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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

Whomever designed the final secret room in 1-2 needs a kick in the kitten . Ten lives just to get the first jump, can’t make the second because (surprise) the camera fights you.

I sounded like the AVGN this afternoon, that’s way too hard and luck based for an average player.

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

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

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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

Screw people Josh. SAB is fine as it is. Is not perfect, I mean, few Buebles around to be honest, but the difficulty is fair.

The problem is people these days: They want everything as easy going as their mediocre lives, accostumed to getting things without any effort. People who are lazy even FOR PLAYING.

They want to have achieve things that are not really achivements. They want to do things their current skills doesn’t allow but don’t want to improve either. They want life to be tuned down to their personal level of comfort.

Screw them man.

I like how we get a post like this….

On a thread discussing game bugs and unintended difficulty where even the Dev has realized the SAB needs a fix.

Yes, please leave SAB glitchy, buggy, and with all it’s rough edges so that this poster can continue to berate all those awful people who want a lag free, glitch free, smooth running and polished game play experience. How dare we lazy scrubs demand something work right as the Dev intended.

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

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

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Posted by: Player Character.9467

Player Character.9467

Whomever designed the final secret room in 1-2 needs a kick in the kitten . Ten lives just to get the first jump, can’t make the second because (surprise) the camera fights you.

I sounded like the AVGN this afternoon, that’s way too hard and luck based for an average player.

The secret room where you have to jump around on the tree roots over a pit of death? The one that was already there at first release? I’ve never seen somebody take more than 3 tries to get there…

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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

Whomever designed the final secret room in 1-2 needs a kick in the kitten . Ten lives just to get the first jump, can’t make the second because (surprise) the camera fights you.

I sounded like the AVGN this afternoon, that’s way too hard and luck based for an average player.

The secret room where you have to jump around on the tree roots over a pit of death? The one that was already there at first release? I’ve never seen somebody take more than 3 tries to get there…

I missed first release.

Well now ya seen someone take ten because I either jump over the pit or land wrong on the first jump (thank you infinite continues coin, I love you). Is there some secret to getting it perfect every time? I get pretty motion sick just trying.

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

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

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Posted by: Crise.9401

Crise.9401

“I ran out of extra life coins while trying to get past the rapids. This is so hard, I am done.”

I am actually curious about this… I would guess continue coins are lower value proposition to stockpiling one-up’s from shops inside SAB. So rather than buying endless stream of continue coins, buy the actual life items from in SAB.

I haven’t done the math on this, but that would make sense to me… you should avoid the continue room by using one-up’s not forget that they exist and rely on exclusively on continue coins. If it is not possible to reliably get one-up’s then I think there should be some way of doing that.

(edited by Crise.9401)

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Posted by: RyuDragnier.9476

RyuDragnier.9476

Playing world 2 level 1 for the bauble and hidden room achievement at the moment and overall it’s quite fun – but having real difficulty with the ascent up the rapids to the hidden hillybilly cave where the last jump on the rapids seems very random. Same positioning, same leap and 95% of the time its just instant death – most frustrating.

A tiny bit more leeway on the rapids jumps looks like it would improve things greatly.

Works best if you jump and then move towards the last rock. Least that’s what I found. Anytime I tried moving towards the rock to get momentum for the jump I’d get caught in the rapids and in most cases subsequently launched out of the cave.

Easier way is to instead not aim for there, but aim straight ahead towards the little rock right next to the mushroom. You’ll either get launched onto the raised platform nearby, or not move at all, giving you enough time to jump on said little rock.

[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald

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Posted by: OrianZeta.1537

OrianZeta.1537

Josh, it certainly seems you and the team were trying to resurrect classic platformer difficulty with lots of annoyances, traps, brutal knock-back related deaths and frustration of items, limited lives and continues. If this was the goal, then you have succeeded. But let’s bring one thing to the surface:

This is not an 8-bit game. This is an MMO. Additionally, SAB is not some mini-game like Crab Toss; you guys have made this part of the Living Story, which is, in effect, the actual game you are building upon every two weeks.

