Guild Wars 2

So.. After finishing tribulation “difficulty” on all of world 1’s zones, I’ve made my conclusion on how fake the difficulty is, you’re simply minesweeping for spikes with your body, throwing yourself into instant kill traps until you find the way.

Everything else is just a tedious, artificially long (because of all the needless deaths) and essentially lame instant kill traps everywhere, if it’d show the spiketraps/floorgaps like the floorspikes, I can assure you a lot of people would already be done in world 2 tribulation, that is, if they’re not bored to death yet.

Can anyone truly say they feel like they accomplished a difficult task after being done with world 1? I certainly haven’t, I basically relied on my memory for 90% of the way, that’s not skill, and it’s certainly not a legit difficulty.
Is memory really a skill worth being used in such way? Probably, but not so kitten much.

And on a similar topic, map design has switched from a legit difficulty in world 1
(as in, you see the path, you see the obstacles, and you do the bloody challenge set in front of you)
..To what we now have in world 2
(you see the path, you see some obstacles, and you’ll learn where the rest are by dying to them because you never imagined they’d be here until you get one-shot by it, you do the bloody challenge.. After unavoidable cheap deaths)

What are your thoughts? Personally, I like SAB overall, but this little idea of challenging content being little more than a 3-D minesweeper is, to be blunt, lame.
Which is a shame because the design of everything else about SAB is great, kudos to whoever came up with the bossfight mechanics on the Wizard.

It’s like syobon action, if you buy the infinite coin that is. (youtube it).

They outright said they were taking notes from cat mario and IWBTG for tribulation mode, I don’t know what you were expecting from that. I do agree world 2 had a lot bad moves, especially zone 2 with all those dart traps you have to just slow yourself down to a snails pace your first time through, and for a platformer like SAB that really doesn’t feel fun or fitting. I liked the yeti fight though, have yet to figure out the storm wizards pattern though, when he does that invulnerable charge thing. it just beats me

Try games like I Wanna Be The Guy, Super Meat Boy, They Bleed Pixels, Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, and Soybon Action (a.k.a. Cat Mario).

Then you’ll understand what kind if masochistic mode it is.

Still a better love story then Liadri.

It’s definitely IWBTG fake difficulty. And Super Meat Boy is for the most part NOT fake difficulty. You can see most hazards in that game.

But the most important thing about all these games? Infinite lives! Which you can only get here by paying 10 bucks or 35g. Totally unfair.

Ah yes, but were they insert a quarter every time you die games? or buy it once and continue to try to learn it forever?

I cant even get past the first part of the first level…

a lot of spikes, go the most difficult and convoluted way you can think of >< I just memorized the spike areas is all and trial and error on how to get around. A lot of jumping up and around things.

Just finished W1 S2, much more enjoyable with infinite continue coin but I feel dirty for buying it

It’s kind of a “fake challenge”, I can see that. But just because it’s tedious doesn’t mean it isn’t challenging. People practice the same routines over and over for dance, or for sports. People do the same things to overcome challenges and to slowly get better at it. Enduring through obstacles is a challenge itself.

You’re right about having to use memory way too much though. I wish there was just a smidge of a warning, even if it was only on like 25% of the traps, just so you don’t die by something completely random every single time. Even if it was an incredibly small visual clue that could easily be overlooked without an unrelenting eye.

TBH the coin seems pretty darn pointless to me. I just buy more lives with bauble bubbles and I’m set. You can get hundreds of lives with very little effort at all.

Personally, I love the feeling of being too frightened to move, for fear of uncovering another trap. I love learning to adapt to prior experiences in the level, when trying to guess what might be deadly and what is safe moving forward. Sure, those feelings begin to fade after you’ve completed a level and know all the safe routes, but still. That initial delight, when everything is an unknown, is just so utterly perfect and satisfying.

Playing through Tribulation Mode has provided some of the most delightfully hilarious moments I’ve ever experienced in my time with GW2. Playing with friends makes it even better. Watching someone just randomly die because they stepped on a flower? Or seeing them fall through the floor two steps in front of you and driving you to a laughter-induced halt? It’s awesome, and all in good fun.

This has been something that’s bugged me a lot lately in the recent patches and the recent “challenges” – they are all trial and error.

It’s really cheap and frustrating difficulty.

Most of World 1 of SAB is an example of good difficulty; where every move may be very dangerous or kill you, but you’re given tools and information to make a wise choice of how to proceed.

While Most of World 2 of SAB is an example of bad difficulty; trial and error everywhere. Your vision is blocked or obstructed or most of the hazards just don’t show until it’s too late. You have to die, memorize, and proceed.

Another example of this is the previous Aetherblade Dungeons to face Mai Lin; that was good difficulty. Everything in there was dangerous and could easily kill you, but you were given all the tools to surpass it, and you had to rely on coordinated team work to get through.

While Liadri is an example of bad difficulty; there was literally no way to beat her without dying to her dozens and dozens of time, memorizing her attack patterns, and trying to finish the fight as fast as possible. The small luck factor involved helped just tie the whole bad experience together.

Anet has done good challenges in the past, so why are they now insisting on these cheap, shallow, and frustrating excuses for challenges?

Stormleaf.1769:

Personally, I love the feeling of being too frightened to move, for fear of uncovering another trap. I love learning to adapt to prior experiences in the level, when trying to guess what might be deadly and what is safe moving forward. Sure, those feelings begin to fade after you’ve completed a level and know all the safe routes, but still. That initial delight, when everything is an unknown, is just so utterly perfect and satisfying.

Playing through Tribulation Mode has provided some of the most delightfully hilarious moments I’ve ever experienced in my time with GW2. Playing with friends makes it even better. Watching someone just randomly die because they stepped on a flower? Or seeing them fall through the floor two steps in front of you and driving you to a laughter-induced halt? It’s awesome, and all in good fun.

Meh, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but as soon as I jumped over floorspikes and giant clouds started popping, and then more spikes popped when I passed the clouds, I figured it would be pointless to have any sort of enthusiasm about this fake difficulty

Why? Because the “feeling of being too frightened to move, for fear of uncovering another trap” as you say, is shattered once you realise the only way to uncover them is to throw yourself everywhere until you don’t just die, there’s no hint, no nothing, all you know is that you’ll die if you take the route you’d take on normal, but since there’s only one way to go, you just minesweep around.

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

It’s kind of a “fake challenge”, I can see that. But just because it’s tedious doesn’t mean it isn’t challenging. People practice the same routines over and over for dance, or for sports. People do the same things to overcome challenges and to slowly get better at it. Enduring through obstacles is a challenge itself.

Yeaaaah.. Not a good comparison, if you’re practicing dance or sport, you’re not thrown in a room and asked to do something very specific while never being told what the specifications are, and then you’re bonked on the head and scolded everytime you do one thing wrong, until you’ve done everything perfectly.

While Liadri is an example of bad difficulty; there was literally no way to beat her without dying to her dozens and dozens of time—-

Personally I enjoyed the Liadri fight, aswell as every other gauntlet fights, they all had a clear pattern, but you had to observe to get used to it, and then you’d adapt to it.
Only a few moments were annoying (to me) during the gauntlet, namely:
When Dunwell teleports while casting his oneshot ability, which left little chance, annoying, but bearable.
Liadri’s 8 crystal achievement, while the achievement wasn’t hard, the bug where your character refuses to pick up a crystal made it artificially difficult, not intended, though.
Strugar and Chomper, the direction of the meat is random, and can end up falling right at Chomper’s feet, coupled with the “character ignores the pickup order” bug, could be very annoying, though you could very well do it even with that.

Here in Tribulation mode? There’s no pattern whatsoever, nothing points to a potential danger until the danger already killed you, because you had no choice to to try your luck.

Bragdras.9572:

Meh, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but as soon as I jumped over floorspikes and giant clouds started popping, and then more spikes popped when I passed the clouds, I figured it would be pointless to have any sort of enthusiasm about this fake difficulty

Why? Because the “feeling of being too frightened to move, for fear of uncovering another trap” as you say, is shattered once you realise the only way to uncover them is to throw yourself everywhere until you don’t just die, there’s no hint, no nothing, all you know is that you’ll die if you take the route you’d take on normal, but since there’s only one way to go, you just minesweep around.

