Guild Wars 2

Beat all of the cat mario’s nbd JOSH PLIS MY BODY IS READY.

Josh Foreman.8250:

And the thing about how it is unfair: yes, it is. However there is a deep satisfaction to be had in overcoming in an unfair fight. In these games your only real power is tenacity. And besides, it’s only unfair in the short feedback loops. (Here’s some information on feedback loops in game design: ) http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/wiki/index.php?title=Feedback_Analysis_and_Recurrent_Patterns

But the longer (and more substantive) feedback loop is a process of learning how the designer thinks. Discovering that style and finding how to navigate the level better as a result. The first lesson is this: the most obvious easy way will most likely kill you. The harder, more circuitous rout will probably be the way to go. This creates a joy of discovery and overcoming that few other genres can provide. But it is an acquired taste.

So THAT’s why there are so many instant kill mechanics in Guild Wars 2 dungeons/gauntlet/‘challenging bosses’, and why only berserker gear is worth taking.

Could you at least state that now you’ve added that design in the SAB, you’ll refrain from adding it to future regular content? Because a lot of us are really sick of seeing the gear and builds we worked so kitten being invalidated.

Like you said yourself, this content isn’t for everyone…and thus PLEASE keep it out of the rest of the game. Thanks.

Josh Foreman.8250:

snip

You should really post this on the GW2-website and launcher inbefore sh*tstorm happening.

But on a totally different note (wrong thread?) I agree with ThiBash – the emphasis on pure damageoutput kinda sucks. But I believe this was mentioned several times.

Josh Foreman.8250:

blah blah

That explains a lot. You do indeed sound sadistic, which is troubling. What’s the point of investing this much time and effort of development in content that only a handful will enjoy AND come here and brag about it? Can only be sadism. Maybe you could try to make more popular content for the people that bought your game(1), which certainly didn’t buy it expecting this.

(1) New permanent content such as areas, skills, classes, skins, dungeons.

No. Please enjoy the little freedom you grant yourselves as gamedevelopers.

Moss.5371:

Josh Foreman.8250:

blah blah

That explains a lot. You do indeed sound sadistic, which is troubling. What’s the point of investing this much time and effort of development in content that only a handful will enjoy AND come here and brag about it? Can only be sadism. Maybe you could try to make more popular content for the people that bought your game(1), which certainly didn’t buy it expecting this.

(1) New permanent content such as areas, skills, classes, skins, dungeons.

Why do you know people won’t enjoy SAB TM? Some years ago, in NES era, almost every game used this kind of design to offer fun. And people enjoyed those games a lot (Ninja Gaiden – as stated above -, Werewolf… even Super Mario Bros -those falling platforms! -). Megaman or Metroid were very hard too and I don’t think they can be considered a fail

Josh Foreman.8250:

Another commonality among games in the genre (which I’m not aware of having a name yet… let me know if you’ve heard of one) is that lives are extremely cheap, and you blow through them. Lives are like HP in an RPG or ammo in an FPS. You go in EXPECTING to lose a LOT. If you interpret losing a life as “failure” then you will have a miserable time. It would be like feeling like you “fail” when you take damage in a turn based role playing game. Instead, if you see every death as another learning experience, you’ll have a much better time. Kind of like the way your armor rating increases when you take damage in Skyrim. So part of preparing for a TM run, you’ll be ‘leveling up’ your ‘life meter’ by collecting as many lives and Continue Coins as you can.

Another thing is – you can return to the process very fast and continue to test new ideas. Please, don’t tell me we still need to see all those dialogs and cut scenes with coins, princess etc which we can’t skip every time.

Tribulation mode rage through inc.
You will die many times just to know that you die on that spot. Its about dying through the game. Oh yeah people who already dislike SAB will hate this, thats great

Cassius.4831:

Why do you know people won’t enjoy SAB TM?

Because he said so: “TM is there for a very small group of people who are into that sort of thing.”

