Guild Wars 2

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

All classes have “Bandage” as their #4 downed skill, it will self-heal but it will stop if you take any damage. So if you’re “safe” but dead, you can bandage yourself to life.

So with the update, if you fall, you can two things:
- Let time run out, and go to the checkpoint (which is now past the bridge)
- Bandage yourself and try again

No need to leave the instance.

Thank you for that reply and please see my post at the bottom of the previous page for a response.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Added to 9/24 update:

If you’re knocked off the bridge, your checkpoint will be set on the other side, so you can accept the death and bypass the puzzle, or try it again by reviving at the start. (You’re downed if you fall so you can self-revive.)

Was this changed? I’ve not been able to bypass the puzzle and I’ve fallen off that second part of the bridge dozens of times.

Maat.2065:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Added to 9/24 update:

If you’re knocked off the bridge, your checkpoint will be set on the other side, so you can accept the death and bypass the puzzle, or try it again by reviving at the start. (You’re downed if you fall so you can self-revive.)

Was this changed? I’ve not been able to bypass the puzzle and I’ve fallen off that second part of the bridge dozens of times.

Nope it will be in the patch on the 24th of September. Depending on your geographical location you will see that patch on Monday the 24th or possibly Tuesday the 25th (those of us ahead of US time).

melkathi.5203:

Maat.2065:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Added to 9/24 update:

If you’re knocked off the bridge, your checkpoint will be set on the other side, so you can accept the death and bypass the puzzle, or try it again by reviving at the start. (You’re downed if you fall so you can self-revive.)

Was this changed? I’ve not been able to bypass the puzzle and I’ve fallen off that second part of the bridge dozens of times.

Nope it will be in the patch on the 24th of September. Depending on your geographical location you will see that patch on Monday the 24th or Tuesday the 25th (those of us ahead of US time).

Wow, I need to look at a calendar before posting. Thanks.

Someone should take a look at the code or something, because I am waiting until the flags do die down as explained in the game and in this topic and then getting blown off.

I’m running it on a high end system, for what that’s worth, as I’ve seen some discussion of this.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Added to 9/24 update:

If you’re knocked off the bridge, your checkpoint will be set on the other side, so you can accept the death and bypass the puzzle, or try it again by reviving at the start. (You’re downed if you fall so you can self-revive.)

If i knew i wouldn’t have wasted time on this quest today (not a complete waste since i still managed to complete it).

I don’t know what’s wrong but the flags and flames animations are absolutely not reliable to the wind knock off effect.
I have 5 seconds max to to get to the next safe point and the wind somewhat manages at times to knock me off the opposite way of the wind the flags animations are showing.

I’m really glad the NPC helped me on the next part because i couldn’t figure any way to get to her.

Now a spoiler :
And even later, i think it makes no sense to have to use a dodge move to get past a trap that’s attacking you from below (i tried to jump it and hit the dodge key by mistake).

And i wish a lot of luck and patience to anyone else who will do the quest before next update.

I agree with ALL of the frustrated players about this terrible storyline quest! THANK you so much for deciding to make a change. I spent HOURS tonight trying to get across that wind bridge and it is like a sucker punch on “Wipe out” – doesn’t matter when you start to run, the wind will knock you off. I will definitely not want to have another character join the priory. I will try again after the 1/24 update. Thank you again – challenging is one thing, but this one is so ridiculous it just wasn’t any fun.

I had equal frustration with this quest, as the others who have. I’m not a highly skilled gamer with great agility skills, although I do appreciate non-combat challenges. This one was really tough, which is why I ended up on this thread. After reading this thread, and knowing that tomorrow I could always get around it if I needed, I decided to try once more with all the knowledge I read here. I did it! Here’s what I learned:

Look at the little flags for wind info. The big one(s) don’t tell you anything. My many failures were because I was watching a big flag.

The intervals do give you enough time, just run on the top of the “bridge,” don’t bother with the ledges that seem to protect you but are harder to stay on. I used a speed boost, but I think it can be done without one if you’re more skilled than I am. Because I used a speed boost, when I was at the center point, I waited for my speed boost skill to recharge, rather than trying to rush and do the whole thing on one speed boost (which for me, only lasts 10 seconds).

