Guild Wars 2

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Protip: Tribulation Mode.

Hasn’t tried it yet
Calls it a cake walk

Normal mode wasn’t meant to be this difficult for everyone. This is a good patch – well done guys and thank you for listeneing

Well, I liked the difficulcy too, but think about the curve for the next worlds.

Before this fix:
W1: easy, W2: hard, W3: ultra-hard?, W4: impossible?

After this fix:
W1: easy, W2: normal, W3: hard?, W4: super-hard?

On short time, I’ll miss the difficulty, on long term sight, it may be clever to reduce the difficulty curve.

At a glance at the patch notes, I’ll miss some of the difficulty, but I imagine it was hard to keep the water spouts as going up and down while removing the weird knockback bug.

Looking at the patch notes, it fixed the problems a lot of people were having in Piranha Bend (hopefully). It made 2-2 not such a terrible grind. These are both improvements to problems that didn’t make it hard in the way it was intended, but hard because of bugs and/or wonky mechanics.

Thanathos said it well: World 2 is still a notch above World 1 in difficult level, and with this patch it allows Josh and the team to continue to ramp up difficult without it becoming impossible.

Off to try the changes now!

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

After trying many times yoruselves and eventually managing to do hard content, they nerf it because of all the complaining…it’s almsot as if they’re just laughing at you and say: “well.. nice you’ve tried and got everything through skill/perseverance, now we’ll give everyone else the achievements for free.”

It’s really saddening this happens everytime.
I’m glad they didn’t nerf Liadri.

Thank you soooo much—my kids had given up on World 2 entirely due to the difficulty of the rapids and now they will be able to enjoy it again. Thank you for listening to us!

As some people, I’ll miss some elements of difficulty.
However, the great majority of the changes I wholeheartedly agree with and welcome
Especially about zone 1 (rapid rivers).
I don’t think the change to geysers was necessary (that they no longer go down), maybe longer duration would have been enough.
Also this “Geysers were removed from Piranha Bend in World 2-1 and been replaced with more piranha for overall difficulty reduction.”
More checkpoints and better rewards are also a great change.
I find it very good and appropriate, great job

Hopefully the changes don’t apply to TM too.

Well I guess if the new Teq is too difficult within the first few days then all we have to do is complain.

I’ll miss the difficulty, too, but I understand Josh didn’t intend World 2 to only be completed by the best jumpers, so I don’t mind. I still have tribulation mode and world 3 and 4!

I was actually having a lot of fun yesterday with my brother failing miserably to finish the new zones, getting perma-knocked by the water rapids, missing a geyser, being roflstomped in Tribulation mode. Eventually we succeeded but many lives were lost that day T_T

But idk that’s only because we don’t take things too seriously, if we died then we’ll go back and keep trying, still after playing and watching in the forums this seems to be a much needed patch. For me personally that knockback was just annoying, we’ll always have Tribulation mode for a challenge and hopefully the last 2 worlds will be harder… Let normal mode be that, a normal difficulty…

TenkenSan.3482:

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

After trying many times yoruselves and eventually managing to do hard content, they nerf it because of all the complaining…it’s almsot as if they’re just laughing at you and say: “well.. nice you’ve tried and got everything through skill/perseverance, now we’ll give everyone else the achievements for free.”

It’s really saddening this happens everytime.
I’m glad they didn’t nerf Liadri.

Many of the issues weren’t hard due to skill barrier or concept, they were hard because of the game engine. Things like knockback into rapids as the geysers lowered – despite you being in the clear, getting knocked into rapids on random objects despite you being in clear. Not to mention people don’t really enjoy being flung halfway across the level for one mistake. Other things were simply not ideal in player minds like long stretches of content with lack of checkpoints where one mistake in the room killed you (and this is normal, not Tribulation). I don’t believe that’s the type of difficulty Josh Foreman was going for.

Oh, I’m soooo looking forward to getting into World 2 now. Maybe I won’t feel rushed through the zones and can actually explore and have fun.

TenkenSan.3482:

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

You’re right, hard content isn’t meant to be done by everyone. Normal content is.

Totally okay that normal mode was made easier, especially as most of the challenges came from fighting the engine rather than playing the level itself.

This patch was a huge downer for me, loved the difficulty where it was.. ah well. I hope all the complainers are happy now and can go enjoy SAB.

Sera.6539:

TenkenSan.3482:

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

After trying many times yoruselves and eventually managing to do hard content, they nerf it because of all the complaining…it’s almsot as if they’re just laughing at you and say: “well.. nice you’ve tried and got everything through skill/perseverance, now we’ll give everyone else the achievements for free.”

It’s really saddening this happens everytime.
I’m glad they didn’t nerf Liadri.

Many of the issues weren’t hard due to skill barrier or concept, they were hard because of the game engine. Things like knockback into rapids as the geysers lowered – despite you being in the clear, getting knocked into rapids on random objects despite you being in clear. Not to mention people don’t really enjoy being flung halfway across the level for one mistake. Other things were simply not ideal in player minds like long stretches of content with lack of checkpoints where one mistake in the room killed you (and this is normal, not Tribulation). I don’t believe that’s the type of difficulty Josh Foreman was going for.

Difficulty due to the game engine, even if unintended by the developer, is still a skill barrier. Yes, the geysers were buggy, but with practice, skill, observation, and timing, even that bugginess could be mastered.

Stormleaf.1769:

Sera.6539:

TenkenSan.3482:

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

After trying many times yoruselves and eventually managing to do hard content, they nerf it because of all the complaining…it’s almsot as if they’re just laughing at you and say: “well.. nice you’ve tried and got everything through skill/perseverance, now we’ll give everyone else the achievements for free.”

It’s really saddening this happens everytime.
I’m glad they didn’t nerf Liadri.

Many of the issues weren’t hard due to skill barrier or concept, they were hard because of the game engine. Things like knockback into rapids as the geysers lowered – despite you being in the clear, getting knocked into rapids on random objects despite you being in clear. Not to mention people don’t really enjoy being flung halfway across the level for one mistake. Other things were simply not ideal in player minds like long stretches of content with lack of checkpoints where one mistake in the room killed you (and this is normal, not Tribulation). I don’t believe that’s the type of difficulty Josh Foreman was going for.

Difficulty due to the game engine, even if unintended by the developer, is still a skill barrier. Yes, the geysers were buggy, but with practice, skill, observation, and timing, even that bugginess could be mastered.

I do believe Josh Foreman said somewhere in that large thread that he wants to control the difficulty, and doesn’t want the game engine to dictate that, if possible.

I’m glad for the changes. He’s been willing to listen to tons of people criticize his work, take it with a calm attitude, work out a solution and keep people up to date. I love SAB, and I certainly don’t want to dissuade him from creating imaginative / difficult levels in the future. But some things just don’t work out well combined with the engine.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

TenkenSan.3482:

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

You’re right, hard content isn’t meant to be done by everyone. Normal content is.

Totally okay that normal mode was made easier, especially as most of the challenges came from fighting the engine rather than playing the level itself.

^ This.

The “hard” content is called “Tribulation Mode” and it was made just for the hardcore players. Normal Mode wasn’t. No one wanted TM nerfed, no one wants to take away TM from you guys, normal players wanted changes to NM – most of which involved bugs and game engine issues.

For kitten’s sake, stop acting like all the “hard” content was baby moded. It wasn’t. It won’t be.

I’m fine with the difficulty nerf, the normal mode is SUPPOSED to be doable by the vast majority of players. I’m more worried that the spin flowers will not allow some secrets to be obtained now…

until you have completed trib mode with 1 life and no continue coins I don’t think you should comment on not have enough difficult content.

JayMack.8295:

I’ll miss the difficulty, too, but I understand Josh didn’t intend World 2 to only be completed by the best jumpers, so I don’t mind. I still have tribulation mode and world 3 and 4!

This comment is a good comment.

Difficulty progression needs to feel natural. It didn’t. This was addressed. There were buggy mechanics that couldn’t be fixed due to engine limitations. They nerfed these mechanics so that the bugs would be less damaging.

Perfect patch in terms of game design. You’ll get your difficulty back in World 3 and 4, let people who are still learning the ropes actually be able to learn them.

I am actually looking forward to TM (I haven’t had the time yet to do it properly), but I wasn’t looking forward at all to the glitchfest that was the rapids, remembering it from April.

It’s not about difficulty of the actual content, I didn’t want that nerfed (and nobody I know did) – it’s about reliability and repeatability. There is no way to learn how to overcome an obstacle if the outcome of your jumps is random. Then it is just a matter of grinding out tries until the glitchy engine decides to allow you to pass for once.

If the engine’s behaviour is reliable and repeatable (for instance that you have to jump from further away to get onto a ledge) then there is no problem.

So no, we didn’t want to be handed rewards on a silver plate – we just wanted the game to treat us with fairness, and to not waste our time with unintended randomness.

You have to keep in mind that these are hotfixes… there is limits to what they can do and put out quickly, like Josh said the real polished balance pass for world 2 would come with next round of SAB.

I want to ask though, what does “Geysers will always remain up and will never go back down.” this actually mean?

In my opinion Geyser’s and Rapids is the brutal combination here for normal mode, but solitary Geyser’s like the once in the first hidden room in World 1 are fine, and retain the pattern recognition mechanic.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I am actually looking forward to TM (I haven’t had the time yet to do it properly), but I wasn’t looking forward at all to the glitchfest that was the rapids, remembering it from April.

It’s not about difficulty of the actual content, I didn’t want that nerfed (and nobody I know did) – it’s about reliability and repeatability. There is no way to learn how to overcome an obstacle if the outcome of your jumps is random. Then it is just a matter of grinding out tries until the glitchy engine decides to allow you to pass for once.

If the engine’s behaviour is reliable and repeatable (for instance that you have to jump from further away to get onto a ledge) then there is no problem.

So no, we didn’t want to be handed rewards on a silver plate – we just wanted the game to treat us with fairness, and to not waste our time with unintended randomness.

If you are referring to the geysers, after many falls I learned that if you jump a little earlier you avoid the knockback bug they cause when they disappear from under your feet. There’s little to no randomness to it, because I can replicate succesfull jumps easily.

That is not to say that the difficulty shouldn’t have been reduced, but by reading the patch notes I think they overdid it. Bananas do no damage? What is their point then, they are rarely (or never?) mixed up with other enemies, now they are less dangerous then freaking snakes.

Oh well, I got Trib Mode

Edit: Just read Crise’s post. Makes a lot of sense. Much appreciated, Josh.

What next OP are you going to ask for the removal of clouds for infantile mode because that game mode is also not up to your skill?

Normal mode is now normal again, quite a lot better in my opinion. One or two more things could still be changed, but likely that would require a lot more work, it will do fine for this release though.

If you have problems with -normal- mode being normal, then try playing tribulation mode, that is likely more your speed, you also get better rewards.

If they just gave us back flowers, it would have been enough.

shame, it was perfect the way it was before the patch.

WHY ! Why would you nerf geysers they were perfectly fine. A little bit of timing in jumping wasnt a bad thing ! Please bring back geysers ! They were fairly easy. Now they are TOO easy.

Gajsu.5014:

WHY ! Why would you nerf geysers they were perfectly fine. A little bit of timing in jumping wasnt a bad thing ! Please bring back geysers ! They were fairly easy. Now they are TOO easy.

The geysers were killing people who jumped on them even when they just came up, there were server-client issues.

Please Anet, don’t listen to all the whiners who ask for a nerf when they a face a little difficulty. It was perfectly doable before patch, and you’re not showing respect for the players who did it before the patch. It’s not because some people make a rant on the forum that 100% of the playerbase agree with that…

Running W2Z1 again for my daily and the rapid part with the geysers has completely been changed. There are no more geysers except for one at the end to go through the waterfall. It now takes zero effort to go through except for one part that has a jumping stone. Nothing a single dodge roll won’t fix.

