Guild Wars 2

Aerlen.5326:

From what I’m hearing and seeing, World 2 isn’t this. I guess if some 20-somethings want some artificial experience of “Nintendo Hard”, then they got it.

That’s what makes this extra frustrating…Tribulation Mode exists, and was supposed to be the “Nintendo Hard” version. Right now that’s what Normal Mode World 2 feels like.

Thankfully, Josh has already said that he agrees and that they’re working on fixes.

This is very hard. I had trouble the first time, but wow, where is the fun in this. I have continue coins from last time. Can I use them this time?

Leablo.2651:

Hand-holding activated: You do not need to land anywhere near enough to the flower to get caught in it as a result of lag or any other non-gameplay issue.

most of the time (like I think the last flower jump in World 2 Zone 1, right before the boss) you don’t have a choice. The only place to land is past the second flower, however there’s not enough space there, so you’ll be landing right next to the second one.

Zubin.8243:

I tip my hat to you Josh.

Thank you for making this hard. I can’t wait to complete World 2 and move on to the agony of tribulation mode!

I welcome anyone who is complaining to go play old games such as Ghosts n Goblins, Metroid, Zelda 1 & 2 which were VERY hard, and couldn’t be nerfed.

This really makes me want to blow the dust off my NES and fire it up for some Ghosts and Goblins nostalgia…Josh ,now I challenge you to make me a keyboard/mouse that is as virtually indestructible as the NES controller was!

What Metroid and Zelda games were you playing? Ghosts N Goblins I’ll give you as it’s unforgiving but the other three just required persistence and skill. Metroid and Zelda are also adventure games, not platformers! Adventure games with health restores, no lag, no camera angle issues, etc etc etc.

I think you should dust off that NES and replay them – you’ll find the difficulty level doesn’t hold up.

And LOL, couldn’t be nerfed? All I have to say is Game Genie and Justin Bailey.

I think the massive difficulty jump would be less of a problem if the rewards scaled with it. Instead, Baubles are almost nowhere to be found and even the secrets have far less than World 1 did.

World 1: Find a secret dig spot, get 40 Baubles.
World 2: Find a secret location, fight a lot, get 10 Baubles.

Maybe it’s retrospectively realizing that Baubles were too plentiful in World 1, but it’s too late to take that back. In all good games your rewards increase as the difficulty of earning them does. World 2 unfortunately teaches us that trying harder means you get less rather than more. I’m not in it for the Bauble Bubbles, but it’s very counter-intuitive and frustrating all the same.

Rather than decreasing the Baubles earned, increasing the prices would have been a better solution. Yes, it’s artificial, but it’s about the FEEL of earning more. Plus, Farming World 1 would not be as lucrative anymore, making replays of World 2 more worthwhile.

I tried it again. This time, I had bombs to hit some of the alligators or turtles that are unrealistically placed too far away to hit with a stick. Got a little further before I rage quit at the rapids.

Did the flag thing in the hub for fun, but I’m done trying to make this world work. Too ridiculous. Simply ridiculous.

And I’ve done World 1 plenty of times, and did Mad King’s Clocktower multiple times.

Right now, I’m just wasting my baubles on replay coins.

Ridiculous.

I see this going the same way as Diablo 3’s Inferno mode.

" GAME TOO HARD! YOU SAID IT WOULD BE SUPER HARD BUT GAME TOO HARD! NERF PLZ"

Having finished a run through yesterday, I found it challenging but greatly rewarding for getting past some sections. Never had issues with bugs or hitting targets. Get better at the game and enjoy challenging content for once. If you are not good enough to do it, please don’t ruin it for the people who can by begging for it to be changed.

I’m scared of what will be world 3 and 4 now. I mean, the difficulty is supposed to increase world after world. Will ANet find a way to make the next two worlds even more difficult without them turning into Tribulation Mode 2? :p

Oh my god … , just spent 3 hours dieing in world zone 2. I must admit world zone 1 was a great fun, but the second one was just a lot of pain. I could just go there and try it for another 4-6 hours but for what, price for this event is not worthy it.

Arty.3261:

Never had issues with bugs or hitting targets. Get better at the game and enjoy challenging content for once.

This is a fallacy – “I didn’t encounter any bugs, so they must not exist.” take a look at lanser’s video above, and tell me if you still feel the same way. Overcoming a challenging puzzle is rewarding, but fighting with the game engine is not. If you were fortunate enough not to encounter any clipping/camera/lag issues, then that’s good for you. That doesn’t mean everyone else had the same experience.

The gong run is the most tedious, most trash area I’ve ever had the discomfort of playing.

What happened to, you know, making content FUN?

