Guild Wars 2

Oh, I also wanted to mention a bug I experienced in 2-2.

The platforming section on top of the poles after the Warp Pad puzzle (or as I have come to call it, “Foreman’s Fifty Fingers of Fury”) has a rare but big problem. When I would respawn at the checkpoint after dying, I would sometimes immediately die again. It happened 2, maybe 3 times and it didn’t stop me from beating the level, but it’s still a problem.

I honestly think the majority of people playing SAB World 2 are playing it solo. I would put magical fictional money down on that.

Recommended 5 Players means nothing, because you could solo World 1 perfectly fine.

Is it too much to ask the estimated time till arrival of the updated more easy World 2? I really want to get back into SAB World 2, but I am unwilling to throw myself at the awful hard areas anymore.

Josh Foreman.8250:

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.

I hope world 3 will still have adequate number of references despite being shorter.

It’s slightly sad that your passion for this project seems to have backfired somewhat. Though I won’t defend feature creep, next time try to come up all the amazing ideas beforehand, and if you have new ones while making them happen, put the extras in a hat somewhere to use on the world after that.

Edit: and maybe, just maybe at the end if the hats not empty yet you’ll have enough left over ideas for extra world 5.

Most of my problems with the difficulty spikes (The rapids, the waterspouts, Gong.) have been brought up before, and are being looked at, so Yay for that.

I just finished up world 2 last night, however, and I wanted to bring up a section that I thought was…. I almost hesitate to say it… Too easy.

The Storm Wizard.

First: The music was freakin’ awesome. I’m listening to it as I type this. A+

Now, before I say that the second boss was easier, lets compare the boss of world 1 to the boss of world 2.

The first boss had several mechanics present in the arena. There was the poisoned water, his amulet, the shockwaves, the BIG shockwave (which is a different mechanic since you cannot jump over it) and his Tongue attack.

Our second boss had more mechanics! This is good! The lightning shield, and projectiles for phase 1, the charging in phase 2, and then the phase 3 mechanics. Those were the Moving outer ring, the summons, platform destruction, and the lightning blast to the center.

So, our second boss had more mechanics. However, my opinion is that those mechanics were easier than world 1 bosses mechanics.

Our boss toad had an attack that you needed to counter in order to deal damage to him. This is equivalent to our lightning shield and projectile reflection mechanics in phase 2. HOWEVER, the penalty for failure vs. toad is a very difficult to dodge attack that attacks every party member, whereas the penalty vs. Wizard is a 3 projectile attack targeted at one party member. This is far more forgiving to the players.

Moving onto our next World 2 mechanic, the Wizard’s charging. I’ll be honest, I’ve not figured out the “Correct” method for handling this mechanic. Dodge rolling through him SEEMS to sometimes allow me to avoid the attack, but I’m not 100% certain. Even if it is, you won’t have enough endurance to dodge them all. However, I will point out that I was still able to beat the boss and only die two times, even not understanding what the mechanic of the fight was. That suggests to me that the difficulty is lower than the toad, as without understanding his mechanics you could not win (Which is also true almost everywhere else in SAB)

Finally we have the Platform. The approach appears to be to stand in the middle of the ring while the dragon summons lightning sparks for you to defeat (They never did damage to me, so they do not appear to be too dangerous) Then you jump to one of the edges while the dragon makes the middle ring a lightning filled deathtrap. The boss then blows up an edge piece, and then you beat him to death with your stick. Lather/rinse/repeat.

The description of the mechanics, probably matches the length of a write up I would make describing the Toad mechanics. But if we compare the two, the jumps between lilypads vs. stone blocks are much shorter. I’m pretty sure you can just walk between the two areas unless one of them is above you. The attacks are significantly easier to dodge (a safe spot is always one (easier) jump away!)

The boss fight was fun. It was moderately epic, well scripted, and the mechanics were clear (charge not withstanding.) I greatly enjoyed it. That being said, I feel that if I compare it to the king toad fight, while this fight was BETTER, it was also easier. I’m not sure if that’s a thing you would want to change, but since Josh seems to be looking for feedback, I figured I’d throw in my 2 cents.

