Guild Wars 2

There’s a considerable difference between memorizing where to stand, and learning the telegraphs and tricks of a fight.

You know why people consider Demon/Dark Souls not only difficult, but enjoyable too? Because you could learn be observation, and your survival relied heavily on reaction. And regardless of how difficult some fights and parts were- when you do get through it, it can look entirely different from when your friend gets through it.

That’s not what GW2 is doing for difficulty- it’s very much ‘do this, stand here, go here, rinse and repeat’. In Dark Souls, if I want to go through NG++ with a int caster, or a faith caster, or an archer, or a sword and board, or a 2hder- a burst dpser, a tough character, a buffer- I can not only do that, but I will be able to find different ways for each one to shine.

Compare to the Gauntlet. Yes, we’ve had people say you can do it on every class, with every spec, with any item combination. Yet- youtube vids, every single vid is of; single target, high dps build classes. Why? Because the Gauntlet vastly favoured single target burst- survival, support, even balanced class/builds were all at a significant disadvantage for a significant majority of the fights, since there’s no room for balance/support/survival/aoe classes when everything is single enemies and the majority of the danger is in OHKOs. (even the fight with multiple mobs, the four pirates- they restore health, so AoE don’t even get that one)

I love difficulty, Dark Souls is one of my favourite games, and going through NG++, etc… with low SL builds is a great deal of fun for me. GW2 however forces you to play a certain way to get through the top content, to a degree that even WoW with its FOM builds didn’t. And it’s not just the difficulty; it’s how pigeon holed it has become, and how they’ve made it considerably more profitable to be a single role in this game.

Bringing up old Tomb Raider difficulty being in the bad camera angles, controls and being unable to see what’s next… why not just point out how games like Silver Surfer were insanely hard because they filled your screen with deadly junk? Why don’t we try to get unresponsive jumping controls, because in the old days poor controls and responsiveness made a lot of games way more challenging.

At least SAB won’t have class disparity- but, you say ‘outsmart the developer’. Reality is- you’re going to be getting through SAB on the exact path in the exact way the developer intended. Outsmart indeed.

The Gauntlet though proved that the only way Anet can make things challenging is; trying to hide deadly red circles, making poor telegraphs which are blocked by the excessive animations of your attacks, purposefully screwing with your camera to make it harder for you to see things that will kill you, and filling the area with OHKOs, plus making specific class/build/gear almost needed to hit the enrage timer.

When they can make something difficult without having to attempt to hide the telegraphs- which is one of the biggest issues- I might have a bit more respect, because trying to hide the information we need to react accordingly is a bullkitten way to increase difficulty.

And that’s why I’m expecting SAB trib to be nothing more than invisible traps and one hit kills without warning.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Pedra.4381

That’s A LOT of explanatory information to not be comparing yourself to it.

They didn’t compare themselves to it.

Of course he didn’t.

fungihoujo.8476:

Bringing up old Tomb Raider difficulty being in the bad camera angles, controls and being unable to see what’s next… why not just point out how games like Silver Surfer were insanely hard because they filled your screen with deadly junk? Why don’t we try to get unresponsive jumping controls, because in the old days poor controls and responsiveness made a lot of games way more challenging.

To be fair, back at the time when Tomb Raider was released, the controls were fine. Looking at it now after so many innovations in the way player characters are controlled, it would be unfair to critique the game for not having the kind of controls we’re used to now. At the time, Tombraider had very responsive controls, that allowed you to make very complicated jumps. And I’ve never had camera issues with Tombraider (except for TW Underworld)

The point however, was that Tombraider wasn’t hard due to artificial difficulty. The whole premise of the game, was exploring tombs, and avoiding traps. So naturally the player was expected to anticipate instant death traps. That was part of the fun. And yes, it was sometimes unforgivably cruel in its obstacles. But players were expected to respond quickly to dangers as they happened, and to execute a bit of caution at all times.

The difference being: Deliberate finely tuned challenges, with unforgiving qualities.

That is also the vibe I get from Tribulation Mode. It’s unforgiving and cruel, but the player is expected to anticipate the worst of the worst, and react quickly.

Josh Foreman.8250:

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Here’s a fantastic game design lecture by Will Wright. Starting at the 12:50 mark he’s talking about feedback loops in much clearer language than that dense technical link I posted earlier:
http://youtu.be/CdgQyq3hEPo?t=12m54s

One thing he mentions is how the negative side of the feedback loop is usually the most interesting. People usually play games to achieve the success side of the loop, but it’s not very rewarding without having experienced the failure states. Imagine that like a slider, where some people want games with no failure feedback like that amazing mario game posted above, and some people want the slider cranked all the way in the other direction. And that’s what this emerging genre is. It’s an exploration of the furthest reaches of the aesthetic form of negative feedback loop. In that way it’s kind of like the Black Metal of games. Black Metal evolved as musicians were trying to find the most extreme ways to break the established rules of musical aesthetic. (though obviously there are the minimalists and modernists etc. who break them even more.) The point being that most people can’t listen to to more than 10 seconds of Black Metal. It makes them agitated, or so annoyed they get angry. (I know this because I’ve tested several people I know >;) Likewise, this platform hell, or whatever you want to call it kind of game makes some people annoyed and angry. Guild Wars 2 in general is like a beautiful sweeping orchestral movie score. It appeals to a much broader audience.

There is a well established three part structure to popular music, and 90% of the hits follow it to a T. and there’s an ancient 3-act-structure for story that 90% of books, movies, and plays follow to a T. But there are fantastic examples of media that purposefully subvert those structures and the fact that the rules are broken is part of what makes them great. There Will Be Blood has no hero who grows through a struggle, learns a lesson and wins at the end. It’s not so much a story as it is a character portrait on film. And there are entire genres of music that are defined by the ways they break the popular paradigm.

So when I hear folks saying “How are invisible instant death traps fun?” it sounds to me like asking “How can you enjoy Death Metal or 50s Jazz or movies where the hero dies at the end?” It’s simply a matter of taste.

Someone above described what “good design” is in a very textbook sort of way where there are balanced feedback loops with clearly delineated goals and telegraphed challenges. And that is a perfectly valid way to critique games. And most of the time when games break those rules it’s because of sloppy, ill-conceived design, technological hurdles, time constraints, etc. Most movies that break the 3 act structure do it because the writer, director, editor etc. just aren’t good at what they do. Pop music that lacks the Verse-Bridge-ChorusX3 is often because the artist doesn’t know any better.

But when an artist is experienced with their craft, knows the rules backward and forward, and has worked within that framework before, THEN with intent and forethought decides to make something that breaks those rules, pushes one element to its extreme, or some other innovation, THAT’S when “good” happens. Not for everyone, because most people dislike anything that deviates too far from the norm. But there is always a market of people who can recognize the point of the exercise and appreciate it.

Like before, I’ll throw out the caveat that I’m not claiming that the SAB team is that master craftsman pushing the medium forward in dramatic brilliant ways. Only that we are THINKING about the design choices we make, we recognize when we are breaking rules, and we have a reason for doing so. Because SAB exists within the ecosystem of Guild Wars 2 it’s not going to be an exact replica of IWTBTG. We’re a hybrid, and that brings lots of interesting challenges with it. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from this first TM release, and incorporate those lessons into the next round.

Well, that’s enough prattling at 2:30 am! Good night/morning!

Josh, you and your posts are quickly becoming my favorite dev interaction on the forums! SAB was already one of the most fun pieces of content I experienced with my friends in this game — hours of almost non-stop teasing, jokes, frustration, and laughter. And the details and passion you share with us in your posts is fantastic. Thanks for being so awesome, although I’m sure I’ll be cursing your name in a few days! =P

Really appreciate your posts Josh, even though I was pumped the instant I heard about a new Nightmare SAB mode.

The only critique I have at this point is the lives. Like others, who also seem to be excited to play SAB again, I am unsure that requiring us to get lives for TM is a good idea. For a ridiculously hard mode like you advertise this as, I believe we should be allowed to sit there for hours failing miserably, but progressing, if we want to. I hope that lives are as easy to come by as Queen’s Gauntlet tickets, because if we couldn’t have purchased those tickets the Gauntlet would have been a truly miserable experience (and not in a good way).

Play a little bit, try to progress, run out of tickets. Farm for tickets. Repeat. Doesn’t look like a good time at all. I hope we either don’t need to farm lives in this new mode or that we could simply purchase them from a vendor if you really need a gold sink.

Oh boy, I used to play these types of levels on LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2 all the time! There is nothing worse than the mind of a 10 year old doing their best to kill you throughout their levels. I say, “Bring it on!”

WatchTheShow.7203:

Oh boy, I used to play these types of levels on LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2 all the time! There is nothing worse than the mind of a 10 year old doing their best to kill you throughout their levels. I say, “Bring it on!”

If you ever tried to make addons, modules, quests etc, you must know it is very fun process when you think how your players will die. All ways, arrows, traps, jokes, dialogs… It is infinite trollface on your face when you make such things. Only thing that makes it playable is – sense of mercy of the creator.

I find the psychology of the gamer extremely interesting when designing levels. It also applies to the kind of traps you can construct in Minecraft:

Build a dark corridor with a staircase that goes down. Tripwire in the dark, which activates an automated arrow dispenser that shoots from the front (and obscures by vines). Players panics, runs back, not noticing that the tripwire also retracted the stairs. Player falls several miles to a nice lava bath, which also incinerates all his items.

I love this kind of cruelty. But even better is when the players start thinking like the designer.

I wonder just how nasty the first area of SAB will be in Tribulation Mode. It’s basically just a wide open flat piece of grass land. My guess: Lava starts rising, forcing you to hurry. Spikes appear anywhere you would normally step. And maybe not even checkpoints are safe.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I wonder just how nasty the first area of SAB will be in Tribulation Mode. It’s basically just a wide open flat piece of grass land. My guess: Lava starts rising, forcing you to hurry. Spikes appear anywhere you would normally step. And maybe not even checkpoints are safe.

I fully expect there to be one checkpoint where an enemy pops up or falls from the sky and knocks the player off juuuuuust as they’re about to reach it. XD

Or perhaps one checkpoint that’s completely fake and just kills players that step on it.

Today is the big day, so excited!

Got a few days off, stocked up enough food & snacks to feed an army, I’m so ready for Tribulation Mode

Food? A real gamer doesn’t need any food… A gamer extracts his/her food from the air.

I’m so sure this will be a rage fest in my guild’s TS, cursing every single developer working on the SAB (especially Mr Josh Foreman) for all those sadistic traps…

I’m very excited too, how bad those traps will be and if there is a slight chance of surviving them

Josh Foreman.8250:

Like before, I’ll throw out the caveat that I’m not claiming that the SAB team is that master craftsman pushing the medium forward in dramatic brilliant ways. Only that we are THINKING about the design choices we make, we recognize when we are breaking rules, and we have a reason for doing so. Because SAB exists within the ecosystem of Guild Wars 2 it’s not going to be an exact replica of IWTBTG. We’re a hybrid, and that brings lots of interesting challenges with it. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from this first TM release, and incorporate those lessons into the next round.

Josh, do you actually play IWBTG and IWBTG fangames? I suggest you find a game called “I wanna be the preference” and tell me how much you enjoy it. It is so hard that I haven’t seen it beaten.

Rayti.6531:

I’m very excited too, how bad those traps will be and if there is a slight chance of surviving them

I’ll just probably do it once, then rage at my PC, turn it off in the middle of the level. And then turn it back on and continue my merry way in the normal mode maps :P

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Rayti.6531:

I’m very excited too, how bad those traps will be and if there is a slight chance of surviving them

I’ll just probably do it once, then rage at my PC, turn it off in the middle of the level. And then turn it back on and continue my merry way in the normal mode maps :P

I guess after failing some time I will just enter the SAB in Infantile Mode and look at the “happy clouds” to get my mood back to a positive one.

Cant wait for all that bottled up SAB rage to hit PvP/WvW …

daweed.6520:

Cant wait for all that bottled up SAB rage to hit PvP/WvW …

Well, after my experience at WvW yesterday and the day before, I can’t wait for SAB…

And as far as I can tell, there won’t be much activity in WvW as long as the SAB is there. But the idea to blow off some steam after some fails in TM sounds promising, maybe I’ll try that.

I’m also excited about what I’ve seen so far of World 2. It looked like one big reference to the game Frogger, with the jumping across logs and crocodiles. And it looks like it has its own unique end boss as well.

I wonder if they also included a preview of World 3?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’m also excited about what I’ve seen so far of World 2. It looked like one big reference to the game Frogger, with the jumping across logs and crocodiles. And it looks like it has its own unique end boss as well.

I wonder if they also included a preview of World 3?

An unfinished preview of World 3!

The day isn’t going fast enough…

So dulfy made a list and these two:
“All chests and dig spots are now account bound daily to prevent mindless farming.”
and
“You are going to die alot and waste alot of lives so you will need to farm baubles”
are confusing me… You cant farm , yet you must farm ?
So I get that you will die alot. Fine with me. But if you need to farm a day to have 1 or 2 tries …

Another two things, Josh said these himself:
“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.”
and yet a few sentenses further on:
“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.”
Now this last was from a post explaining why this is a good thing. But I am not convinced. Farming to have a shot at something were you know you WILL die. I mean. The dying part itself is raging enough. Im willing to accept 500 deaths. Im not really ready to farm 5 days to have 10 shots at world 1 zone 1.

Minae Iss.7054:

So dulfy made a list and these two:
“All chests and dig spots are now account bound daily to prevent mindless farming.”
and
“You are going to die alot and waste alot of lives so you will need to farm baubles”
are confusing me… You cant farm , yet you must farm ?
So I get that you will die alot. Fine with me. But if you need to farm a day to have 1 or 2 tries …

That post by Dulfy inflated my desire to play this. I was all ready to do this more than once. But now?

I don’t think I’ll even try that Tribulation Mode. Won’t have the time because I cannot get all the skins otherwise. I’ll be mindless farming any stray bubble that isn’t blocked by being accountbound on a daily basis.

I am looking forward to this, although the Queens Gauntlet was incredibly frustrating (I managed to beat Liadri and get the mini) but yeah. Bring it on!

Don’t worry. Infinite coin item coming in the gem store.

People are still complaining about “greediness” of Arenanet after the account wallet? Oh well.

The SAB is coming.

Josh, there’s one thing I really hope to see in TM, and that is quick and forgiving retries.

Queen’s Gauntlet made solo players pay to waypoint down and run all the way back up, Not So Secret made solo players waypoint out and start over completely with no form of checkpoint. If we’re going to be dying constantly, please make respawning as quick and painless as possible. A great example of this is Super Hexagon.

Also, keep up the great work, I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Well if you want to do trib mode you will pretty much need the infinite continue coin.

Especially since they are nerfing the ability to farm dig spots and chests and making it account bound and once per day.

Pay 800 gems or add a +1000 to your level of suffering.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Here’s a fantastic game design lecture by Will Wright. Starting at the 12:50 mark he’s talking about feedback loops in much clearer language than that dense technical link I posted earlier:
http://youtu.be/CdgQyq3hEPo?t=12m54s

One thing he mentions is how the negative side of the feedback loop is usually the most interesting. People usually play games to achieve the success side of the loop, but it’s not very rewarding without having experienced the failure states. Imagine that like a slider, where some people want games with no failure feedback like that amazing mario game posted above, and some people want the slider cranked all the way in the other direction. And that’s what this emerging genre is. It’s an exploration of the furthest reaches of the aesthetic form of negative feedback loop. In that way it’s kind of like the Black Metal of games. Black Metal evolved as musicians were trying to find the most extreme ways to break the established rules of musical aesthetic. (though obviously there are the minimalists and modernists etc. who break them even more.) The point being that most people can’t listen to to more than 10 seconds of Black Metal. It makes them agitated, or so annoyed they get angry. (I know this because I’ve tested several people I know >;) Likewise, this platform hell, or whatever you want to call it kind of game makes some people annoyed and angry. Guild Wars 2 in general is like a beautiful sweeping orchestral movie score. It appeals to a much broader audience.

There is a well established three part structure to popular music, and 90% of the hits follow it to a T. and there’s an ancient 3-act-structure for story that 90% of books, movies, and plays follow to a T. But there are fantastic examples of media that purposefully subvert those structures and the fact that the rules are broken is part of what makes them great. There Will Be Blood has no hero who grows through a struggle, learns a lesson and wins at the end. It’s not so much a story as it is a character portrait on film. And there are entire genres of music that are defined by the ways they break the popular paradigm.

So when I hear folks saying “How are invisible instant death traps fun?” it sounds to me like asking “How can you enjoy Death Metal or 50s Jazz or movies where the hero dies at the end?” It’s simply a matter of taste.

Someone above described what “good design” is in a very textbook sort of way where there are balanced feedback loops with clearly delineated goals and telegraphed challenges. And that is a perfectly valid way to critique games. And most of the time when games break those rules it’s because of sloppy, ill-conceived design, technological hurdles, time constraints, etc. Most movies that break the 3 act structure do it because the writer, director, editor etc. just aren’t good at what they do. Pop music that lacks the Verse-Bridge-ChorusX3 is often because the artist doesn’t know any better.

But when an artist is experienced with their craft, knows the rules backward and forward, and has worked within that framework before, THEN with intent and forethought decides to make something that breaks those rules, pushes one element to its extreme, or some other innovation, THAT’S when “good” happens. Not for everyone, because most people dislike anything that deviates too far from the norm. But there is always a market of people who can recognize the point of the exercise and appreciate it.

Like before, I’ll throw out the caveat that I’m not claiming that the SAB team is that master craftsman pushing the medium forward in dramatic brilliant ways. Only that we are THINKING about the design choices we make, we recognize when we are breaking rules, and we have a reason for doing so. Because SAB exists within the ecosystem of Guild Wars 2 it’s not going to be an exact replica of IWTBTG. We’re a hybrid, and that brings lots of interesting challenges with it. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from this first TM release, and incorporate those lessons into the next round.

Well, that’s enough prattling at 2:30 am! Good night/morning!

i love you so much!