I believe there is something to be said about making LS content fair for any kind of player. Indeed, Infantile, Normal and Tribulation modes make SAB accessible to everyone, but having been a gamer for roughly 25 years, I can state with confidence that you and your team’s idea of “normal” difficulty doesn’t align with the general gaming population. In essence, Tribulation mode was where to put the difficulty; not normal mode.

Your response has been to point to how the many challenges are there to test us. I’m simply stating that, while normal mode is do-able (and will become easier with practice), the problem is that it’s difficulty lies in attrition; it’s not one thing, it’s a lot of little things which add up and cause extreme frustration.

Here were my observations:
-World 2 requires items whereas World 1 treated them as optional
-Water flowers need an [Interact] key
-Waterspouts randomly hit me when I tried to jump to them, and the waterfall to jump through toward the end of the waterspout section in W2, Z1 knocked me out once, leading me to think it was the wrong way
-Sometimes, I randomly took a hit from nothing while jumping
-Sword Assassins are telegraphed easily, but get hits too easily on you
-Traps (normal mode) should be a bit easier to spot, or an item should highlight them for a brief time
-From watching videos and playing, it can seem like hidden paths actually end up easier than the visible path, such as the log waterfall. Finding the cave at the bottom leads up to a chest with 50 baubles and the checkpoint below.
-Smoky the Bear’s fire AoE is big, can’t be dodged through and even hit me before the fire ring appears

There’s simply too much “attrition” to list; a lot of them are easily explained away. However, you add them up, multiply and factor in the length of the levels, limited lives, forcing the use of continue coins and realize that the levels are 10x harder than the boss fights and you have a recipe for way more hassle than a normal mode difficulty should be.

I doubt many people even bothered to read, but if you take more consideration of making a game fun and leaving the painstaking difficulty for those who want to truly brave it (hello, Tribulation mode), that would be awesome. Personally I do not know anyone who has even tried TM, and on behalf of my group that’s pretty unreasonable.

Thanks for all the work, team, but I don’t feel like this was tested by “normal” players. I’m reminded of hearing that 10 of you found Guild Missions (bounty) do-able. Well, I would certainly love just one of you in my SAB instance :P

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Posted by: Player Character.9467

Player Character.9467

Playing world 2 level 1 for the bauble and hidden room achievement at the moment and overall it’s quite fun – but having real difficulty with the ascent up the rapids to the hidden hillybilly cave where the last jump on the rapids seems very random. Same positioning, same leap and 95% of the time its just instant death – most frustrating.

A tiny bit more leeway on the rapids jumps looks like it would improve things greatly.

Works best if you jump and then move towards the last rock. Least that’s what I found. Anytime I tried moving towards the rock to get momentum for the jump I’d get caught in the rapids and in most cases subsequently launched out of the cave.

Easier way is to instead not aim for there, but aim straight ahead towards the little rock right next to the mushroom. You’ll either get launched onto the raised platform nearby, or not move at all, giving you enough time to jump on said little rock.

^
remember when dealing with the rapids sometimes you can get away with getting your feet a little wet

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Posted by: VKP Butcher.2751

VKP Butcher.2751

^While that is true I find that to not always be reliable. Dunno how it will be now with the patch though.

I gave my limbs to the gods, perhaps I’ll add yours to the offering!
Killian Darkwood(Rng), Kaalia Darkheart(Guard), Avacyn Darkmind(Mes):Maguuma

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Posted by: Ardenwolfe.8590

Ardenwolfe.8590

I’m seeing a trend here…

“The second I got into the game, I purchased the infinite life coin. I had a ton of fun playing World 2!”

“I ran out of extra life coins while trying to get past the rapids. This is so hard, I am done.”

Anyone else see the difference? Having infinite lives suddenly makes death trivial, making a stressful part of the game (running out of lives) suddenly stress-free.