I haven’t come very far in world 2 due to one issue:

When jumping on the water spouits, even if I have plenty of time with them being active and I land perfectly on them, they shoot me into the rapids as if I had landed in the moving water. This makes progressing absolutely impossible for me and after spending over an hour at that first water spout spot after those first two spinning flower things I gave up.

Ok, ok!

So my girlfriend and I were just chatting, and she messed up and said, “George” instead of Josh….eh….EH!!!

Now….I had to post this, I just had to.

After playing the Rapids level……“What is this, George Forman’s: Super Adventure Boxing?!”

Hur, hur, hur!!

I still feel like the difficulty and especially length ramps up way too much in world 2. Many of my friends who loved SAB world 1 say that they simply aren’t interested in World 2 with how it’s like right now. It’s nice if you make adjustments in the future for W3, but I feel like plenty of people will simply stop playing at World 2 (and thus can’t participate on any further content?)

I mean, I went through it on infantile mode and it still seemed very tedious. I have tried on normal a few times, but it just doesn’t hook me to play like World 1 did.

Although one thing I gotta say is that the music is A+. I don’t know if the artists do chiptunes regularly but these tunes were excellent. I could hear echoes from lot of different games, and the style of certain songs reminded me of different sources. With the ice level I was getting Ninja Gaiden vibes and somewhere I heard Snake Rattle’n’roll in there.

I went through 2 bags of popcorn reading this thread. I love it.

Please make worlds 3 and 4 even harder so I can see more threads like this.

Josh,

I know it has been asked before, likely many times and probably in this thread as well but can we please get a counter for the achievements that require counts? Example, collecting all the baubles on a level or defeating all the assassins? It really sucks to think you got everything but never know until you finish and finding out you missed 1 or 2 or 20 but never knowing. Please!

NightZero.9425:

Josh,

I know it has been asked before, likely many times and probably in this thread as well but can we please get a counter for the achievements that require counts? Example, collecting all the baubles on a level or defeating all the assassins? It really sucks to think you got everything but never know until you finish and finding out you missed 1 or 2 or 20 but never knowing. Please!

This is really the worst achievement ever.

No counter, no indication of how many need to be collected, no way of knowing you failed until you’ve finished the world.

It is meant to encourage exploration, but without a guide, most people have little to no chance to complete it. I won’t even attempt it in World 2 without a guide…no way, no how.

Which totally sucks, because I realize I’m screwing myself out of exploring the awesome world, but I just don’t have the time to dedicate to running the world countless times, hoping this time will be the time I happened to get them all.

Solutions:

1. (ideal) A counter that shows how many are left to get.
2. The Achievement description mentions how many are out there.
3. Josh just tells us on the forums.

I just had my greatest moments in gw2 just earlier. I was doing the world 2 zone 2 blind in tribulation mode. Really enjoyed it, feels so much better than world 1. I was about midway through when yellow text appears in the middle of my screen: “New build available. Your game will restart in 3 hours”. Well I was half panicking because I was more than hour in and if the game auto-exits before I’m finished… Started trying to rush things really hard, lost my sense of time and got into the “zone”. When I was at the 2nd last checkpoint, another message told me I had 2 hours before my client exits. Felt relieved and went on to beat the boss. Just as I broke the cage I instantly wrote: “UYES” in guild chat, while I slid down a slope and died before I got the chest… After that I had the pleasure of paying a visit to moto who made me smash my F button to pieces. I saw the inevitable and took a nice screenshot, after which I of course died to the spikes once and missed the chest :)

So it might be a good idea to increase the zoning out timer a tad. Someone else might have lost their kitten over that, but I went on and helped a guildie through the zone right after and picked the rewards up then. Playing with someone as skilled as you is incredibly fun btw.

Took me more than 3 hours on my first try and my second with a guildie took a bit over 2 hours. I’m not sure if the lenght is nice, but it couldn’t have been as intense if it was shorter.

What people might not see is that in many cases, spike traps in tribulation mode seem to be placed so that you have to take the hardest and sneakiest of routes through the zone. It is really accentuated in world 2. You always know there are no traps where you have to fight enemies and in places where they wouldn’t bring anything interesting to the route (at least as much traps ;).

Normal mode world 2 was just the right difficulty for me. That feeling when you finish a kitten long jumping sequence without dying once when your hands are sweating and you have no idea how you got there. I kinda have to say comparing to other players in different jumping puzzles I’ve seen it seems I’m really good at this stuff so I can see myself in the very minority of jumpers.