Hope that helps for people not wanting to use the upcoming nerf.

Has anyone done this yet since the patch?

I tried, still not happening for me. The checkpoint puts me all the way back to the starting area.

Skribulous.3521:

I tried, still not happening for me. The checkpoint puts me all the way back to the starting area.

That’s good.
What’s the point of making a funny video about something, if the devs come around, remove the frustration and suddenly nobody understands the video anymore
Then again maybe the patch just hasn’t gone up yet. What with timezones I am never sure when what happens.

Thank you for continuing to keep tabs on this.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Note that you can’t just run off the edge immediately, it will allow you to use the checkpoint after the wind has activated at least once. I just tested it on our “dev” servers, I’ll follow up and see if there’s any chance it didn’t get pushed to the patch. (Normally, we make change locally, then they get pushed to the dev servers, then they get pushed in a live update. It’s why we only do weekly updates, so our QA team can test the changes on the dev servers before we make them live.)

Jeffrey, at the time of Skribulous’ and my posts the patch hadn’t been rolled out yet. What with the difference in timezones (myself being in Cyprus at the moment) its sometimes hard to estimate when a patch is probably up

melkathi.5203:

Skribulous.3521:

I tried, still not happening for me. The checkpoint puts me all the way back to the starting area.

That’s good.
What’s the point of making a funny video about something, if the devs come around, remove the frustration and suddenly nobody understands the video anymore
Then again maybe the patch just hasn’t gone up yet. What with timezones I am never sure when what happens.

It is, by the way, a great video. Helped me laugh at a frustrating situation! Got me through it. Thanks.

For someone with terrible hand to eye coordination, this part of the personal story is a show stopper.

Is there anyway to page a gm to help you get through or otherwise to fail the mission and move onto the next story line?

Thank you.

I think it is mentioned somewhere upthread that if you choose to restart from the checkpoint after you fall or get pushed off the bridge, you will start from the other side, as if you had made it across. You will still have to deal with another jumping puzzle and vague directions from the Sylvari, but it isn’t bad. When I went through this story section, it also looked like the foes had been set to not attack. They don’t fight back. You can just kill them where they stand.

The wind was annoying, especially on the second part, but I’m admittedly bad at platforming. I actually found Sieran’s dialog to be even worse, though. Seriously, I loathe such cases of "our NPCs are special snowflakes and can do all sorts of cool, handy things that you can’t even when you’re the same class using the same skills". And then the writers even rub it in your face. Never learned that trick? Yeah missy, if you were a player, that "trick" would be called "hacking" and rightfully get you banned.

Grr. *puts on Grumpy Players Against Cheating NPCs campaign hat*

I could not do this mission. I’m partially sighted (I won’t go into it much as I have a rare condition, so you’ll just have to take my word for what I am saying, sorry) and I could not do the mission, at all. I was actually ready to totally give up and bin GW2.

The reason I play mmo’s and anything like them is that I couldn’t play normal games due to my eyesight, reaction time and so on. I really hate this mission as you HAVE to do it to pass on and no I didn’t want to look it up as I wanted the game to surprise me as the story is really good and I didn’t want to see any spoilers.

I died constantly for an hour just trying to dumb luck the mission, running past the wind and I couldn’t do it. I eventually asked in map chat if there was any way to bypass the mission and someone said they would help me (I’m okay getting help because, say, an enemy is hard but I hate having help for my disability). They told me about the dieing checkpoint thing and I felt totally cheated.. I spent an hour trying to do this on luck and I could have just died and accepted it?

I’m still thinking about binning GW2, which would hurt as I love the setting, story and even random NPC conversations.. It’s just that mmo’s are becoming so action orientated now that I just can’t do them.

G’day.

I think the frustration with this piece is that the platforming in GW2 is a bit awkward and is very machine-dependent. It’s okay when it’s vistas or something, because those are optional, but when it’s the only way to progress personal story, it’s frustrating as all get out. That’s design philosophy, though, and I’ll set that aside. Two technical things:

1) Running on 10/10/12 and I don’t have the check point fix. