Guild Wars 2

yearsonehundred.6139:

shimmerless.4560:

I think a lot of people playing GW2 would have an aneurysm if they were raised on SNES/Genesis games where everything was a OHKO and if you didn’t make leaps of faith you’d restart the entire game lol

I grew up in that generation – with the Gauntlet, the problem isn’t with restarting or being forced back to a certain point, it’s with the fees and annoyances that are an unnecessary burden to it.

Pretty much this is the most annoying bit for me. Having to res at the center spot then spend a minute running back up to the top to reque, it’s tedious and unnecessary. Not to mention the repair/waypoint fees.

DeWolfe.2174:

Calae.1738:

Punishment means you lose something valuable when you fail. This concept is not new. It adds risk. When you do something risky you feel an adrenaline rush because you know the consequences of failure.

Without risk achievements are empty. The encounter might of been challenging but; the reward for success doesn’t feel the same.

I will disagree to some extent with this line of thinking. Emotional rewards come from many different sources. The rewards from the social aspects of the game have far outweighed any boss or battle in the game for me.

For the “adrenaline rush” I’ve stated numerous times it is not why I play a game. In fact, inducing an adrenaline response frequently should not be the goal of a developer. Because the stress response is not a healthy state to induce often.

I completely agree with the OP. It appears over the past couple of months the feeling of being punished and not challenged, has been creeping further and further into content.

I’m also not thrilled with the handling of our economy and the Gauntlet farming. Just last night I needed a rez and a Deadeye farmer ran over. Instead of giving me a rez, they just started looping in and out, leaving me for dead. That’s the kind of behavior this content is producing…..

I play PvP for adrenaline rush, where something really counts. PvE is for relaxation and fun, not punishing content with artificially inflated difficulty that breaks class mechanics.

laokoko.7403:

yearsonehundred.6139:

laokoko.7403:

Do people realize you don’t even need to do it?

There “are” people who enjoy it. Let them have their fun.

If you are not having fun, don’t do it. I don’t enjoy wvw and jumping puzzle too, I didn’t ask Anet to remove that from the game.

If Anet want a real suggestion, make an easy mode. To appease to the more casual player. Keep the hard mode since there are obviously people who enjoy it by the feedback.

If you thoroughly read my post, you’d see that I have no problem with something that “hard”, “difficult”, or “challenging”. I merely dislike punishing aspects, and I’ve listed out all of the ones I could think of in the OP. These are things like glitches, punishments, and bad designs that should/need to be remedied.

let it go. You are describing what you personally felt.

I find jumping puzzle punishing too. I just don’t do it.

Jumping puzzles are ALWAYS there for you to do it. Queen’s Gauntlet won’t be around forever.

laokoko.7403:

fellyn.5083:

laokoko.7403:

Do people realize you don’t even need to do it?

There “are” people who enjoy it. Let them have their fun.

If you are not having fun, don’t do it. I don’t enjoy wvw and jumping puzzle too, I didn’t ask Anet to remove that from the game.

If Anet want a real suggestion, make an easy mode. To appease to the more casual player. Keep the hard mode since there are obviously people who enjoy it by the feedback.

Following that same line of logic we don’t even need to play the game at all. Saying you don’t need to do something in a game because it’s optional is stupid because playing the game to begin with is optional.

I don’t play games to be frustrated. I play games for fun and to escape from stress. Not to be more stressed.

The original post is excellent and 100% right.

I don’t mean it that way. You dont’ have to enjoy “every single” content in GW2. As long as there are other content you enjoy.

Not every content is designed for everyone. There are other people who may enjoy the content beside of you.

What if I’m one of those people who like getting Achievements or collecting minis but the game design is so kittened up that I will never get them?

Calae.1738:

yearsonehundred.6139:

Calae.1738:

Spoken like true casual gamers.

No punishment and no risk means your achievements are empty. Just like the daily gathering achievement. Just another one of those laundry list of boring things to do.

Not at all, because Liadri is still CHALLENGING. The Punishment is just unnecessary, and what’s more is that it’s directly against the design philosophy that ArenaNet preached endlessly during GW2’s development.

Failure has little meaning when you don’t lose something valuable.

In video games this always translates to time. In most cases you only lose time relative to potential gain. In other more extreme cases; invested and banked time is literally taken away from you.

This gauntlet does a little bit of both.

You have to run back when you die and spend some coin for repairs and tickets. This shouldn’t be a new concept to anyone. World of Warcraft mastered this quite well with raids. Only difference here is that you don’t need 9 other players to do the content.

This is NOT World of Warcraft. If Arenanet wants to make it the same as WoW then they should hand the game over to Blizzard.

I don’t mind having to try a thousand times to beat the Gauntlet and it’s true I’d be kitten ed of at failing but I’d probably be able to handle that. The ‘punishments’ the OP has mentioned is what really kitten es me off, along with the design flaws his mentioned. For me it’s Struger throwing the Meat in Chomper’s face. I don’t mind having to compete with the mutt to get the meat, but if it’s right in its face how can you grab it?

And some people mentioned that if it didn’t have these ‘punishments’ then people would just queue over and over and commit the same mistakes over and over. I don’t think that’s entirely true. Only idiots would do that, most players would most likely look up guides after getting beaten for the nth time.

The so-called-“punishing” is rather “cumbersome”. I wouldn’t describe it as punishing because if you look closely at the cost/reward, it’s practically even.

As for the “grind” feel for repeatedly attempting to clear the gauntlet, this is the kind of punishment you impose upon yourself. Like people complaining about bashing 150 dragon pinata, they failed to see that it has to be done throughout the event, not in one day. So the question is, why are you punishing yourself?

I understand where the OP is coming from and I sympathize with him, however, the whole post is somewhat dishonest.

All the OP’s “Challenging IS NOT…” point would not have been made if he had an honest perspective making honest comments and opinion.

Waypoint cost, waypoint blocked due to events, broken armor, awful camera, queue, positioning, etc. are all part of GW2 where ever you go — why is this any surprise?

The question is really simple: Is it really worth it to punish myself just so I can get a lousy mini-pet? My answer is no.

