that do we? Like you said, some will manage some will not. That’s the fun, that is what defines skills.

Completed it in about 15 minutes, 1st try shrug wasn’t that bad..

Devata.6589:

Thunderstruck.5368:

What really screwed this jumping puzzle up for most was the time limit. Had they not put in the rising ooze i think 90% of players would have completed this.

Of course almost everybody would have made it then. It would the be an easy jumping puzzle. But we do not want that do we? Like you said, some will manage some will not. That’s the fun, that is what defines skills.

Yeah I actually agree with you, Although i will stand by my statement that if you are going to create something that only half or less of the playerbase can/will complete then the reward better be pretty spectacular. In my opinion the boots did not justify the time spent by most completing this challenge.

I had no interest in the mad king event. After reading this thread. I took it as a personal challenge to go and see how difficult it was.

40 minutes later I have 6 slippers for my 6 characters. It’s really not that difficult. You guys made it sound scary.

Ran it for 4 hours straight and finally beat it. Then I beat it again immediately after. I found it a very nice challenge. Anything that I know is doable, but very difficult, will be done by me til its finished lol.

Tons of rage though, tough of rage…..enjoyable at the same time. Super amazing feeling of accomplishment after you do it and get the slippers.

spend a good hour(maybe close to two) on before i completed it the first time, once u get the difference jumps down its quite easy.. Did it on my alt this morning in like 5 tries..

Yeah I pretty much gave up lol. I was making some progress but I honestly didn’t want to waste much time with it so I let it go.

I had mentioned before, I really didn’t like the jumping puzzle. However, to clarify the why; it is because I am truely terrible at them.
In voice chat, I would laugh and get ‘ribbed’ by friends when I would fall (yet again).
In game chat, I joined others in doing much of the same. It was simply too difficult for me to complete.
I may have been able to do it eventually without the gooey stuff rising AND the ability to actually see the floor through the wall of other players (Norn and Charr mostly); but to be honest – I doubt even then. ha!

My concern with such a puzzle is that it be used in similar form to gate off other content. Say, a future dungeon path or vista/skill point etc. That type of setup breeds elitism which I feel is very toxic to the over all health of the community.

Now, that doesn’t mean don’t add stuff like this as there are some that truely love it. But add it in part of normal jumping puzzles out in the world for exploration and such. Don’t use them as a “in your face” or “in the way of” a vista, skill point or such. An single exotic holiday item caused this level of rage, imagine blocking off a skill point or vista in future content… O.O

PS. To the dev making these puzzles: These are the perfect opportunity to put in place an ode to Willie Coyote. Give us a flailing animation or calm wave before falling to our doom. /evil_grin

I would agree with that last part if exotics weren’t already easy to get.

as is the one you get isnt all that grate and is realy only goodfor Shift click see what i did \o/

They had far better stats than anything else I had. +condition and +magic find? Yes please.

This event has had the best response I have heard on TS regarding any PvE content. It’s amazing and the right amount of challenge. Finishing was a thrill. I sat in the tower and others would show up and we would hang out, and talk about how good it felt to finish. It’s a great experience, only because it was hard.

But, no one can be left behind. I get that.

Next time perhaps make a “story” mode and a “Mad Hallows” mode. That way, all of us can have nice things.

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.

D: dont feel bad for designing something amazing, i loved the Clocktower and continued doing the jumping puzzle after i got it on my mains, even though i rarely beat it

FWIW, I don’t have anything against the designer whatsoever – it’s a skillfully constructed chunk of platforming.

It’s the game engine that made me give up after ten minutes, knowing that, as with many of you, it would take me hours and hours of attempts, during which time I would be constantly cursing the camera, collision detection, FOV and other stuff.

There are different kinds of challenge, different kinds of difficulty. I like having to think fast. I like having to think carefully. I like having to learn something. I like making gradual progress over a long period. I don’t like doing the same thing to the same general competency over and over and over whilst compensating for a dodgy set-up, under pressure of real-world time (ie. the event ending), just to proceed by an inch every hour. That’s too much like my real job, thanks.