That’s a shallow argument. There are plenty of hints, and there’s plenty of lessons throughout even the earliest levels. It’s the player’s job to actually think about each experience, about each trap they fall victim to, and apply that to their future advancement through the level.

Every trap should teach you about what to expect. Every trap is a hint, a glimpse into the developer’s mindset. Almost immediately, you learn that miniscule little flowers are deadly. That rocks are often less than inanimate. That helpful hands don’t really like you anymore. These should all teach you about the rest of the level.

What you’re suggesting is that, despite the fact that the first flower you step on kills you, you should continue mindlessly stepping on every single flower you come across, just to see if they, too, kill you. That’s just silly. You learn to avoid the things that killed you in the past, and thus they are no longer much of a surprise when they do in the future. You learn what you should be cautious of over time, and everything you go through in the level builds that understanding.

Stormleaf.1769:

That’s a shallow argument. There are plenty of hints, and there’s plenty of lessons throughout even the earliest levels. It’s the player’s job to actually think about each experience, about each trap they fall victim to, and apply that to their future advancement through the level.

Plenty of hints huh? Right, the random spiketraps at every single corners beside the ONE route you’re expected to go has hints contained to show you the way? No, no it doesn’t.

Every trap should teach you about what to expect. Every trap is a hint, a glimpse into the developer’s mindset. Almost immediately, you learn that miniscule little flowers are deadly. That rocks are often less than inanimate. That helpful hands don’t really like you anymore. These should all teach you about the rest of the level.

You’re telling me that these might be deadly in tribulation mode, but there’s no hints of any danger until you ran headfirst into it.
All it “teaches” is that you can die to anything, at any random place, there’s no pattern, find me a single moment in the entirety of world 1 where there is even a hint of a pattern, where you didn’t go “well I’ll walk here, hopefully there’s not a spike trap here”

What you’re suggesting is that, despite the fact that the first flower you step on kills you, you should continue mindlessly stepping on every single flower you come across, just to see if they, too, kill you. That’s just silly. You learn to avoid the things that killed you in the past, and thus they are no longer much of a surprise when they do in the future. You learn what you should be cautious of over time, and everything you go through in the level builds that understanding.

All you’re saying, again, is that you know what killed you, you didn’t have a shred of a hint that you’d die there, you just went there thinking “maybe this is the way” you died, and then you thought “oh kitten , well it wasn’t this way, let’s try the other one” until you find the way.

After trying to do World 1 zone 1 for almost 2 hours I can say it’s pretty good difficulty.

One thing that make mess in my head is problem when playing with someone. Droping pipe on checkpoint was funny at first, but then it makes me want to get rid of my friend.

That I think is bad design choise. If you’re creating something that makes going in party bad idea then you need to rethink some stuff about mmo. It’s starting to be tedious (and it’s a complainment not strictly to Josh Foreman, but overall to designers of the latest content) that dungeon is much easier when doing alone than when doing with team. It’s somehow destroying whole experience of playing mmo.

Nothing personal, just feeling like that was constructive criticism.

Divus.3175:

After trying to do World 1 zone 1 for almost 2 hours I can say it’s pretty good difficulty.

How long do you think it would have taken you if your deaths were due to you screwing up a jump, rather than taking a wild guess and dieing to spikes, though?

I would guess not less time than I spent already. When I understood what’s going on, found few bugs to skip some stuff, I died only because I failed at jumping.

A Massive Headache.1879:

They outright said they were taking notes from cat mario and IWBTG for tribulation mode, I don’t know what you were expecting from that. I do agree world 2 had a lot bad moves, especially zone 2 with all those dart traps you have to just slow yourself down to a snails pace your first time through, and for a platformer like SAB that really doesn’t feel fun or fitting. I liked the yeti fight though, have yet to figure out the storm wizards pattern though, when he does that invulnerable charge thing. it just beats me

I dont mind the gameplay, but for such gameplay to be enjoyable you need infinite lives, and Anet put a 600 gem fungate in front of trib mode.