Because having to run up a tower, dodging instant kill arrow traps, and then dying on your way down because you can’t move past a giant obstacle that’s supposed to be protecting you is just garbage.

There could’ve been a checkpoint at that gong, or something, but no, you’ve gotta run up that tower again and again and again and again until eventually something gives.

After playing for several hours, beating w1lvl1 on hardcore and beating w2lvl1 on normal mode I can safely say that there is not much difference between those two. I would have beaten w2lvl2 as well, but game was too kind and after 2 hours it dced me right before the gong part.

What I can see is that SAB turned from leisure jumping puzzle with some extra exploring and occasional head slamming moments to a head slamming puzzle with occasional nothing. Discovering secrets is not important now, because people will lose countless lives by just trying to finish it. Sure it gets easier after the first time, but I can see how someone who liked old SAB could easily walk away from this one.

Now to quit kittening, lets lay out some facts:
- World 2 maps are unnecessarily long, too many jumping abouts and huge mechanics that could be split easily into 2 separate lvls.

- Too many mobs and traps scattered around for a normal mode, its easy if you can get to the higher ground and just avoid them completely, but sometimes they just overwhelm you. Game pace is slow, and traps makes things even slower, and in combination with foes, it just doesn’t makes sense for a normal mode.

- Certain secrets are too dark ( spoiler – Huge waterfall one right before the end of z1) with too many mobs at once which makes the encounter unnecessarily difficult. Seriously, its pitch black without a single kittening light source.

- Hitboxes of foes are ridiculously small, weapons don’t have auto aim, nor ground targeting/skill shot, which renders certain skills useless. In w1 i didn’t really need anything other than a stick, now when I do, I see how flawed weapons are.

- certain jumping sections are too hard, seriously, in w2lvl1 I’ve encountered several jumps that are kittening harder than jumps in hardmode.

- some jumps makes you miss even if you landed properly for some odd reason, making you die to lava or getting washed down the river, and you clearly stand on top of a thing. Yes it is possible to jump on it, I did stand on it without a trouble, its just random.

I just can’t remember any more stuff that bothers me, so I will stop here. Even thou I enjoy challenging content and personally don’t have problem dedicating several hours of time to a single lvl. I see how some people who don’t have much free time, but do want to try out NORMAL MODE! would skip this w2 event because it is too time consuming and probably too hard.

Infantile should be like a sightseeing, Normal mode should be a casual jumping puzzle with few twists, and hard mode should be brutal, but atm, hard mode and normal mode are pretty much the same.

Cheers!

I decided to take some screenshots of some of the problems I’ve encountered. I have to say I still really enjoy the parts of the SAB that are not like this! That said though, These issue crop up too much and are ruining it for me.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/crocfallstand_zps6cc87f31.png
Where I have to stand in order to hit this crocodile.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/crocfallwhat_zps840169ae.png
Where I CAN stand, as a note.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/ihatethisturtle_zps6cd5bb8f.png
I HATE this turtle. I have yet to legitimately get passed him. I say legitimate because I’ve exploited the buggy rapids to my advantage in order to do so, but otherwise I cannot reach him with either the stick or the whip. Slingshot is useless, but I guess I’ll chuck some bombs next time.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/crocrapidstail_zps9fb0a927.png
Why is this okay? I wish I could stand on turtles like this.

And since so far these have actually been examples of me NOT hitting the rapids when it seems like I should have, the reverse is also true.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/landrapids1_zpsac6cf6ef.png
Minding my own business on land when…

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/landrapids2_zps8ff594f3.png
POW, knockback and damage!

I wasn’t fast enough to get me flying in the air. I only got this because it had actually just happened a moment before, which is why I’m hurt for half a heart in the first picture. After faceplanting the dirt, I was stuck and unable to perform any action other than to close my client.

I’m actually really confident I can beat all the challenges ahead of me in World 2, I just wish I could get to them with any reliability. The river rapids seem to keep crashing my client.
To wit, I’ll close with this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v375/FireDryden/what_zps9e4bd5d2.png
What?

Josh Foreman.8250:

1. The zones are too long

You are complaining about too much content.

What? No, no, no. People are complaining about the level length. Amount of content is something totally different. You made almost enough content to fill worlds 2 and 3 combined. That’s not the issue, the issue is that it was all crammed into world 2.

Level 2-1 is pretty freaking long. Levels 2-2 and 2-3 are even bigger. You could split those in half and have 4 good levels with a nice break for people, but instead halfway through people go “OMG, there’s more? When does this end? Make it stop!” And after that they get to something like the Gong Pagota…

Players need more breaks and stopping points in things like this. When SAB first game out, me and my friends were playing it and we for pretty tired by the time we reached the end of 1-3, but that was fine for the most part. 1-3 was maybe a bit too sharp of a difficulty spike compared to 1-2, but not something you can’t overcome.
This time we had it not even halfway through 2-2. That word should have ended a little after the mini-boss. We were groaning the rest of the way and we’re pretty “hardcore” players. It didn’t help that going upstream the river in 2-1 drained most of our endurance and sanity the first time.

