Guild Wars 2

So I just went through World 1 tribulation mode for the first time. What a blast. I will say though that all of the feedback and insight Josh offers on the forums and in the Blog post really add to the experience.

I’ve tried to read as much of his feedback as I could find and I think I got an idea of his sense of humor and high level thinking that went into the SAB and specifically Tribulation mode.

I watched the clips of Ninja Gaiden he posted, as well as some of the other ones and with that in mind I I took my first step into Tribulation mode… and died.

Each time I got caught by a cleverly placed trap, or a trap on top of a trap I smirked because this wasn’t just me against the game. With all his feedback and interaction with us, Josh made it personal and that added a lot to the experience.

I found myself trying to anticipate Josh’s thinking, and what was really fun is the confirmation of that. I would go the way I thought would be safe according to what I had learned so far. I am proud to say I was often right. Then sometimes I’d get lazy and when I was repeating a section I would think; “Maybe I don’t have to go all the way around that tree, maybe Josh didn’t dead…, ah.”

But that confirmation that I was avoiding traps with out having to first get killed by them was a very rewarding moment.

I think Josh would be proud to know that 2/3’rds of the way through his name was used in place of a curse quite a few times.

In World 1, Zone 3 about half way through I said aloud in guild chat; “Josh I’ve beaten you, you just don’t know it yet.” It was still quite some time before I could link all three coins into that same chat…

Thank you Josh, and team!

On to World 2.

Oh I also wanted to say this.

In the big huge “Is it too hard post.” I argued against the fact that World 2 on normal mode was too hard. I said that those of us looking for a challenge wanted it that way.

I was wrong. Tribulation mode was so much fun for me and I realized, that is the content I was looking for. Those of you concerned with normal mode difficulty were right. It doesn’t need to be as hard as it is. Tribulation mode is where I belong If I want that challenge and not force the majority of the player base to a similar level of frustration if they don’t want to be there. I apologize.

Tribulation mode is like a big clockwork.

The moment a cog is not working together with other cogs (you running into an exploding flower, or falling down into a lava pit) it all stops working, and you will die.

But if every cog works together (you knowing what to avoid, when to jump, and what that hurts you) the clock works fine, and you will easily survive.

Tribulation mode is not rocket science. It’s really easy when you have memorized some of the traps. You just have to remember the patterns where to jump and where to walk.

I’m having a blast, I just finished whole World 1.

I agree that World 2 normal mode is a little too hard. Tribulation Mode, however, is exactly where it should be. I love the difficulty and the unforgivingness of it all. So good.

CryxTryx.9208:

Oh I also wanted to say this.

In the big huge “Is it too hard post.” I argued against the fact that World 2 on normal mode was too hard. I said that those of us looking for a challenge wanted it that way.

I was wrong. Tribulation mode was so much fun for me and I realized, that is the content I was looking for. Those of you concerned with normal mode difficulty were right. It doesn’t need to be as hard as it is. Tribulation mode is where I belong If I want that challenge and not force the majority of the player base to a similar level of frustration if they don’t want to be there. I apologize.

<3 Thank you for being willing to say this and I’m so happy TM is great for you.

I enjoyed tribulation mode, though I feel excluding the life counter in this mode would have been a better choice (or have he life counter count negative, like in cat Mario) when the level is designed with a “lives are cheap”, throw-your-corpse-at-the-problem design similar to iwtbtg and super meat boy. The design of the levels though is great, and having completed w1, can’t wait to have a large block of free time to do w2

CryxTryx.9208:

I found myself trying to anticipate Josh’s thinking, and what was really fun is the confirmation of that. I would go the way I thought would be safe according to what I had learned so far. I am proud to say I was often right. Then sometimes I’d get lazy and when I was repeating a section I would think; “Maybe I don’t have to go all the way around that tree, maybe Josh didn’t dead…, ah.”

This exactly. When I started saying to myself, “I shouldn’t go that way, that’s where a trap will be,” only to find out later due to a misstep that I was completely right, it was extremely gratifying.

I took his one post very much to heart when he said the key was to get inside the mind of the developer to anticipate his cruelty. I think I’m doing pretty well with that, even if I’ve only finished Zone 1, but then I haven’t actually started Zone 2 yet.

To be honest I dont think this developer-gamer interaction works as intended (from what Josh explained in his post) in my case. Becouse every time I get stuck on some part or keep ending up dead on some tougher jumping sequence, for the moment I start to hate the guy who conceived this. And since the man signed this project with his name and face, I start to think bad things about Josh and recite some curses directed at him in my head. It is not something I am proud from and I know it is bad that I have negative feelings over a game towards some guy, probably a decent guy in RL and all. But thats just how it works. If someone shows me the middle finger (some invisible spikes placements can be read as such) I dont see this as a friendly prank. It makes me rage and then the person responsible becomes my enemy. At least till I cool my head down. So yeah, people can read things in different ways.

Awe.1096:

To be honest I dont think this developer-gamer interaction works as intended (from what Josh explained in his post) in my case. Becouse every time I get stuck on some part or keep ending up dead on some tougher jumping sequence, for the moment I start to hate the guy who conceived this. And since the man signed this project with his name and face, I start to think bad things about Josh and recite some curses directed at him in my head. It is not something I am proud from and I know it is bad that I have negative feelings over a game towards some guy, probably a decent guy in RL and all. But thats just how it works. If someone shows me the middle finger (some invisible spikes placements can be read as such) I dont see this as a friendly prank. It makes me rage and then the person responsible becomes my enemy. At least till I cool my head down. So yeah, people can read things in different ways.

First, stop think that everyone hates you.

Second, Tribulation mode was made of trial and error. You will walk and jump somewhere, and you WILL die, what did you learn? Not to walk or jump there ever again, and now you can make progress

Third, the developers are normal players as well, but with the power to create stuff in the game they play. The SAB team are players, and they think like this when they create something; ‘’If I played this map, what is the most obvious way to take? Let’s put traps there.’’

Alright, having finally finished world 1 I have to say, I find it interesting that they each got progressively easier. I don’t know how many lives I went though in zone 1, but it was definately over a hundred. In zone 2 it was only 104 and zone 3 it was 90 even. It would have been less if I hadn’t kept dying on lily pads when I wasn’t touching the water.

I found that as the natural difficulty of the level itself increased, the difficulty added by Tribulation mode decreased.

I think this is mostly because at some points in the levels the path becomes very linear. If there is only one way to go, that way can’t be blocked with a trap.

In the earlier levels there is so much open space, which allows for so much more room for traps, lava, spikes, ect.

I found this with World 2 as well. The dreaded World 2, Zone 2 rapids don’t have a whole lot added for Tribulation, because there isn’t a whole lot of room for error to begin with.