This is about the worst kind of so called ‘hard difficulty’ there can be. Invisible insta kill traps everywhere … serious? Queens gauntlet, that was the good kind of a hard difficulty. I haven’t done w2 in normal mode, but that seems fine as well. The only reason that i can see is alot of people (including me) want all achievements for temporary content. The tribulation mode would be perfect with infinite lives. And be honest, nobody would buy that infinite coin was it not for tribulation. Smart to try to make us buy the coin but i say no thank you.

Now i’ll just watch a video on how to do it, only for achievements.

Even with a video on how to do it, you’ll still need a lot of lives. I just did a second run of world 1, zone 1 to farm baubles and I still died a lot. FYI: you get around 250 baubles when you complete zone 1 and it’s repeatable. The token for the special weapon may be a daily though.

Most of the difficult is just disguised as trial and error, forcing people to buy the infinite continue coin.

After loving Josh Foreman’s clocktower, I can’t help but tell him that Tribulation mode failed horribly. It caters way too much to that Gem Store item and anyone can complete it with that. Where’s some dodge jump platform sequences? Not just 1 platform! Make us having to do atleast 3 dodge jumps in a row for example, or more situations where you need to bait the rock before going. That is good difficulty, not these trial and errors traps.

I’m really not a fan of the trial-and-error style difficulty either. I’d much prefer difficult jumps, clever enemy placement, and interesting obstacles to “oh hey, rock to the face out of nowhere and now you’re dead, hahah”.

That said, there’s no denying that there are plenty of people who love brutal trial-and-error difficulty. The sheer popularity and number of spinoffs spawned by IWTBTG that have even managed to permeate off of fan-made PC mods into paid console releases is proof enough of thakittens certainly not my cup of tea (though I’ll probably force myself through at least World 1) but I can’t really call it a bad move for them to add something like that, because there are undoubtably plenty of people who love it.

It is definitely an acquired taste, like some of the devs said. I can say that things like the W2 temple coin run in normal mode are definitely more challenging than the W1 Tribulation Mode, at least in the conventional sense. But I also don’t think the purpose of the mode is to create challenge in that exact sense.

Instead, the very fact that there are no warnings on much of the traps creates an interesting dynamic between the developer and the player: this is a person you know is trying to get you killed. He’s going to cut off the easy escape routes, punish you for taking the obvious path to the exit and put a spike trap just where you thought you were safe. After awhile, if you’ve been paying attention, you may actually be able to use this kind of thinking start to predict where the traps will be without stepping on them and relying on only trial and error. If you see an easy path, and a long, circuitous path, chances are that the easy path will get you killed. To constantly be searching for a harder path in order to prevent deaths can be exciting, and probably more so than simply throwing yourself against the traps, finding every one, and relying on memory alone. I think that part of the fun is supposed to come in prediction and trying to outmaneuver someone you know is actively trying to get you killed.

Anyways, I don’t know if it will help, but the way I see it, there’s three different types of traps -

There’s the instant kill traps that completely block off an area, to tell you that you should probably find a different path to take. You shouldn’t die to these more than a few times.

There’s the challenging traps, where you know the trap is there, but it’s hard to consistently get past – it’s a challenge that requires speed and precision, like some of the death trap rocks.

Finally, there’s the trolly instant death traps that the devs will put into a certain area. The devs will anticipate the player wanting to hug the left side in an area, so they’ll put a spike trap there. Then they’ll put a spike trap on the right side, since they’ll anticipate the player’s next reaction. If you can manage to think one step further and avoid the next trap, you’ve started to think like the developer. To avoid these traps, anytime I see an obvious path to take, I get very nervous and look for a harder path. If there’s a seemingly straight path to a checkpoint that’s been very difficult to reach, I always try not to walk in a straight line or I’ll walk on the edge of a platform, there’s almost always one final instant-kill trap to troll you there. Things like that make the game mode for me, and I’ll stick it through until I finish the thing.

That, and the alt-colored bragging rights.