Who said that there need to be 4 words and each one has to have 3 levels? If you have some good designs then use them, but you have to give players breaks. Also, one hit kill traps in normal mode? NO! Just no! Who thought that that was a good idea?

The biggest fail of this SAB is that it’s too long. The last SAB was hugely successfuly because it was right for the majority of the player base. It didn’t feel like a huge grind and it was somewhat fun. Even the achievements were mostly doable and fun to explore.

SAB world 2 is nothing like that, I seriously wish anet would stop using the jumpy and KB like mechanics for the waterfall and stuff. It just doesn’t work very well but aside from that, the worlds are just way too long. Before people go coming in saying you’re complaining about more content?, let me remind you that LESS is MORE sometimes. It’s not about the quantity, a point expressed to the devs many times, it’s about the QUALITY. The current worlds have levels which are so long and have so many mobs that it’s almost impossible to clear without having to kill at least half of them. Sure, this may be the way it was originally intended but why couldn’t you make the levels shorters (i.e. shorter checkpoints). This would give players more room to breath and have breaks in between.

The other thing is, getting mobbed on respawn, a lot of the time, those respawn points are very deadly. There is preexisting mobs that if you didn’t kill or were going for an achievement you left alone get aggreod on respawn with nothing you can do. Good example is the angry hillbillies in zone 1. I think 99 % of games have respawn points which are basically designed to be safe from any enemy encounters, at least for a small duration but nope, not here, i might be invulnerable for a couple of seconds on respawn but they still get aggroed.

This SAB would have been so much better if you divided the content into better sections instead of making it a couple of massive sections that have a lot of running if you die.

Also, the one hit mechanics, many times i’ve said this is a very cheap mechanic and learning by death is almost never the right answer. The dev above responded that this was his “decision call” and we’re free to disagree with it and yes, I disagree with it.

I guess the first one was successful because it was new, innovative and they wanted to get it right. Now when they made the second one, they’re just throw in a bigger team, a bigger budget and demand lengthier contents and say yup, that’s what players want. Like the say, the sequels are always crap until the next fresh reboot.

Hey Josh, I really appreciate you responding to and discussing with the players, it is really nice to see.

That said, and like everyone else has said, W2Z2 is just too hard and becomes frustrating. Instant kill deaths are totally fine in Tribulation mode, which I have actually been enjoying (except for disconnects not allowing you to get back in, that’s real bad), but I do not think they belong in normal mode. The arrow traps should do a heart, maybe two, of damage, but dying to them is just frustrating, unlike expected deaths in trib mode.

I have a friend who barely plays GW2 but he absolutely loved the first SAB and about a third of the way through, when we got to the fish temple, he just said he was not having any fun and couldn’t believe how hyped he was for the update, and I couldn’t really disagree with him, which is a real shame. Especially when we were doing the extremely tedious task of feeding the octopus. And it certainly did not help that he’d die, run out of lives, be booted out and rejoin us about fifty times. He is the kind of person who’d love this, except he was totally unwilling to go farm for continue coins and death is practically guaranteed at many spots.

What finally broke him was when we finally, at long last, beat z2 and got to z3. After the wall that was z2, to be told immediately in the next area “no, you cannot progress unless you have 400 baubles,” he just closed the game and went to bed. And it’s a shame, zone 3 is just as good if not better than all the stuff in world 1, but now he won’t see it because I don’t want to heckle him into doing something that has already burnt him so hard.

I have been enjoying the new world, and I am going to go for all the achievements in it, but I hope the next world is more like world 1/world2zone3. Slight mistakes should not result in insant death in normal mode, where it happens constantly in w2z1 and z2. And with the frequency of deaths and lack of lives on restarts (and ESPECIALLY that you can’t rejoin tribulation mode), the infinite continue coin does come across as a cash grab (but I bought it anyway lol).

Not too hard. What it is, however, is too annoying with only a single life. Especially for people who are playing solo and don’t have a group to cheese off of if they die.

Maybe implement something where you get more lives while soloing?

To all those saying that this content is easy and/or the majority of posts in this thread being critical are unwarranted, remember the truism of gaming forums, that nearly everyone registered here represents hardcore players who appreciate design and difficulty, and of course are the most difficult to please.

That being said, if the larger percentage of gamers on a forum like this tell you that something is too difficult, then how do you think that the average, casual gamer that is a MUCH larger economic segment than what is represented here feels about the content?

