Is it too hard? Respect the awesome work

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Posted by: Vizier.3164

Vizier.3164

Is it to hard?

No!

Attachments:

i7-3770K, XFX HD7970, ASUS SABERTOOTH, G.Skill ARES 16 GB 1600
Vizier: 80 mesm-guard-ele-war
Fort Aspenwood

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Posted by: Albina.3054

Albina.3054

To further illustrate the point : http://youtu.be/J9-aUFHIt7c

It’s not difficulty, it’s not even lag, it’s terrible detection. If Josh can watch this and claim everything is fine with the hit detection and the player was at fault in each case, then I really don’t know what to say.

No. That is clearly a terrible experience. Something is obviously terribly wrong there. If I saw anything like this during testing we would have reworked everything. I’ve never claimed anywhere that anyone’s poor experience is because it’s the player’s fault. I don’t think that way. I like to make people happy, believe it or not.

Is this issue (dying randomly and getting pushed off rocks constantly) happening to you? If so, is it happening as frequently as this video shows? If this is anything more than an edge case than we have a serious problem that will necessitate some serious solution. Thanks for pointing it out.

I experienced bizarre knockbacks in that river portion as well. It looked just like that. I am guessing it is a synchronization issue.

I’m also experiencing the same thing here. Not had any problems with anything so far but this bit just pushes me around randomly. Once I got tossed back and forth like a ball not even getting my health down most of the tossing so it took a while to actually die. Sometimes standing on a rock will end up pushing me into the water without any movement from my side.

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Posted by: StriderShinryu.6923

StriderShinryu.6923

Mr. Foreman, the actual truth is that this 16 page thread wouldn’t exist if we all weren’t so in love with the Super Adventure Box. If we didn’t love World 1 so incredibly much, we wouldn’t be complaining about World 2. We’d forget about it and go do something else.

So before you say you wasted your time, or feel bad about making World 2 too hard, remember that behind every angry person in this thread is a younger inner child that is absolutely giddy about a new world to explore, play though, and laugh out loud about.

I’m gonna agree. Despite complaining and being snotty, I actually like how this content was implemented and how it looks and I wanna play it – not to win but to have FUN

Abolsutely. There is so much discussion here not because we hate the content, it’s because we enjoy it even with it’s rough edges and know we’d enjoy it even more if those rough edges were smoothed off. As I said earlier, in terms of pure play time, this is probably the beefiest content patch GW2 has ever seen, likely bouyed by the fact that the first SAB release was so well accepted.

I’d even say that msot of us don’t even want World 2 to be hit by the most blatant of nerf bats. We just want a smoother curve in terms of the real difficulty and less false difficultty caused by unfortunate (and certainly unintended) glitchiness.

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Posted by: Sorin.4310

Sorin.4310

It makes me sad somehow, that dedicated, creative developers like Josh and his team that created a great game like the SAB get told all over and over again in this thread that all their work was for nothing, SAB is an epic fail, long levels are an epic fail, they are slapping in gamer’s faces (sorry I had to bring that up, but this is the most overused phrase in the whole English forum), they just want to make money with the infinite coin, etc.

Shorted quote because it was long. I didn’t read the first 6 or so pages of this thread so I can’t speak to those, but after that I’ve been following it. I’ve found it to be one of the genuinely most constructive criticism pages I’ve ever seen on these forums ever. A lot of the posts in my opinion are offering feedback and not just “too hard content sucks”. I think another reason it’s gone so well is because Josh is having an open discussion about the content. Understanding why things were designed in such a way or that he agrees with an issue makes the thread a lot more honest. Most of the purely negative threads come from confusion. That isn’t the case here. I’ve enjoyed the discussion, personally, and I think Josh has got a ton of useful feedback that he can already walk away with.

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Posted by: Ayanavi.1904

Ayanavi.1904

Alright, well I hope I’m not too late for the feedback train. Loved first SAB, was really excited about Tribulation Mode, and spent 12 consecutive glorious hours dying miserably in TM World 1. A lot of those deaths were very well deserved, and I learned a lot from them! However, at least 2-2.5 hours each zone, my perpetual lag would rear its ugly head and I would be forced to die for no readily apparent reason. Examples of this can probably be found on youtube, and have been mentioned, but at times I was nearly reduced to tears when I would make all the jumps perfectly, land and run along a tree-top, then abruptly die.

Not to a trap, or anything. The client and server just didn’t agree on where I was – So despite me seeing myself happily standing on safety, I apparently fell into instant-death water. This kind of things reoccurs very badly on the platform bits that require precision timing like the balloon across the lilypads in 1-2. I think I sat there for 45 minutes straight making the same 5-6 jumps to try and get that kitten balloon without the server going “lol nope, you actually fell into the water!” even when I was already past the water, up the mushroom, and at the checkpoint cloud (which my guild has fondly labeled “Cloudbuddy”)

That’s a lag problem, so I understand there isn’t much to be done about it. I sincerely hope thakittens based more on the stress created by player concentration in the SAB than purely my network, because otherwise the actual thought of doing TM World 2 makes me cry. I don’t mind the instant-death mechanics, its really a staple of what TM’s genre is, but the lag makes them infuriating to work with; Its a factor that the player never deals with on consoles or non-server based applications.

Hopefully it clears up as time goes on. If it turns out the lag is entirely my problem… I’ll just soldier on. Through unending tears.

Now for the content itself…

I find myself grateful and impressed by the introduction of mechanics in SAB before they become a dire threat. This is handled really well, tracing all the way back to world 1 where you get practice with turtles starting in 1-2, they become useful in 1-3, and then in 2-1 they’re really bloody important at times. You did a wonderful job of going “here is a thing guys, learn it”, and so whenever I see something new I make sure to really try and understand what I can do with it. In a lot of ways, this is actually way more effort than I put into the old retro games, because I’d often just get something new and go “well, I’ll just use it whenever”… SAB is different though. I feel like there are often unconventional and neat ways to use, and sometimes abuse, the things we’re given.

World 2 suffered from being very, very long. I’ve read the thread, so I know by now you’ve got to be tired of hearing it. You’ve got the message, etc. I wanted to touch on it for a different reason though – The idea of future SAB installments.