Big props to Josh for taking the right lessons from the experience.

Josh Foreman, I don’t think you should listen to the vocal minority too much.

Even though the clock tower was hard for some, it’s on a farm state for others as well. I really enjoyed the clock tower, it was challenging and kept me busy for around 13 – 15 falls

Keep doing things hard.

For Christmas I want a Christmas tree to jump up on instead of a clock tower, pretty please?

A christmas tree sounds amazing for christmas! I would definately attempt it until i either accomplish the task or go crazy trying. Just like I did the clocktower.

I don’t think the creator of the tower needs to feel bad, he created something that gave me the biggest challenge and biggest thrill I have had in ANY game for a long, long time. If anything at all needs to change it would be to transform everyone in the group to a uniformed sized creature.

Please don’t stop Josh!

The puzzle was amazing. Get a grip.

Josh i don’t think you should apologize really, yes the puzzle was hard but then again if it wasn’t that hard a lot of people wouldn’t have liked it either. There is a post from reddit that sent me here, where the op asked what was the best part of the halloween event, and a lot of people pointed the clock tower (the majority it seam).

I posted a suggestion that I hope will reconcile those who thought this event was too frustrating with those who are worried about future events being too easy.

It’s been moved to the suggestions forum however:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestion-for-future-Clocktower-type-puzzles/first#post605401

The Clock Tower was amazing. Don’t apologize. It was very challenging, which made beating it a reward in itself. It gave me a good sense of accomplishment when I finally finished it!

This is how I feel about all the people complaining about it…

I thoroughly enjoyed the Clocktower jumping puzzle. It was a great sense of accomplishment to actually finish it and it’s a disservice to say that content like this needs to be pushed to the corner and out of sight because of its difficulty, or its rewards diminished, especially when it wasn’t essential at all to the completion of plot or title reward achievements.

Great challenges deserves to be put at the forefront.

I’d rather see more of Clocktower type content in holiday events than less of it.

I understand having chests partways up the puzzle to reward people who get, well, part of the way, but I tried for a couple of hours and never got even to the first one. Only just past the first pause point. I’m terrible at jumping puzzles (ask my guild how long it took for me to do Morgan’s Spiral) and need time to turn, aim, and mash my unsensitive space bar (which is fine for typing but for jumping the inconsistent latency gets me bad).

I agree that seasonal holiday content should be manageable for everybody. It’s what really brings the casual players in to play and after all the GW1 Halloween quests were all pretty manageable (except for the Underworld one but I’ve never finished UW in regular time anyway and the reward was just ToT bags so it didn’t bother me). So sure, have hard stuff. But I wouldn’t mind if there was a way to go at your own pace to learn it first (like Griffinrook chest).

Sure, some of you found it fun and super easy, but that doesn’t give you the right to belittle those who had a miserable time attempting it (whether they cared all that much about finishing it or not).

took me around 4 hours to learn this thing, once i did, i 1 shot it with most of my alts. This was a fun challenging puzzle and i loved it

thank you very much

WasAGuest.4973:

I had mentioned before, I really didn’t like the jumping puzzle. However, to clarify the why; it is because I am truely terrible at them.
In voice chat, I would laugh and get ‘ribbed’ by friends when I would fall (yet again).
In game chat, I joined others in doing much of the same. It was simply too difficult for me to complete.
I may have been able to do it eventually without the gooey stuff rising AND the ability to actually see the floor through the wall of other players (Norn and Charr mostly); but to be honest – I doubt even then. ha!

My concern with such a puzzle is that it be used in similar form to gate off other content. Say, a future dungeon path or vista/skill point etc. That type of setup breeds elitism which I feel is very toxic to the over all health of the community.