The infamous river section from w2z1 didn’t feel bad for me. Guess its a ping thing, though I did figure its safer to be in the air before the next platform comes up…

Other stuff:
About the pay to win thing. I saw this as some awesome incredible chunck of a game and just thought: take my dosh it’s really worth it for me. And yes the coin seems to be really vital to having “relaxed” time while exploring the wonders of TM. Pressure of doing something with limited coins has its own good side too though, just not for TM.

Dodgejump feels really cumbersome to do at will, not sure if it should pay a big part in SAB even though it seems like the next big step in improving as a player.

Toad king head targeting. There’s not good enough feedback from trying to damage the toad king. What would have helped me a bunch on my first try would have been the ability to always target the toad head, but throwing stuff at him would result as evade when hes not flipping his tongue.

Whats up with the wizards charging at you phase? Will I ever figure it out or what?

tl.dr. awe, normal mode good difficulty, tm nice in w2, plz w3 longrfstrharder

Finally beat World 2 (Zone 2)!

And yeah, that gong run is pretty crazy. This is one place where I can see what the intent was, but maneuvering around that gong is just difficult, in addition to remembering/seeing where all the dart traps are so the gong can take the hits. It’s just a bit hard to know how much space you really have. Might help this a lot if the gong moved about half the speed (or the space between dart traps was twice as large). I was actually really surprised that there wasn’t a checkpoint immediately after that, instead I had another non trivial jump and two more assassins on a narrow walkway (luckily they could be killed with the slingshot before they got to me).

Zone 3 is looking easier so far in some ways, and I did find one 50 bauble dig spot which basically payed for my flute. Guess I’ll see how the rest of it goes later.

There’s so many people saying SAB is bad or too difficult now I hope it’s not going to halt World 3 or 4 if that’s coming because this stuff is amazing, esp tribulation mode. Only complaint is some levels are bit too lengthy so it’s a pain if you have to go suddenly, idling doesn’t work because of the inactivity kick.

Aedelric.1287:

TexRob.5183:

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.

Ghosts N Goblins is notorious as one of THE hardest NES games to ever exist. Pro-gamers ragequit over that game because it is 100% unfair – http://youtu.be/94Y6y1MOoEo here’s the Nerd upset over it. Why compare that to Normal Mode SAB? Is SAB supposed to be Ghosts N Goblins level hard?

Josh Foreman.8250:

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.

You and your team already have my respect for creating a genuinely unique and enjoyable retro experience, something I have yearned for. I do have my issues, the new content was too hard to be enjoyable for a casual like me, that said I have even more respect for you guys for the direction you are taking now.

More paths with with less pain and frustration, yet keeping the traditional route for the diehards, that is a win win.

Keep in mind none of us hate SAB, we all love it just as much as you do Josh. All we want is a really enjoyable experience and people hate repeated deaths, especially ones they can not control. People like me need to vent our frustration, so do not take it to heart.

World one hit the nail on the head for learning curve, with several hundred posts of legitimately good suggestions here and your desire to tone it down for casuals I have my lust for SAB back again. (Though I may wait for that patch first :P )

World 1, loved it. Got all achievements in W1. World 2…yeh waaaayy too hard. Gonna pass on this one. Got up to the water spouts and just couldn’t make it. Please fix aiming with slingshots too >.<

Honestly, World 2 Zone 1 should have ended after the raft marathon fight.

Start up W2Z2 with the trees and introduction of bear and frog enemies and go till end.

Would speak of W2Z2 and Z3 but I haven’t actually beat Z1.

@ Josh, Hey! I checked out your devianart, and I noticed…….AHHHH he likes Demon Hunter too! Anyway that was a sidenote… I just wanted to comment on you professionally and I just want to say, great work! I have never seen this level of continued communication with players in other games. Although I have not personally played W2 yet (Missed W1 and playing through that first), I want to thank you for responding to all of these complaints quickly and really caring what the players think (positive or negative). Keep it up! Also any feedback I may have after playing through W2 tonight, I’ll let you know, without insulting you personally. Because I know that you care about this game just as much as we do! So….. thanks!

Aerlen.5326:

Aedelric.1287:

TexRob.5183:

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.