If the levels gradually get longer and longer, it builds up stamina in terms of playing. If World 2 is this long, then what is World 3 going to be like? 4? Christ, what about the final world? I don’t think world 2 is “too long” in general, but that it may be “too long” right now. I’d really love it if the final world was this really long level throwing together everything we’ve learned until now! That’s the place where I’d genuinely adore having an exhausting marathon testing my mettle and everything I’ve seen on my super adventure.

That said, I understand your reasoning for it being this long. You did introduce a whole lot of mechanics in it, and because of how you implement them with forewarning, it necessitated the extreme length. You’ve already mentioned how you tried ridiculously hard to fit all these things in – Its something that makes me happy, but also worries me. While players have pacing, as a website designer and writer, I know that creators have pacing as well. Its tempting to just shove as much of these awesome ideas in at once – But in my experience, it often leads to creative dead-ends where I’m too exhausted to really put innovation into later products/prolonged projects, and it often makes the content I’ve created be executed less than perfectly. I feel like that’s what we’re experiencing the most here – An abundance of ideas you just really wanted to see go live.

I won’t try and reiterate this, because by now its been said to death. But I wanted to add my take on it, and give you my wish that you find a good pacing for yourself.

Part two coming

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Posted by: Ayanavi.1904

Ayanavi.1904

Moving on.

As for the item upgrades – I adore finding them. It reminds me a lot of the zelda/metroidvania games where I used to spend forever hunting down every little upgrade I could find. Of course that’s by design, but their pricing is kind of weird. I see it cost nearly all my baubles (no new wallet upgrade for me yet), and I’m the type of person who just smirks and goes off to grind baubles.

Sidenote: You kittens, where are my baubles! I liked grinding baubles! Do you know how many bushes I’ve hacked down to find a measly 3 ruppees?!

However, this is again just world 2. If pricing continues to inflate like this, with +250 baubles each world, are we looking at a final world wallet of like 2k? What if items start being given as a reward for little item trade chains like the old zelda games? You found this mushroom, trade it for this leaf, trade leaf for bark, trade bark for stick, trade stick for fishing pole, etc. Alternatively, there’s the “kill boss, get new thing” method, which you’ve already started with regarding the power-glove. Getting new items, or upgraded items, by beating special enemies in a trial of combat where you learn an item’s application – Maybe by the enemy using it against you – and then obtaining it.

I enjoy the enemies as well. They’re frustrating to fight head on, but with application of strategy and understanding – they become much easier. The sword assassins would often kill me until I started circle straifing, and now they just perpetually miss. Their hitbox is still pretty iffy, but I’m not dying miserably anymore! I don’t have the experience to kill bananas yet though, so as a result when I see them I just die a little – Inside and outside. The only problem with them is, as mentioned earlier, that lag sometimes (for me, often) exasperates the problem. Its not something you can really do much about, but its a sad fact that it is a problem.
-

Critiqueing over, from here on its really just my thoughts on the story.

Is josh responsible for the story of SAB? How did that come into existence? It feels like, to me, that anything with the SAB involved is just generally better than without it. I honestly didn’t give a kitten about Scarlet or her entire invasion, and even though I grew to memetically like Scarlet (and certainly found her message to me to be adorable, so I’m excited to play with her more. As a sylvari, she’s like my adorably sociopathikittentle sister), I never had much vested interest in it.

Then SAB happens. The story isn’t shoved in our face, its slightly hidden, slightly out of the way, but its there… and waiting for us to stumble into. The special bit at the end of SAB, the interaction with the world, how there is very little, or only subtle, clues leading us in the right direction gave me a feeling of immersion and investment I hadn’t felt since… Ever, in this game. You could just as easily look at the SAB and assume “its just a jumping game”, and miss out on the plot entirely.

That’s beautiful. I really, honestly hope that more of the Living Story is handled this way. The foreshadowing, the execution, its great.

Overall I’ve enjoyed this entry to SAB – Misery, pain, suffering and all. There are kinks in its creation that I’m generally confident Josh is learning and adapting to, just like the players. I really hope the box only gets better from here!

…And that Josh doesn’t grow to rabidly hate his fans and get disillusioned.

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Posted by: Anonymous Player.3079

Anonymous Player.3079

My 2 cents event i’ve already stop gw²
Problem is : solo content for an MMORPG (if you can call sab a content) + force player to farm achievement
If you remove achievement points from living story, you can let player decide to do them or not (same for daily/monthly). Then if too hard for some player, they can avoid it and don’t always moan.
Gj on the rest of update (legendary + mf)

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Posted by: Pebsta.8290

Pebsta.8290

I’ve done this once already and I’m doing it again: Josh, I couldn’t be happier with SAB. I loved the challenge and length of World 2, and am apprehensive but super excited about TM for world 2. I found World 2 Zone 3 long but fun and pretty straightforward with a friend (after we’d gotten the torch – again, no issues with hitting that wall. It’s right at the beginning). We spent the entire time trying to predict how TM would be. And the Storm Wizard was a very fun fight. Seriously Josh, it seems you’re down on yourself for making content too long and challenging, but myself and my guildmates do not think it is. Keep up all the good work!

EDIT: People also complained about some progression, and that there were mechanics introduced without warning and such. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t hit SAB the first time around, but when I went straight through NM World 1 and World 2, the progression was clear. I didn’t feel like anything was sprung upon me.

(edited by Pebsta.8290)

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Posted by: Aisina.4963

Aisina.4963

Theres probably a better place for this but:

Did the new build include SAB difficulty updates? We’re waiting for changes before attempting it again – thanks in advance for any answers x

S/F Asuran Elementalist

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Posted by: Ephemeris.6831

Ephemeris.6831

Josh, I would like to say great work on the new world and don’t let the negative feedback get you down. I’m personally loving every bit of it, even the tribulation mode. The little background story we’re getting is also a nice touch, and gives some context to the characters and the box, even though it’s not really necessary since the game world is already very immersive without it. The music is excellent and catchy as well!

The difficulty curve is very well done, going from a couple of hours per zone on the first playthrough, to a half an hour or less once we get all the paths and jumps memorized. Granted, some parts drag on and take a lot of time, but this is what keeps people playing, unlike living story releases which we finish in an evening or two and then everyone goes back to being bored until the next update. So thumbs up for that as well.