Now, that doesn’t mean don’t add stuff like this as there are some that truely love it. But add it in part of normal jumping puzzles out in the world for exploration and such. Don’t use them as a “in your face” or “in the way of” a vista, skill point or such. An single exotic holiday item caused this level of rage, imagine blocking off a skill point or vista in future content… O.O

PS. To the dev making these puzzles: These are the perfect opportunity to put in place an ode to Willie Coyote. Give us a flailing animation or calm wave before falling to our doom. /evil_grin

I always find the ‘elitism’ discussions a bid funny if it is about MMORPG games. Really, the whole game is about it, or you totally don’t care about it.

The games allows you to do your thing and don’t mind what other people are doing. If you play like that ‘elitism’ should not be a problem for you.

You can also use the game to really get the best chars or the coolest mini’s and so on. Some people say thats elitism. Well then I am an elitism but I am not the guy with the biggest armor showing it of in LA. I just like to have so unique stuff.

It’s not problem if these sort of activities ‘block’ content (like you name it) It makes that content just more epic. So you like that content (be an elitism?) and go for it of you don’t care and ignore it. It is as simple as that.

With ‘content’ I am mostly referring to items, not basic things like world-completion.

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.

Josh, you did the right thing. Seriously. There will always be people who complain. It’s very rare these days to come across something that is challenging, yet fun. Something that you can continue to do each time and get a little better at. I spent a lot of time on this jumping puzzle, and I would consider myself a very seasoned jumper. I spent a good 7 years jumping across azeroth. Stuff like this is what makes this game so much fun to me.

We sat in skype for probably 3 hours while all my friends completed it. It was a load of fun hearing the frustration from all of them, and the jokes along the way. You will always have negatives and positives to anything you do, but people need something like this.

By the end of the jumping puzzle, I was just doing it for fun. Challenging myself a bit more each time. Trying to grab each chest and still make it to the top. Taking ways I didn’t normally go the first time, and just having fun with it. Please put more challenging ones in.

I’m sure that in the end, when those people who spent hours finally reached the top, they were relieved, and proud of themselves. It makes you just that much better at jumping. And while jumping in a video game might be a useless talent, it’s a game of it’s own. Whether or not those people know it, the ones who actually stuck around and finished it will be much better at the next one. Don’t feed into the people who complain about it. Eventually the content will get dulled down more and more and you will end up with something like World of Warcrafts LFR. Where people just walk into a spinning room and the chest goes around and they have to just hit F at the right time to receive their chest.

All in all, thank you for the wonderful experience. The entire time I kept stating in skype “this is why I play this game”. The creativity, the design, it was all perfect. And it kept me entertained for a long time. Thanks again.

Edit – I should also state my girlfriend who isn’t very good at jumping puzzles completed it after 3 hours. After talking with her, she said she was proud that she finished it, and felt sorry for the dev that was taking so much heat.

Anyone who puts in the effort is sure to finish it if they try hard enough. That’s what makes it so much fun.

Clock tower is best jumping puzzle in game. I hope you make more puzzle like this in the future.

I would like to see this jumping puzzle return next Halloween. I never really got much time with it, but I’d love to add it to my list of accomplishments in the game The puzzle is fine. Thank you for the effort and detail you put into it!

I gave up due to lack of play time which I wanted to spend on other game activities Plus, I did try the tower but there were just too many people blocking my view and I couldn’t see where to jump. Hopefully it will return next year and maybe not so many people will be in my way lol, we’ll see. Regardless, it is a great event. It is a very challenging one and many will not be able to do it or just give up altogether but there are those who love a challenge and want more of this

Josh you should not be apologizing, you did something very RIGHT with the clock tower. You can’t or won’t appeal to everyone. In this case, you appealed to the hardcore gamers and indeed, it is hard to keep their interest and attention lol, you managed to do this with the tower by giving them challenging content. Those who can not do it or refuse to keep trying will just have to accept that they can’t do everything. Period. There are other activities to do. I may not ever be able to complete the tower…I absolutely hate jumping haha and have a sweaty palm issue just trying to tackle some vistas. But I appreciate the challenging game content nonetheless and love to see how other gamers will retain interest in playing GW2 due to variety and challenges. Keep it up!!!