Yes, I’ve noticed this as well. And, the Infinite Coin appears to be a required component to ‘enjoy’ the update. Yes, I know it’s been stated otherwise, but the reality as far as freedom from the frustration of multiple deaths appears opposite.

Maybe this wasn’t intended, but the reality again says otherwise.

Well I played infantile again just now and 90% of the time you can walk over rainbows and skip almost everything.. Didn’t really find a part that I would call hard in infantile.. Could you make any examples please?

Seriously?

The spinning flowers, the glitched jumps, the dart gates, the assassins, the lack of weapons’ intuition as far as targeting, and on and on and on. The point, a lot of times, is not to ‘skip’ content, but attempt to gain the achievements as well. Yes, I believe Infantile is intended to make this easier, but in some cases it’s as hard as normal for the layman player.

Really? After 1000+ posts in this thread, where people have voiced their experiences ad naseum as far as frustration and deaths, this has to be explained to you?

Forgive me, but I’m just going to ignore your posts and replies now. Either you don’t get it or you don’t want to get it. That said, I’m happy for you that your experiences in SAB were fun.

Mine, however and so far, have been the opposite. I hope that doesn’t require further explanation too.

Gone to Reddit.

(edited by Ardenwolfe.8590)

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Posted by: Minos.5168

Minos.5168

That’s not how things work here. I don’t tell the commerce team how to do their job and they don’t tell me how to do my job. My goal is to make a really fun and compelling experience for players.

If the reason was to sell coins I would not be here and you would not see a huge suite of fixes we put together over the last couple of days come out tomorrow.

As to the Infinite Continue Coin I’ll repeat what I said several pages back. I think it’s a great item because it expands the number of people who can experience SAB. There’s probably a good-sized portion of players who don’t want to play it like a real stand-alone old-school game where you have to really learn the levels, find the secrets, earn the resources to get the power-ups etc. In that way it’s like a Game Genie. It also gives people who are really into SAB a chance to vote with their money and support future development.

With all due respect, Nintendo never made any profit off of (nor supported) the Game Genie. They designed all their games to be possible without one.

Old-style arcade games, however, were specifically designed to make you spend REAL coins on extra lives.

I agree that the Infinite Continue Coin is a good business strategy, though. I’d probably buy one if SAB didn’t disappear at the end of the month.

I mean, I’m not spending real money on limited-time content.

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Posted by: Monkey Fritz.9052

Monkey Fritz.9052

Having a LOT more fun with the rapids now

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Posted by: Minos.5168

Minos.5168

Yes, I’ve noticed this as well. And, the Infinite Coin appears to be a required component to ‘enjoy’ the update. Yes, I know it’s been stated otherwise, but the reality as far as freedom from the frustration of multiple deaths appears otherwise.

Maybe this wasn’t intended, but the reality again says otherwise.

Any idea if the drop-rate on normal continue coins was nerfed in this patch (as opposed to April)?

I’m sure ANet will just claim that it was “higher than we wanted” (as has happened with dyes and such).

Honestly, any CS major should have had at least a basic introduction to statistics. They should know about the law of large numbers… They know how many puzzle chests people open daily… How many kills each person averages each day… It’d be very simple to estimate the impact of a specific drop rate.

The “higher than expected” seems to me more like a knee-jerk “Oh no! We’ve ruined the value of this item. We need to boost it!”

I mean, how can they sell dye packs in the Gem Store if unid’d dyes are 3 silver each? (That’s how low they were, before a patch which promptly brought them back up to 15s.)

Not to mention that dye was originally supposed to be account-unlock rather than character-unlocked.

You can’t tell me that the “commerce team” doesn’t have influence on the game.

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Posted by: semiramis.7264

semiramis.7264

Just read the patch notes, thank you so much for fixing the geysers!

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Posted by: Antediluvian.5169

Antediluvian.5169

Apparently the difficulty got nerfed.

But anet should really not listen to the people complaining when designing world 3 and 4. These worlds must be at least as hard as world 2 was.

I can outrun a centaur.

