Obsidian Sanctum for achievement, really? [merged]
I’ve given this much thought, over the past few days, and I want to make a few points I sincerely hope someone who makes these decisions reads. Sure I’ll get flamed some, but eh.
Point 1: ArenaNet, you purposely set out to create a game that encourages cooperation, not competition — and it was this which drew many players, among them myself, my husband, and my guild. We love the fact that nodes are set up so that one doesn’t have to worry about someone ninjaing them. We love the fact that it’s considered a normal part of gameplay to help other players, because anyone who tags a mob, gets a chance at loot from it AND gets the kill credit. We love the way you encourage us to rez each other. All these things speak loudly to a spirit of cooperation among your players. For this reason, I fail to understand how it was deemed a good idea to put a limited-time achievement in an environment that a great many of your players actually do not frequent. Given the amount of camping that’s being reported and experienced, what you’ve done is create a situation where it’s “come-slaughter-the-little-pve-bunny” time. People know that we’re easy kills, they know many of us are achievement-minded and will go die over and over and over again, waiting for them to tire of the game. This goes directly against the spirit of cooperation you’ve created. Yeah, I know, it’s WvW — so it’s to be expected people are going to die. But you’re missing the point — we LIKE getting our achievements, and we WILL risk the anger, the frustration, and the increased armor repair costs in the miniscule hope that we can get in there and actually get this achievement.
Point 2: There is a significant difference between the mindset of the PVP-oriented player, and the mindset of the PVE-oriented player. I speak from experience; I started my gaming with FPS. Then, for three years I was a guild leader in WoW on Sargeras — a PVP realm. I dove into the battles, the battlegrounds, the open-world combat. I rode to the rescue, with my trusty compatriots, of my lower-level guildies when they were being griefed. Been there, done that.
Somewhere along the way, I apparently got older. My tastes changed from competition-against-others to competition-against-self. Competition-against-the-game. I learned to rate my abilities by how well I tanked a fight, how well I healed it — how effective I was as a part of a group. How well I knew my skills and abilities in the PVE environment.
PVP requires that one have a strong sense of competition vs. other players. Hence the name of it — PLAYER VS PLAYER. Now, I’ve known many players who were as excellent at PVP as they were at PVE. They absolutely loved and embraced both modes of play. My hat’s off to them!
But most players can be split between PVP and PVE. And despite what all the love-PVP folk would have you believe — your game is not populated solely by people who love PVP.
We, your PVE bunnies, have been begging you for a long time not to force us to go into PVP. You persist in doing this. The arguments why this is a bad idea seem to make no difference to you … but I really want you to stop, and consider:
Is it doing your players a service to FORCE them to cross over? Yeah, I know. No one’s FORCING us to pursue “unnecessary” achievements. But as much as you love your combat against other players? As much as you love building your talents, abilities, and achievements in PVP?
We love doing the same, but in a different venue. We WANT those achievement points. We should not HAVE to submit ourselves to a gankfest, a spirit of “kill-the-wabbit” in order to get them.
Last point: I absolutely revel in the fact that, as often as you come up with “Living Story” content for the PVE world, you keep coming up with new things for your WvW/PVP crowd. I applaud that. I do not think they should be denied anything. Make sure, please, you understand, that isn’t where this thought-process is coming from.
Bunnies of Tyria, UNITE!
But seriously, I concur. I understand the desire to encourage people to play your whole game. But the fact is, many people don’t like one aspect or another and it’s not serving anyone to put them in a situation where they feel compelled to play contrary to their preferred style. Let’s go back to the manifesto video. One of the early things that attracted me to GW2 was ANet’s declaration that the game was designed for people to play in the manner they enjoyed best. Sure, I could skip the PvP content and miss out on that achievement. But chasing achievements is part of how I enjoy playing the game.
Yeah, just did the entire JP only to have a camp of griefers at the end.
The fact that there are people who would purposely sit around for hours preventing other people from getting a simple achievement is disgusting, but not surprising or unexpected honestly. The fact that Anet allows it to happen though, or even encourages it, is shameful.
There is PvP, and then there’s griefing. This is griefing and it should never be encouraged.
“Please, you can look down on people without having to be physically above them.
As an asura, I do this all the time.”
As an asura, I do this all the time.”
Going to throw my hat in with the “This was a terrible decision by Anet” simply because I want them to be aware how annoying this is. Achievements of this category are intended for PvE people, not PvP, if it were a PvP achievement it would be under PvP achievements. It takes just a few people to ruin the day of many that just want to get to the cache and get out. I love PvP in it’s own right, but to face a few on higher ground with ranged, fear, and pull such that there is 0 chance of getting past them wastes my time and saps the enjoyment of the achievement. Anet, please don’t do this again. If you want to put PvP achievements as part of these meta events, make a whole PvP meta event. Sorry, but I am quite upset with this decision.
I did Obsidian Sanctum for the first time this weekend, and it’s my favorite JP in the game. The only problem with it is the opposing players. I was doing great for a while, but when I got to the Arena some Mesmer attacked me for no good reason and killed me. Then later, in that area with the control panel, some other guy was shooting at me and knocking me out of my jumps. It ruined the entire thing.
I think this Jump puzzle would be made much better by making it a safe zone in which you cannot attack other players. If there really must be a PvP element, then make it more like a game than open warfare. Keep open PvP, direct player attacks, as impossible as on a PvE map. However, leave in the traps.
Make it so that players can take over trap controls and launch traps at other players trying to do the puzzles. The trick should be though, that any traps left available are ones which a clever and skilled payer can avoid, knowing that they are there and timing them out, not ones that can prevent progress entirely. And since you can’t kill other payers to knock them off the trap controls, put launchers and trap doors on the trap controls, with a second switch at some point in the area, so that if the advancing player can reach that point, they can eject the other player from the controls and send them back a distance, forcing them to redo the part. Then it becomes more of a game than a combat thing.
“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
I don’t mind PvP, I do it for fun, but mostly sPvP. Balanced groups competing = fun. Ganging up on individual players with a group, or being ganged up upon = no fun. Especially when you’re in a PvP zone not because you want to PvP.
I support Portable Doors: Player Housing anywhere!
~ Whips ~ City Minigames ~ City Jumping Puzzles ~
~ Whips ~ City Minigames ~ City Jumping Puzzles ~
I did Obsidian Sanctum for the first time this weekend, and it’s my favorite JP in the game. The only problem with it is the opposing players. I was doing great for a while, but when I got to the Arena some Mesmer attacked me for no good reason and killed me. Then later, in that area with the control panel, some other guy was shooting at me and knocking me out of my jumps. It ruined the entire thing.
I think this Jump puzzle would be made much better by making it a safe zone in which you cannot attack other players. If there really must be a PvP element, then make it more like a game than open warfare. Keep open PvP, direct player attacks, as impossible as on a PvE map. However, leave in the traps.
Make it so that players can take over trap controls and launch traps at other players trying to do the puzzles. The trick should be though, that any traps left available are ones which a clever and skilled payer can avoid, knowing that they are there and timing them out, not ones that can prevent progress entirely. And since you can’t kill other payers to knock them off the trap controls, put launchers and trap doors on the trap controls, with a second switch at some point in the area, so that if the advancing player can reach that point, they can eject the other player from the controls and send them back a distance, forcing them to redo the part. Then it becomes more of a game than a combat thing.
ohoni, anet, by design, created jumping puzzles in pvp zones, for pvp players. yes, it is a brilliant puzzle and it was designed as a pvp puzzle. the reason you had issues is because 1) it is pvp and 2) it’s part of an achievement chain for the sky pirates living story, and people have found they can camp it and rack up free honor badges because a whole slew of us non-pvp folk are trying to get the cache, located at the end of this puzzle.
this thread isn’t about the unfairness of a pvp jumping puzzle but rather about the environment of camping/ganking that’s been promoted by having this achievement in a pvp zone.
I came on these forums to make a post about this as I have just rage quit the game at how enraged and frustrated I am by people from another WvW server camping out the entrance.
Seeing this thread I can see that I am not alone and that this is a major frustration point for other players.
Please Arena Net, do not do this again and reward players for taking advantage of other players in the game.
I had never even been to the WvW JP before. Thought I would check it out after reading this thread a few days back. Found the entrance, went in. Only red name tags in there. Jumped down off the platform and moved towards the center to explore a bit. Several enemy players started running toward me. I zoned out. Maybe I’ll try this at 3am, see how it is. But it’s a bit discouraging for a primarily PvE player like me.
(edited by Astral Projections.7320)
I completely agree. I dont really play PVP much at all ankitten ot yet strong enough to do the dungeon or know enough people in game to get a 5 man team. I usualy simply play with my dad and 2 little brothers. Last night me and my dad tried to do the jumping puzzle to get the cache and Sorrows Furnace had people stationed at the entrance, At each of the trap chains, and at the chest to stop anybody that is not part of their team from getting the achievement. My server is severally out numbered in WvW and can barely hold any territory while the enemy can have people stationed and take shifts guarding things 24/7. Not to mention the annoying fact that they not only prevent you from getting an achievement but sit and mock you when 6 guys take down 1 person or 10 take down 2. As if you were somehow supposed to become a god and kill all of them and its your fault you so pathetic you couldn’t stand up to those staggering numbers.