As you said earlier, different people react differently to certain walls in progression. Some quit and whine, while others push through and improve. This is natural for this type of games. I just wish it would stay open for longer (is it 2 weeks?) so I could have time to finish up all the achievements.

I was also impressed by the final boss fight, which reminded me of games like the YS series. It would be great if we had more bosses like this one ingame, since most of the dungeon and fractal ones are very dull and basically do the same thing from 100% to 0% hp.

Anyway… Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to world 3 and beyond!

Quaggan’s a piwate. YAAAAAAAARR!!!

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Posted by: CryxTryx.9208

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.

Thanks for the response Josh. Oh and my offer was not to suggest that proper testing was not already done. Personally I am happy with the release version of World 2 and tribulation mode so far.

I just didn’t know that first time play through were something you watched, I should have though. As always I’m happy to contribute in anyway that is helpful.

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Posted by: Charak.9761

Charak.9761

Has no one question as to the reason that the World 2 is much harder, BUT at the same time, it doesn’t give more rewards than World 1?

Where’s the time vs. reward chart? Why is this not a common thing in game design anymore? You can do a 2min W1-Z1 for 2 baubles OR do 2hrs W2-Z2 for 2 baubles.

If you’re going to leave the instance the same, but it’s still needlessly long, where’s the reward to match up to it?

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Posted by: Krag.6210

Krag.6210

I really liked world 2 but like some other people, I thought it was too long and the difficulty gap from world 1 to world 2 was too high.

The worst part in my opinion was 2-2, way too many ninjas and the melee ones are awful to fight or dodge, the arrow deathtraps were a nice touch at the beginning but quickly became a pain in the kitten. The gong part was a great idea with bad execution, it’s almost impossible to see the traps with the camera going everywhere while following the gong so we just waited until it reached the bottom.

My favorite part was 2-3 because we were back to good ol’ jumping and enemies were alright.

The jumping is great, the fighting is awful, it’s really hard to tell when to dodge against most of the foes.

Tribulation mode is really awesome, I thought it was just cheap iwbtg style traps at first but the jumps and paths were actually pretty cool.

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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

Maybe when you get knocked back, they should play this :p

http://youtu.be/N-2-rw3irfU

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

Forever known as “that slow guardian who can’t jump worth crap”.

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Posted by: Electro.4173

Electro.4173

Smaller team, actually. And the length was my own desire to get as many ideas as I could in there. I spent several months pulling 16 hour days and a couple weeks where I did a couple 36 hour stretches, went home, slept and came back and did it again. No one else wanted me to do that. In fact those sort of crazy hours are discouraged at ArenaNet. I did that because I freeking love what I do and wanted this release to be the best thing ever. Turns out I pushed too hard to get those new mechanics in there and I’m being told here over and over that all that work was wasted and it’s making people miserable. I’ve learned my lesson. Won’t happen again! And for that, my family thanks you!

Aw man, don’t think the effort was wasted. The vastness of the stages, the cleverness of the puzzles enemies and traps, the visuals and sound design… all that stuff amazing and unique, all that work was well-spent. It certainly shows that you’re passionate about it and put your all into it, and its appreciated. Its perhaps just too much of a good thing in a single solid mass, like having a 5 pound steak and having to eat it all at once. It might be the best steak you’ve ever had, but you’d probably enjoy it more if you had a pound at a time and not the whole thing on your plate at once.

And its unfortunate the game limitations get in the way of easily splitting it up via checkpoints or anything (as well as getting in the way of so many other ideas). I’m sure it kills you ever time you have to ditch an idea because of engine limitations.

I half suspect your comment was tongue-in-cheek and meant to be mostly humorous though, and I hope that’s indeed the case because I’d hate to see your creativity and passion squashed.

Perhaps something like an intermission would work? Split the stages into 2 parts but still have them considered the same stage with the same design and enemies and such (So it’d be stage 2-1A, and stage 2-1B for instance), split the rewards between the two halves so instead of 2 bubbles and a 1/50 chance for a skin you get 1 bubble and a 1/25 chance at a skin.

Tribulation Mode might be tricky to work with that sort of thing, though, since 3 parts = 3 stages works perfectly for the forge weapons. Perhaps tribulation mode would keep the stages combined (so while Normal / Infantile would have 2-1A and 2-1B, Tribulation would just have 2-1 with both parts combined) and perhaps that would be “accepted” for the hard mode?

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Posted by: Lighthammer.3280

Lighthammer.3280

Ok, i thought lvl1 and 2 were long in world 2, then I got to lvl 3.

As much as i LOVE to jump around and do these hard puzzles with all kinds of mechanics, those lvls are too time consuming, and it just kills the joy of the whole thing.

Sad thing to say after you spent so much effort building it, but you kinda overdone it, like really really overdone it.

I can easily compare it to “are we there yet” joke, in these lvls driver would probably stab kids to death by the time you get to the end.

I was in lvl 3 w2 for about 90 minutes and I was about to finish the huge icicles with bananas when i ran out of boubles to shoot them down. “luckily”, i got dced soon after.
I’m not mad, i’m pretty sure i will do it way faster next time. But the notion that it took me 90 minutes to a point not that near the end makes me bit ill.

Oh and one more thing, use the power glove mechanic to skip certain areas of the lvl 2 area, especially the glove boss part, its pointless to fight him once you got the glove.

Cheers!

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Posted by: Thaia.5146

Thaia.5146

SAB in my humble opinion was; and still is; the best Guild Wars 2 “side experience” AND the best Living Story so far. World 1 was great. The balance between the length of zones and their difficulty was just right for a casual player. Now… World 2 – zones 1, 2 and 3 would not be to long for me if SAB was not a temporary content. They are all great and challenging but require a significant amount of time if you want the achivements like “Associate of Baubles”. I can imagine how much time will take to get all baubles in zones 2 and 3 with their current length and complexity.

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Posted by: Atrophied.8725

Atrophied.8725

Currently working on W2 tribulation mode (no, I haven’t played it in normal mode) – The difficulty feels about right, and I’m loving playing with a group to see who can figure out and get through the areas the fastest.