Criminon.8432:

Josh, you did the right thing. Seriously. There will always be people who complain. It’s very rare these days to come across something that is challenging, yet fun.

Nope, he’s taking the right lesson from it. You guys begging him to stop have got nothing to back you up – he’s not saying he’s not going to make challenging events in the future, but he recognises that throwing people in at the deep end was a mistake, and that making a significant proportion of your playerbase feel frustrated is not something to be proud of.

The problem with your POV and that of others swarming this thread to say, “No, it was great!” is that you fail to recognise that everything you liked about this puzzle can be accomplished whilst still giving an opportunity for other people to get to grips with it. Obviously, not everyone likes everything, but there are ways to design games and games-within-games so that the majority of players can get something out of them.

‘Difficulty’ isn’t some quantitative concept, where making something more accessible necessitates removing the challenge for others. It’s about ‘arming’ your players equally, so that those coming to something new or with less experience of certain systems can get up to speed with those who are seasoned, and those who don’t have as much time to waste can still get something out of an event, while those who have all the time in the world can find a proportionate increase in reward.

So please stop treating it like an oppositional binary. My hope is that Josh and ANet have the wisdom to see this as a problem that requires a creative solution, rather than a supposed choice between pleasing two different types of player.

Whenever I am asked about the quality of this Halloween event, the FIRST thing that comes to mind is the horrid clock tower. It completely overshadows the other aspects of the event, which were actually fun.

So from now on, when I see an announcement for a new “fun” holiday event, my first thought will be “oh crap, I hope there isn’t another clock tower fiasco like that Halloween event”.

Focksbot.6798:

Nope, he’s taking the right lesson from it. You guys begging him to stop have got nothing to back you up – he’s not saying he’s not going to make challenging events in the future, but he recognises that throwing people in at the deep end was a mistake, and that making a significant proportion of your playerbase feel frustrated is not something to be proud of.

The problem with your POV and that of others swarming this thread to say, “No, it was great!” is that you fail to recognise that everything you liked about this puzzle can be accomplished whilst still giving an opportunity for other people to get to grips with it. Obviously, not everyone likes everything, but there are ways to design games and games-within-games so that the majority of players can get something out of them.

‘Difficulty’ isn’t some quantitative concept, where making something more accessible necessitates removing the challenge for others. It’s about ‘arming’ your players equally, so that those coming to something new or with less experience of certain systems can get up to speed with those who are seasoned, and those who don’t have as much time to waste can still get something out of an event, while those who have all the time in the world can find a proportionate increase in reward.

So please stop treating it like an oppositional binary. My hope is that Josh and ANet have the wisdom to see this as a problem that requires a creative solution, rather than a supposed choice between pleasing two different types of player.

The problem I have with that is that it’s not Josh’s fault if people get frustrated. It’s entirely their own fault. They can either practice until they can do it or they can go do something else. This stuff about having to have every achievement, even for things they don’t have the patience or ability to do is ridiculous. So is blaming others for your own lack of patience (using the general you there, not anyone specific).

I tried for fifteen minutes and quit. I didnt give up per say, but i was only there to sell the exotic slippers. Once someone told me that particular pair was BoA I was out. Lol

Im a charr. Annoying somewhat. I think its the gallop that can screw us up sometimes but whatever.

Btw, a dev actually apologized in another post since he was under the impression this would be a single player instance when he designed the tower. So i wouldnt fear about them dumbing down JP’s. i would however expect future “special” JP’s to be a bit more user friendly.

Josh Foreman.8250:

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. (Specifically in Troll End, which I consider to be my worst JP) I always play as the largest male Norn in these areas while I’m building and testing them.

I’m happy to hear this, and totally agree about Troll’s End. I haven’t gotten to do the majority of the jumping puzzles, but that one sticks out as really poor design, almost entirely because of the camera. It’s the worst one I’ve done, and the only one I dislike more is the Vizier’s Tower, and that one almost entirely because there’s finicky terrain AND a punishing jump AFTER you get the achievement for the puzzle but BEFORE you can get the skill point, vista, or lore. For people who want to 100% maps but dislike jumping puzzles as a rule, it adds insult to injury.