The achievement only gives ach. points, noted that it’s not even a lot, and you can get these points some other ways. At the end of the event, the only difference is that you have the mini and I don’t, which only a big deal until a new mini comes out.

DeWolfe.2174:

Calae.1738:

Punishment means you lose something valuable when you fail. This concept is not new. It adds risk. When you do something risky you feel an adrenaline rush because you know the consequences of failure.

Without risk achievements are empty. The encounter might of been challenging but; the reward for success doesn’t feel the same.

I will disagree to some extent with this line of thinking. Emotional rewards come from many different sources. The rewards from the social aspects of the game have far outweighed any boss or battle in the game for me.

For the “adrenaline rush” I’ve stated numerous times it is not why I play a game. In fact, inducing an adrenaline response frequently should not be the goal of a developer. Because the stress response is not a healthy state to induce often.

I completely agree with the OP. It appears over the past couple of months the feeling of being punished and not challenged, has been creeping further and further into content.

I’m also not thrilled with the handling of our economy and the Gauntlet farming. Just last night I needed a rez and a Deadeye farmer ran over. Instead of giving me a rez, they just started looping in and out, leaving me for dead. That’s the kind of behavior this content is producing…..

I’m really going to have to agree with you. Between the glitches my friends and the OP are complaining about, the farming of Deadeye and the “punishing content”, something needs to be fixed.

I find it unfortunate that punishment for failure is so ill received.

We’ve been groomed by developers for over a decade by easy video games. These developers do everything in their power to remove frustration, inconveniences and punishment for failure. They go out of their way to shower their player base with rewards and gifts just for logging in and participating.

It was expected for casual players to react this way. I would have hoped that it would spark an appeal but; trying to reverse 10 years of behavioral conditioning is not going to be easy.

Calae.1738:

I find it unfortunate that punishment for failure is so ill received.

We’ve been groomed by developers for over a decade by easy video games. These developers do everything in their power to remove frustration, inconveniences and punishment for failure. They go out of their way to shower their player base with rewards and gifts just for logging in and participating.

It was expected for casual players to react this way. I would have hoped that it would spark an appeal but; trying to reverse 10 years of behavioral conditioning is not going to be easy.

I’m getting really tired of “casual” being tossed as an insult and “hardcore” being toted as a great achievement and a “true” gamer. The OP obviously isn’t a “casual” and they made some great points. I don’t think anyone wants the Gauntlet nerfed to easymode “baby” levels, not even me. If that means I can’t complete it? That’s fine! But here is a real, genuine player (the OP) bringing up important points and I keep seeing “BAWWW CASUAL PLAYER TRY HARDER LOL NUB” all over the place.

Also, where are these “easy” games? Obviously they aren’t the ones I’ve been buying and playing for 30 years.

Calae.1738:

I find it unfortunate that punishment for failure is so ill received.

We’ve been groomed by developers for over a decade by easy video games. These developers do everything in their power to remove frustration, inconveniences and punishment for failure. They go out of their way to shower their player base with rewards and gifts just for logging in and participating.

It was expected for casual players to react this way. I would have hoped that it would spark an appeal but; trying to reverse 10 years of behavioral conditioning is not going to be easy.

I’m one of those who remember punishing implementations (Diku-based MUDs with xp holes in the tens of millions) and I think that kind of game design is archaic and SHOULD be rightfully abandoned once and for all. I seriously doubt the majority of the gaming population plays to be frustrated and inconvenienced. I know I don’t. I already get plenty of that stuff in real life, no reason to find the same crap in my free time.

Calae.1738:

I find it unfortunate that punishment for failure is so ill received.
We’ve been groomed by developers for over a decade by easy video games. These developers do everything in their power to remove frustration, inconveniences and punishment for failure. They go out of their way to shower their player base with rewards and gifts just for logging in and participating.
It was expected for casual players to react this way. I would have hoped that it would spark an appeal but; trying to reverse 10 years of behavioral conditioning is not going to be easy.

Calae, I think you are substantially missing the point here. The point is not in the difficulty, but in the unnecessary Punishments that weigh it down. The first game I ever played was Civilization 1 – and I beat it at age 7 by memorizing the manual. Did the same for Colonization 1. Went back and bought text-only games and beat those too. From there on, I always played any game I purchased at the toughest difficulty with the toughest bonus objectives. Difficulty is not a problem – indeed, I relish it. Making me spend 50g across 45 hours on a minigame (with 30 of those hours spent on Liadri), though, is ridiculous, and from reading the other threads, many, many other people have spent similar amounts of time on the Queen’s Gauntlet and on Liadri.

While the hours spent fighting don’t count, the hours spent dead and waiting for a rez, or running back from a waypoint, or farming mobs for rare ticket drops and money to keep playing are totally unnecessary. In the case of this game, all of that time could have been spent bettering myself or actually fighting in the Gauntlet. Indeed, adding financial and ticket restricts only serves to pad out the minimal content, which is bad game design. The content itself should be what supports the game – not the miscellaneous and unnecessary Punishment.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The so-called-“punishing” is rather “cumbersome”. I wouldn’t describe it as punishing because if you look closely at the cost/reward, it’s practically even.

Again, I spent over 50g on this, and I made back 1 loot bag per win. That’s not breaking even at all.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

As for the “grind” feel for repeatedly attempting to clear the gauntlet, this is the kind of punishment you impose upon yourself. Like people complaining about bashing 150 dragon pinata, they failed to see that it has to be done throughout the event, not in one day. So the question is, why are you punishing yourself?

I never complained about this, so I don’t know why you’re bringing it up.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I understand where the OP is coming from and I sympathize with him, however, the whole post is somewhat dishonest.
All the OP’s “Challenging IS NOT…” point would not have been made if he had an honest perspective making honest comments and opinion.

I fail to see how the valid points I made are dishonest in any way.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Waypoint cost, waypoint blocked due to events, broken armor, awful camera, queue, positioning, etc. are all part of GW2 where ever you go — why is this any surprise?

But they’ve either A.) Never been such a huge problem as in the game, or B.) Never been part of a minigame before. Again, games such as Belcher’s Bluff, Aspect Arena, Southsun Survival, Keg Brawl, and others never charged you tickets to play them, nor did they require you to be resurrected after defeat, nor did they damage your armor, nor did they tack on waypoint charges, etc.

Besides, just because something has been a problem in the past (aka bad camera) doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable now. If anything, it merely highlights the necessity of changes and questions why ArenaNet has yet to fix problems that have existed for so long.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The so-called-“punishing” is rather “cumbersome”. I wouldn’t describe it as punishing because if you look closely at the cost/reward, it’s practically even.

Again, I spent over 50g on this, and I made back 1 loot bag per win. That’s not breaking even at all.

So that is the truth? You’re only gauging it in monetary value. You’re telling me that you have not gained anything of value besides money. To me, there’s no way you’d beat Liandri if you did not gain anything of value.

Did you just sink that 50g or you have it exchanged for something of equal value?

Are you honestly telling me that the reason why you want something “challenging” is so that you can gain monetary value?

That’s like saying, “I spent $100 for Disneyland ticket and all I got is this lousy T-shirt.” Seriously? Honestly?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

As for the “grind” feel for repeatedly attempting to clear the gauntlet, this is the kind of punishment you impose upon yourself. Like people complaining about bashing 150 dragon pinata, they failed to see that it has to be done throughout the event, not in one day. So the question is, why are you punishing yourself?

I never complained about this, so I don’t know why you’re bringing it up.

You implied it when you stated that it took you 300 tries and 20-30 hours. To a typical casual player, that’s the definition of grinding.

Like I said, you’re not being honest here.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I understand where the OP is coming from and I sympathize with him, however, the whole post is somewhat dishonest.
All the OP’s “Challenging IS NOT…” point would not have been made if he had an honest perspective making honest comments and opinion.

I fail to see how the valid points I made are dishonest in any way.

A lot of your points are all part of GW2 and not exclusive to QG, thus your points are not being honest because you’re using the problems found in GW2 as a whole to put QG in a different light. If you eliminate the points that is not exclusively related to QG, you’re basically only complaining about ONE thing, that it the ticket cost.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Waypoint cost, waypoint blocked due to events, broken armor, awful camera, queue, positioning, etc. are all part of GW2 where ever you go — why is this any surprise?

But they’ve either A.) Never been such a huge problem as in the game, or B.) Never been part of a minigame before. Again, games such as Belcher’s Bluff, Aspect Arena, Southsun Survival, Keg Brawl, and others never charged you tickets to play them, nor did they require you to be resurrected after defeat, nor did they damage your armor, nor did they tack on waypoint charges, etc.

A) My point is; those are already part of the game and using them to lengthen your list shows that you’re only really complaining about ONE things; the ticket cost.

B) A lot of those mini games are PvP and BB is instanced, neither condition is similar to QG.

Besides, just because something has been a problem in the past (aka bad camera) doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable now. If anything, it merely highlights the necessity of changes and questions why ArenaNet has yet to fix problems that have existed for so long.

These are completely different matters that every forum have been complaining about. These are not exclusive to QG.

Once the risk is removed the sense of accomplishment is diminished. If it cost nothing to get in the gauntlet and you spawned right next to the ringmaster with full HP after failing; the achievement will feel empty. Just like whacking down trees in the gathering dailies. It’s just an item on your laundry list.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Calae, I think you are substantially missing the point here. The point is not in the difficulty, but in the unnecessary Punishments that weigh it down.

No, I think you and this whole thread is missing the point. The Queen’s Gauntlet is a challenge. Part of that challenge is if you fail, and no one is willing to rez you on that spot, you WP and run back. You don’t like it? There’s a couple of simple solutions to this problem:

1) Don’t do it. If the content is too hard for you, move on. Remember, the QG was made specifically so that only the best players would win. You could even say that Anet purposely made it so that a vast majority of players would fail. The content is really hard, because it was made that way

2) Don’t fail. If you don’t like to constantly WP and run back, make sure you learn from your mistakes, and from watching others play, and beat the boss(es). If you keep failing, just make sure the next time you play you don’t fail.

Once people follow these simple solutions, everyone will be much happier.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

So that is the truth? You’re only gauging it in monetary value. You’re telling me that you have not gained anything of value besides money. To me, there’s no way you’d beat Liandri if you did not gain anything of value. Did you just sink that 50g or you have it exchanged for something of equal value?
Are you honestly telling me that the reason why you want something “challenging” is so that you can gain monetary value?
That’s like saying, “I spent $100 for Disneyland ticket and all I got is this lousy T-shirt.” Seriously? Honestly?

You mentioned breaking even – I assumed you meant fiscally. And yes, I did sink that 50g just so I could beat her. I wanted the satisfaction. So yes, in a way, I did gain satisfaction, but this argument you’ve brought up is a straw man fallacy and isn’t getting us anywhere.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You implied it when you stated that it took you 300 tries and 20-30 hours. To a typical casual player, that’s the definition of grinding.
Like I said, you’re not being honest here.

I see where you’re going, but you’re wrong. I wanted the Challenge, and I wanted to beat the Challenge. I didn’t want all the extra padding (or Punishment) in the way that prevented me from attempting the Challenge and getting better.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

A lot of your points are all part of GW2 and not exclusive to QG, thus your points are not being honest because you’re using the problems found in GW2 as a whole to put QG in a different light. If you eliminate the points that is not exclusively related to QG, you’re basically only complaining about ONE thing, that it the ticket cost.

Not really. Read this part again:

But they’ve either A.) Never been such a huge problem as in the game, or B.) Never been part of a minigame before. Again, games such as Belcher’s Bluff, Aspect Arena, Southsun Survival, Keg Brawl, and others never charged you tickets to play them, nor did they require you to be resurrected after defeat, nor did they damage your armor, nor did they tack on waypoint charges, etc.

That is what I’m “complaining” about.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

A) My point is; those are already part of the game and using them to lengthen your list shows that you’re only really complaining about ONE things; the ticket cost.
B) A lot of those mini games are PvP and BB is instanced, neither condition is similar to QG.

A) Not at all. Read what I just quoted above again – I don’t think you understand the nature of what I’m trying to say.
B) But they could have been similar, if ArenaNet had simply chosen to make them similar. All the Punishments I listed weren’t necessary. Queen’s Gauntlet would have been incredibly better without them.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

These are completely different matters that every forum have been complaining about. These are not exclusive to QG.

But they’re illuminated by Queen’s Gauntlet, so I include them in my feedback post.

Calae.1738:

Once the risk is removed the sense of accomplishment is diminished. If it cost nothing to get in the gauntlet and you spawned right next to the ringmaster with full HP after failing; the achievement will feel empty. Just like whacking down trees in the gathering dailies. It’s just an item on your laundry list.

For you, perhaps. For myself and the majority of people on this forum, definitely not. Had I respawned just as you said, and then finally beaten Liadri after 300 attempts, I would have been way more happy and thrilled than when I finally did beat her and realized I was 50g the poorer for it. I would have felt just as accomplished. Because I don’t like stressful, grindy, unnecessary padding that only serves to get between me and the game I wish to play.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

No, I think you and this whole thread is missing the point.

Since I wrote the thread, I don’t think it’s possible for it and me to miss the point I’m making.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

1) Don’t do it. If the content is too hard for you, move on. Remember, the QG was made specifically so that only the best players would win. You could even say that Anet purposely made it so that a vast majority of players would fail. The content is really hard, because it was made that way

It was too hard. I got better and beat it. Unnecessary Punishment is unnecessary. ’Nuff said.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

2) Don’t fail. If you don’t like to constantly WP and run back, make sure you learn from your mistakes, and from watching others play, and beat the boss(es). If you keep failing, just make sure the next time you play you don’t fail.

Again, I sunk 50g and 45 hours into this. I changed my build over two dozen times, watched dozens of videos, read over a dozen guides, and watched hundreds of players take the Queen’s Gauntlet in general and Liadri in particular (without success with Liadri, by the way – I’ve never seen someone beat her, outside of videos on youtube). Which is why I beat it. But after putting up with the unnecessary Punishments. Which aren’t necessary. Because they’re unnecessary. Which is my point. Comprende?

yearsonehundred.6139:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

No, I think you and this whole thread is missing the point. The Queen’s Gauntlet is a challenge. Part of that challenge is if you fail, and no one is willing to rez you on that spot, you WP and run back. You don’t like it? There’s a couple of simple solutions to this problem:

Since I wrote the thread, I don’t think it’s possible for it and me to miss the point I’m making.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

1) Don’t do it. If the content is too hard for you, move on. Remember, the QG was made specifically so that only the best players would win. You could even say that Anet purposely made it so that a vast majority of players would fail. The content is really hard, because it was made that way

It was too hard. I got better and beat it. Unnecessary Punishment is unnecessary. ’Nuff said.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

2) Don’t fail. If you don’t like to constantly WP and run back, make sure you learn from your mistakes, and from watching others play, and beat the boss(es). If you keep failing, just make sure the next time you play you don’t fail.

Again, I sunk 50g and 45 hours into this. I changed my build over two dozen times, watched dozens of videos, read over a dozen guides, and watched hundreds of players take on Liadri and the Queen’s Gauntlet (without success, by the way – I’ve never seen someone beat her, outside of videos on youtube). Which is why I beat it. But after putting up with the unnecessary Punishments. Which aren’t necessary. Because they’re unnecessary. Which is my point. Comprende?

You’re still missing the point. This is a challenge. You took on that challenge willingly. You also made the choice to sink time and money into beating it.

So long story short, your whole thread is based off of the idea that a challenge shouldn’t be a challenge because hard is too hard. Am I right?

Just replying to say I agree with a lot of the points that you made. Especially the part about putting a movement critical minigame in a zone with a insanely lag-infested zerg. It’s actually disgusting to look at my screen when I walk up the path to the gauntlet zone my FPS is that bad.

I also think they should have had instant respawn when you get killed in the arena. (You shouldn’t need to rely on there being someone around to res you).

One thing you haven’t mentioned that I hate is the fact that gauntlet tickets are souldbound. What? Why? I don’t understand. That would be like making fortune scraps soulbound, or support tokens soulbound.

And secondly, random drops of Sovereign weapon skins are account bound. Seriously? What were this month’s team thinking? Why would you do that? We were allowed to sell all previous weapon/armour/skin drops from the past living stories. Who said, “Oh I know, let’s make our skins account bound!”?

The only thing I feel I disagree with you is that I think you’re making it out to be harder than it is. I found all bosses (except Liadri) fairly easy to beat without outside guides. Admittedly, the later bosses required quite the many attempts, and I got help from guildies, but it wasn’t impossible. Liadri is very difficult though. I think they were designed very well for the most part, except for not noticing Deadeye’s farm-ability.

Calae.1738:

Once the risk is removed the sense of accomplishment is diminished. If it cost nothing to get in the gauntlet and you spawned right next to the ringmaster with full HP after failing; the achievement will feel empty. Just like whacking down trees in the gathering dailies. It’s just an item on your laundry list.

Well this implies that many people like the risk, and that risk is directly correlated to achievement enjoyment, and that the stress derived from the risk of losing and the time lost is alleviated by the achievement enjoyment.

Your laundry list can be someone else’s sense of accomplishment.

Case in point – when WiK was first introduced I thought the content was very hard and challenging. Flip forward to 5 months after I had done it on EVERY single of my 8 characters. I did every wanted every day. And I LOVED doing them. They gave me a sense of accomplishment in that I was able to find a build combination which worked well (of which I modified based on the area at times) and could now easily clear the wanted quickly. Do I think they challenged me up till the day I stopped playing GW1 to play GW2, yes. Do I think the sense of accomplishment is diminished due to the routine nature of the wanted and the fact I had very little risk to fail, no.

However – this is due to my play style – I love having godly control of the situation and not dying – this gives me alot of enjoyment and increases replay value. Where as getting to that point is frustrating (I chain – swore in GC when first starting WiK) the simple act of completing the now mundane quests was very rewarding in that it fulfilled my play style.

I know of people who wern’t satisfied with that kind of content – that we would do different things such as HM in asca (that was fun after I rolled my prot monk haha). I know that those people ARE satisfied with QG due to both thier play style and how the mini-game is setup.

Implying that removal of risk saps sense of accomplishment isn’t a full picture of the different play styles and why a gamer plays GW2. QG is indeed good content, and is super fun for certain play styles. However I think there should be something for most everyone in the same mini-game (alluding the the fulfillment of different play styles at the same time whilst offering the same reward to all). That’s probably what ANET was trying to alleviate with their use of the 2 tiered event achievement lines.

sazberryftw.3809:

One thing you haven’t mentioned that I hate is the fact that gauntlet tickets are souldbound. What? Why? I don’t understand. That would be like making fortune scraps soulbound, or support tokens soulbound.

This has been discussed many times already. There was an exploit where players could make unlimited tickets for themselves. Basically making an alt, taking the 5 free tickets and putting it in the bank, delete alt, rinse and repeat. That’s why Anet had to change it from Account Bound to Soul Bound.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

This has been discussed many times already. There was an exploit where players could make unlimited tickets for themselves. Basically making an alt, taking the 5 free tickets and putting it in the bank, delete alt, rinse and repeat. That’s why Anet had to change it from Account Bound to Soul Bound.

Ah I see, so it was just exploit based, fair enough!
But why not just remove giving each character 5 in the mail? Couldn’t they just remove that instead? Why not give one account 10 tickets for all their characters, then they need to play the content to get more.

sazberryftw.3809:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

This has been discussed many times already. There was an exploit where players could make unlimited tickets for themselves. Basically making an alt, taking the 5 free tickets and putting it in the bank, delete alt, rinse and repeat. That’s why Anet had to change it from Account Bound to Soul Bound.

Ah I see, so it was just exploit based, fair enough!
But why not just remove giving each character 5 in the mail? Couldn’t they just remove that instead? Why not give one account 10 tickets for all their characters, then they need to play the content to get more.

I believe that they wanted to give each character the chance to participate in the event. By making it Soul Bound instead of giving a set amount to each account, Anet was able to preserve what was intended from the start.

But my apologies. I didn’t mean to derail this thread. So I’ll repeat my counter argument: Queen’s Gauntlet is well designed. Punishing mechanics only add to the challenge, and forces you to play well. If the content is too hard, try the Torch Run upstairs.

Punishing mechanics do not add to the challenge of the content. It adds to the frustration of it. It makes something that you should cheer about beating feel more like a chore. Further more, implying that players who are having more difficulty than others to beat the content lack skill is not only rude, but wrong.

The idea of Queen’s Gauntlet was fabulous, but not executed as fabulously. I enjoy Liadri, despite not beating her yet, but the hard to see HAIR THIN rings, the ability to be dodging the 1-hit kill one match then not the next, a camera angle that can and does get me killed, and just having to take the time to wp/repair/pay for the wp/find an open arena gradually drains the fun out of her and does not make me look forward to future content if this is how things will be. If and WHEN she’s beaten, she’ll just be another chore— right next to the meatless achievement with its gray meat on a gray-porous floor and a luck based throw.

Punishing mechanics add to the challenge, when the challenge was made specifically so that a majority of the player base can’t do it.

As for skill, you do need it for this. If you can’t beat Liadri, you aren’t one of the top notch players. Mastery of dodge timing is a vital skill in this fight. So is the ability to pay attention to multiple mechanics throwing themselves at you all at once.

It’s not a matter of I can’t beat her. It’s a matter of small things building up a disdain for the entire event. Further more, I’m not the only person having issues with ‘sight’ on this event, so it is an issue that needs addressing.

Again, punishing mechanics do not add to the challenge. If that was the case then every poorly designed video game out there is ‘challenging’.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/jubilee/Observations-after-beating-Liadri/first#post2629414

Challenging content is challenging.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/jubilee/Clarification-of-the-term-Challenge/first#post2585751

yearsonehundred.6139:

You mentioned breaking even – I assumed you meant fiscally. And yes, I did sink that 50g just so I could beat her. I wanted the satisfaction. So yes, in a way, I did gain satisfaction, but this argument you’ve brought up is a straw man fallacy and isn’t getting us anywhere.

I’m actually talking about both time and money investments.

Fiscally, you got something of equal value with your 50g right? Armor, runes, etc. right? So that is now irrelevant.

The cost of waypoint, repair, and respec are part of the game so this should not even be part of “punishment.” Minor inconvenience and cumbersome, yes, maybe.

I see where you’re going, but you’re wrong. I wanted the Challenge, and I wanted to beat the Challenge. I didn’t want all the extra padding (or Punishment) in the way that prevented me from attempting the Challenge and getting better.

All challenges has a condition set and all the things you call “punishment” are part of the conditions. The conditions to the challenge is like the “term of service agreement”, if you accept it, then you must bear with it, if you reject it, then you don’t have to continue.

I mean, I love driving my car and it would be a lot of fun without the traffic rules, but that’s the condition I agreed to bear so that I can drive my car. If I fail to follow the rules, I get fined, then I’ll do everything within my power not to make the same mistake.

I’m sure you thought of the same thing the first time you got flushed.

Not really. Read this part again:

But they’ve either A.) Never been such a huge problem as in the game, or B.) Never been part of a minigame before. Again, games such as Belcher’s Bluff, Aspect Arena, Southsun Survival, Keg Brawl, and others never charged you tickets to play them, nor did they require you to be resurrected after defeat, nor did they damage your armor, nor did they tack on waypoint charges, etc.

That is what I’m “complaining” about.

A) Not at all. Read what I just quoted above again – I don’t think you understand the nature of what I’m trying to say.

It is typical for someone to complaint about an agreement after the fact, but after knowing the details of the agreement, you still continued to use the service.

You have every opportunity to stop using the service. Even after knowing the fine prints, you willingly accepted it and tried again — 300 times. That part is something I will never understand because normally, the boiling point should have been around 10 tries.

B) But they could have been similar, if ArenaNet had simply chosen to make them similar. All the Punishments I listed weren’t necessary. Queen’s Gauntlet would have been incredibly better without them.

