I know this is going to be received with mixed views, but I want to add my feedback to the pile.
I’m not a casual gamer. I played throughout the beta just to test how to best run things on live. I got my Frostfang legendary in November. I’ve made it to level 50 fractals and have even made sure to do the entire super adventure box and each jumping puzzle and living story event GW2 has seen. I WvW, I even dabble in PvP, I like to try to experience everything the game has to offer.
What I really dislike is having someone tell me that content was not meant for me and that it is somehow okay. Keg brawl wasn’t for me until I tried it, then I had fun. Sanctum Sprint was totally new and not for me until I got into the interest of racing. I am fine working outside of my comfort zone.
There seems to be this obsession in the playerbase with wanting something up on the shelf too high for them to reach. Hardly anyone can do Light Up the Darkness, but it keeps being championed as this great fight. Why? Just because it is nearly impossible? Because it is so frustrating? This doesn’t line up with any of the other content in the game.
Mad king’s jumping puzzle was a great challenge, but it was a realistic one. Aetherblade Retreat gave us one of the most challenging dungeons outside of fractals that took a team’s cooperation. The Queen’s Gauntlet is none of these things. It is filled with frustrating OHKO mechanics and achievements that practically beg players to find a broken part of the game’s mechanics and exploit it.
I got High Stakes Gambler, Triple Threat, and I’ve killed Liadri but I’m not having fun. I don’t feel challenged. I feel like I am doing my best as a player to explore every aspect of this game while it rejects me over and over again. It feels harsh and unwelcoming, as if the game was begging me to quit instead of beckoning me with a new challenge. Events that once were fun distractions now act as stressful road blocks in what felt like an otherwise rewarding experience.
I don’t care that I have the 11/11 meta complete. I want to do everything but The Queen’s Gauntlet contains far too many frustrating achievements that were made for the 0.01% of the playerbase. This is horrible design. My friends gave up, my guild calls it a waste of time, everyone else tells me it doesn’t matter and “who cares?” I care! Or at least I am trying to.
There is such a thing as poor design and there is such a thing as sliding the difficulty too far into frustrating. The run back sucks, the waiting your turn sucks, getting one shot sucks. There is not challenge just because 99%+ of everyone that tries it says it is too hard. Maybe it just is too hard and is too far outside of the challenge everything else has been so far.