The next change is when you get to the hillbilly part, also by the entrance to the maze, I noticed a balloon checkpoint as you drop down from the cliff. Once you proceed further, you’ll see the cloud directly in front of the cave entrance.

EDIT: There is now a column that goes up the waterfall in the middle. It reaches about half way. The geyser to the hidden shop also stays up permanently.

EDIT2: There’s also a cloud at the top of the cliff as you’re about to hop across the descending logs to the final check point. The new platform has spikes in TM. The balloon for that cloud checkpoint is in a nook to the right from the checkpoint to to that area.

You’re now forced to proceed across the waterfall when both platforms are coming down at the same time. Otherwise you’ll never make it over the platform with the spikes. It kind of takes away the guesswork of when to jump now.

I’ve got a great idea. The bugs reported in TM? Don’t fix them. At all. Spawning in lava, spawning in spikes.. the ones being reported now.. leave them. It’s supposed to be “hard mode”, right? Leave all the server-client issues and bugs in TM because maybe it’ll shut up the hardcores.

Seriously though, I’m not happy to hear some fixes to NM bled into TM and I don’t even play TM. I want the hardcores to have their content too (and I’m SICK of every time something like this happens, it’s time to call the rest of the playerbase ‘noobs’ in revenge. No. Cut it out. No one wanted TM nerfed. No one. Talk to the Devs about this – no one asked for TM to be changed).

Kaleban.9834:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Protip: Tribulation Mode.

Protip: All changes made to Normal mode were also made to Tribulation Mode and it too is now a cake walk.

AppleHack.7340:

Kaleban.9834:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Protip: Tribulation Mode.

Protip: All changes made to Normal mode were also made to Tribulation Mode and it too is now a cake walk.

Yep. I already miss SAB vanilla.

Thanks for the fix Josh and team.

Although SAB being fairly difficult was somewhat fun, normal mode really did need a nerf considering how many frustrating parts there were. Personally I don’t think you should have changed Tribulation mode since that is designed to frustrate the player, but thanks for putting out the patch so quickly. Now you just need to get rid of all those pesky bugs that came with the change.

GoldenTruth.2853:

Thanks for the fix Josh and team.

Although SAB being fairly difficult was somewhat fun, normal mode really did need a nerf considering how many frustrating parts there were. Personally I don’t think you should have changed Tribulation mode since that is designed to frustrate the player, but thanks for putting out the patch so quickly. Now you just need to get rid of all those pesky bugs that came with the change.

Yeah like the bug of Normal mode changes affecting TM. (I sure do hope it is one.)

I bought a infinite coin so i didn’t have to stress out on dieing… now with this change i just….. its a bit insulting it was difficult…but really only in a few areas due to lag i felt like… after doing a run threw after seeing everything on baby mode normal wasn’t that bad.

I am happy this opens this up for more people but i am unsure how i feel about the total nerf to it all vs a few minor areas.

Ayrilana.1396:

Running W2Z1 again for my daily and the rapid part with the geysers has completely been changed. There are no more geysers except for one at the end to go through the waterfall. It now takes zero effort to go through except for one part that has a jumping stone. Nothing a single dodge roll won’t fix.

The next change is when you get to the hillbilly part, also by the entrance to the maze, I noticed a balloon checkpoint as you drop down from the cliff. Once you proceed further, you’ll see the cloud directly in front of the cave entrance.

EDIT: There is now a column that goes up the waterfall in the middle. It reaches about half way. The geyser to the hidden shop also stays up permanently.

EDIT2: There’s also a cloud at the top of the cliff as you’re about to hop across the descending logs to the final check point. The new platform has spikes in TM. The balloon for that cloud checkpoint is in a nook to the right from the checkpoint to to that area.