Would it really be better? If my speculation is correct, the death after the match is put in place so that it creates a window of opportunity for others to enter in the queue. Let’s say you failed the encounter then automatically teleported back to the NPC, you’d queue again right away — not allowing others to join the queue. By killing off the player, someone on their way up to the NPC will have a chance to enter before you do. I might be wrong but that’s how it looks to me.

The details of the gauntlet was posted 2-3 days after it went live, and surely after 2 tries you are aware of this fact. If this is punishing to you, then why go thru another 298 times?

Would it be a valid complain why Belcher’s Bluff is not PvP like other mini-games and say “never been part of a minigame before?”

But they’re illuminated by Queen’s Gauntlet, so I include them in my feedback post.

I digress on that issue since it has nothing to do with QG specifically.

If anyone’s interested in learning more about Challenging vs Punishing games, feel free to take a look at http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/when-difficult-is-fun :p I found it quite enlightening. Queen’s Gauntlet arguably sins at a few points, but succeeds at a fair few as well.

Still working on Liandri at least, ~20% or so was my best attempt. Here’s hoping I can be bothered farming more tickets for another night of bashing my head against her. :p

The only punishing I see in QG is the feature punishing players for not running certain build and for being an individual. Anet wants to pigeon hole every player into certain way of dealing with the encounters. However, I refuse to allow them to punish me from running my build so I refuse to participate any longer — and I made this choice after 5 tries trying to beat Dead Eye, let alone Liandri.

Forseti.3526:

If anyone’s interested in learning more about Challenging vs Punishing games, feel free to take a look at http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/when-difficult-is-fun :p I found it quite enlightening. Queen’s Gauntlet arguably sins at a few points, but succeeds at a fair few as well.

Still working on Liandri at least, ~20% or so was my best attempt. Here’s hoping I can be bothered farming more tickets for another night of bashing my head against her. :p

Rather enjoyed this.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The only punishing I see in QG is the feature punishing players for not running certain build and for being an individual. Anet wants to pigeon hole every player into certain way of dealing with the encounters. However, I refuse to allow them to punish me from running my build so I refuse to participate any longer — and I made this choice after 5 tries trying to beat Dead Eye, let alone Liandri.

Actually, your QG forces you to play at your best, and if that doesn’t work, adjust your strategy accordingly. Zerker, PVT, Celestial, etc. All have different stats that compliment an individual play style.

Continuing on that note, certain play styles are not meant for this challenge. There is a timer involved, so certain play styles that rely on hit/run tactics that slowly kill the enemy won’t work. Same for blindly Leeroying with hack/slash play styles when you have massive 1-hit AOE hovering above your head and walking bombs coming at you.

If you choose to stick with your certain play style and gear set up, I’m sure Anet will respect your choice. But please don’t get mad if you can’t win if your setup isn’t optimal for that individual fight.

OP is spot on. +1

Frustration levels with this are really high.

In order of frustration for me

Having to WP back – run back
Waiting for a rez
Queuing for the fight
Buying costs / Farming Time
Glitches.

Calae.1738:

Spoken like true casual gamers.

No punishment and no risk means your achievements are empty. Just like the daily gathering achievement. Just another one of those laundry list of boring things to do.

No way could you accuse me of being a casual gamer as I’ve logged over 2800 hours on GW2. Like the OP I have put in a lot of time/effort/research (changed up builds time and again) in trying to beat Liadri. And it is absolutely fine that I may not beat her or Chomper the wonderdog because for whatever reason maybe I am not good enough to beat them.

But I want to keep trying as I love the challenge aspect of this but I detest the frustration of the wait time/run time/ticket cost/farm time.

Calixtus.8617:

Calae.1738:

Spoken like true casual gamers.

No punishment and no risk means your achievements are empty. Just like the daily gathering achievement. Just another one of those laundry list of boring things to do.

No way could you accuse me of being a casual gamer as I’ve logged over 2800 hours on GW2. Like the OP I have put in a lot of time/effort/research (changed up builds time and again) in trying to beat Liadri. And it is absolutely fine that I may not beat her or Chomper the wonderdog because for whatever reason maybe I am not good enough to beat them.

But I want to keep trying as I love the challenge aspect of this but I detest the frustration of the wait time/run time/ticket cost/farm time.

If the wait time and WP/run back time is too much of a burden, then make sure you succeed in your next fight. It’s more incentive for you to win.

In short, it’s all working as intended.

We have been given extremely easy contents in the past. GW2 has been a joke in terms of difficulty and it wasn’t fun. People would end up getting everything if they just grind.

IMO, this patch(gauntlet) is a huge step forward. Definitely a challenge rather than a punish. Keep up the good work ANET!!

Would love to see more Liadri and Aetherblade dungeon type achievements! Give us more achievements that people actually need skills to do rather than grind.

Calmwinds.4753:

We have been given extremely easy contents in the past. GW2 has been a joke in terms of difficulty and it wasn’t fun. People would end up getting everything if they just grind.

IMO, this patch(gauntlet) is a huge step forward. Definitely a challenge rather than a punish. Keep up the good work ANET!!

Would love to see more Liadri and Aetherblade dungeon type achievements! Give us more achievements that people actually need skills to do rather than grind.

+1 to you.

I hope we get this type of content on a monthly basis. It would keep the skilled/hardcore content players happy, as well as challenge those players who want to push their limits.

Calmwinds.4753:

Would love to see more Liadri and Aetherblade dungeon type achievements! Give us more achievements that people actually need skills to do rather than grind.

I would love to see more Challenging content too! I really hope they keep up this trend – boss fights like Liadri are really difficult in a good way, and I did notice that after I had beaten her, I was a better player for it. I just hope they listen to their playerbase and get rid of all the unnecessary burdens and design flaws and glitches that plagued this release.

Also, what many people fail to understand is that this is a forum dedicated to discussing the Queen’s Jubilee content, and that player feedback is highly critical to the future development of good content. So the whole “you should have given up instead of complaining here” or “it’s your fault for playing” argument really, really is invalid. I played the content – I chose to do so, yes – and now I’m here giving my feedback. I’m illuminating how Queen’s Gauntlet went wrong, and I’d say most of the playerbase on this forum agrees with me. So please, give your opinions on the content, but don’t do the whole “you don’t have to play it” silliness. It’s just bad logic – it really has nothing to do with the purpose of this thread and this forum.