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Posted by: Ardenwolfe.8590

Ardenwolfe.8590

Any idea if the drop-rate on normal continue coins was nerfed in this patch (as opposed to April)?

I’m sure ANet will just claim that it was “higher than we wanted” (as has happened with dyes and such).

Yes, the drop rate appears less. But, I have no way to confirm this because it could be just a run of very bad luck. Of all the chests I opened in Queensdale, I got one coin in the last three days.

One.

Previously, I would get around three per Queensdale. To the point, I still had 53 from the previously SAB patch for World 1. That should also tell you how many times I had to continue due to deaths as far as World 1 again.

Draw your own conclusions.

Gone to Reddit.

(edited by Ardenwolfe.8590)

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Posted by: Vince Ste Marie.2081

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Any idea if the drop-rate on normal continue coins was nerfed in this patch (as opposed to April)?

I’m sure ANet will just claim that it was “higher than we wanted” (as has happened with dyes and such).

The drop rate of continue coins in JP chests is identical to what it was in April. Continue coins are also more abundant since one drops out of each Zone completion chest.

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Posted by: neon.4863

neon.4863

Thank you for the balance patch. I haven’t tried W2 after the patch yet, but it does seem to address pretty much every issue it possibly could without making things overly trivial. It’s a shame geysers stay permanently up (I’m guessing the knockback issue couldn’t be fixed), I would not have minded them continuing to work the same (them being gone from piranha bend is a blessing, though, since the rapids bug – which I’m guessing also couldn’t be fixed, but has likely been made less punishing by the rapids nerf – was enough to make that part very frustrating).

I think the future update to pits/darts taking one heart rather than causing death will really help with the difficulty curve, too. Overall great patch that should greatly reduce frustration while still keeping W2 at a reasonable difficulty level.

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Posted by: Ardenwolfe.8590

Ardenwolfe.8590

The drop rate of continue coins in JP chests is identical to what it was in April. Continue coins are also more abundant since one drops out of each Zone completion chest.

And the drop rate for chests that aren’t JP chests or Zone completion?

Gone to Reddit.

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Posted by: NeonZergling.1642

NeonZergling.1642

Make is too easy = Everyone is mad
Make is too hard = Everyone is mad
finding the easy/hard balance
Impossible.

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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

Impressed by the patch notes – it seems to be all the issues people wanted worked on without nerfing Normal Mode down to Infantile.

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

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

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Posted by: Arshay Duskbrow.1306

Arshay Duskbrow.1306

Sorry, but even with fixes in place, I never want to experience 2-2 again. I am an old-school gamer and have no problem with difficult games, but that was over two hours of complete hell. I had fifteen continue coins, seven of which had been saved from April, but it was no match for glitchy mechanics, fighting the camera, lack of game feedback, and just sheer overdevelopment. In the end, on my very last life, I intentionally jumped off the edge just so it could be over. Even with all the work I put in, I didn’t finish the level.

It doesn’t matter what you change, I never want to go back there again. I loved SAB in April, but my Super Adventure ends here, and I will be ignoring any future SAB releases.

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Posted by: Farzo.8410

Farzo.8410

Rule #1

Learn to dodge-jump as fast as you can. When you can dodge-jump at will, it all becomes 100% easier, and you can even get to platforms you aren’t really supposed to reach, and get past many, many traps.

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Posted by: Eowin Of Rohan.2619

Eowin Of Rohan.2619

Very nice update !
Thank you
Maybe a bit too much nerf for me (0 dmg from banana’s freeze/frogs, jeyzers fixed), but … you can’t get to a diffilculty level that would be perfect for everyone ^^

Unfortunately at at my parent’s for 4 days and my (old) laptop will probably not let me play SAB in good conditions, but I’m ready to spend full days in there as soon as I get back to my place !

Long live to SAB (and Josh) !