Keep bringing Trib Mode. So much fun and I’m loving every hour that I spend in there. (2 hours total for W1:1-3, 2 hours for W2:1, and ~6 hours for W2:2 — W2:3 is coming up tonight.)

The only issue I have is the rapids section in W2:1, where you have to jump across the water spouts; they do a knockback even if you jump before they disappear. This totally breaks the immersion and feels like you’re playing against the game engine, not the game design.

Xandra – 80s in all classes – Ele/Guard mains – [TL] – NSP

(edited by Atrophied.8725)

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Posted by: EthanLightheart.9168

EthanLightheart.9168

These streams are just too random, u can get knocked off from everyhwere. Its very frustrating. I had to use up 5 cntinue points juzst for the stupid stream… fix it please it has a very bad collision request

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Posted by: Eowin Of Rohan.2619

Eowin Of Rohan.2619

Smaller team, actually. And the length was my own desire to get as many ideas as I could in there. I spent several months pulling 16 hour days and a couple weeks where I did a couple 36 hour stretches, went home, slept and came back and did it again. No one else wanted me to do that. In fact those sort of crazy hours are discouraged at ArenaNet. I did that because I freeking love what I do and wanted this release to be the best thing ever. Turns out I pushed too hard to get those new mechanics in there and I’m being told here over and over that all that work was wasted and it’s making people miserable. I’ve learned my lesson. Won’t happen again! And for that, my family thanks you!

All this work is not a waste at all. SAB is a great thing and we thank you for making it !

The only thing, is a bit too high difficulty in normal mode which can be solved by “just” changing a few parameters (less HP on ennemies, no more life lost when simply falling in the void, remove the new limit on digging spots)

Those things that I hope are simple to change would be enough to make the World2 as great as World1, and all of us are going to have lots of fun in SAB exploring the new maps and experimenting the new mechanics.

Keep on the good work (but don’t kill yourself at it, we can wait a bit more between next releases so you can sleep and have family time )

Regards,

Eowyn

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Posted by: Lane.3410

Lane.3410

Personally I love long epic slogs. Long movies, long songs, long levels. I felt like I was going the extra mile making these levels so huge. I spent SO many all-nighters crafting these levels… and then I’m told it’s too much. Hahaha…. oh… …

I do too. It’s only considered too much because there’s no way to save your progress. I doubt anyone would be complaining about it if there was.

As to my challenge…. all I know is that I run through SAB over and over constantly and find it very easy. But like I told someone above, I’m very used to the engine problems like camera, lag, weird hit detection, etc so I hardly notice them and have developed strategies for getting through the levels without running into most of the problems described by most. And I’m not a super great jumper. I don’t find the “pixel perfect jumps” accusations to be accurate at all. But I know last time I played through LoZ it took a long, loooong time. And some of those later dungeons were BRUTAL. The rooms with 8 darknuts you can only hit in the back? That seems WAY harder to me than SAB. But I see where you’re coming from. You’re super familiar with LoZ. I’m super familiar with SAB. I’m sure that plays into both our perceptions.

You’re not only familiar with it, but you have perpetual access to it. We haven’t played SAB in any form in 6 months. Plus, we’re not all using standard controls. Your setup may be vastly different than what others have. Personally, I use a split keyboard and standard 2-button mouse (w/scroll wheel). During the Storm King fight I really felt like I needed a controller and that my ‘gaming’ setup (such as it is) was making that fight a lot harder than normal. Other people might be using $100 gaming keyboards and mice, which will likely influence how difficult or easy some things are.

One problem I’m realizing now is that when I first built 2-2 it was not a long level. I never changed the layout, but as we had more and more ideas for new mechanics they kept getting packed into that space. (and subsequently meant a bunch of 36 hour days for me and Lisa!) I’ve now come up with the ultimate idea: The Anti-Idea Helmet. (Please don’t steal this idea, I want to patent it.) It’s a helmet that the each member of the SAB team is given. Like a construction helmet, but it’s got brain reading electrodes or what-have-you that can sense when you start to get creative. At that point a spring loaded mallet pivots down from its mount on the top/front of the helmet, smacking you in the forehead, discouraging new ideas. With this invention I can guarantee that the next release for SAB will be shorter, less dense, and have fewer new mechanics. (and the subsequent bugs that accompany them)

:P Nobody’s saying to not have or incorporate ideas, but if you can’t save them for a future update then you need to figure out a way to have your cake and eat it too. See below!

Smaller team, actually. And the length was my own desire to get as many ideas as I could in there. I spent several months pulling 16 hour days and a couple weeks where I did a couple 36 hour stretches, went home, slept and came back and did it again. No one else wanted me to do that. In fact those sort of crazy hours are discouraged at ArenaNet. I did that because I freeking love what I do and wanted this release to be the best thing ever. Turns out I pushed too hard to get those new mechanics in there and I’m being told here over and over that all that work was wasted and it’s making people miserable. I’ve learned my lesson. Won’t happen again! And for that, my family thanks you!

As above, the problem is there’s no save game system so people are forced to go through it in one sitting. If there really is no way to incorporate such a system, would there be a way to break up the zones somehow? Maybe a World 2, Zone 2: Part 1/2/3? Not only would that theoretically preserve everything you’re trying (and want to) do, but it would put the content in smaller, ‘bite-size’ pieces for mass consumption.

Personally speaking, I would hate for the complaints to mean less content. Plus, wishful thinking, it’d also give you room to add onto existing worlds later if each one were broken up into parts. Something like, "New SAB Editions: World 1, Zone 2, Part 2 ‘Higher Into the Treetops’ and Part 3 ‘Rainbow Road’! As an example.

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Posted by: Aedelric.1287

Aedelric.1287

Well, I just got to the end and I have to say world 2 was just one massive troll designed to infuriate the casual or average player.

Cheap one hit kills, pixel perfect jumps, excessive monsters with skills specifically designed to troll players and lots of unfair developer tricks and traps.

- Too hard? Very much so.

- As enjoyable as World 1? Definitely not.

I was a massive fan of Super Adventure box, but if world 3 and 4 are going to be the same difficulty as world 2 or even harder, then I am just going to take a break for the month they are on.

Edit – Forgot to say some of the checkpoints are too far apart and the levels are a fair bit too long, seriously it takes a couple of hours just for one part, that is not casual friendly. (First time playing that is, repeats do not count as you have muscle memory and know what to do.)

