Guild Wars 2

Before I begin: I accept that I am not the world’s best player. I am disabled; I have an arthritic condition, and I can only play for so long before I am in too much pain to continue, especially continues JPs like SAB. I enjoyed World 1 a lot, and I have enjoyed what I have of World 2 (even if the difficulty and length are both a big step up from the end of World 1).

However last night I encountered the final straw with this content. At the end of 2-3, the final sequence from the ice spike room before the yeti up to the final boss.

1) Tiny ledges. Those really thin ones which you probably shouldn’t be able to jump on but are supposed to anyway and look as though you’re floating in air when you stand on due to the strangeness of collision boxes. I had a difficult enough time aiming for and remaining on these things on my asura. I pity anyone who tried this with a Norn or Charr.

2) Rooms full of spike pits anywhere outside of Tribulation Mode. I mean really? Especially when I don’t even get a chance to line up my next jump before I’m knocked back into the pit by an immediately respawning icicle. Losing progress is punishment enough, especially when I’m expected to expertly clamber up multiple tiny ledges in order to get knocked off the platform again.

3) Disconnects. Seriously, why hasn’t this been looked at yet. The game is a year old and we still don’t even have a five minute grace period for private instances in case of a login server/router tantrum. In my case, the login server had a fit when I’d finally made it to the Storm Wizard after several hours of cursing and failing, got him down to about a third of his HP, and then… “the login server is inaccessible”. Really? It wasn’t even as though my net dropped, as GW2 was the only program that disconnected.

This, for me, was the final straw. Everything I’d endured and figured out and slogged past and bam, it was undone in a split second by something that wasn’t even within reasonable control. Sorry Anet, and to everyone who worked so kitten this, but I’m done.

Even if points one and two are simple cases of “l2p”, please Anet for the love of $deity, fix this. Add persistent checkpoints for long zones, especially in the case of Tribulation Mode. Fix being instantly kicked from instances on a d/c. Something. Anything.

(Before anyone says it: yes, I know infantile mode is a thing that exists, but that won’t get me the academic achievement now will it. I don’t expect everything to be as easy as 1-1 and nor would I want it to be, but I do feel, especially as someone who only really started playing SAB with this update. There is a notable spike when you hit 2-1 compared to the curve in in world 1, and it keeps on spiking. Sadism in Trib mode is fine; not so mch in normal mode, thanks)

I agree that I personally would not have made some of the platforms so small. There are countless jumps where your character is balancing on the edge of a needle, on platforms that visually don’t seem big enough to stand on (and causing some collision issues in the process). For any jump, I think you should have a decently sized platform, and enough space for the camera to move in.

That last room before the yeti boss is indeed devious. The falling icicles are a nightmare. In normal mode, I think they should fall down once, and then not respawn. And again this room has countless platforms that are way too small. It is the last room before the boss, so it makes sense that it is difficult. But currently it just takes too long. It becomes frustrating, and not that much fun.

About the icicles, get the flute and learn the song to make them go bye bye a bit of a chore but worth it definitely.

i stopped because it forgot my progress..i was doing world 2 in normal mode…. did a couple of zones.. and then the next day it would only let me into infantile mode, not normal. nvm…

The Shatter Serenade intentionally makes that last room very easy — not only because it can permenantly remove icicles, but because it also fully unlocks a shortcut that allows you to skip that entire room.

I’d also note that the “room full of spike pits” is no different than the poison water in 1-3. It doesn’t kill you instantly (unlike Tribulation Mode hazards), so you usually have a grace period to get back on your feet. I sympathise with that room in particular, since if you’re in the middle of the puzzle, it usually forces you to start from the initial climb again, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the bottomless pits everywhere. (I do wish that Health Potions were more economical though.)

Finally, with regards to disconnects, I can again sympathise, but there is a suggestion we can make in the meantime: party up. You don’t need a full party of 5, but if at least one other player is in there with you (and doesn’t get kicked at the same time), then you can rejoin the instance pretty painlessly, straight back at the last checkpoint unlocked. I agree it would be nice if there was some sort of grace period for solo instances, but for now, there are steps we can take to mitigate the problems.