That said, I managed the Mad King’s Tower after two hours of mashing my head against it and syncing my movements to a song I picked out, which helped a lot in memorizing the jumps to get past the first chest and earn some breathing room. I loved it and it made me think back to old-school platformers, and even my friend who hates puzzles with a passion wasn’t especially bothered by it since it wasn’t required for the Emissary title. I really hope we do see more optional challenging stuff in these events, especially if ANet is going to keep offering such a wide variety of holiday stuff to do.

Or was it this thread he was in….? Too lazy to look lol

Josh Foreman.8250:

Latorn.4209:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Jalad Lantana.3027:

As long as jumping puzzles are optional, that’s fine, but requiring one as they did with the Mad King fight crosses the line. If they are going to require jumping puzzles to complete regular content, then they should fix things so all players have an equal chance.

I did not consider the MK boss map as a jumping puzzle. All you are doing is dropping down. And I made it so there are MANY paths down.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Noooo! Don’t change what you’re doing! The mad king mini-dungeon layout was fantastic, really spiced it up with the small amount of jumping required. Think of how boring it would be if you just went in and fought him on a flat level :/

Oh I wasn’t saying I was changing anything. I was just seriously surprised that anyone would consider the verticality in that map a ‘jumping puzzle’.

I’m unsure if you will read this but i was curious about a particular dynamic that has happened especially with the MK dungeon. Breaking a persons fall.

I’ve actually had this occur outside of the dungeon as well, but prior i assumed since at the time i had %50 fall damage, i just survived the fall. Regardless, while doing a MK run, a guildie and I both were feared off the edge, one about .5 second behind the other. Since when you fall, you both land in the same spot at the start, it was easier to reproduce and we did it multiple times. My guildie was on a warrior and I was on my guardian, neither of us had any special trait that would save us. However, do to the fact that he fell slightly ahead of me, he died and i only took about %25 of the damage falling right on top of him. We tried it both where i fell first and he fell after me with very similar results.

I’ve seen a bunch of attention to details in the game, for example, i was in lions arch standing on the rope fences near the crafting station and noticed (on a human) that i could actually have one leg on the top rope (bent) and the other leg down on the bottom rope. Something i’ve never actually seen in any other game and thought it was a really nice touch. So, I’m wondering, is that break a person fall an intended thing? Or is it that there is some underlying technical thing going on that made that happen?

Josh—

Please don’t fret. I didn’t—couldn’t—complete the kitten clock tower, but really enjoyed the fact that it was there, that some people completed it, and that it terrified me. I even called my boyfriend over to have a look at how overwhelmingly impossible it seemed.

A Halloween holiday event is exactly where this belongs—it’s temporary, optional, and fun.

I loved the design and the challenge of the clock tower. I enjoy difficulty in games, and don’t need every achievement spoon fed to me. I find no point in an achievement system that doesn’t offer a challenge, and that some people just won’t be able to obtain.

Keep up the good work Josh!

I love the challenge, yet I hate it being as an achievement.

I think the downfall is, I play GW2 without mouse, just the track pad on my notebook.
I know that using mouse to play is a lot easier and to see and look around.

I can do pretty much without the mouse in other stuff.

But I guess that as long as it is a timed-jumping quest, it might be something that I will not be able to do it.

I still love the challenge and I think it is beautifully made; without a mouse…there’s no way I could achieve and enjoy it. I’ve only managed a 25-30% of it. Turning left is too slow.

Kana.6793:

Focksbot.6798:

Nope, he’s taking the right lesson from it. You guys begging him to stop have got nothing to back you up – he’s not saying he’s not going to make challenging events in the future, but he recognises that throwing people in at the deep end was a mistake, and that making a significant proportion of your playerbase feel frustrated is not something to be proud of.