“I am Evon Gnashblade and this message is acceptable to me.”

(edited by Aedelric.1287)

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Posted by: TexRob.5183

TexRob.5183

Go play Ghosts and Goblins, then come post your findings. It’s not too hard, maybe 1 was too easy?

Tex Rob 80 War [RICH] GoM

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Posted by: Aedelric.1287

Aedelric.1287

Go play Ghosts and Goblins, then come post your findings. It’s not too hard, maybe 1 was too easy?

I would have to go dig my Amstrad out of the attic, but what would be the point? The issue is with Super Adventure box, not Ghosts and Goblins.

“I am Evon Gnashblade and this message is acceptable to me.”

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Posted by: Renkencen.6127

Renkencen.6127

I definitely find World 2 alot harder compared to World 1. Yes I do get having to earn your achievements but there is a difference between that and the rewards is not worth it if your wasting your time especially when there are better things to do in the game!
Well ok the achievement points are worth getting (especially when I am close to getting the next achievement chest) but at the same time, it’s not worth getting so frustrated, finger getting strain abit and losing my time/ continue coins over it. I hate to admit it but I may have to skipped most of this events

Granted I do applause the improvement at the start of World 2 Rapid (thank you for the checkpoints) but after the assassins on the raff point, the difficulty scale soar up/

I also hate the fact that there was no warning beforehand about it being mandatory to get some of the upgrades like having to slingshot that turtle in the waterfall area or how I must buy the candle upgrade (when the helper said my candle is too weak) when I was in Infantile mode!!!

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Posted by: TurtleofPower.5641

TurtleofPower.5641

I love how much effort you put into your work Josh.

I think it’s just an odd case where certain stuff here turned out to need so much more testing.

It’s cool, it could happen to anyone dealing with something as complicated as an MMO engine.

Hope there’s some more fixes to this one but I do appreciate all the work.

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

To further illustrate the point : http://youtu.be/J9-aUFHIt7c

It’s not difficulty, it’s not even lag, it’s terrible detection. If Josh can watch this and claim everything is fine with the hit detection and the player was at fault in each case, then I really don’t know what to say.

No. That is clearly a terrible experience. Something is obviously terribly wrong there. If I saw anything like this during testing we would have reworked everything. I’ve never claimed anywhere that anyone’s poor experience is because it’s the player’s fault. I don’t think that way. I like to make people happy, believe it or not.

Is this issue (dying randomly and getting pushed off rocks constantly) happening to you? If so, is it happening as frequently as this video shows? If this is anything more than an edge case than we have a serious problem that will necessitate some serious solution. Thanks for pointing it out.

I experienced bizarre knockbacks in that river portion as well. It looked just like that. I am guessing it is a synchronization issue.

I’m also experiencing the same thing here. Not had any problems with anything so far but this bit just pushes me around randomly. Once I got tossed back and forth like a ball not even getting my health down most of the tossing so it took a while to actually die. Sometimes standing on a rock will end up pushing me into the water without any movement from my side.

I experienced a similar situation in tribulation mode world 1 zone 1 after gate 3. The point where you have to jump on two rocks to avoid lava, before the bee dogs. It only happened a couple time, but every time I jumped onto the first rock I would suddenly die as if I’d fallen into the lava below. Then it stopped.

I assumed it was some sort of sync problem. Why it started happening, and why it stopped are beyond me.

It’s cool, it could happen to anyone dealing with something as complicated as an MMO engine.

Especially someone using an engine to do things it wasn’t actually intended to do.

Tarnished Coast Kal Spiro – Ranger (80), LB/S-D, Eagle/Wolf, Signet, M/S/WS #SABorRiot
|Daredevil|Ranger|Guardian|Scrapper|Necromancer|Berserker|Dragonhunter|Mesmer|Elementalist
|Deadeye|Warrior|Herald|Daredevil|Reaper|Spellbreaker

(edited by Kal Spiro.9745)

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Posted by: Player Character.9467

Player Character.9467

My 2 cents event i’ve already stop gw²
Problem is : solo content for an MMORPG (if you can call sab a content) + force player to farm achievement
If you remove achievement points from living story, you can let player decide to do them or not (same for daily/monthly). Then if too hard for some player, they can avoid it and don’t always moan.
Gj on the rest of update (legendary + mf)

  1. SAB not solo content. If you can’t manage to laugh when you and your friends get to watch eachother miss jumps and fall to your doom then I pity you.
  2. In what way, shape, or form are you forced to do the achievements? You WANT to do the achievements to get the AP but nothing of AP is required and there is an infinite supply of AP.

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Posted by: Mr Ko Killer.7206

Mr Ko Killer.7206

I think a lot of people failed to realize that when SAB came out 5 months ago it was a side project that was basically just hashed out just in time for April Fool’s day, and a lot of people wanted to see more of it…people complain about Tribulation mode and how hard it is…people complained about the Gambit and how hard Liadri was, and then what happens when after all that time spent beating the Gambit or Tribulation mode? They complain it wasn’t hard enough…..personally I love Tribulation mode, in my mind, it’s an awesome tribute to Cat Mario….maybe it’s just me, I love challenging games…I also like having that weapon, even if it’s just a recolored Super weapon, that many people do not have, why? Because they stepped one foot into Zone 1 and died instantly and said it sucked. Why would you want to play a game that just hands you everything, and all you have to do is just walk around until you reach the end?….that was SAB back in April.

Jade Quarry’s TrollMaster General| Generation Of Legends [EviL] Leader

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Posted by: Mirta.5029

Mirta.5029

I think a lot of people failed to realize that when SAB came out 5 months ago it was a side project that was basically just hashed out just in time for April Fool’s day, and a lot of people wanted to see more of it…people complain about Tribulation mode and how hard it is…people complained about the Gambit and how hard Liadri was, and then what happens when after all that time spent beating the Gambit or Tribulation mode? They complain it wasn’t hard enough…..personally I love Tribulation mode, in my mind, it’s an awesome tribute to Cat Mario….maybe it’s just me, I love challenging games…I also like having that weapon, even if it’s just a recolored Super weapon, that many people do not have, why? Because they stepped one foot into Zone 1 and died instantly and said it sucked. Why would you want to play a game that just hands you everything, and all you have to do is just walk around until you reach the end?….that was SAB back in April.

this thread is not complaining about tribulation, but rather about normal mode.