Ghosts N Goblins is notorious as one of THE hardest NES games to ever exist. Pro-gamers ragequit over that game because it is 100% unfair – http://youtu.be/94Y6y1MOoEo here’s the Nerd upset over it. Why compare that to Normal Mode SAB? Is SAB supposed to be Ghosts N Goblins level hard?

Super Ghouls and Ghost on the hardest mode made you suffer a tragic end and a hemorrhage!

I agree with the request for a counter for the bauble achievements.

neon.4863:

I agree with the request for a counter for the bauble achievements.

I would like this for other achievements with a number of something too. Like Master of Assassins. Trough out the whole of yesterday I was puzzled – is it bugged? Or am I missing some? If I could see the counter of how many out of how many I killed there wouldn’t be that question.

joshua valentine.2593:

I believe the ramp-up in difficulty has something to do with the Infinite Continue Coin in the gem shop.

-adjusts tin foil hat-

Totally agree

So my experience: First world release, awesom. Loved it immediatly.

Now second world release… My experience was like that:
Entering world 2 zone 1 first time: failed… First I run out of orbs for my weapons, then out of live and at the end I was just frustated not making it through so I quit….
Todays try number two: Guess what, right now I’m stucked behind a wall….

So to break it down, two hours lost and that’s really not what a first experience of new content should be…

Edit: Tried it again, but after the water took me away I gave up for today. Right now I’m not even sure if I will try world 2 again… It’s just, I play to relax and have some fun, but….

So, not only has the difficulty been ramped up since its first release back in April… but this happened.
Yep, I fell down a waterfall, and now I’m stuck under the map. Guess I’ll be waypointing then >.<.
PS. This was World 2, Zone 1… can’t even get through this to see the rest of World 2, but so far it actually seems less polished than the preview version back in April.

Being an avid jumping puzzle enthusiast, I loved the first iteration of the Super Adventure Box from the word “go”. After playing around with World 2, it’s been far more frustrating than anything else. A good part of this was during the rapids, fighting the knockback bug which is apparently being fixed, so I’ll try and look at the rest with fresh eyes.

First and foremost, the issue is length. That’s not to say more content is a bad thing, but the lack of break points makes for a frustrating experience. Each zone of World 2 could easily have been a world of its own, from start to finish. The different zones of World 1 provided a nice break point, a place not too far back you could start if you had to leave, wanted to take a break, or just didn’t have enough baubles for a continue coin when you died. The length of World 2 zones is nothing short of punishing. As knowledge of dig spots propagates, the last problem will certainly be alleviated (The natural baubles in the world are nowhere near enough to keep up with the death rate throughout World 2), but it still punishes players for not having an hour or two to set aside for beating a zone. This is especially true of Zone 2, with the push puzzle and the gong run that require an inordinate amount of slow, methodical play to complete, but I confess I have not yet find the eagle, so this is likely not as big an issue as it seems.

Tied into this is the requirement to farm baubles for items. While it’s true that many games make you save up to buy things, I’ve never before encountered one that didn’t give you the opportunity to do so. World 1 gave you the only strictly necessary item (the candle) for free. World 2 makes you quit the level and lose all of your progress (which can be several hours of painful platforming your first time through) if you find out you’re missing something. Short of digging 400 times in hopes of churning up random baubles, or chancing on one of the treasures (Which I, so far, have had no luck with uncovering. There may be a lot more baubles in World 2, but the levels are so much longer the density certainly isn’t any greater), there’s no good way to progress, especially having spent most or all your baubles on continues.

The difficulty is definitely up there, but the enemies aren’t much of a problem once you learn their tricks. Strangely, I never had a problem with the piranha house, but the difficulty of other problem sections goes down a lot the second run when you’re not losing lives finding paths. A notch down on the difficulty of the extreme parts is definitely warranted, but I think you’ve got that covered.

@Entrea Sumatae: Candle is not required for World 1, it will make things easier (and was/is required for some achievements) but it was not required to go through the levels. The first time item was truly required to progress was with W2 Z1, when you have to burn the trees.

Having now played world 2 zone 2….

Wow, OK that’s a long level. Even Ninetndo or Capcom would probably be scratching their head over that one.