Eowyn

ps : I read somewhere in page20 a comment about how buying an infinite coin raises the fun because you don’t have to worry about lives anymore. I have bought 2 of them (2 accounts) and I can confirm this. But this is a purely psychological effect that can’t be adressed.


edit : @Farzo : how does this work ? Back in April, I tried to set a dodge key (I usually play without it because I prefer double tap on zqsd(wasd)) and all combinations of Z(W), space, V in all order and all time intervals. Never achieved any dodge jump

(edited by Eowin Of Rohan.2619)

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Posted by: Coldin.2840

Coldin.2840

Looks like World 2 Zone 1 is much easier now. The bears giving 10 baubles actually makes them worth dealing with rather than running past. The piranha bend was much easier as well.

I’ll take a look at Zone 2 and 3 later, but so far, all the changes sound pretty great.

Edit: And yes, after finally completing World 2 last night, I went and bought an Infinite Continue Coin today. Mainly so I could go do Tribulation stuff without feeling like I was just wasting lives.

Coldin – Thief – Sanctum of Rall

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Posted by: Mysanthil.4796

Mysanthil.4796

I’m sorry to see the geyser puzzle jump go away, and I hope something like it will be around somewhere. I like the little pattern puzzle you had to figure out to do the jumps properly. Maybe something like Southsun’s jumping puzzle, not on water so there’s no accidental knockback? Even if just in tribulation mode.

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Posted by: Crise.9401

Crise.9401

Thanks for the update. it’s a bit sad that some of those epic challenges had to go, but pattern based geysers + rapids was just brutal, solitary pattern recognition would have been fine (think W1 secret room behind waterfall, just bit more complicated).

In the name of making the content more fun for a lot more people I think right calls were made, some changes are bit heavy handed but that is probably because of the hotfix nature of this patch (if you can actually get spin flowers to work reliably they open so many possibilities for secrets).

Although, there is this one crocodile that was a little too friendly (also apparently I can now levitate, twice in a row so unlikely to be connection related).

Attachments:

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Posted by: Player Character.9467

Player Character.9467

Looks like World 2 Zone 1 is much easier now. The bears giving 10 baubles actually makes them worth dealing with rather than running past. The piranha bend was much easier as well.

You could always stun-hit-hit-stun-hit-hit bears when solo.

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Posted by: NightZero.9425

NightZero.9425

Once again posting for Josh to give us a bauble counter/assassin’s remaining to kill counter for this and all future zones. Please, we beg of you! Or at least award the achievement immediately upon completion instead of having to pray you got them all after killing the boss and ending the zone.

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Posted by: Gav.1425

Gav.1425

You said SAB would be hard. You said it wasn’t for everyone.

Now you nerf it and dumb it all down for those ‘weakest links’. Everyone who did it the hard way, I hope you enjoy the big [Moto’s finger] you just got.

ArenaNet: No newbs left behind!

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Posted by: Cotheer.2806

Cotheer.2806

You said SAB would be hard. You said it wasn’t for everyone.

Now you nerf it and dumb it all down for those ‘weakest links’. Everyone who did it the hard way, I hope you enjoy the big [Moto’s finger] you just got.

ArenaNet: No newbs left behind!

Tribulation dude, tribulation.

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Posted by: Aedelric.1287

Aedelric.1287

Great change, normal mode is almost normal again thanks for the hard work Josh. No doubt more work is planned for the next SAB release as a few more areas need improved, but for now I am fine with what has been done.

I have one suggestion to silence selfish people like Gav.1425 who only care about their own enjoyment. Make a directors cut, a challenge mode made by Moto where no additional rewards beyond normal can be obtained, but can go wild with your ideas like vanilla world 2.

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

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Posted by: Electro.4173

Electro.4173

I know the changes have already happened so its probably a null suggestion at this point, but I think the alterations to the gong run could have been handled completely different.

I felt the gong run itself was perfectly fine. It was tough and required some memorization (or a really keen eye for what’s ahead), sure. But I felt it was something that could be reasonably accomplished with a bit of practice.