As Josh has said they’re looking into it. Great and I wish them well and hope they fix it. But that doesn’t mean that the few people who have gotten through all or parts of Tribulation or even Normal mode in any way represent the wishes or skill level of the vast majority of players. A personal example, I beat Liadri with my S/D Ele. I did not then proceed to threads complaining about the difficulty of the Liadri fight (or any of the various other fights with instant down mechanics like Deadeye, or supremely frustrating RNG knocklock from Kieldia) and say that because I beat it everyone else also should be able to and to stop QQing about it and L2P.

World 2 is objectively much more difficult than World 1, with mechanics that punish mistakes in a way that makes it difficult to learn (reduced baubles, reduced continue coins, etc.), and probably represents content that is out of reach (or at least a brutal slog that is not fun in any way) for the vast majority of GW2 players. That’s not good design. And anyone who argues to the contrary is forgetting they’re not representative of the majority, no matter how much they squall “L2P noobs!”

CommodoreSkippy.2657:

I decided to take some screenshots of some of the problems I’ve encountered. I have to say I still really enjoy the parts of the SAB that are not like this! That said though, These issue crop up too much and are ruining it for me.

It’s funny, because when you said, “THAT turtle” I instantly knew which turtle you were talking about.

It is silly how far away the creatures are and how you literally have to step off of them to hit other ones.

Arty.3261:

I see this going the same way as Diablo 3’s Inferno mode.

" GAME TOO HARD! YOU SAID IT WOULD BE SUPER HARD BUT GAME TOO HARD! NERF PLZ"

Having finished a run through yesterday, I found it challenging but greatly rewarding for getting past some sections. Never had issues with bugs or hitting targets. Get better at the game and enjoy challenging content for once. If you are not good enough to do it, please don’t ruin it for the people who can by begging for it to be changed.

You do know Tribulation mode is a thing, right?

And that most complaints are about Normal mode?

It is harder than World 1 – at World 2 I died at infantile mode a lot. But I’m sure I’ll get used to the new toads and traps and stuff.

But tribulation mode… tried this world 1 zone 1… too random lol. There should at least be hints so you could find away and not die randomly from some invisible stuff.

matthewr.3980:

It’s funny, because when you said, “THAT turtle” I instantly knew which turtle you were talking about.

It is silly how far away the creatures are and how you literally have to step off of them to hit other ones.

I’m fresh from beating w2z1, and bombing that turtle is the way to go. Stand on the croc to do it.
Still, you DO have to stand off the visible model to reach many animals who are both too far for the stick but too close for the bomb. That and the fact that bombs costs Baubles sucks in a World with almost none.

At least I’m an Asura. I truly pity Charr players.

Did you test the difficulty with people having to go back to world 1 to farm continue coins and lives because only getting 1 life per restart is incredibly frustrating? :p

All the water in general seems a little hypersensitive. I’ve had quite a few deaths in TM where it was just the server thinking I walked right off the edge even tho I can hear and see my character jump, then poof dead mid air and drop.

Mirta.5029:

most of the time (like I think the last flower jump in World 2 Zone 1, right before the boss) you don’t have a choice. The only place to land is past the second flower, however there’s not enough space there, so you’ll be landing right next to the second one.

Did you try it? Please take a screenshot and show us where you think you must land.

Leablo.2651:

Mirta.5029:

most of the time (like I think the last flower jump in World 2 Zone 1, right before the boss) you don’t have a choice. The only place to land is past the second flower, however there’s not enough space there, so you’ll be landing right next to the second one.

Did you try it? Please take a screenshot and show us where you think you must land.

You can definitely land on the ledge beside the flower. Somebody needs to aim better.

Leablo.2651:

Mirta.5029:

most of the time (like I think the last flower jump in World 2 Zone 1, right before the boss) you don’t have a choice. The only place to land is past the second flower, however there’s not enough space there, so you’ll be landing right next to the second one.

Did you try it? Please take a screenshot and show us where you think you must land.

This is where I normally land, the land on the right is where I think I should land. Landing on the flower itself here or getting bugged right here is very easy. I was never able to over shoot the flower and land in that nice patch of free land.

The hit detection is way off in some cases which really is inexcusable with one hit kills. The content just feels sloppily designed.

I finally watched Josh’s stream and he said something about how Tribulation and even normal mode isn’t going to be for everyone. That would be fine.. except for the large amount of APs behind Tribulation mode. That’s a wee bit frustrating and something I know that’s not in your control, Josh, but it’s still something I felt the need to comment on.

I played the rapids for 40 min yesterday. Haven’t played since. It was an exercise in randomly getting punched in the face. I like challenge but the mechanics felt broken. There was nothing demonstrate if we were lagging, if the spouts were breaking or what but getting washed down the river 80 times wasn’t much of an adventure.

