Guild Wars 2

i just wanted to say that i am really happy about these achievements in the jumping puzzles!

definitly better than just “smash 150 pinatas” “use 100 fireworks” etc….

but the jumping puzzle achievements are fun and challenging!!

it is really entertaining to return to some jumping puzzles that i did at start of the game
(or maybe never did before)
and it’s nice to see a lot of people in these jumping puzzles now and they help each other

keep on with achievements like this!!!

And it is good that people can either do AR dungeon achievements OR jumping puzzle achievements to get the minipet so everyone can do what he likes best while not getting the achievements for free and without effort…
because that would destroy the whole sense of Achievements… just saying this because i saw people complaining WAY TOO OFTEN …. basically complaining about the fact that they have to work to get an event reward and that skill is needed to get some of the rewards
so players that dont have skill dont get rewarded…. but that exactly how it should be in my opinion!)

(i even remember A LOT of people complaining that there was 1 sample in the southsun jp during the Canach event … even though that smaple wasnt needed at all and it gave 0 achievement points people still complained…. all i could do was facepalm and try not to rage at such stupidity^^)

I agree.

A lot of them are actually in puzzles I hadn’t done before, so it was fun to go out and find them. I love the one in Metrica, even though finding the entrance was actually the hardest part it’s still a very interesting puzzle and one I know I’ll be coming back to.

I was actually a little bit disappointed when I went to get the last cache and found it was at the start of the puzzle and all you had to do was run through a cave to get it.

I agree. I am happy to see that some of the achievements encourage players to check out jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons that they may not have done before, or to revisit them. I’d complete all JPs and mini-dungeons a while ago, but it is good to get taken out of your own routine like this.

What I particularly likes was that the different caches were placed in locations of varying difficulty – from super-easy to challenging; some requiring jumping and some not.

Things that I would have done differently:

• Selection of jumping puzzles/mini-dungeons: it would have been better if ANet would have selected JPs and mini-dungeons that haven’t been known to be buggy since launch. I mean, jumping puzzles can and should be challenging, but not due to a bug. Especially players who don’t know Goemm’s lab so well don’t need the additional stress.
• Encouraging players to check out WvW: Valid strategy. However, using the most hostile turf in the entire game is not actually great marketing for WvW at all. Instead of the Obsidian Sanctum, I would have hidden the cache in the Sapphire/etc. sanctums, where success and failure depend less on whether your server currently happens to dominate the Eternal Battlegrounds (roughly 33% of player base) or not (roughly 66% of player base). Too many PvE players leave this challenge without the chache achievement and very frustrated, and are less likely to get into WvW than before. The easier jumping puzzle would have done a better job.
• Relation to the actual story: It would have made more sense to me to select jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons that are related to the Aetherblade or Inquest (or even regular bandits or geographical closeness to LA) in any way. Right now, it seems somewhat arbitrary and random. Vexxa’s lab was a good choice, but the Hylek cave wasn’t.

So all in all, I’m about 80% happy with this.

I have to say I’m surprised at the reactions to Goemm’s Lab. This was my first time doing it and even though I did encounter bugs a few times I didn’t find it any worse than most jumping puzzles.

Without the bugs it’d be one of the most forgiving puzzles IMO. In most if you fall at all you have to start at least that section again (often go from the start) and if you fall far enough to die you have to either wait and hope someone will heal you or waypoint out and start from scratch. Even Spekk’s Lab which has the telporter golems forces you to start from a waypoint if you died, and you’ve got a good chance of dying to the lava instead of falling which also damages your armor.

If they wanted to be really harsh they could have put one at the end of Dark Reverie where the majority of falls will kill you (if the fall itself doesn’t all the enemies on the ground likely will) and if you die and can’t be resurrected you have to start from a waypoint and do an entire other jumping puzzle (Morgan’s Spiral) just to get back to the start.

I completely agree, achievements like this that highlight parts of the game world that most people have not been to are really good. Lots of people dont even know these mini-dungeons exist since I dont think a single one has been added since Halloween update.

I generally like the jp’s but the mini dungeon’s I’ve done aren’t enjoyable so I’m pretty much skipping all of this round of achievements…good thing they’re really not worth anything:)

I agree. I think this was a great idea and have been having fun revisiting the content and getting the new achievements (although I’ll just skip the EB JP).

Hear, hear! Love it, and if people hate Goemm’s it’s not like they can’t get ported to the end…