The problem was the tower climb before the gong rush, more than the gong itself. Having to spend 30 seconds climbing the tower for every 10 second attempt at the gong was tedious and really hampered how good you could get at the gong itself. Its hard to practice and memorize when you’re spending half a minute doing something else between every attempt. Especially as you got more frustrated, in turn getting more careless and got killed during the climb, setting yourself back even more time between gong runs. That’s exactly how it went for me last night running through 2-2, I got to gong run and died a lot in the tower (fighting enemies in insta-death traps is tough and stressful :p) and by the time I finally got to the top I was tense and running out of time before I had to get off the computer. I could definitely feel myself getting better at the gong and felt it was entirely possible to do it, but with the building pressure of time and tedium of the tower I started screwing up more on the way up, getting fewer gong runs, eventually ran out of time and quit the game. Left feeling frustrated that I could have mastered that gong if only I hadn’t wasted so much time dealing with that darned tower every time.

My personal suggestion would have been to put the checkpoint at the top of the tower (removing the climb altogether, perhaps moving the whole tower downwards visually) while keeping the gong run otherwise the same. That would have removed the tedium of the tower, allowed more effective practice at the gong, and shortened the stage a bit all at once. Losing the tower climb doesn’t seem like a huge deal since aside from the gong itself, its not really that unique (its a dart puzzle, and the stage has other dart puzzles, albeit perhaps a bit less devious than this one).

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Posted by: Xalugami.2096

Xalugami.2096

You said SAB would be hard. You said it wasn’t for everyone.

Now you nerf it and dumb it all down for those ‘weakest links’. Everyone who did it the hard way, I hope you enjoy the big [Moto’s finger] you just got.

ArenaNet: No newbs left behind!

Yeah, just look at all of those nerfs to hard mode.
…wait a sec

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Posted by: Nokaru.7831

Nokaru.7831

What you need to do, is this:

Go back to the old ways of pre-Gauntlet. Where achievements were fun and relaxing and easy and interesting. Those were the days. Not this gauntlet, Liadri, Tribulation stuff when it’s just stupidly hard content.

GW2 was so much fun when it was nice and casual.

In other words:
Make more content only I can enjoy. Never make content for those that seek challenge. Ever.

Self-centered.

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Posted by: Adamantium.3682

Adamantium.3682

Do you need the baubles from the Shortcut Eagle for Bachelor of Baubles, World 2?

[TNO] Gizmo Gigawatt (Engineer)
Jade Quarry

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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

Made it to World 2 on Infantile Mode by myself.

The changes made me actually attempt a few of the jumping sections and it feels like a bit harder than W1 now – that’s the intent, yes? I suck but it was my first try.

Looks good so far!

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

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

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Posted by: Aerlen.5326

Aerlen.5326

You said SAB would be hard. You said it wasn’t for everyone.

Now you nerf it and dumb it all down for those ‘weakest links’. Everyone who did it the hard way, I hope you enjoy the big [Moto’s finger] you just got.

ArenaNet: No newbs left behind!

He said TRIBULATION MODE would be hard and not for everyone. Normal Mode was intended for everyone to try. NO ONE WANTS TRIBULATION MODE NERFED.

I’m getting tired of this crappy misunderstanding, NO ONE IS TOUCHING YOUR PRECIOUS HARD MODE THAT WAS MADE JUST FOR YOU AND NOT FOR EVERYONE.

~Tarnished Coast Pride~

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

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Posted by: elinos.7493

elinos.7493

You said SAB would be hard. You said it wasn’t for everyone.

Now you nerf it and dumb it all down for those ‘weakest links’. Everyone who did it the hard way, I hope you enjoy the big [Moto’s finger] you just got.

ArenaNet: No newbs left behind!

Yeah, just look at all of those nerfs to hard mode.
…wait a sec

You think nerfing geysers, flowers, jumps, mobs and adding checkpoints does not affect hard mode?

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Posted by: Cons.7694

Cons.7694

Congrats on designing one of the most blatantly obvious (but still devious) money grabs I’ve ever seen implemented in an MMO cash shop.