If you really hate Trial an Error type games so much, you can wait about three days and videos will be posted on youtube showing you exactly what to do to not die. Just saying……….

I can’t wait for this. Mega excited!

OK, so I was excited before about this tribulation mode… and now I watched the reference about cat mario… and I can’t wait for Tuesday to arrive, I am even more excited now

does SAB2 mini game has tons of achievements?

Moss.5371:

Josh Foreman.8250:

blah blah

That explains a lot. You do indeed sound sadistic, which is troubling. What’s the point of investing this much time and effort of development in content that only a handful will enjoy AND come here and brag about it? Can only be sadism. Maybe you could try to make more popular content for the people that bought your game(1), which certainly didn’t buy it expecting this.

(1) New permanent content such as areas, skills, classes, skins, dungeons.

Another player who thinks all employees of Anet could put their extratime to suddenly jump over to another team and do a few maps, skills and dungeons just becouse they are devs or something.

Josh’s team is working on SAB, so if they wouldn’t be working on TM then there would be something else for SAB.
I myself don’t think I will be able to handle TM but I will try and I hope I am good enough but I won’t whine since I know it will be back so that I can give another try, I love SAB and if I don’t have something better to do I could atleast try… Again… And again.

Just becouse Josh thinks TM isn’t as popular as a regular Hard Mode (less lives and stronger enemies) doesn’t mean “only a handfull of people will like it”, it is also about making everyone happy, not just the majority.

Last update with champion loot we got quite alot new permanent skins, Ascended weapons is comming and probably they have new skins.

I got lot’s to say about not needing Permanent Classes and Areas but this is not the thread for that.

As long as getting lives isn’t tough like in those rage games I’ll have fun.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m going to lay out the game philosophy behind how we decided to do Tribulation Mode because I think it’s going to be misunderstood by a lot of folks.

First, here’s a playthrough of two games that are in the style we are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22oTEDa2Rxk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAH2KMiscqY

Some people aren’t aware that this genre exists, and SAB TM may be their first exposure to it. We took a creative risk by going in this direction with it rather than the standard make-enemies-hit-harder-and-give-you-less-health approach that most games use to ramp up difficulty. That would have been very easy and very safe. (And probably more popular.) But we never do anything the easy or safe way.

The thing that makes this approach tricky is that on its surface, it seems to be bad design because it is intrinsically unfair. What fans of the genre understand is that there is a depth there that comes from a really interesting dynamic in the communication between the designer and the player that doesn’t exist in other games. It’s hard to articulate, but I would say it’s something like friendly pranking. There’s great pleasure to be had in finding ways to outwit a prankster. And that can’t happen unless you have a prankster. And that’s what the designer provides. People who don’t ‘get’ this kind of game see it like the designer is trolling out of cruelty, and so they read malicious intent into the invisible insta-kills. But that’s just not the case. It’s simply a specific kind of content made for a specific kind of player who wants in on the pranks. Yes, raging is part of the process. In fact, I rage at myself when I play TM all the time!

And the thing about how it is unfair: yes, it is. However there is a deep satisfaction to be had in overcoming in an unfair fight. In these games your only real power is tenacity. And besides, it’s only unfair in the short feedback loops. (Here’s some information on feedback loops in game design: ) http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/wiki/index.php?title=Feedback_Analysis_and_Recurrent_Patterns

But the longer (and more substantive) feedback loop is a process of learning how the designer thinks. Discovering that style and finding how to navigate the level better as a result. The first lesson is this: the most obvious easy way will most likely kill you. The harder, more circuitous rout will probably be the way to go. This creates a joy of discovery and overcoming that few other genres can provide. But it is an acquired taste.

Another commonality among games in the genre (which I’m not aware of having a name yet… let me know if you’ve heard of one) is that lives are extremely cheap, and you blow through them. Lives are like HP in an RPG or ammo in an FPS. You go in EXPECTING to lose a LOT. If you interpret losing a life as “failure” then you will have a miserable time. It would be like feeling like you “fail” when you take damage in a turn based role playing game. Instead, if you see every death as another learning experience, you’ll have a much better time. Kind of like the way your armor rating increases when you take damage in Skyrim. So part of preparing for a TM run, you’ll be ‘leveling up’ your ‘life meter’ by collecting as many lives and Continue Coins as you can.