The problem with your POV and that of others swarming this thread to say, “No, it was great!” is that you fail to recognise that everything you liked about this puzzle can be accomplished whilst still giving an opportunity for other people to get to grips with it. Obviously, not everyone likes everything, but there are ways to design games and games-within-games so that the majority of players can get something out of them.

‘Difficulty’ isn’t some quantitative concept, where making something more accessible necessitates removing the challenge for others. It’s about ‘arming’ your players equally, so that those coming to something new or with less experience of certain systems can get up to speed with those who are seasoned, and those who don’t have as much time to waste can still get something out of an event, while those who have all the time in the world can find a proportionate increase in reward.

So please stop treating it like an oppositional binary. My hope is that Josh and ANet have the wisdom to see this as a problem that requires a creative solution, rather than a supposed choice between pleasing two different types of player.

The problem I have with that is that it’s not Josh’s fault if people get frustrated. It’s entirely their own fault. They can either practice until they can do it or they can go do something else. This stuff about having to have every achievement, even for things they don’t have the patience or ability to do is ridiculous. So is blaming others for your own lack of patience (using the general you there, not anyone specific).

Sorry, but you’re wrong. It is Josh’s fault – but that’s not to say he didn’t do a great job in many respects. Game design is hard and he overlooked something, just as anyone would in any tough job. I’ll bet he doesn’t need me or anyone else to tell him this.

The rationale you roll out here could be used to justify all and any bad design in the history of gaming. Terrible level design? Wild camera? Unresponsive controls? Not clear what to do? Hey, player, it’s all your fault – just be patient and learn to deal with everything the game throws at you.

Sorry, but that’s not how strong game design works. If you do it right, the majority of players will not get incredibly frustrated, because frustration only comes when you can’t see the route to mastery. If you show a player how to gradually improve and what skills to implement, the majority will happily fail and fail again in order to succeed. Human beings in general relish challenge. What they do not relish is confusion. It’s the reason the TF2 designers put in a killcam that zooms in on the player that killed you – a specific game design decision to help players understand how they can avoid a messy death for longer next time.

With the greatest respect, players like you are somewhat deluded in thinking you possess distinct human qualities that elevate you above the ‘whiners’, be it patience or anything else. The truth is you’ve been prepared, by other games or other experiences, for a certain type of challenge, and it leaves you comfortable taking on events like the clocktower. Others have not been similarly prepared.

Patience is something we are all capable of when we are put in the right situation. Impatience and frustration is what happens to us all when we find ourselves in more bewildering situations. I have friends who get immediately frustrated as soon as they sit down to play games as complex as GW2 because they’re plunged too suddenly into something new with little instruction (some of them can’t even get their heads round controlling movement in a 3D world), yet in other aspects of life, they are far more patient and intelligent than me. It’s all about context and what you’re used to. Well-designed games do as much as possible to bring you up to speed.

You know why so many people love Portal 1 and 2? It’s because those games teach you everything you need to know to succeed, while still challenging you. What they don’t do is throw you into the last level with nothing but an instruction booklet and a message board full of people calling you a whinger if you can’t figure it out straight away.

I’m sorry Focksbot but unless you are asking for him to give you a “practice” clocktower where you are there alone and there is no green goo, you are wrong, as others who have mastered it did not have that option and had to fight for their win. There are plenty of puzzles in this game where people can practice and fine tune their skills, Griffinrook run is a fine example.

People who are “bad” at jumping have ways to increase their skills, and an entire year to do so before the clocktower returns and they can try again. To belittle someones creation because they did too good of a job, is selfish and thoughtless, much like a spoiled 5 year old stomping their feet because they aren’t “this tall” yet and can’t ride, and leads us down a road where we have games like WoW at the end (in terms of difficulty)

I am sick and tired of games that coddle me, and was thrilled to finaly be playing a game that was trying to kill my character. I am tired of mush. Please stop demanding anything challenging be turned into a schoolyard swingset game.