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

Alright, so problems I’ve had with World 2

Relentless mobs. In World 1 the sprites would chase you, but they tended to give up pretty easily. In World 2, especially the assassins, they just refuse to give up. It’s very frustrating.

Excessive use of short duration “ledges.” I’m pretty sure the idea is not to travel up the river by the spouts, but I need to work on that before I accept it. In any case there is no time to make a decision, you have to act act act, which is stressful. If I want stress I’ll play Tribulation Mode… which I will. I like a fun and easy going, if not specifically easy experience in the normal mode.

Ice on hills. There is no way to get momentum up a hill of ice. There is at least one spot where it make sense this should be a thing, but it’s not. The result is a very annoying jumping fit trying to fight gravity to get to the next area. I get that the idea here is supposed to come into effect later for boss and mini boss fights so that you can easily fall off the peak. But if I have a ton of forward momentum because the hill was in front of a long track, that shouldn’t be instantly defeated and stopped because of gravity.

Tarnished Coast Kal Spiro – Ranger (80), LB/S-D, Eagle/Wolf, Signet, M/S/WS #SABorRiot
|Daredevil|Ranger|Guardian|Scrapper|Necromancer|Berserker|Dragonhunter|Mesmer|Elementalist
|Deadeye|Warrior|Herald|Daredevil|Reaper|Spellbreaker

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Posted by: Player Character.9467

Player Character.9467

I think a lot of people failed to realize that when SAB came out 5 months ago it was a side project that was basically just hashed out just in time for April Fool’s day, and a lot of people wanted to see more of it…people complain about Tribulation mode and how hard it is…people complained about the Gambit and how hard Liadri was, and then what happens when after all that time spent beating the Gambit or Tribulation mode? They complain it wasn’t hard enough…..personally I love Tribulation mode, in my mind, it’s an awesome tribute to Cat Mario….maybe it’s just me, I love challenging games…I also like having that weapon, even if it’s just a recolored Super weapon, that many people do not have, why? Because they stepped one foot into Zone 1 and died instantly and said it sucked. Why would you want to play a game that just hands you everything, and all you have to do is just walk around until you reach the end?….that was SAB back in April.

Thread not about tribulation mode, it’s about the increase in difficulty from world 1 to world 2. Much of it being artificial in nature due to server-client de-synching on water parts of world 1 zone 1.

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

I’m going to keep hammering the key that World 2 is too hard in comparison with the World 1 release. The amped up difficulty coupled with the new bugs and the reduction in baubles does make it too hard within the context of the first release.

That said – Penny Arcade has a video on why people “don’t make difficult games anymore” that nails the problem.

The “Nintendo hard” classics were made by developers who had, largely, migrated from arcade gaming. Arcade games are intentionally designed in a way that makes players insert more coins to play. And more coins, and a couple more coins. They’re money grabs. That’s why continues exist – to make you spend an extra coin. These days, continues still exist, but usually they don’t require inserting a coin, because… they’re on platforms where coins aren’t required for play. The continue mechanic has also been replaced with saves, checkpoints, and generally anything that will allow a player to continue from where they left off, or to easily respawn on death.

Back in the day, games were few and far between, so it was acceptable to expect your players to die 100 times to learn a mechanic, because you would want to extend their gaming time in any way possible or you’d run out of games to play. So you could spend weeks on a game which actually only had about 5 hours of content.

Nowadays, things are different – gamers who were kids back then are now adults with income and the means to buy their own games, who lack the time to play games as often as they could back then. Ask any adult gamer about their gaming backlog. I have 100 games on Steam, of which I’ve played maybe 20, and finished, at most, 10. Most of my gamer friends are the same. The gaming market no longer tries to cater just to kids with free time and quarters, but to adults with money and less free time, too.

Thus you go from extremely challenging games with punishing mechanics that force you to start a long level over to extremely challenging games with levels that are only 30 seconds long each, so that when you die, you just go right back in and try again. You go from RPGs with one save point in the entire dungeon to the ability to save anywhere. Longer levels are separated into checkpoints which are, at most, a minute or so apart. Stretching gameplay time by making someone repeat a lot of content they’ve already mastered just to get to the part they can’t do yet is, largely, a dead concept, except to a select few who actually enjoy that kind of gameplay (and generally turn to indie games for it).

The fact SAB is temporary content is what really complicates things, though. World 2 was specifically designed with punishing features (e.g. death for failure) to make people have to learn and master each individual section to proceed. The average gamer is going to get frustrated and quit long before they can get far enough in each zone to learn anything, and this coupled with the pressure of the content being temporary gives you a feeling of “screw this, I won’t be able to learn it in time, so I won’t bother”.

If SAB was permanent and everyone had the time to progress through it at their own pace, like fractals, or dungeons, things would be completely different. To me this is similar to the Clock Tower issue – it was very challenging (at that point, the hardest JP in the game). It was also temporary, not giving players who aren’t good at jumping time to master it. And thus it effectively excluded part of the playerbase from being able to do it – not through difficulty alone, but through limiting the amount of time people had to get good at it.

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Posted by: Eadren.6295

Eadren.6295

Look, I love a challenge as much as the next person. EQ is still my favorite pve MMO for that reason alone. Having said that, there is an enormous difference between challenge and the ridiculousness of having to nudge your character off a surface to the point that he’s standing in mid air just to hit a necessary switch (gator) in order to progress. I’m not even going to talk about the rapids and the overwhelming number of bullkitten deaths due to lag and being repeatedly knocked down with no possibility of escape until you tumble over a falls. Those seem to be more glitches than design elements. But when I reached the point where I wasted a continue coin over something as simple as walking to the edge of a log to hit a gator only to find that standing on the actual log would not allow me to hit said gator, I began to find myself agreeing with the argument that there were design elements put in place with the sole purpose of pushing cash shop sales. Anet, I expected better from you.. /smh

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Posted by: Josh Foreman

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I have to admit I am disheartned that it isn’t made be solo even though we can try running it solo anyways. I actually thought it was meant to be solo since it bascially trying to recreate a lot of old single player games.