I suppose I was lucky with the matchup my server got. I brought a friend and we just walked through the jumping puzzle, Danced in front of some enemies then made it to the end. No one seemed to care about killing us as everyone was doing the same exact achievement we where.
ohoni, anet, by design, created jumping puzzles in pvp zones, for pvp players. yes, it is a brilliant puzzle and it was designed as a pvp puzzle. the reason you had issues is because 1) it is pvp and 2) it’s part of an achievement chain for the sky pirates living story, and people have found they can camp it and rack up free honor badges because a whole slew of us non-pvp folk are trying to get the cache, located at the end of this puzzle.
I don’t mind that it’s available in a PvP form, but I would very much like it as a purely PvE experience, especially if they are going to tie achievements to it. Make a completely separate version. I really think it’s one of the most fun and beautiful JPs in the game, and it’s a shame that they allow PKs to ruin that.
I will point out that many of the opposing players were perfectly good people, there were a number of them I hung out with at the entrance, and others that I passed along the way that gave me no trouble, and a bunch near the end that could have really caused trouble for me if they’d wanted to, but did not, so good on them, but there were a few in there that just had to be jerks about it.
“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
I totally agree with the first post in this topic.. we did the JP with guildmates, we have come to this JP for the first time, so it was not that fast. But at the end of the JP, players from other servers camped and shoot us just to be in combat mode, so can’t jump that long. When they was bored about ruining our jumping, they came down and killed us. It was a REALLY bad idea to put the last cache to Obsidian Sanctum… because of these trolls.. OK, I know you don’t need this one for the meta achievement, but anyway, I wanted to get all Sky Pirates achies, but I have gived it up.
Oh, and after they killed us, my guildmates left WvW, but I stayed, because maybe they will be bored of it.. no, they won’t, and the best thing, that I’ve been kicked for inactivity (I was defeated – a few players wanted to rez me, but they were killed too). I had revive orb, but wanted to use it when the campers left..
Don’t do things like this again, please..
Point 1: ArenaNet, you purposely set out to create a game that encourages cooperation, not competition — and it was this which drew many players, among them myself, my husband, and my guild. We love the fact that nodes are set up so that one doesn’t have to worry about someone ninjaing them. We love the fact that it’s considered a normal part of gameplay to help other players, because anyone who tags a mob, gets a chance at loot from it AND gets the kill credit. We love the way you encourage us to rez each other. All these things speak loudly to a spirit of cooperation among your players. For this reason, I fail to understand how it was deemed a good idea to put a limited-time achievement in an environment that a great many of your players actually do not frequent. Given the amount of camping that’s being reported and experienced, what you’ve done is create a situation where it’s “come-slaughter-the-little-pve-bunny” time. People know that we’re easy kills, they know many of us are achievement-minded and will go die over and over and over again, waiting for them to tire of the game. This goes directly against the spirit of cooperation you’ve created. Yeah, I know, it’s WvW — so it’s to be expected people are going to die. But you’re missing the point — we LIKE getting our achievements, and we WILL risk the anger, the frustration, and the increased armor repair costs in the miniscule hope that we can get in there and actually get this achievement.
Point 2: There is a significant difference between the mindset of the PVP-oriented player, and the mindset of the PVE-oriented player. I speak from experience; I started my gaming with FPS. Then, for three years I was a guild leader in WoW on Sargeras — a PVP realm. I dove into the battles, the battlegrounds, the open-world combat. I rode to the rescue, with my trusty compatriots, of my lower-level guildies when they were being griefed. Been there, done that.
Somewhere along the way, I apparently got older. My tastes changed from competition-against-others to competition-against-self. Competition-against-the-game. I learned to rate my abilities by how well I tanked a fight, how well I healed it — how effective I was as a part of a group. How well I knew my skills and abilities in the PVE environment.
But most players can be split between PVP and PVE. And despite what all the love-PVP folk would have you believe — your game is not populated solely by people who love PVP.