Hahaha, you got me so excited with this post.

You and your team are awesome, this will be the second time you provide content that I will actually enjoy spending my time on.

Also I hope that it’s playable for people outside the US because the rubberbanding in this game seems to kill some game modes (I’m looking at ou sanctum sprint and crab toss!).

I think most of the people in this thread complaining never played anything in the 8bit generation or earlier. Not everyone thinks candyland-easy games are fun. That’s why ultra-hard games exist in the first place.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m going to lay out the game philosophy behind how we decided to do Tribulation Mode because I think it’s going to be misunderstood by a lot of folks.

First, here’s a playthrough of two games that are in the style we are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22oTEDa2Rxk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAH2KMiscqY

I love you! In the past I have once suggested this as an alternative hard mode for a game I was working at. But the designers felt it was too risky, or they didn’t understand the concept. But your write up of the psychology behind it is perfect. I’m even more excited for SAB now.

BTW, does this mean we were right when we discussed the idea of the lava underneath level 1 being used as an alternative hard mode?

Moss.5371:

Josh Foreman.8250:

blah blah

That explains a lot. You do indeed sound sadistic, which is troubling. What’s the point of investing this much time and effort of development in content that only a handful will enjoy AND come here and brag about it? Can only be sadism. Maybe you could try to make more popular content for the people that bought your game(1), which certainly didn’t buy it expecting this.

(1) New permanent content such as areas, skills, classes, skins, dungeons.

I’ll try to follow your logic (watch out for sarcasm):
Why develop PvP when most people don’t play it, why add ascended crafting when only a handful of players “enjoy” grinding for it (haha what a joke). The list could go on with Legendaries, high level fractals and whatever else. Logic.

LostInSmoke.2590:

I think most of the people in this thread complaining never played anything in the 8bit generation or earlier. Not everyone thinks candyland-easy games are fun. That’s why ultra-hard games exist in the first place.

If it can’t be facerolled in zerk then it must be reaaaallly bad.

For a bit of 8-bit style fun – the classic Rick Dangerous
http://rickdangerousflash.free.fr/

Chrispy.5641:

Shinzan.2908

If it’s like those linked games then it should be doable with a guide. If there’s a pattern to learn then it’s not unfair, just difficult as it should be. To me unfair is something based on luck or random chance.

There is nothing difficult about trial and error. The hardest thing about that type of game is setting aside the time to do it.

The simplest example I can give is a path where you can go left and right, if the left path has an instant dead trap then you just learn to avoid it and take the right one next.

Having the trap appear on a random path each time would be BS and in that case complains about unfairness and fake difficulty would be valid imo.

I have a feeling I’ll be skipping TM.

I just hope that Anet is ready for the hate… Because there will be a lot.

Oh god an IWBTG reference from Anet. I love IWBTG.

No amount of walkthroughs can prepare you for a game like that. Extremely frustrating but very rewarding once you beat it.

Josh Foreman.8250:

snip

I am horrible as hell when it comes to platforming, but the idea of using IWTBTG as your inspiration makes me a bit excited to try this mode out. I would agree that failures is an important element to the SAB, or the game in general. It will force the players to relearn or evaluate their strategy rather than just zerging through the content.

I love this Josh, never change your mindset for difficulty! I love the JPs in GW2, but I’ve beaten almost all of them without a problem. Eternal Battleground and Metrica JPs are my favorites, and the Clocktower from Halloween makes the list. I really hope that it’s not made easier, but perhaps given a easy and hard mode.

Speaking of easy and hard modes, a lot more content could use this dose. Personal story, dungeons, etc, like SAB will get and FotM has. This ensures casual people can still complete the content, but there’s always something higher for the people who seeks the thrill of challenges.

I’m looking forward to try the tribulation mode. Hopefully will give some nostalgic trips to the old games. :p

Interesting. So TM is not really difficult but just time consuming?

Krugan.7901:

Interesting. So TM is not really difficult but just time consuming?

Sounds like it will be both difficult AND time consuming. Grinding out lives and health in normal mode doesn’t sound like very much fun.

Josh Foreman.8250:

So part of preparing for a TM run, you’ll be ‘leveling up’ your ‘life meter’ by collecting as many lives and Continue Coins as you can.

This is the part that worries me. In the games used as examples, infinite lives seem to be a staple. On the other hand, are we going to have to grind for Continue Coins on regular mode in order to be able to do Tribulation Mode?

So, what you’re saying is SAB TM will be this…

I’m kittening psyched!!

T_T I’m…just…so…happy! Thank you, Josh! I wanna be the guy is one of my favorite games! That Cat Mario video was hilarious! This kind of platformer is by far my favorite kind. Rock on! This might be the first real challenging PvE in gw2.

Hegel.9182:

Josh Foreman.8250:

So part of preparing for a TM run, you’ll be ‘leveling up’ your ‘life meter’ by collecting as many lives and Continue Coins as you can.

This is the part that worries me. In the games used as examples, infinite lives seem to be a staple. On the other hand, are we going to have to grind for Continue Coins on regular mode in order to be able to do Tribulation Mode?

Actually in a lot of the games he’s referring to you literally BOUGHT lives via coins into an arcade machine, but seeing as how life coins are like 100% drops from ANY JP, you should have no problem getting them.

Dunan Atreides.5436:

Josh, while it’s great that you posted this explanation on the forums, If I were you guys I’d double and triple check to make sure that in the game, it’s messaged clearly and succinctly that yes, TM is hard, and yes, you will die a lot.

I do believe the name Tribulation Mode is exactly step in this direction.

By the way, long live House Atreides.

Josh – Thank you for the explanation, I was skeptical at first but, having read about “prankster and prank-ee” and feedback loop, yes, I do get your intention. That’s directly reaching for the early video-game influences (not only the 8-bit graphics) – Back in the time, games weren’t used to be user-friendly, no, they were user-hostile. And they didn’t require a flashing “Achievement unlocked” to feel satisfaction of finishing them. You convinced me and I’m going to try it, even though I might not be the best person for it :P

Now I can’t wait for this hard enough.
You’re the best part of the team, Mr. Foreman.

This is going to be hilarious and sadistic. I’m looking forward to a few hours of lots of cussing till I make it to the end…. only to be crushed by a giant 8-bit boulder as I grab the prize.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This is going to be hilarious and sadistic. I’m looking forward to a few hours of lots of cussing till I make it to the end…. only to be crushed by a giant 8-bit boulder as I grab the prize.

Epic

LostInSmoke.2590:

I think most of the people in this thread complaining never played anything in the 8bit generation or earlier. Not everyone thinks candyland-easy games are fun. That’s why ultra-hard games exist in the first place.

Absolutely true, and I have played a few. That being said, the problem for me is that I didn’t purchase the game (and a few Gem Cards) to play a ‘candyland’ game. I bought it to play a fantasy mmo. If I wanted such a game I would get one or pull out the old DS. If you like that sort of game that’s great. It has no place in the GW2 world imho.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m going to lay out the game philosophy behind how we decided to do Tribulation Mode because I think it’s going to be misunderstood by a lot of folks.

First, here’s a playthrough of two games that are in the style we are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22oTEDa2Rxk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAH2KMiscqY

…

I feel really happy to see developers talk about their game design philosophy on the forum. I am happy to know that the TM is not simply to make-enemies-hit-harder-and-give-you-less-health, which is boring. And I am excited when I see Cat Mario because I love this game.