Josh Foreman.8250:

CryxTryx.9208:

Would a developer want and benefit from a ‘first time play through’ from a real players? Recorded like a stream.

I value all feedback. We do have several layers of testing that go on throughout the process. We have alphas all over the world who give us forum feedback, we have regular design reviews with Mike Z, Izzy, Colin, etc. There were several revision they requested to knock the difficulty back in several areas, which we did. But apparently we made them 5 easier when they should have been 20 easier.

I personally watched a lot of people play through their first time, but apparently those folks were better than average. Also, we did a fix to the waterspouts late in the process that ended up making a worst bug (getting KB when they go down) so I didn’t get to see people play through that till it was too late. But We’ll get a hot fix in to address the difficult sections soon.

Josh, dont let these people complaining ruin the game for everyone else. I guarantee theres more people that enjoy this content. Because theyre not on here complaining that they cant do it or its too hard. Im one of those people. I love this content!!!!

The only thing ppl have a legitimate complaint about is the rapids acting weird and knocking you back in mid air while theyre up and what not in w2z1. Other than that, all im seeing on here is people complaining about content that IS challenging. And they want to just rush through it all and get easy achievements.

I love having to figure out the levels and working towards my achievements. It makes me think of the majority of people who are running around with legendaries. You see 9/10 they cant even do mildy challenging pve content. They just got it easy and bought their legendary.

Dont worry about the difficulty of the content, please. Do not nerf this into super infantile mode. The content is hard the first time you run through it when your trying to figure everything out. But after thakittens extremely easy.

I want to see the people complaining on here try and tackle the storm wizard or any of the puzzles leading up to him… lmao, if you think they were qqing now… lol but thats IF they can ever even get that far because i guess some people are so horrible they cant even do this stuff on infantile mode… -_-

Lothirieth.3408:

I finally watched Josh’s stream and he said something about how Tribulation and even normal mode isn’t going to be for everyone. That would be fine.. except for the large amount of APs behind Tribulation mode. That’s a wee bit frustrating and something I know that’s not in your control, Josh, but it’s still something I felt the need to comment on.

What about all the achievements tied to the gauntlet? That wasnt for everyone either… im surprised people didnt complain this hard with that.

People just need to take it slow and look at the world around them.

After having done infantile mode (and dying loads of times on that alone).

World 2 is not difficult. Rather cheap.

Instant kill arrow traps. Cheap.

Random drop to your death spin flower platforms (We didn’t like it in the Aether jumping puzzle and we don’t like it here. Get the message already!). Cheap.

Nerfed rewards both inside SAB and outside of SAB. Cheap.

Long zones that take hours and have crash issues. Cheap.

You’ve managed to suck the fun out of SAB which I thought not possible by making it tedious and cheap.

Every thing about about April’s SAB world 1 zones were perfect in reward, length and difficulty.

This current version of SAB makes me just want to never touch it again if I have the motivation to grind the achievements for World 2.

I haven’t even touched normal mode of World 2 yet because I’m dreading the headache. This is coming from some one who has the green backpack.

Mirta.5029:

Leablo.2651:

Mirta.5029:

most of the time (like I think the last flower jump in World 2 Zone 1, right before the boss) you don’t have a choice. The only place to land is past the second flower, however there’s not enough space there, so you’ll be landing right next to the second one.

Did you try it? Please take a screenshot and show us where you think you must land.

This is where I normally land, the land on the right is where I think I should land. Landing on the flower itself here or getting bugged right here is very easy. I was never able to over shoot the flower and land in that nice patch of free land.

You can move yourself in the air and make it to the final platform without stopping from that first flower.

Hit the first flower and aim yourself towards the final platform while your in the air….land on the second flower and get shot at the final platform. Get your chest.

If your landing past the flower… just turn towards the final platform from where youre at and jump while strafing towards the flower and keep your camera pointed at the final platform.

Lothirieth.3408:

I finally watched Josh’s stream and he said something about how Tribulation and even normal mode isn’t going to be for everyone. That would be fine.. except for the large amount of APs behind Tribulation mode. That’s a wee bit frustrating and something I know that’s not in your control, Josh, but it’s still something I felt the need to comment on.

Personally, I don’t care about Tribulation mode – it was intended to be a punch in the face – no matter the AP. The people who can make it through that will certainly DESERVE a large reward.

However, the stupid Daily nerf to bubble gain and the ridiculous spike to NORMAL difficulty in W2 need to go.

Here’s hoping the patch fixes one of those problems, but I really don’t understand the horrible design philosophy that causes the other. “I know, we should decrease the rewards dramatically and require at least double the grind! People will find that so much more fun!”