Cranking the difficulty all the way up to “insane” for world 2 NORMAL mode, implementing an hard mode based on trial and error, reducing lives from 5 to 1, brutally reducing the amount of baubles with which you used to be able to buy continue coins, AND introducing the infinite continue coin which can only be purchased from the shop.

I’m assuming you already have the “real” world 2 normal mode ready to go live as soon as the bean counters think they’ve gotten enough money off all of this.

You’re brilliant, Josh. In a different way from what most of the people here are meaning it, but still brilliant

That’s not how things work here. I don’t tell the commerce team how to do their job and they don’t tell me how to do my job. My goal is to make a really fun and compelling experience for players. Insofar as W2 is not fun right now because of the crazy difficulty, that’s on me because I made some poor judgement calls. I lost the forest for the mechanic-trees. I liked this tree and this tree and this tree and this tree… and jammed them all in without taking the big picture in often enough, especially near the end when everything comes together and starts interacting in unpredictable ways. Last time we were just excited to get 8-bit UI, a bounce mushroom and turtles you could knock over for platforms. Now we have projectile enemies, ice, moving platforms, water spout platforms, spin flowers, push blocks, several cooperative puzzles, etc. Now I know next time to give the elements time to breathe, and go hands-off earlier, and if a last minute fix is required to make a new mechanic work (what happened to the water spouts that ended up making them terribad) it should be cut and saved for next time. These are the reasons World 2 is too hard. If the reason was to sell coins I would not be here and you would not see a huge suite of fixes we put together over the last couple of days come out tomorrow.

As to the Infinite Continue Coin I’ll repeat what I said several pages back. I think it’s a great item because it expands the number of people who can experience SAB. There’s probably a good-sized portion of players who don’t want to play it like a real stand-alone old-school game where you have to really learn the levels, find the secrets, earn the resources to get the power-ups etc. In that way it’s like a Game Genie. It also gives people who are really into SAB a chance to vote with their money and support future development.

We decided to do Tribulation Mode in the platform hell style back before we launched the first SAB. Before the idea of an ICC was ever thought up. It matches our personality and humor. We knew there would be people who were really really good at SAB and would wrack up huge numbers of extra lives, and thought Trib Mode would be a great way to spend them.

As to a ‘real’ World 2, that will have to wait for next release when we have time to make the major renovations necessary to put it in the proper context between Worlds 1 and 3. In the mean time, check out the changes we made and see if it’s more fun for you.

The second system effect is strong with this one.

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Posted by: raahk.2786

raahk.2786

Just came across a bug, when falling off of the area directly before the icy snowcaps that lead to the boss of World 2 Zone 2 (the wooden poles you have to jump on), you will lose an extra life. So you fall off, die, then lose two lives instead of just the one.

I only discovered this in tribulation mode, and I’m assuming something that sadistic wasn’t intended.

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Posted by: Xalugami.2096

Xalugami.2096

You think nerfing geysers, flowers, jumps, mobs and adding checkpoints does not affect hard mode?

You mean those things that were making barely any “difficulty” in the first place? The only change I disagree with is the Geysers, but a hotfix is a hotfix. Flowers also definitely needed a fix, maybe not the best one, but it at least has a constant destination instead of “lol tiny spec of lag and now you didn’t jump as far, thanks for the life though”.
But please, go on about how this removes a lot of difficulty from hard mode. Not to be confused with tedium though (such as needing to cross mile-long sections all over again because you died at the end due to invisible spikes, extra checkpoints still retain difficulty and reduce needing to repeat stuff constantly). If its any consolation, Tribulation Mode just got a whole lot harder now that a new checkpoint can kill you each time you respawn, how’s THAT for tough eh?

Seriously though, this was fixing the mess they made in 2-1 & 2-2 the best they could in a short amount of time. Yes it was possible to complete, but it shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was in the first place. It takes a really big chunk of guts for Josh to say the difficulty got out of hand (after defending it a bit for a while). Even more kudos for such speed with the changes. All things considered, the changes still barely effect Tribulation Mode’s difficulty.

