Guild Wars 2

The issues, as I’ve seen them are this:

1: Camera bugs. We’ve seen these since day one, and they’re still not all fixed.

2: Massive people. Why is it ok for a group of Norn to be able to actively grief people out of holiday achievements?

3: Skills and traits. Why is it ok for a warrior to hang around an overflow, using banners to speed people up mid-jump and cause failures for giggles? Why is it ok for some professions to have their speed buffs and skills, and others not?

4: Challenge. While I personally believe that there should be exclusive, hard content, this is not the time or place. Holiday events are supposed to be inclusive, not limited to about one out of sixteen people. We’ve already got the weapon skins to make me look more awesome than you.

The solutions I would suggest are:

1: Nothing you can really do about this one, except slow down the puzzle, and make re-entry faster. Instancing it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea.

2: Instancing it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. Or slow it down so that people can go behind me without failing.

3: Either remove all skills, or allow all skills. Don’t do things halfway, I mean, really, you should know better.

4: Remove the green fog. Make chest reward better for doing faster. Then I can still rub in that I’m better than you, but you can still get your achievement, and participate in the whole holiday.

With that said, I would like to note that I have completed this puzzle, but there is absolutely no reason everyone shouldn’t be given it easy. That’s what Holiday events are about. They’re supposed to be inclusive, community engaging things, regardless of how much time or money you’re willing to contribute to the game.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

3: Either remove all skills, or allow all skills. Don’t do things halfway, I mean, really, you should know better.

For the record, I do agree you hit the majority of issues on the head, although there’s going to be some argument with regards to number four because this seems to be entirely in the eye of the beholder.

The banner exploit is precisely this – an exploit. All skills are completely disallowed (including costume brawl skills) which suggests that all skills have been disabled. Passives, left by traits/attunements/virtues are still allowed because they are precisely that, passives. I don’t think removing passives would be too bad of an idea.

However, being able to take in a “weapon” such as banner, and having it remain in your hand upon transportation is definitely an exploit. Because the banner itself isn’t a buff, nor does it seem to be counted as a weapon, it isn’t removed from players upon entering the actual puzzle itself. For the same reason, none of it’s skilled are blocked off.

Witch costume can do a similar thing where, if using the Broom skill to ride on it before entering the puzzle, can then do the puzzle on their broom.

So sadly, in this case, this fix wouldn’t work. The bug itself seems to be occurring through not identifying the banner as something that should be removed, which then leads the exploit of warriors using it to buff either themselves without caring about other people, or to buff others to grief them. A more realistic fix would be to disable the use of every potential weapon, including whatever kind of weapon the banner is classed as. (I imagine environmental.)

The banner exploit isn’t the only one. I’ve had no problem sneaking in pets, Hounds of Balthazaar, and Ranger spirits just to cause clutter and grief.

Allowing everyone to use all their skills would make for sudden, dangerous speed buffs on allies to be less of an issue. If my advice was taken and the clocktower was instanced, allowing everyone their skills couldn’t possibly have a downside. However, as it stands right now, there are a number of skills I can use to cause problems, and it’s just not right.

Another solution is to transform everyone into a skeleton or just something of the same size, wich will lower the difficulty of being able to see where your jumping.

Forced transformations wouldn’t be a bad idea, actually, and could be used to *easily* solve the problem of people bringing in skills too!

The camera issues are the worst for me. It takes ages to realign the camera when it gets stuck or zooms all the way down to the floor.
Sometimes it even spins in place.
No matter what I do with the mouse, it will always happen in some spots.

You can’t have a puzzle that has all these issues during a festival, limited in time.

And it doesn’t help having the guys who didn’t suffer from these bugs, glitches and faulty designs gloating about it on every thread complaining about them, adding to the offense.

Ofcourse it has to be challenging, wich it is but its challenging in the wrong way with all the problems adding

Challenge can come from a lot of things. Put something neat up there, for people who can beat it fast, but still let people who can’t run like an elementalist actually complete content.

In Guild Wars 1, any person, with any profession, and any set of skills, could eventually clear all content except the two elite dungeons in the Factions campaign. Challenge came from speed and precision on runs, but everyone could participate and enjoy almost all the content. I see no reason not to continue with that same brilliant idea here.

After all, just because I am better at video games than someone else doesn’t mean that they contribute less to A-net’s profit, and the continuation of the game we both play.

Swifter.6451:

So you want it nerfed into boredom. Good to know. Then will it match the rest of the content.

Thank you for your most useful post with loads of discussion value, O Great Master of Internet.

Really, have you read the OP…? I’m gonna bet my left arm he’s better than you at the puzzle.

Heh.

Now the client just crashed.

I should get an achievement for collection one of each of the problems with the tower. My record is currently 16, from camera problems to glitching outside of map boundaries, to being grabbed by the skeletal hands while being the one ahead of the rest and way over the fog, with a lot of them in the middle just for flavor.

I wouldn’t want to see this thing instanced, because jumping together with an ever decreasing crowd of people is part of the charm. Its great to be near the top, and only have 2 or 3 people left from the initial crowd of people.

I would also be against turning everyone into some kind of creature form. Having a distinctive look is vital in doing this challenge, so I prefer to keep my own look.

But the size of Norn and Charr certainly is a problem regarding visibility. Perhaps a simple circle around your characters feet, or an arrow above your head, would help see your character.

I agree with the Original Poster. Please consider giving us either our own private instance Anet, or allowing us more time so that people can stagger and not obscure jumps.