So my view on Sab world 2 Zone 1 and 2. I did 3 but only in infantile mode for now.

I completed world 2 zones 1 and 2 on normal difficulty and found at the end I was very frustrated. I think this was for two reason, and the first was the rapids. Personally I did not feel that the rapids were introduced very well. When we first cross them it is high up where if you fall you have to clime all the way back up. If you are new to jumping puzzles or just not very good I feel this discourages people. I played Sab before so I knew what to expect but remembered that place after world one last time I disliked it. Noticing not much had changed did bring back painful memories. Anyway I kept on going and despite the hard learning curve I got past it. Along the way the two things that got me were the lack of a quick reset button and the bugs. I found sometime I would jump and get caught in mid air and teleport into the water. This is a bug I guess and it made a frustrating hard to learn experience worse. I would point out I did this with 5 guildies, 2 left before we got to the end of the rapids. They had enough. Bringing me to my next point with the rapids, the death lasted too long. It is a hard mechanic, I hate it, but if it going to drag me off with little chance to get out I would rather die or get teleported back to the check point. Speed the painful processes up.

My second big problem was with the darts in Zone 2. The first time I walked into one I just died, I then did not know why or how I died. Luckily my friend said you died from the arch way, as he saw me die. At first I did not mind, then the mechanic got used a lot more and before the end I was annoyed. It felt like a cheap way to push me around and take alway lives. I used 50 tokens trying to complete both zone 1 and 2. Mostly because the mechanics that killed me did so instantly and it was hard to learn what I did wrong. I feel that if it had knock me back and taken some health the job could have been done way better and I would have picked it up faster.

I would also like to say the fish mechanic was fine in my view, it hurt me but did not kill me and I picked it up straight away. Also, I did not expect this level of difficulty in world 2. I knew it would scale up the more worlds, but it feels like such a massive jump from world 1 that it puts some people off; and we are talking about normal mode here, I have decided I am probably going to skip tribulation on world 2. As world 1 zone 1 was hard, but I just about did it.

Azure Prower.8701:

After having done infantile mode (and dying loads of times on that alone).

World 2 is not difficult. Rather cheap.

Instant kill arrow traps. Cheap.

Random drop to your death spin flower platforms. Cheap.

Nerfed rewards both inside SAB and outside of SAB. Cheap.

Long zones that take hours and have crash issues. Cheap.

You’ve managed to suck the fun out of SAB which I thought not possible by making it tedious.

Every thing about about April’s SAB world 1 zones were perfect in reward, length and difficulty.

This current version of SAB makes me just want to grind the achievements and never touch it again.

I haven’t even touched normal mode of World 2 yet because I’m dreading the headache. This is coming from some one who has the green backpack.

Infantile mode makes these levels a joke… they show you the traps, they let you bypass 90% of the puzzles…

If anything i think infantile mode makes w2z3 harder because the dman clouds block the wizard so you have to run around all the darn things to try and attack him.

Random drop death from flowers…. whatre you talking about? do you not aim yourself when you jump on the flower…. do you just mindless run through content never trying to figure it out?

Instant kill arrow traps… really? really? So youve never played any old school games with traps and instant deaths? So you really dont look at the game and try to figure it out if you cant see the arrow traps.

LONG zones and crash problems… LOL! the zones are only long when your trying to figure them out… after that they can easily be rushed through…. Crash problems are probably on your end. Try updating your graphics card drivers. Usually with these big updates youll need to update your drivers if your having problems.

Its not tedious in the slightest. Its just challenging and you have to think when your doing the content. This isnt a, “hey just stand here and swing your sword…”

RvLeshrac.2673:

Lothirieth.3408:

I finally watched Josh’s stream and he said something about how Tribulation and even normal mode isn’t going to be for everyone. That would be fine.. except for the large amount of APs behind Tribulation mode. That’s a wee bit frustrating and something I know that’s not in your control, Josh, but it’s still something I felt the need to comment on.

Personally, I don’t care about Tribulation mode – it was intended to be a punch in the face – no matter the AP. The people who can make it through that will certainly DESERVE a large reward.

However, the stupid Daily nerf to bubble gain and the ridiculous spike to NORMAL difficulty in W2 need to go.

Here’s hoping the patch fixes one of those problems, but I really don’t understand the horrible design philosophy that causes the other. “I know, we should decrease the rewards dramatically and require at least double the grind! People will find that so much more fun!”

The bauble nerf i see is a legitimate complaint. If they want people to do this content, we should be able to farm our baubles to get coins. I bought a coin myself, but that was just because i wanted to enjoy the game and not have to farm baubles. If the original bauble farming was put back into place(w1z2 for example) im sure people would still complain…“Now we have to farm baubles to get lives….”