If it was a console game and not a temporary content with limited save capability, I’d love it. But, the light hearted fun from April seems to have gone by overly long zones, unforgiving puzzles at the end of long sections etc etc.

The fact that I found TM on world 1 as hard as normal World 2 shows to me where the balance went wrong.

Too many clever homages (Zelda + Ninja Gaiden I’ll give you was a interesting combo tho) and not enough fun for the wide audience you have- hopefully a lesson learned for the future

After I found and red through several pages of this thread I must admit I’m kinda shocked.. I don’t think that world 2 normal mode is too hard by any means.. finished it the first day in a couple of hours… Up until now I also got 2 of the green and 2 of the yellow weapons.. today I rushed through all 3 maps of world 1 tribulation mode in about 1.5 hours and that was on my second playthrough.. finishing all 3 maps of world 2 in normal mode took me about 2.5 hours today and I didn’t even use the eagle shortcut and I’m quite sure that I’m not familiar with all the other shortcuts that exist… I gotta admit there are also some parts that I still need some practice on.. Only world 2 tribulation mode still takes me 4h+ but I’m totally fine with it..
To be honest I would be quite disappointed if the difficulty would be toned down or if world 3 and 4 wouldn’t be at least as hard as world 2.. would prefer it if they would be even harder and I would be glad if it’d be quite a bit..

But in my opinion most video games that are released the last couple of years are way too easy.. also I find the difficulty of most of the dungeons in GW2 so easy that I totally get bored.. I guess the problem nowadays is that most ppl want everything fast and without putting some kind of effort into it.. kitten I miss the good old days

So please I beg of you don’t reduce the difficulty of the SAB.. Not every person needs everything for free.. And you would destroy the content that I find to be the most fun since quite some time.. After the first guides pop up difficulty will be dumped down anyways..

Ps.: World 1 normal mode is way to easy.. I can finish it in about 30min without dying once.. It really was the right decision to go up with the difficulty… No fun for gamers who know the good old tryhard games that can’t be found anywhere nowadays.. don’t make the same mistakes as WoW… Everything is fine with easy mode for normal ppl, normal mode for ppl that want to put in some effort and are willing to sacrifice some lifes and tribulation mode for hardcore gamers..

PPS: Not every content you guys put out has to be for everyone.. there are always ppl that are unhappy and imo it’s the right decision to also put out stuff that isn’t created for the masses but for players “niche” players that want something different and challenging.. but I still can’t understand how ppl have that big problems on normal mode.. the fish tower and the zelda/gaiden homage are both quite easy parts if you just keep your eyes open..

Atrophied.8725:

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.

Yes, this also annoyed me a lot. The water spouts should not do a knockback, just because they end. And certainly not BEFORE they end. I’ve seen several players and myself, get knocked down and killed in mid air, because of this.

Also, the rivers themselves have annoying mechanics, that often keep the player stunned or slowed for a very long time. Sometimes its almost impossible to jump out again. I’d be more happy if there was just a big splash, and it teleported you back on to the nearest rock.

I don’t understand why everyone’s complaining about world 2.
Was it harder than world 1? Yes, of course. I spent my childhood on Gameboy games and NES, Levels progress and get harder the further in you get.
The insane amount of instant deaths in world 2 might be too high when you compare it to world 1, how ever I didn’t have THAT much of a problem with world 2 tribulation mode. This is how old games worked, you died repeatedly until you learned what to do.

The one thing that really confused me was the “Don’t go here clouds” in tribulation mode, I thought they were there to tell you that you went the wrong way somewhere, not to be a obstacle to jump over.

I don’t think it’s too bad. Difficulty reminds me of the first nes megaman games. It would suck if it was too easy and everyone can beat it with their eyes closed.

Josh you talk about engine limitations quite abit being a issue for 90% of ideas etc.

If the engine designers can add more features and fix up the game engine not only will that benefit your SAB project but it will allow allow for new and exciting game mechanics in the core game for future content.

Its a win-win situation for benefiting the overall game and the SAB which everyone soo much loves.

The amount of feedback and community love the SAB is getting from players and the frustrations means that these engine limitations if looked on by the engine team would be development money well spent as I read the pax notes and O’Brian said char wasn’t updated etc because of lack if interest and that affects how much resources are allocated.