You’re now forced to proceed across the waterfall when both platforms are coming down at the same time. Otherwise you’ll never make it over the platform with the spikes. It kind of takes away the guesswork of when to jump now.

To be fair, if you could do normal mode w2z1 before the patch, you could also do that one on TM. The other two zones are something entirely different and much less has changed there. It’s true however that the last part was probably by far the most annoying part in that zone (doing the entire jump again everytime you got hit by a piranna or failed a jump), so guess it takes away some of the difficulty. But I doubt anyone who made it to that point would actually quit saying “this is too hard” when they are that close to the end.

So overall, I’m not sure if this all diminishes the value of our yellow skins. Maybe just a tiny bit, but I’m not too sure if people who were struggling with z2 and z3 before the patch are now suddenly rushing through it and gettign yellow skins left and right.

lol @ qq over nerfs. If they thought it was worth a nerf, it was worth a nerf.

Love this " i beat original, therefor I am better " entitlement culture.

AppleHack.7340:

Kaleban.9834:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Protip: Tribulation Mode.

Protip: All changes made to Normal mode were also made to Tribulation Mode and it too is now a cake walk.

Please upload that video of you going through TM without an infinite continue coin and without dying once, since it’s a cake walk this shouldn’t be an issue.

fungihoujo.8476:

AppleHack.7340:

Kaleban.9834:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Protip: Tribulation Mode.

Protip: All changes made to Normal mode were also made to Tribulation Mode and it too is now a cake walk.

Please upload that video of you going through TM without an infinite continue coin and without dying once, since it’s a cake walk this shouldn’t be an issue.

Ha, he cant. Isn’t that exciting.

fungihoujo.8476:

AppleHack.7340:

Kaleban.9834:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I actually liked the difficulty for World 2. Now its a cake walk.

Protip: Tribulation Mode.

Protip: All changes made to Normal mode were also made to Tribulation Mode and it too is now a cake walk.

Please upload that video of you going through TM without an infinite continue coin and without dying once, since it’s a cake walk this shouldn’t be an issue.

Infinite coin has nothing to do with the difficulty, especially when you are requesting me to do it without dying once. Also proving to you that i can do it is not worth the effor of: Finding a working copy of Fraps, Filming it, Rendering it, Uploading it.

Edit: Oh i didn’t even remember to mention the process of finding a virus free crack for Sony Vegas.

People who play games need to start growing up. Games should only ever be played on their highest difficulty setting. So many people want a mindless experience of go from point A to point B with no skill added in between. People have to stop wanting that. Basically begging for nerfs is like a fat person begging for fast food to not have negative effects on his body if he eats too much of it. You want the prize, but not the consequences that come with trying to get the prize. The prize really has no meaning if you didn’t do anything to achieve or deserve it. That’s what makes gaming fun, beating something that takes skill and attention to beat.

That said, I think ANet should have made the award for Super Adventure Box: Back To School achievement category be an Infinite Continue Coin and have the Tribulation Mode achievement category award the Yellow Backpack. There would be tonnes less whining. I just don’t understand how people who hit a road block in video games ask for it to be deleted from the game rather than trying to find a way around.

PBag.7450:

People who play games need to start growing up. Games should only ever be played on their highest difficulty setting. So many people want a mindless experience of go from point A to point B with no skill added in between. People have to stop wanting that. Basically begging for nerfs is like a fat person begging for fast food to not have negative effects on his body if he eats too much of it. You want the prize, but not the consequences that come with trying to get the prize. The prize really has no meaning if you didn’t do anything to achieve or deserve it. That’s what makes gaming fun, beating something that takes skill and attention to beat.

That said, I think ANet should have made the award for Super Adventure Box: Back To School achievement category be an Infinite Continue Coin and have the Tribulation Mode achievement category award the Yellow Backpack. There would be tonnes less whining. I just don’t understand how people who hit a road block in video games ask for it to be deleted from the game rather than trying to find a way around.

And the award for missing the point of the patch goes to….

PBag.7450:

People who play games need to start growing up.