Pretty much agree with everything here. I used to do PvP stuff when I was much younger. Now, I don’t particularly find it at all rewarding. Somewhere along the way I grew up and decided tearing down other players for rewards was just obnoxious. Too much like watching everything that’s wrong with our society encapsulated in a game. For me, the cooperative open world game play is what makes this game different, better than other games and worth playing. I would have significantly fewer issues with this game overall if Anet would just admit they screwed up in the first place putting PvE stuff in PvP land and undo the bad decision they made and henceforth NEVER DO IT AGAIN. I haven’t even bothered to try to complete the OS JP since I know it would just be an asinine gank-fest with opposing players camping at the JP killing the solos and smaller groups trying to get the achievement (and probably thinking they are total bad kitten killing a bunch a players that don’t give a dam about WvW/PvP anyway).
Nerf Shadow Arts condition cleanse. Gut the
Acrobatics trait line. Then sell it back
to them for $50. Brilliant! – ghost of P.T. Barnum
Acrobatics trait line. Then sell it back
to them for $50. Brilliant! – ghost of P.T. Barnum
I can’t even get there because of insane queues.
:<
Let me just add another voice that finds it annoying this achievement is in Obsidian Sanctum. I’ve been avoiding the puzzle because I dislike RPG PvP, but decided to give it a try during a dead time on our server since I have one achievement left for the meta. Jumped in, jumped down, and instantly died to two thieves coming in.
Ok, that’s fine, maybe they’re moving on. So I WPd, moved out, didn’t see them and started moving in. A few minutes later I come across them again, and die. Ok, maybe they’re having a rough time getting through it and caught back up to me after falling. So I WP back, get a little further than before, but then they pop down from a cliff (where they were hiding) and killed me again. Laying there, I watched them jump back up the rocks and wait to kill another person who ran past.
I really just have one question for the devs: Was this your grand vision of this achievement? PvPers ganking PvErs?
I suppose this is what happens when you have such a short timeline for releasing content.
Just wanted to add my support for this never ever happening again. Apparently it’s not enough for the server that’s currently mopping the floor with the other two of us in our match to have more than twice each of our points. No, they have to camp the JP so we can’t get this achievement either.
Seriously, don’t every mix PvP and the story again. It’s awful.
At the very least Blackout Cache should be removed from the Cache Out achievement and Cache Out should count toward the meta.
Again I will comment in here. The idea of the achievement being in Obsidian is one of the stupidest I have seen implemented. We just took a group into the Jp so that a couple of guys could get this achievement. I got it in the early hours one morning previously. BUT we should not have to bodyguard our PvE players so that they can get what is essentially a PvE award. I died twice to the gankers camping the entrance and by the time we finished I had added 4 or 5 kills to my PvP tally, but I do not take any pride in this. It is a minority of people using it for ‘easy’ badges, but they are an awful thing for players to face (especially as few can fight 1v1 anyway, without being permanently cloaked in stealth). I will not stop playing because of this decision. I will still do my PvE and PvP aspects of the game. Listen carefully to the next bit, Anet…I DO NOT want to do them both together. I PvP for fun in one way, I PvE to relax and enjoy this game. Please restrain from these practices.
I have noticed that ANET has not bothered to reply to this post even though over 300 replies have been made!
I have made it through the puzzle many times now. I REALLY hate the Griefers. I am what many call a Care Bear, but I like PVE and not all this. I see no point and wonder why people enjoy killing other players ‘just because’. I am the type that if my portal would work for the people on other servers, I would gladly port them back up if they fall in the dark room or arena, but alias I cannot.
I would just like one of you Griefers to tell me what is it you get out of it. I mean I will never meet you, not that I would want to after behavior like that, but truly ‘What is the point?’
AND ANET WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALLOWING THIS ANYWAYS, what to you makes it any fun.
I have noticed that ANET has not bothered to reply to this post even though over 300 replies have been made!
I have made it through the puzzle many times now. I REALLY hate the Griefers. I am what many call a Care Bear, but I like PVE and not all this. I see no point and wonder why people enjoy killing other players ‘just because’. I am the type that if my portal would work for the people on other servers, I would gladly port them back up if they fall in the dark room or arena, but alias I cannot.
I would just like one of you Griefers to tell me what is it you get out of it. I mean I will never meet you, not that I would want to after behavior like that, but truly ‘What is the point?’
AND ANET WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALLOWING THIS ANYWAYS, what to you makes it any fun.
I agree with Your post, I agree with Your logic, I am not a Griever myself but… the sharpness of Your blade points wrong direction.
Let’s take it all aside and look at this problem. There is cache in WvW, that players want to reach. A lot of this players ain’t that good with PvP, so they are easy target. What does it mean? Actually few things.