With the SAB there’s a massive interest in it and game engine improvements from the community from what I am seeing so with soo much interest it it would be well spent money as mentioned anet could add the mechanics into other areas of the game.

Imagine seeing logs floating down rivers in the normal game playable zones etc or more real time combat mechanics against mobs and other players in WvW Mists, etc.

Imagine the possibilities to enhance the core game to breath a newer life into it as well as your project.

First of all, apologies for not reading all of this thread, it’s just so long…

I wanted to add my voice to the people who are loving this unconditionally. Personally, I’m not frustrated by most of what people are complaining about – W1-Z1 geysers, death arrows, the gong (which is one example of a part easier with cooperative multiplayer), water in general. Most of SAB is also not buggy for me. My opinion might be a little biased by the fact that the first time I did W2-Z2, I used the eagle…

I’m also of the mind that SAB is great as it is, but it sounds like the intention was not to be quite this difficult/long. I can understand some of the frustration, but I hope people will be a little forgiving with all that you’ve said: you’re working with a game engine not designed for SAB, checkpoints would be re-enterable from outside SAB if they could be, your mother-hen hovering care over this thread and SAB in general, and the clear willingness to listen to your audience.

As for the infinite coin, I’ve sorta justified it to myself because SAB chests/dig sites are now account bound. Which is understandable when people could just delete/create new characters to farm it. 2k baubles, 500+ bubbles from round 1 and I wish I’d farmed more! Although I do agree with people who want the coin to give >10 lives, especially for tribulation mode. Which, I will do solo without any help, or fail in the trying. Beat W1-Z1 so far. I wish I had more than 4hrs on weekdays to play!

World 2 does put me in a different mindset than world 1, in how I view dying. I think if World 1 had insta-death traps, there wouldn’t be so much complaining now about the sudden introductions of insta death. When I played with friends in World 1, we’d mock each other for dying to anything – falling, monkeys, bosses, poison. Dying just wasn’t something that happened often or easily, other than falling into the void. The first time I ran into the death arrows, I was honestly shocked. New monsters, new items, nothing strange about those. I don’t mind it, I promptly face-tanked the arrow maze of death to the cost of a dozen or so lives. But I can see how people would be frustrated by this new mechanic. Lives that used to be easily perserved from flying monkey poo are now instantly impaled on the wall at the slightest misstep. (Allow me to pretend it’s poo and imagine bloody impalings…)

I also hope whoever makes these decisions will consider making SAB permanent content.

And, it’s only been a couple days! The tone of how everyone feels might change in a couple weeks.

My GW2 motto: While this might not be a good thing, I’ve accepted that some things don’t work as intended, but they still do work in a consistent way that can get the job done. Learn the latter and don’t get (too) mad at the former.

When can we expect to see the changes to World 2?

JOSh, josh, josh, josh, josh, josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,!!!!

In World 3, add a glove skin, like megamans buster!!!! (possible upgrade to slingshot but visable in outer world)

matthewr.3980:

When can we expect to see the changes to World 2?

Hopefully never!
I hope world 3 progresses in the same direction, I like it when I have to die repeatedly and find whacky ways to climb!
Completing Tribulation was a blast!

Even though I may have come off as really upset in my first post in this thread I do appreciate the hard work for SAB and interaction you’ve displayed in this thread.

When I posted, I was one of those people experiencing the knocked into the river off a rock with no movement or during a midair jump for no apparent reason. I then spent 1 and a half minutes getting ragdolled down the rapids. I had been at this for 2 hours and that sort of thing tends to color one’s opinion.

One thing I’d like to say as you consider solutions for future worlds; if you’re going to add many extra paths and such, be aware that this ties into achievements. Explore all secrets/obtain all baubles in one sitting. Please bare this in mind when you are designing the next levels.

I’m no longer 10 year old me whose only fear of interruption during a 8 hour marathon gaming session is the Wrath of Mom. I’m an adult with obligations and tend to cut my playing session into smaller chunks.

I just wanted to chime in to say that while I have serious issues with world 2 as a whole, to the point where I won’t finish my achievements there until there are guides online (or, apparently, it is nerfed), I still really like the SAB, had much fun in World 1 Tribulation Mode (which I did without guides).

And regardless of all that, I seriously respect all your effort and dedication in making the SAB, Josh, and, even more so in your communication with the playerbase in this thread.