Actually, a majority of players are complaining that they can’t beat her because she’s hard. But that was the point of the challenge. I will agree with you that the bugs just have to go.

The content is optional, and in no way is anyone being forced to complete the QG. You aren’t being forced to spend money to respec if you don’t want to. The punishing mechanics are there to both provide a challenge, and to encourage you to not fail.

The whole point of your thread is that punishing does not equal challenging. Unfortunately, the whole point you miss is that the purpose of the Gauntlet is to have the challenge be punishing, so that only the best will win. Therefore, Punishing = Challenging.

As far as I understood, the OP’s point was that punishing doesn’t equal challenging… I mean, would the encounters in Queen’s Gauntlet be any less difficult if you’d reappear alive by the Ringmaster, regardless of whether you lost or won? If you didn’t need to use tickets to attempt the encounters? Liadri would still be oneshotting you, walking into Deadeye’s mines would still be a horrifyingly bad idea and so on.

Yes, I’ll admit punishing mechanics gives you more incentive to succeed and so on, but in the context of the Queen’s Gauntlet, it would change absolutely nothing regarding the difficulty of the encounters available through it (if you removed death/ticket costs/etc).

Forseti.3526:

As far as I understood, the OP’s point was that punishing doesn’t equal challenging… I mean, would the encounters in Queen’s Gauntlet be any less difficult if you’d reappear alive by the Ringmaster, regardless of whether you lost or won? If you didn’t need to use tickets to attempt the encounters? Liadri would still be oneshotting you, walking into Deadeye’s mines would still be a horrifyingly bad idea and so on.

Yes, I’ll admit punishing mechanics gives you more incentive to succeed and so on, but in the context of the Queen’s Gauntlet, it would change absolutely nothing regarding the difficulty of the encounters available through it (if you removed death/ticket costs/etc).

Tickets adds gates that hinder constant, unlimited retrying for free. Having other players rez you or you must WP and run back adds incentive to not failing.

Agree completely. Punishing the players heavily for failure in a challenging content is a bad design. It discourages players to continue facing the challenge and make them feel frustrated.

Queen’s Gauntlet would have been a much better event if Anet can make failure more fun and less punishing. This will encourage the majority of players to try more. Then both good and not-so-good players will be happy.

Calae.1738:

Once the risk is removed the sense of accomplishment is diminished. If it cost nothing to get in the gauntlet and you spawned right next to the ringmaster with full HP after failing; the achievement will feel empty. Just like whacking down trees in the gathering dailies. It’s just an item on your laundry list.

Getting the mini’s a big accomplishment for me already and in no way would my sense of accomplishment be diminished. But I don’t want to have to slave away and infuriate myself just so I can get that mini. If ANet wanted masochistic people to be satisfied, they should have probably opted to let players choose another ‘difficulty setting’. Take for instance the candidate trials. I got what I wanted without having to finish tier 3 and 4 but there’s also the option for people who want a challenge to finish the higher tiers.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Forseti.3526:

As far as I understood, the OP’s point was that punishing doesn’t equal challenging… I mean, would the encounters in Queen’s Gauntlet be any less difficult if you’d reappear alive by the Ringmaster, regardless of whether you lost or won? If you didn’t need to use tickets to attempt the encounters? Liadri would still be oneshotting you, walking into Deadeye’s mines would still be a horrifyingly bad idea and so on.

Yes, I’ll admit punishing mechanics gives you more incentive to succeed and so on, but in the context of the Queen’s Gauntlet, it would change absolutely nothing regarding the difficulty of the encounters available through it (if you removed death/ticket costs/etc).

Tickets adds gates that hinder constant, unlimited retrying for free. Having other players rez you or you must WP and run back adds incentive to not failing.

It’s really easier said than done. And I was under the assumption that ANet wanted the game to be fun for casual gamers as well, that whether you play the game just to have fun or you play the game like your life depended on it you will still have fun. Making content that will only benefit a select few professions and hardcore gamers is similar to punishing those professions and casual players.

I tried hard looking for guides on how to beat the Gauntlet with a Guardian and I ended up with nothing. So would that make me an idiot for rolling a Guardian as my main?

wulfheart.8206:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Forseti.3526:

As far as I understood, the OP’s point was that punishing doesn’t equal challenging… I mean, would the encounters in Queen’s Gauntlet be any less difficult if you’d reappear alive by the Ringmaster, regardless of whether you lost or won? If you didn’t need to use tickets to attempt the encounters? Liadri would still be oneshotting you, walking into Deadeye’s mines would still be a horrifyingly bad idea and so on.

Yes, I’ll admit punishing mechanics gives you more incentive to succeed and so on, but in the context of the Queen’s Gauntlet, it would change absolutely nothing regarding the difficulty of the encounters available through it (if you removed death/ticket costs/etc).

Tickets adds gates that hinder constant, unlimited retrying for free. Having other players rez you or you must WP and run back adds incentive to not failing.

It’s really easier said than done. And I was under the assumption that ANet wanted the game to be fun for casual gamers as well, that whether you play the game just to have fun or you play the game like your life depended on it you will still have fun. Making content that will only benefit a select few professions and hardcore gamers is similar to punishing those professions and casual players.

I tried hard looking for guides on how to beat the Gauntlet with a Guardian and I ended up with nothing. So would that make me an idiot for rolling a Guardian as my main?

So wait. You’re basing the whole game off of a single challenge in temporary content that was meant to be extremely hard? Sorry, I didn’t realize that casuals and people who aren’t equipped for elite content is being forced to do the Queen’s Gauntlet. The Torch Run outside might be more in line with your definition of “casual and fun”.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

So wait. You’re basing the whole game off of a single challenge in temporary content that was meant to be extremely hard? Sorry, I didn’t realize that casuals and people who aren’t equipped for elite content is being forced to do the Queen’s Gauntlet. The Torch Run outside might be more in line with your definition of “casual and fun”.

While I agree with your sentiments that the above poster imposed a particular play style on GW2 as being the majority… which it may not be… I disagree that casual / different play style people should be left out of the loop of fun.