And while you are at it get a job and start wearing suits!

Seriously, games are for fun and you have to be a child at heart to enjoy them. This is a game not a job, people play it to mess around, relax and have fun.

Now to the rest, not everyone’s definition of fun is the same. Hard does not equal enjoyable or good content. You want it hard then do things like Tribulation and Liadri, if you found them too easy then perhaps Guild Wars II is not the game for you.

Remeber Guild Wars II was sold on the idea of being -casual friendly-, not ultra hard super elite MLG gameplay. If you bought the game to be tested to your utmost limits, then perhaps you got the wrong game?

Aedelric.1287:

PBag.7450:

People who play games need to start growing up.

And while you are at it get a job and start wearing suits!

Seriously, games are for fun and you have to be a child at heart to enjoy them. This is a game not a job, people play it to mess around, relax and have fun.

Now to the rest, not everyone’s definition of fun is the same. Hard does not equal enjoyable or good content. You want it hard then do things like Tribulation and Liadri, if you found them too easy then perhaps Guild Wars II is not the game for you.

Remeber Guild Wars II was sold on the idea of being -casual friendly-, not ultra hard super elite MLG gameplay. If you bought the game to be tested to your utmost limits, then perhaps you got the wrong game?

Yes, the problem is when they go and nerf the Tribulation Mode like they just did.

They cease to be rewarding when you dumb them down to “Press W to win.” Thus, they aren’t fun anymore and are a mindless chore. Games should be challenging and frustrating. Because the end reward will be greater because of the emotions you’ve poured into the game. You want “Casual-Friendly”? Then maybe SAB isn’t for you. You have to spend at least 10 minutes on World 2 Zone 2 on infantile mode….30 minutes if you want World 2 Zone 2. I’ve seen more posts about how W2Z2 is impossible than I can read before living story is over. And yet there’s a freaking shortcut that goes from Checkpoint 2 to the boss. I completed all the worlds and zones and I can honestly say that the material there is nowhere near impossible and takes about one or two tries to get the hang of. So why can’t people casually try to complete the achievement categories without casually complaining?

AppleHack.7340:

Aedelric.1287:

PBag.7450:

People who play games need to start growing up.

And while you are at it get a job and start wearing suits!

Seriously, games are for fun and you have to be a child at heart to enjoy them. This is a game not a job, people play it to mess around, relax and have fun.

Now to the rest, not everyone’s definition of fun is the same. Hard does not equal enjoyable or good content. You want it hard then do things like Tribulation and Liadri, if you found them too easy then perhaps Guild Wars II is not the game for you.

Remeber Guild Wars II was sold on the idea of being -casual friendly-, not ultra hard super elite MLG gameplay. If you bought the game to be tested to your utmost limits, then perhaps you got the wrong game?

Yes, the problem is when they go and nerf the Tribulation Mode like they just did.

Yeah, because adding three check points across two zones is such a major nerf. I even deleted all my TM rewards because now they are worthless. /sarcasm

Barabbas.8715:

AppleHack.7340:

Aedelric.1287:

PBag.7450:

People who play games need to start growing up.

And while you are at it get a job and start wearing suits!

Seriously, games are for fun and you have to be a child at heart to enjoy them. This is a game not a job, people play it to mess around, relax and have fun.

Now to the rest, not everyone’s definition of fun is the same. Hard does not equal enjoyable or good content. You want it hard then do things like Tribulation and Liadri, if you found them too easy then perhaps Guild Wars II is not the game for you.

Remeber Guild Wars II was sold on the idea of being -casual friendly-, not ultra hard super elite MLG gameplay. If you bought the game to be tested to your utmost limits, then perhaps you got the wrong game?

Yes, the problem is when they go and nerf the Tribulation Mode like they just did.

Yeah, because adding three check points across two zones is such a major nerf. I even deleted all my TM rewards because now they are worthless. /sarcasm

Or maybe you could do some research before posting and notice that all the nerfs they did to Normal mode also carried over to the Tribulation mode.