I love it not only because it offers great satisfaction upon success but more importantly its creativity. This IMO makes the failure in Cat Mario fun and enjoyable. I laugh when I ‘eat’ an enemy coming out from the question mark box.
I laugh when the floor falls down. I laugh when I find that I can have negative lives.
And I know that every death is meaningful for me to figure out the way.
Yes, you mention that we should not interpret losing lives as failure. This is a good point. Cat Mario is successful in making me feel death is fun and meaningful but not a ‘failure’.

That’s why I don’t really enjoy the Queen’s Gauntlet.
There are too many things (repair fee, ticket, way point and the queue) keep reminding me that death is a failure and make me frustrated. Opening the floor when time is up is a good try but I always die before time is up…

I am really looking forward to play SAB TM and hope it will be both fun and challenging! Thanks!

Blude.6812:

LostInSmoke.2590:

I think most of the people in this thread complaining never played anything in the 8bit generation or earlier. Not everyone thinks candyland-easy games are fun. That’s why ultra-hard games exist in the first place.

Absolutely true, and I have played a few. That being said, the problem for me is that I didn’t purchase the game (and a few Gem Cards) to play a ‘candyland’ game. I bought it to play a fantasy mmo. If I wanted such a game I would get one or pull out the old DS. If you like that sort of game that’s great. It has no place in the GW2 world imho.

Well, you have a point. I don’t know how long you’ve been here but platformer content has been extremely popular with the community and the first SAB received nothing but accolades from reviewers and players. So, naturally, ANET builds on that foundation.

CJohansen has said that SAB is part of their seasonal rotation they’ve defined after the first year. I take that to mean permanent fantasy content is on the way. These mini-games are just seasonal things done by very small teams.

Note: I grew up in the 8-bit era and am a huge fan of games like Super Meat Boy (that’s a newer game) so I’m a sucker for this. If they even make it remotely as hard as the games in that genre—but translated to 3D successfully—I’ll be very impressed.

Howell Qagan.9752:

Moss.5371:

Josh Foreman.8250:

blah blah

That explains a lot. You do indeed sound sadistic, which is troubling. What’s the point of investing this much time and effort of development in content that only a handful will enjoy AND come here and brag about it? Can only be sadism. Maybe you could try to make more popular content for the people that bought your game(1), which certainly didn’t buy it expecting this.

(1) New permanent content such as areas, skills, classes, skins, dungeons.

I’ll try to follow your logic (watch out for sarcasm):
Why develop PvP when most people don’t play it, why add ascended crafting when only a handful of players “enjoy” grinding for it (haha what a joke). The list could go on with Legendaries, high level fractals and whatever else. Logic.

Do you have evidence to support your claim or are you looking at the forums that represent ONLY less than 5% of the total population? It’s easy to find people that re not happy than it is to find people that are happy.

If tribulation mode is indeed IWBTG hard, the forums will be a fun place to be once it’s released, specially if there are achievements and/or rewards associated to it (well, we do know already of the different colored weapons)…

Fun times incoming..

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m going to lay out the game philosophy behind how we decided to do Tribulation Mode because I think it’s going to be misunderstood by a lot of folks.

This design decision isn’t about being hard, being easy, or anything else you discussed. It’s much broader than that. It’s about ArenaNet’s decision to expend resources on a mode that they themselves know only caters to a select few. They do this at the same time that they continue to put out flawed buggy content and absolutely ignore major sections of the game that very large numbers of people play. One can wonder why and there might be many reasons but the most obvious is for the particular designer’s ego. It’s about them (ArenaNet) not about us (the players).

Meta is ridiculous right now (which wouldn’t be too terribly bad if they showed some modicum of ability to get it right). Imbalances in professions still exist. There are major bugs still existent that have been ignored for months (many months). We have designers posting about how every change they make is “well thought out and reasoned”, yet after every balance patch they continue to make changes to their changes. We have another that posts his usual condescending “information” about WvW and tells us that ArenaNet can’t publish anything “until it works”, while at the same time they are publishing crap that requires multiple new builds to at least get it close to functional.