First – obvious. Easy kills. Few more badges, points, WXP.
Second – tactics, strategy. If they gonna be stomped hard and they are persistent at the same time – they gonna be back. Not just “back” – back with greater force. What does it mean? Well – that force will be missing in other parts of WvW. The trolling actually aid server. Grievers are pulling enemy resources from where it’s needed, just because server force wants to help their players achieve something personal – not server wide rewarding. I’ve seen it few times. Fortunatly my server was dominating this week. And at least twice I saw that whole enemy zerg went missing just to deal with it. While they were JPing, my guildies and rest of my server stripped them of their towers and keep. All that just because we had troll-team in JP. I do not approve that… but I understand.
What I do not understand is, how the hell Anet thought it’s an “ok” idea. It wasn’t bad for me: +-10 minutes, died once, killed bunch of enemies. But I can relate, and for those who had not my luck – that was a bad idea.
I just wanted to jump in here with my +1 against having this achievement at the end of this JP.
Personally, I wish that JP’s and map completion were left out of WvW all together.
I’d be fine if they were actually, y’know, fighting me in Obsidian Sanctum. Instead, we get parties of three, whose sole purpose is to fear you off the edge of ledges. That’s it. No actual fighting involved. The idea that my knockbacks can’t force someone off a ledge, but their fear can, seems somehow unbalanced.
Even if they do nothing to change this (seeing as the event is ending this weekend), I’d really like to know what anet has taken away from this thread – if they agree that at least the way that these wvw and pve achievements were merged did not work out.
I think they need to get into the mindset that wvw is a form of pvp rather than pve – because it is. There are some mobs to kill sure, but its background noise. There are a number of problem which crop up when anet tries to treat it as pve with some pvp elements – it’s the other way around.
guildless hobo who likes to solo – [x]
I’m trying to complete this achievement since the beginning, and I haven’t completed it , yet ( and I’m quite sure I never will..). I’m not a good jumper, and I need time to complete difficult puzzles, such as the WvW’s one.
I came into the map and found a group of smart players that attacked me in the dark part, but when I said I was there for the cache, they stopped and ignored me.
I appreciated this, and hoped to find other guys who wished to challenge people interested in fighting, and not in PVE content…
But when I was almost out, I found a single one, obviously stronger than me.
I tried to ask him, nicely, to let me finish the jp. He didn’t answer and killed me, happily, I guess.
Worst GW experience ever.
I hope this will not happened again.
I enjoy WvW sometimes, but i’d like to do it, when I desire, not for PVE achievements!
I’m trying to complete this achievement since the beginning, and I haven’t completed it , yet ( and I’m quite sure I never will..). I’m not a good jumper, and I need time to complete difficult puzzles, such as the WvW’s one.
I came into the map and found a group of smart players that attacked me in the dark part, but when I said I was there for the cache, they stopped and ignored me.
I appreciated this, and hoped to find other guys who wished to challenge people interested in fighting, and not in PVE content…
But when I was almost out, I found a single one, obviously stronger than me.
I tried to ask him, nicely, to let me finish the jp. He didn’t answer and killed me, happily, I guess.Worst GW experience ever.
I hope this will not happened again.
I enjoy WvW sometimes, but i’d like to do it, when I desire, not for PVE achievements!
I don’t think people form other servers see what You were writing to them. Have You ever seen anyone from the other side saying something? Not sure, just a thought.
World vs. Kite
Find the large kite hidden in Obsidian Sanctum (World vs World). Unlike last time, the kite is not at the very end of the puzzle but rather about 90% of the way in (it is on top of the large dome with caged animals below). You will need to complete majority of the Obsidian Sanctum jumping puzzle nonetheless.
So here we go again.. same annoying achievement with the new event? Really?
I’m just trying to imagine what they were talking about before releasing new event:
“Ha-ha, did you saw all those weaning people that was killed dozen times on WvW when they were trying to get chest? That was sooo funny! Let’s do it again!”
I can’t wait for all the tears from the pve’ers in this weeks matchup thread. They’re steal QQ’ing about last week.
TL;DR: I finally found a farm worth doing. Thanks for funding all this siege I can buy on the TP.
Alshazzär
Tarnished Coast [TC]
Tarnished Coast [TC]
(edited by iCryptik.1496)
Even if they do nothing to change this (seeing as the event is ending this weekend), I’d really like to know what anet has taken away from this thread – if they agree that at least the way that these wvw and pve achievements were merged did not work out.
Now we know. They don’t care.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November