Running it with two people I think would be ok but with more then that it sours the concept of the world for me cause having more people takes away the vinatge feel and just makes it look like a weird dungeon rather then a retro return to the past.

I think the fewer players you have the more old-school simulator it is. Solo play gets close to the difficulty of a an 8-bit platformer where you have to learn the levels really well and plan ahead.

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Posted by: Josh Foreman

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It’s really great to get so much direct Dev response. I am once again looking forward to new SAB content.

That said, I still would like to hear more about the decision to reward much fewer Baubles in World 2 than in World 1.

For those commenting on a lack of Baubles in W2, I “dug up” (wakka wakka!) the numbers.

World 1 Dig Baubles: 665
world 2 Dig Baubles 1560

(edited by Josh Foreman.8250)

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Posted by: Greibach.5341

Greibach.5341

For those commenting on a lack of Baubles in W2, I “dug up” (wakka wakka!) the numbers.

World 1 Dig Baubles: 665
world 2 Dig Baubles 1560

Just curious- are those numbers for World 1 the same as the first release of W1? Because I swear there were a ton more per dig in W1 in April.

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Posted by: Electro.4173

Electro.4173

For those commenting on a lack of Baubles in W2, I “dug up” (wakka wakka!) the numbers.

World 1 Dig Baubles: 665
world 2 Dig Baubles 1560

Dang, that’s a lot of dig baubles. Question is where are they, lol.

I haven’t quite managed to get into the “Josh mindset” with the dig spots yet. I’ll find a spot that I’m sure will be a dig spot, somewhat out of the way and requiring a few extra jumps, and nothing. I’ve gotta learn to channel my inner Josh more :p

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Posted by: Buffy.9246

Buffy.9246

SAB isent even fun anymore…Bugs in world 1 zone 3 to not get achievement. Then world 2 is ridiculous…Tired of getting 1 shot all the dam time. Even in infantile mode cant complete that cause I dont have the upgraded torch. Was mad when i found that out. I was looking forward for sab but this is a disappointment.

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Posted by: Mr Ko Killer.7206

Mr Ko Killer.7206

I think a lot of people failed to realize that when SAB came out 5 months ago it was a side project that was basically just hashed out just in time for April Fool’s day, and a lot of people wanted to see more of it…people complain about Tribulation mode and how hard it is…people complained about the Gambit and how hard Liadri was, and then what happens when after all that time spent beating the Gambit or Tribulation mode? They complain it wasn’t hard enough…..personally I love Tribulation mode, in my mind, it’s an awesome tribute to Cat Mario….maybe it’s just me, I love challenging games…I also like having that weapon, even if it’s just a recolored Super weapon, that many people do not have, why? Because they stepped one foot into Zone 1 and died instantly and said it sucked. Why would you want to play a game that just hands you everything, and all you have to do is just walk around until you reach the end?….that was SAB back in April.

Thread not about tribulation mode, it’s about the increase in difficulty from world 1 to world 2. Much of it being artificial in nature due to server-client de-synching on water parts of world 1 zone 1.

It’s not?

Wow guys this is rly hard and their is even a hardmode!!!
Anyway i bet world 2 zone 1 and im proud of it (i guess it’s nothing). It was rly hard especially the riverpart…

Q1:
Has someone already bet world 2 / world 2 on hardmode? I had big problems with zone 1 but i loved it. It was much fun but sometimes rly frustating and unfair but still fun as hell.
But i think i talked enough.

Q2:
How is the difficulty for you? For me it was very hard (played with 1 friend) but it’s possible.

Q1 begs to differ

Jade Quarry’s TrollMaster General| Generation Of Legends [EviL] Leader

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Posted by: digitalruse.9085

digitalruse.9085

For those commenting on a lack of Baubles in W2, I “dug up” (wakka wakka!) the numbers.

World 1 Dig Baubles: 665
world 2 Dig Baubles 1560

I suddenly feel so inadequate, and I feel like I dig often enough in suspicious places. Hrm…

Qwerkk – Asuran Engineer

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Posted by: stof.9341

stof.9341

I think the fewer players you have the more old-school simulator it is. Solo play gets close to the difficulty of a an 8-bit platformer where you have to learn the levels really well and plan ahead.

Still, old school games didn’t start you with only one life usually XD

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Posted by: BobTheJanitor.4936

BobTheJanitor.4936

This may well have been mentioned previously, but I’ve only had time to read this thread on and off. The 1 life thing is really an unhappy design change. Especially considering the many intentional or potential instant death mechanics in W2. Like the first dart trap. Training your player ‘this will kill you’ by putting it in their path with no warning is not only vindictive, it’s just plain poor design.

If this were a game like Super Meat Boy, where lives are infinite and death may make you lose 10 seconds at the most, that’s fine. But when you get only one extra life, it’s ridiculous. To say nothing of the many many tricky jumps over instant death drops, or over rapids that push you into death drops. I saw the justification earlier, you wanted to make lives valuable. But there are two sides to that value equation. Rarity of lives, and how much you can ‘buy’ with them. If all I’m buying with a life is a hop, skip and jump into another death drop 5 feet away, that life is pretty worthless. The value based on their rarity plummets in comparison to how little you get out of them.

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Posted by: Puru.4217

Puru.4217

Question:

Would it be possible that instead of simply reducing the longevity of the next levels, you could divide them in two parts?

It’s not my fault if S/P is not popular !!!

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Posted by: Josh Foreman

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I really wish there was a way to come back to our last checkpoint at will, without having to sacrifice a life. It could work just like waypoints do, maybe at the cost of a bauble. Will you think about that if it’s doable?

I like this idea a lot. I’ll look into the possibility. Would be a great Whistle song. But I’ve found that 90% of the things I want to do can’t be done in our engine. And as this thread is evidence, when we try to push the engine to do things it doesn’t like we end up a mess.

The only other thing I didn’t like about zone 3 was the artificial difficulty of some jumps. … On one, you HAD TO stand on thin air to do it, and not just slightly, it was a matter of guessing how far over the rock you could go, the answer was totally out and then a little more.

The other one seemed like an impossible jump until I realized you had to jump on a tiiiiny little, little and very inclined slope just in front of you in order to make it possible. The issue here is it was so tiny and inclined the game still showed me as standing on the rock I was formerly, except that I was not and that bit of height made all the difference.