This train is heading towards a crash, the only real question is going to be if it’s one of those old movie type slow motion ones or a spectacular full speed crash and burn.

I hope there’s at least infinite lives or something, because this will get very ugly if there’s not.

Josh Foreman.8250:

snip

Oh boy, this will be better than i thought. Josh, you should sticky what you said in the forums, or else this place will be flooded with topics talking it about being unfair, too hard, etc when the update is live.

Pedra.4381:

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m going to lay out the game philosophy behind how we decided to do Tribulation Mode because I think it’s going to be misunderstood by a lot of folks.

This design decision isn’t about being hard, being easy, or anything else you discussed. It’s much broader than that. It’s about ArenaNet’s decision to expend resources on a mode that they themselves know only caters to a select few. They do this at the same time that they continue to put out flawed buggy content and absolutely ignore major sections of the game that very large numbers of people play. One can wonder why and there might be many reasons but the most obvious is for the particular designer’s ego. It’s about them (ArenaNet) not about us (the players).

Meta is ridiculous right now (which wouldn’t be too terribly bad if they showed some modicum of ability to get it right). Imbalances in professions still exist. There are major bugs still existent that have been ignored for months (many months). We have designers posting about how every change they make is “well thought out and reasoned”, yet after every balance patch they continue to make changes to their changes. We have another that posts his usual condescending “information” about WvW and tells us that ArenaNet can’t publish anything “until it works”, while at the same time they are publishing crap that requires multiple new builds to at least get it close to functional.

This train is heading towards a crash, the only real question is going to be if it’s one of those old movie type slow motion ones or a spectacular full speed crash and burn.

Excuse me? There is the normal mode that was made for the broader audience. So we have that to appeal to the majority and tribulation to appeal to the minority. Everyone is happy. Are you telling me that the minority should be ignored because the resources could be used for something else for you guys? Nice hypocrisy mate.

If i remember right, SAB was a small project started by only 5 4 devs, that took off immensely due to the amount of dedication and quality that they put them. And i trust that Josh and the team will continue to do an amazing job with this content.

Pedra.4381:

It’s about ArenaNet’s decision to expend resources on a mode that they themselves know only caters to a select few.

So Infantile and Normal Mode aren’t enough?

You realize there are players who dislike Super Adventure Box altogether because of all of the jumping involved. Maybe you want to scrap the whole thing since that does not cater to everyone in the game.

Super Meat boy with lives would suck. I prefer being able to repeat the level (checkpoint in SAB) right away.

Josh Foreman.8250:

(which I’m not aware of having a name yet… let me know if you’ve heard of one)

It may not be correct, but I’ve heard of these type of games being referred to as “platforming hell”. Either way I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Personally I think all games should have a mixture of easy and hard content, with some optional very hard content that only the best players would be able to do. I’d be very disappointed if I bought a game and I was able to finish all of it without getting stuck, without needing multiple attempts and occasionally re-thinking my strategy.

Sure it can be incredibly frustrating when you’re stuck, but the feeling of accomplishment when you finally get it is at least equal to how frustrating it was. Complete an easy task and you won’t even think about it. Finally, finally beat that boss that you just could not kill and it feels amazing. Hopefully everyone here has experienced that at least once and knows what I’m talking about.

Achieving something is fun. But if it’s easy it’s not really an achievement and not really fun either. The fun comes from the challenge and overcoming it, not from getting some pop-up on screen to tell you that you just did it or getting some reward item to show off to people in the hope that they don’t know how easy it was and will be impressed.

ezd.6359:

Another thing is – you can return to the process very fast and continue to test new ideas. Please, don’t tell me we still need to see all those dialogs and cut scenes with coins, princess etc which we can’t skip every time.

That is a very good point, even if there’s a load screen between death and retrying it can just push these over the edge from frustrating-but-challenging-so-I’ll-go-again to frustrating-and-wasting-my-time.