After finishing nearly every SAB-related Achievement and replaying the stages, these changes help a ton and you’d really must be foolish (or selfish via “I had to do it, make them do it too!”) not to agree. SAB should be hard, but more importantly, it needs to be fun first.

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

I’m seeing a trend here…

“The second I got into the game, I purchased the infinite life coin. I had a ton of fun playing World 2!”

“I ran out of extra life coins while trying to get past the rapids. This is so hard, I am done.”

Anyone else see the difference? Having infinite lives suddenly makes death trivial, making a stressful part of the game (running out of lives) suddenly stress-free.

This is partially true. The rapids can be frustrating even with infinite lives. Mostly because the rapids take forever to kill you but in a lot of situations you can’t salvage a missed jump.

I will have to try 2-1 with the hotfix changes, though I’m a bit worried about the fact that the rapids will NEVER kill you, unless they drag you all the way off a cliff. We’ll see. I have associate of baubles and secrets so I’ll be okay either way.

Well.. all the water spouts are gone.. Though I did not check side paths and secrets this run through. On the plus side, this feels closer to in line with “world 2” in progressing you towards harder challenges after world 1, on the minus side, I actually did like the spouts having patterns you needed to pay attention to, I just didn’t like how slow the water killed you if you missed a jump, i wanted to be right back trying it again. The knockdown from the water spouts falling hitting you in mid air was kinda wonky too..

I do hope in a future world that a segment like the water spouts returns in a future world Josh, it reminded me of the disappearing block rooms in Mega Man games, which I enjoyed, just maybe take out the knockdown and let people just fall normally if they’re on a spout when it stops? Just make it lava or a bottomless pit if you fall for them, no banging head on keyboard waiting to die

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

(edited by Devildoc.6721)

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Posted by: Cotheer.2806

Cotheer.2806

2-1 is a breeze now.
2-2 on the other hand, is still way too long, doable, but too long. (and no, that’s not what she said).
To think doing 2-2 in tribulation mode….shivers

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Posted by: AppleHack.7340

AppleHack.7340

2-1 is a breeze now.
2-2 on the other hand, is still way too long, doable, but too long. (and no, that’s not what she said).
To think doing 2-2 in tribulation mode….shivers

Oh 2.2 in TM is easy now because they just nerfed all of the actually hard jumps that were in there and you have double the checkpoints of normal mode.

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Posted by: scinder.8315

scinder.8315

No, it is not ‘easy’. It might be ‘easier’ for someone who already knows exactly what to do but for someone who has no knowledge, it will still be a challenge.

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Posted by: raahk.2786

raahk.2786

2-1 is a breeze now.
2-2 on the other hand, is still way too long, doable, but too long. (and no, that’s not what she said).
To think doing 2-2 in tribulation mode….shivers

I did it right before the patch hit

It’s hell on earth

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Posted by: fungihoujo.8476

fungihoujo.8476

Make is too easy = Everyone is mad
Make is too hard = Everyone is mad
finding the easy/hard balance
Impossible.

You know what they could have done to begin with.

Make a mode that’s easy enough that everyone is able to do it, let’s call this “Normal Mode”. Then, made a mode that is so hard almost nobody can do it, and everyone who can has bought the infinite coin, let’s call this one “Tribulation Mode”.

Maybe that would work.

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Posted by: AppleHack.7340

AppleHack.7340

Make is too easy = Everyone is mad
Make is too hard = Everyone is mad
finding the easy/hard balance
Impossible.

You know what they could have done to begin with.

Make a mode that’s easy enough that everyone is able to do it, let’s call this “Normal Mode”. Then, made a mode that is so hard almost nobody can do it, and everyone who can has bought the infinite coin, let’s call this one “Tribulation Mode”.

Maybe that would work.

Give the man a nobel prize! Someone finally figured it out!

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Posted by: Mouby.7096

Mouby.7096

People don’t get it, the trib mode is supposed to be the “hardmode”, it is supposed to be hard. Stop whining if you can’t make it. You simply don’t deserve it in this case.