I can’t even post in these forums without getting infractions. What use is the feedback if we have to sugar coat it?

Must agree with the OP as well.

I nearly destroyed my new keyboard and mouse, along with my monitor because of the darts in 2-2. This thing is horrid, and needs to be removed from the game, burned, and everyone pees on the ashes of it. SAB needs to go.

According to Josh Foreman, the inability to resume at checkpoints is technical problem, not a design decision:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I can’t always dedicate hours at a time to GW2, and it would really, really, really help if we could start playing at unlocked checkpoints rather than the start of each zone, in all modes. That way I could focus on a smaller chunk at a time and progress in the SAB even when I “only” have an hour to play in the evening.

I would like this too. I think we don’t have a way to store that information on your character though.

Josh Foreman.8250:

The way things work in SAB is, like the engine compromises, are not the way I would design this thing if it wasn’t part of GW2. There are so many issues that come with building this in an MMO, the amount of logistics we have to deal with is a nightmare. I would love nothing more than to let you go back to your last check point.

Hopefully they will find a way around it in the future, but at least we know it wasn’t intended

TFMurphy.5136:

there is a suggestion we can make in the meantime: party up. You don’t need a full party of 5, but if at least one other player is in there with you (and doesn’t get kicked at the same time), then you can rejoin the instance pretty painlessly, straight back at the last checkpoint unlocked.

This unfortunately doesn’t work for trib mode, that was implemented on purpose to prevent piggy-backing (since a unique skin is tied to the completion of trib mode.) But for normal mode that is a solid suggestion.

World 2 is definitely too long and far too many instant deaths and tiny platforms for normal mode. The zone is really excellent in tribulation mode and I’ve learned to love it but I refuse to play world 2 past zone 1 in normal mode because it’s just so tedious. I was just angry the whole way through my first run through world 2 in normal mode because it was such a major leap in difficulty over world 1, this was before the nerf so it’s gotten a bit better but it’s still not enjoyable for me. I think a big fix they could make to it is to remove some of the repeat puzzles (feeding the octopus twice, two pagodas with dart trap puzzles, can’t think of any in zone 3) it’d make things a lot more tolerable.

I thought W2 Z3 was really well designed other than that BS spike/block room and the godkitten pink fog.

Crise.9401:

About the icicles, get the flute and learn the song to make them go bye bye a bit of a chore but worth it definitely.

Aaaaabsolutely. I believe it counts as a hidden room anyways, so just save yourself the trouble and run straight there on Infantile Mode before you worry about anything else regarding 2-3. It makes the zone easier when you’re in those icicle parts, and a significant bit faster as you shave quite a few minutes off that last puzzle. It’s also great in TM.

Every time I enter a room with icicles on the ceiling, I play the song a few times and then boom I’ve got plenty of room to maneuver.

rfdarko.4639:

According to Josh Foreman, the inability to resume at checkpoints is technical problem, not a design decision:

And that’s why a smarter design decision would’ve been to NOT make the zones so freaking long. I just now painstakingly made my way through 2-3, avoiding bananas blah blah blah, when I had a sudden disconnect. Boom, all progress lost, checkpoints or otherwise. Now I have to do everything over again, including the climb up the vertical room inside the mountain, which is only artificially difficult because of bad camera.

Barabbas.8715:

I thought W2 Z3 was really well designed other than that BS spike/block room and the godkitten pink fog.

W2, Z3 I thought was the best jumping puzzle. It requires a lot of jumping and puzzling your way up. Especially in that long climb upwards. It can be improved at a few spots (mostly a bit more checkpoints after some annoying bits), but mostly, I like it.

rfdarko.4639:

According to Josh Foreman, the inability to resume at checkpoints is technical problem, not a design decision:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I can’t always dedicate hours at a time to GW2, and it would really, really, really help if we could start playing at unlocked checkpoints rather than the start of each zone, in all modes. That way I could focus on a smaller chunk at a time and progress in the SAB even when I “only” have an hour to play in the evening.

I would like this too. I think we don’t have a way to store that information on your character though.

Josh Foreman.8250:

The way things work in SAB is, like the engine compromises, are not the way I would design this thing if it wasn’t part of GW2. There are so many issues that come with building this in an MMO, the amount of logistics we have to deal with is a nightmare. I would love nothing more than to let you go back to your last check point.

Hopefully they will find a way around it in the future, but at least we know it wasn’t intended

TFMurphy.5136:

there is a suggestion we can make in the meantime: party up. You don’t need a full party of 5, but if at least one other player is in there with you (and doesn’t get kicked at the same time), then you can rejoin the instance pretty painlessly, straight back at the last checkpoint unlocked.

This unfortunately doesn’t work for trib mode, that was implemented on purpose to prevent piggy-backing (since a unique skin is tied to the completion of trib mode.) But for normal mode that is a solid suggestion.

Yikes. I may not even bother finishing world 2 tribulation mode if it’s potentially going to result in another 2 hours wasted for me, because of a disconnect. I just got my first disconnect ever during a session of SAB, and it had to be while I was in 2-2 tribulation mode no less. It’s REALLY a mood killer when it happens.

1) Tiny ledges. Those really thin ones which you probably shouldn’t be able to jump on but are supposed to anyway and look as though you’re floating in air when you stand on due to the strangeness of collision boxes. I had a difficult enough time aiming for and remaining on these things on my asura. I pity anyone who tried this with a Norn or Charr.

No issue there. I went to all ledges in this room, never saw the “floating in the air” bug. And these jumps are not that hard. Also, if you take the shortest path there are very few jumps to do !
Btw, in SAB all characters are reduced to Asura size. So, no issue with norns. Asura may even be the hardest to play there since they end up being wider than human/sylvari/norn for the same heigth. Don’t know for Charrs.

2) Rooms full of spike pits anywhere outside of Tribulation Mode. I mean really? Especially when I don’t even get a chance to line up my next jump before I’m knocked back into the pit by an immediately respawning icicle. Losing progress is punishment enough, especially when I’m expected to expertly clamber up multiple tiny ledges in order to get knocked off the platform again.

They are really not like tribulation spikes. More like poison water in World 1. In tribulation, they instant-kill you.

3) Disconnects. Seriously, why hasn’t this been looked at yet. The game is a year old and we still don’t even have a five minute grace period for private instances in case of a login server/router tantrum. In my case, the login server had a fit when I’d finally made it to the Storm Wizard after several hours of cursing and failing, got him down to about a third of his HP, and then… “the login server is inaccessible”. Really? It wasn’t even as though my net dropped, as GW2 was the only program that disconnected.

Have to agree on this. Fortunately, I didn’t encounter this issue at any time while doing all SAB and Tribulation achievements (on 2 accounts^^) : I was probably lucky.
But this issue is not SAB-related. Those “login servers” (and also some game servers that are not called “login”) that seem to require connexion even long after login, are completely crap and will disconnect us randomly while we are playing. Everyone hates this ! This is especially frustrating when it happens in SAB or in WvW (my server has long and unfair join queues).

Eowyn

doctorfaust.9361:

And that’s why a smarter design decision would’ve been to NOT make the zones so freaking long. I just now painstakingly made my way through 2-3, avoiding bananas blah blah blah, when I had a sudden disconnect. Boom, all progress lost, checkpoints or otherwise. Now I have to do everything over again, including the climb up the vertical room inside the mountain, which is only artificially difficult because of bad camera.

He said he’s thinking of making the main route a lot shorter, with more alternate routes. This still doesn’t help if your, say, going for the bauble achievement and you’ve spent hours hunting them all down, and then get randomly DC’d. But, it’s a start.

applecup.3047:

-le snip-

You can skip the entire ice room by doing this simple thing: buy the wooden flute and use its special ice-breaking song. Simply stay on the ground near the end of the ice room, play the ice-breaking song (133133) and the giant icicle will fall down and let you pass without forcing you to do any of the other icicles in that room.