It’s really very nice to see, that even in projects as big as GW2 the designers still may have their own babies.

SAB world 1 is a light exploration game. SAB world 2 is a lethal puzzle platformer with long levels and a very limited number of lives that requires you to go back and farm if you want to proceed.

I suspect world 2 would be lots of fun for jumping puzzle enthusiasts that have bought the infinite continue coin. When you have to go back to farm baubles (that now have a daily cooldown, mind you, and don’t even try without a guide open) in order to buy continues to try and proceed – through extremely long levels, at that – SAB is not a fun experience, but a frustrating, tedious one.

I suspect that everyone that likes the current difficulty hurried out to buy an infinite continue coin. With the continue coin you can beat your head against the difficulty and eventually overcome. Without the coin, world 2 is basically unplayable.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There’s also a few stores in TM that spawn you into the lava as you exit. Is that intended?

No. Can you please describe or screen shot those places? I’d appreciate it.

The only one I’ve found that does this is in W1Z2. At the end of the section where you travle through the tree canopy down below the checkpoint is a shop by a large fallen log (the triggerable jump back up mushroom by the checkpoint is there too) That shop spit me out in the lava when I exited the shop.

Josh, Ive noticed on the gong run, you can release the gong..die the run back and meet the gong at the bottom ramp. Possible exploit!

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m trying to ease players into more difficult jumping.

That’s good but you should keep in mind what visual feedback players get when jumping. What the player sees does not equate to what is going on with the physics and hitboxes and that can be very frustrating.

For example, often when I try to make a jump at a ledge, I am unsure if I can make it. My character slams into the ledge chest level and I think, “surely I am doomed”.

But no, I make it!

It turns out that the base of my character is slightly higher than its midsection when in the middle of the jumping animation. This means that I can make jumps which would seem visually impossible. You might think this is no big deal. It is not as bad as not making jumps that should be visually possible, right?

But it is a huge problem. Let me explain.

This false feedback, other than just looking buggy and cheap, serves as a false learning experience. If I am jumping around thinking that the base of my character is only “somewhere around my midsection” I can not properly learn to make precise jumps. I have to guess a lot. Sometimes, I guess wrong and fail in what seems like an unfair jump. I end up second guessing what jumps I can make, and not in a fun way.

Games like Mario can afford to have precise jumps because the physical base of the character is always in sync with the visual base.

What makes it worse, in GW2, is that it seems like the base of your char varies in relation to the jump animation depending on the stage of it. At zero, it is exactly at the feet, as it should be. At the start, it is slightly too high. At the apex, it is way too high.

Assuming this is a problem with the engine that can not be resolved. I recommend that you ease up a bit on the razor thin jumps. If designing a jump requires that your character slam into the ledge at chest or knee level to make it, move it slightly closer so the character’s feet are the first thing to touch the platform.

World 1 had a few of these jumps, but world 2 is full of them and I think that is the source of some the jumping frustration.

Josh Foreman.8250:

One thing you have to learn about how our jumping/collision works is that you can’t jump up against things and slide up and over the lip like any normal platformer. You need to start your jump further back. I know this is frustrating and if I had the power to change it I most certainly would. Along with making player’s collision match their body/size, and not hang out over the sides of things. As I’m trying to push the skill of jumping it means I’ve had to bring these wonky issues to the forefront. That’s unfortunate, but in my opinion it’s worth doing for the sake of more interesting jumping challenges.

I didn’t realize you somewhat addressed my last post.

To respond to the last sentence. I think you should reconsider your stance, in light of all the feedback that you have received on this point.

Games are an extremely visual experience. If what the player is seeing is out of sync, it can be very damaging to the experience.

I believe it is still possible to make interesting jump puzzles while addressing this. You just need to move any offending jumps a couple of feet. Granted, that is a lot
of jumps on world 2.

Oh by the way, you’ve got me paranoid in trib mode josh. After w1z1 zone 2 was much easier as I’d goten better at anticipating where you liked puting traps… Well now in z3 I just spent 20 minutes trying to find an alternate rout and failing because the obvious path to the checkpoint was too obvious, it had to be traped… turns out it wasnt

Josh Foreman.8250:

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?

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.

Just remember there’s that all baubles in 1 run achiev…