Queen’s Gauntlet was meant to be extremely hard – but is easier based on your class and armor sets. Not everyone has a zerker set, a tank set, and a condi set ready at a whim. Heck – even with all my 8 characters (only 5 of which are lvl 80) only two of them have two armor sets (not all 3) – my war having a tank and then zerker set, and my mesmer having a condi and a zerker set. I think the point which is rough is that alot of casual gamers can’t just go get a particular armor set (complete with exo / ascended accessories) and due to the fact that exo armor (while relatively common) is expensive for a player with 8 alts to get, for which a person has a set build / compatible builds with.

While some players have the gear / know how of class mechanics – others don’t. This illustrates a fundamental divide – gear may never reach a stable point, but knowledge of class mechanics can defiantly help. The issue is that ANET has never forced a player to refine their gear or knowledge of class mechanics in an innovative way before in GW2 (like in GW1 with the new zones and expansions with entirely different monster skills).

People who casually play are just frustrated, since they may not know what to do since they were never given the tools to adapt. Its not that casual gamers are forced to do elite content, its that they want to do it but don’t know how.

VoxShatterfall.5470:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

So wait. You’re basing the whole game off of a single challenge in temporary content that was meant to be extremely hard? Sorry, I didn’t realize that casuals and people who aren’t equipped for elite content is being forced to do the Queen’s Gauntlet. The Torch Run outside might be more in line with your definition of “casual and fun”.

While I agree with your sentiments that the above poster imposed a particular play style on GW2 as being the majority… which it may not be… I disagree that casual / different play style people should be left out of the loop of fun.

Queen’s Gauntlet was meant to be extremely hard – but is easier based on your class and armor sets. Not everyone has a zerker set, a tank set, and a condi set ready at a whim. Heck – even with all my 8 characters (only 5 of which are lvl 80) only two of them have two armor sets (not all 3) – my war having a tank and then zerker set, and my mesmer having a condi and a zerker set. I think the point which is rough is that alot of casual gamers can’t just go get a particular armor set (complete with exo / ascended accessories) and due to the fact that exo armor (while relatively common) is expensive for a player with 8 alts to get, for which a person has a set build / compatible builds with.

While some players have the gear / know how of class mechanics – others don’t. This illustrates a fundamental divide – gear may never reach a stable point, but knowledge of class mechanics can defiantly help. The issue is that ANET has never forced a player to refine their gear or knowledge of class mechanics in an innovative way before in GW2 (like in GW1 with the new zones and expansions with entirely different monster skills).

People who casually play are just frustrated, since they may not know what to do since they were never given the tools to adapt. Its not that casual gamers are forced to do elite content, its that they want to do it but don’t know how.

I agree. Adapting to such content isn’t easy for all. PvPers are more equipped with the mindset of gearing and traiting due to the experience of fighting an ever changing opponent. And I do agree that some players simple cannot afford to set up their characters with BiS equipment.

However, I will defend Anet’s approach to this content. They were clearly aiming this towards the best players. Not really just casual or hardcore, but rather the insane few who really LOVE challenging content. I have yet to beat Liadri, and I get really frustrated at my failures. But when I’m at work, I get giddy towards the end of the day, because I get to go home and try fighting her again.

Back to the talk of gear/equipment. Having the best helps, but player skill can overcome that sometimes. 1-hit mechanics are immune to armor rating, so you need skills to dodge. So are the invulnerable status effects that force players to figure out how to get around it. Overall, I rate the Queen’s Gauntlet a 9/10. I bump it up to a 10 once all the bugs are cleaned out.

Well for Laidre – gear can be important – not as much as for the other fights due to the insta death attacks. If you have a war – supposedly its easier on sword/warhorn + rifle with a condi sustain build (perma swiftness and vigor).

Anywho, back on topic, many people are just simply upset that ANET didn’t design this encounter for many play styles in mind (or more importantly “their” group in mind). I encourage ANET in the future to make “either / or” achievements in which you get the same rewards, but doing it the harder way yields the achievement in a faster fashion. This in turn will reward risky behaviour with a faster desired outcome, where as safer behaviour will simply just take longer.

For example – Achievement “Light in the Dark” defeat Liadri without her death clones 8 times OR defeat Liadri with her death clones once. Maybe make it so the ones who do defeat Liadri on “full on hardcore mode” get a title as well.

Imagine if they did this for the dailies as well – Shiver peaks daily killer (50) OR shiverpeaks daily vet killer (10) OR shiverpeaks daily champ killer (3) OR kill one of 4 VERY hard shiverpeaks Legendaries (1).

But I digress. I do agree with your believe that ANET did intentionally design QJ/QG to be separate in that QG was supposed to be the elite content, where as QJ was the time consuming content. I just disagree that doing so in future content will be beneficial for the community as a whole, until they implement same rewards – more risk more challange = less time.

yearsonehundred.6139:

I ended up beating Liadri today. Over 300 tickets spent, and it turned out to be as simple as purchasing gear with more toughness. All the while, the unnecessary annoyances and punishments just dragged it down. They simply aren’t necessary, and they detract from what could have been an amazing content addition full of great challenges.

I’m still not seeing anything punishing about the QG and I firmly believe that you’re simply using the term faulty, but I think we’ve covered this in our previous posts, congratulations on defeating Liadri tho!

yearsonehundred.6139:

Lue, I apologize for sounding irritated toward you. You are entitled to your own opinions and thoughts, and getting upset toward you was incorrect of me. I still believe you’re wrong, but I do appreciate the time you’ve spent responding with your own feedback to this post.

And I still believe you’re wrong.
However quite frankly I’m done with this subject, there will be no changes made och while it has been a somewhat interesting back-and-forth here, I’m just done.
I hope you enjoyed the gauntlet tho, I know I did.

Wethospu.6437:

Lue.6538:

—
What Wethospu said was n absurd simplification and not entirely correct, players do approach things differently when the risk changes as such, it’d be different, exactly how is however speculative.
—

True, but in this case the risk isn’t that big that you would play any differently.

Seeing as this is all speculative, we can simply agree to disagree on this.