I’m trying to ease players into more difficult jumping. In the first case I want people to figure out that they can change direction while in the air. Yes, you can nudge yourself out into the air. Or just jump like normal, outward, then steer back in. Your second example is the first time I’ve included a sloped surface in the main path. They are all over the place, but this is the first time it’s mandatory. The point of doing this is to broaden the player’s horizon and possibility space. Teaching them to look more closely for ways to access secret areas and such. That being said, I’ve streamlined that room so most of the platforms are larger and falling won’t drop you all the way down in most cases.

In retrospect I should have put that first experience out in the open, by itself and prominent. I’ll probably add that in next time we have an SAB release. Thanks for the specific and clam critique.

If I voice my disappointment on the lack of achievement in this thread will it be heard? Or I need to go somewhere else where the right person can see it?

I’ve been collecting all the feedback on this thread in a list of things to bring up next time we start on new SAB content. I’ll look into it.

I know I wrote a lot but these are just little issues in the big picture and aside for them zone 3 was awesome, I really enjoyed the time spent in there
I’m afraid of what you may come up with for world 3 and 4 tho :p

Haha, thanks. It’s looking like W3 will be…. shorter. If anything I’ll do shorter primary paths and a lot more secret and alternate paths.

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Posted by: Josh Foreman

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Question:

Would it be possible that instead of simply reducing the longevity of the next levels, you could divide them in two parts?

I’m thinking of just making a lot of alternate paths and more secrets. That way a casual player can run through the main path with ease and those who want tougher content can opt into it.

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Posted by: CommodoreSkippy.2657

CommodoreSkippy.2657

Just beat 2-2, had to go back to the hub because I was 22 Baubles short for the torch in 2-3 :C

Good gravy that was diabolical, but in a good way!
Now to find where the heck these thousands of buried Baubles are. I was pretty good at finding dig spots in World 1 but I got nuthin’ so far in World 2.

I’m also on my quest to get the fabled “Chain Stick.” and also have only just today realized that the Dark Lord is wielding Swordchucks.

(edited by CommodoreSkippy.2657)

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Posted by: Josh Foreman

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Please don’t water down the SAB just because an extremely vocal group of people don’t like it. I love the grueling difficulty of it and have been having more fun in GW2 than I have in a long time. One of my favorite things about the Living Story events is that they don’t have to cater to every player since they come and go so fast. Not every living story event is for every player. I personally play every single one that involves a jumping puzzle, but I don’t really do much with the dungeons. It doesn’t bother me that the dungeons don’t cater to my specific tastes because 1, I enjoy the base game a lot, and 2, I know that there’s always more content right around the corner.

If you don’t like the SAB, just don’t play it. If you feel World 2 is too hard for you, just play World 1. Games are supposed to get harder as you go along, and the SAB should be no exception. I had a ton of trouble with World 2, but by the time I got through it, I had gotten really good at it. That feeling of mastery is so much more rewarding for gamers like me than any item or title – although those are nice too. (Please make a title for Tribulation Mode.)

The main thing I’m trying to say here though is please don’t make the SAB any less difficult. I honestly hope that World 3 is more challenging than World 2 too.

There’s a hard mode for people who want punishing difficulty. This thread has NOTHING to do with it. Your punishing difficulty is perfectly safe.

We’re requesting fixes to Normal, which should be Normal.

^^^^

In fact, I will defend TM until I’m blue in the face. This is about Normal being buggy and in need of fixes, no one wants to nerf TM!

Agreed. Fixes are incoming.

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Posted by: Meriem.3504

Meriem.3504

I have to admit I am disheartned that it isn’t made be solo even though we can try running it solo anyways. I actually thought it was meant to be solo since it bascially trying to recreate a lot of old single player games.

Running it with two people I think would be ok but with more then that it sours the concept of the world for me cause having more people takes away the vinatge feel and just makes it look like a weird dungeon rather then a retro return to the past.

I think the fewer players you have the more old-school simulator it is. Solo play gets close to the difficulty of a an 8-bit platformer where you have to learn the levels really well and plan ahead.

First I will say if World 1 was meant to be 5 man because I actually have no idea, I assume it was meant to be solo lol, which I completed the first time SAB came out I very much enjoyed, then I have little concern about World 2 being an issue so I will retract my statement.

What I was concerned about though just as an FYI was not the difficulty but how the World would work. I didn’t want it to feel like a typical Dungeon was all but so far I found it just as exciting as World 1.

I was too quite to jump the gun but honestly, I rarely see a red talk to us like this so I guess I wanted to get my concern in just in case and also in regards to a post I read that was talking about groups with SAB. My apologies!

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

Question:

Would it be possible that instead of simply reducing the longevity of the next levels, you could divide them in two parts?

I’m thinking of just making a lot of alternate paths and more secrets. That way a casual player can run through the main path with ease and those who want tougher content can opt into it.

This sounds brilliant to me, and closer to what the levels in W1 felt like – straightforward if you wanted to just go on, but with nooks and crannies to explore. I wouldn’t mind dozens more nooks and crannies.

Also, regarding the dug up baubles: I’m not sure if the upgraded shovel affects this, but even if they are there in quantity, they’re hidden within massive levels with no indication whatsoever of where. Finding them all would likely take far more time than completing the zone. I found only one dig spot in my first run through all 3 zones, and that’s with the whole party digging wherever they felt baubles could be hidden. So while there may be lots of baubles around, most of them are hidden, or inside chests.

I think it would be cool to award a larger amount of baubles the first time a player opens a chest, or digs up a spot. The one spot I found after a couple of high precision jumps had only 20 baubles, so it didn’t feel very rewarding. My party was gathering up keys for a chest in zone 2 and we were missing one, but I knew there were only 20 baubles in the chest, so getting that extra key felt like a waste of time compared to getting a move on. 1500 baubles is only 12 bubbles – a single skin costs 50. A full run of w2 takes a while even if you know what you’re doing, and stopping to dig up all the baubles would make it take even longer. It’s really not worth the effort right now. With how much effort/time it takes, it feels like I should be getting a skin just for doing the entire thing, even if it was soulbound rather than account bound.