Theres no end for these people.

Instant death wouldn’t be a problem if we all had infinite lives, or if we didn’t have to pay some kind of currency for a new set of 5 lives.

Treborlavok.3504:

Azure Prower.8701:

After having done infantile mode (and dying loads of times on that alone).

World 2 is not difficult. Rather cheap.

Instant kill arrow traps. Cheap.

Random drop to your death spin flower platforms. Cheap.

Nerfed rewards both inside SAB and outside of SAB. Cheap.

Long zones that take hours and have crash issues. Cheap.

You’ve managed to suck the fun out of SAB which I thought not possible by making it tedious.

Every thing about about April’s SAB world 1 zones were perfect in reward, length and difficulty.

This current version of SAB makes me just want to grind the achievements and never touch it again.

I haven’t even touched normal mode of World 2 yet because I’m dreading the headache. This is coming from some one who has the green backpack.

Random drop death from flowers…. whatre you talking about? do you not aim yourself when you jump on the flower…. do you just mindless run through content never trying to figure it out?

Instant kill arrow traps… really? really? So youve never played any old school games with traps and instant deaths? So you really dont look at the game and try to figure it out if you cant see the arrow traps.

LONG zones and crash problems… LOL! the zones are only long when your trying to figure them out… after that they can easily be rushed through…. Crash problems are probably on your end. Try updating your graphics card drivers. Usually with these big updates youll need to update your drivers if your having problems.

Its not tedious in the slightest. Its just challenging and you have to think when your doing the content. This isnt a, “hey just stand here and swing your sword…”

Random drop to your death spin flowers: It’s not a matter of figuring it out. I’ve figured it out. Every one has figured it out. It’s rather a matter of latency that causes it to bug and throw you in random directions or not even make the distance of the jump (as in launched and stopped dead half way before dropped to your death).

The arrow traps. Gasp, figured it out. Doesn’t mean they are fun or not cheap. Squinting for black lines on a wall in rooms painted with black and red is not my idea of fun. Nor is it good for one’s eye sight with such eye strain. Then insta-killed for with out a heads up is extremely cheap. There is no reason for it to be insta-kill instead of taking off a heart. What’s the point of having hearts if things start to insta-kill you?

Also crash problems are client issues most times. I haven’t experienced one personally in SAB. Although I did today in WvW as well as guildies else where in the world. It makes me wary of wasting hours for a potential crash many have been reporting of having randomly occur during game play.

You should really stop being so presumptuous.

Treborlavok.3504:

Random drop death from flowers…. whatre you talking about? do you not aim yourself when you jump on the flower…. do you just mindless run through content never trying to figure it out?

What do you not get about “the slightest amount of lag can cause the flowers to bug out, tripping when they’re nowhere near you on-screen”?

This mechanic has EXACTLY the same complaints and issues in the Aetherblade JP. It is not unique to SAB. What IS unique to SAB is that we have to trip two buggy objects in a row.

Treborlavok.3504:

Instant kill arrow traps… really? really? So youve never played any old school games with traps and instant deaths? So you really dont look at the game and try to figure it out if you cant see the arrow traps.

Yep. I have. You know what they have in common? You can play through them as often as you want without having to spend several hours playing a different game, grinding for lives.

Oh, and the good ones, the ones mentioned repeatedly in this thread, don’t have massive collision-detection issues.

Treborlavok.3504:

LONG zones and crash problems… LOL! the zones are only long when your trying to figure them out… after that they can easily be rushed through…. Crash problems are probably on your end. Try updating your graphics card drivers. Usually with these big updates youll need to update your drivers if your having problems.

What are you smoking with this “update your drivers” thing? Why do so many people think “update your drivers” is a magic incantation that resolves all gaming issues?

Treborlavok.3504:

What about all the achievements tied to the gauntlet? That wasnt for everyone either… im surprised people didnt complain this hard with that.

Did you completely ignore the forums when the gauntlet came out? This is an absolute serious question as there was LOOOOOOAAADS of complaining.

Losing control is something few players like.
Prolonged death is also.

Both of those are in the rapids.

I don’t mind it too much. What I do mind a lot is the knockback that happens to you if you are anywhere near the top of a geyser when it stops, even if you already jumped.
Didn’t it work without the knockback? It builds a lot of frustration.

regardless, thank you for the SAB.

Azure Prower.8701:

The arrow traps. Gasp, figured it out. Doesn’t mean they are fun or not cheap. Squinting for black lines on a wall in rooms painted with black and red is not my idea of fun. Nor is it good for one’s eye sight with such eye strain.

The trap placement never changes. The few outside the buildings are pretty easy to memorize, but the ones in the gong tower, it’s very helpful to map it once on a piece of paper and draw out a safe route so you don’t have to squint every single time.

magic fly.2041:

Losing control is something few players like.
Prolonged death is also.

Both of those are in the rapids.

I personally found the rapids great, just because depending on how I fell I had a decent chance at recovering and not losing a life outright. You still retain a bit of control, and the prolonging of it allows you wiggle room to rally from the situation.

Josh Foreman.8250:

*You may be right. I think it’s too early to tell. Some number of people hit a little resistance and quit and come to complain about it. And some number hit that same resistance and are inspired to overcome it and they are in the game right now doing that. I don’t have a good sense of those numbers are right now. I’m more than happy to adjust it when I have better data to work from. Thanks for your feedback.

You know, gonna be honest, this is a wee bit offensive.

After spending two hours of my time and losing fifty five lives in World 2 Zone 2, and not quitting because I wanted to beat SAB, I then came to World 2 Zone 3 and was met with the requirement of needing 400 baubles to buy the Torch which then also means I need to buy the wallet upgrade from the previous world (good thing I already had that!) and so I was forced to quit.

But you want to sit there and claim that people are angry at this ramp up in difficulty because they met a “little resistance” and then didn’t bother to overcome it?

I’m stunned.

No, really. I’m stunned.

I wouldn’t have quit if your SAB hadn’t been designed to force me to because I spent my baubles on getting continue coins so I could, you know, “overcome the resistance”.

Just trying zone 2-2…this isn’t fun, the level should have been splitted at least in 2 or 3…i loved sab, now i’m just angry.

Lothirieth.3408:

Treborlavok.3504:

What about all the achievements tied to the gauntlet? That wasnt for everyone either… im surprised people didnt complain this hard with that.

Did you completely ignore the forums when the gauntlet came out? This is an absolute serious question as there was LOOOOOOAAADS of complaining.

The difference is that the Gauntlet didn’t have a bait-and-switch trial run where enemies were reasonably challenging, before being introduced several months later with Liadri and her magical offset attack hitboxes.

And then a dev claiming that the people complaining about the magical offset attack hitboxes are just crying when they meet the smallest amount of resistance, before finally buckling under the deluge and admitting that, yes, there are issues that need some work.

Josh Foreman.8250:

CryxTryx.9208:

Would a developer want and benefit from a ‘first time play through’ from a real players? Recorded like a stream.

I value all feedback. We do have several layers of testing that go on throughout the process. We have alphas all over the world who give us forum feedback, we have regular design reviews with Mike Z, Izzy, Colin, etc. There were several revision they requested to knock the difficulty back in several areas, which we did. But apparently we made them 5 easier when they should have been 20 easier.

I personally watched a lot of people play through their first time, but apparently those folks were better than average. Also, we did a fix to the waterspouts late in the process that ended up making a worst bug (getting KB when they go down) so I didn’t get to see people play through that till it was too late. But We’ll get a hot fix in to address the difficult sections soon.

Did those people get infinite lives and not have to farm constantly to get back potions, coins, items, etc…?

Because dying over and over is much less an issue if you’re going back to a checkpoint, than if you’re going way back to the start of the zone.

Problem is- you greatly increased the challenge in normal World 2 over World 1… but you also vastly nerfed the ability to obtain baubles needed for coins, and even nerfed the number of lives you have to get through it to a pathetic 1 extra man. If you intend to make something more difficult, do it in increments- it’d be like saying ‘well, the enemies in this shooter game are a bit too easy, so let’s double enemy health, make them do triple damage- and replace the player’s assault rifle with nothing but a combat knife’. And to top it all off… you intended to make a tribulation mode for the hardcores anyway, so why was it necessary to also make normal and even infantile content untouchable by the majority of your players?

You’re always going to get players annoyed they can’t do everything- casuals didn’t like not being able to do raids in WoW, they didn’t like not being able to do the Gauntlet part of last month’s living stories, and they’d have complained about not being able to do trib mode either.

But when you make it so all the content is not only difficult, but extremely time consuming and frustrating- well what’s there left for players to do?

RvLeshrac.2673:

And then a dev claiming that the people complaining about the magical offset attack hitboxes are just crying when they meet the smallest amount of resistance, before finally buckling under the deluge and admitting that, yes, there are issues that need some work.

Uh..

Josh Foreman.8250:

You may be right. I think it’s too early to tell. Some number of people hit a little resistance and quit and come to complain about it. And some number hit that same resistance and are inspired to overcome it and they are in the game right now doing that. I don’t have a good sense of those numbers are right now. I’m more than happy to adjust it when I have better data to work from. Thanks for your feedback.

If you sincerely believe Foreman’s comments were dismissing complaints, you’re deluding yourself.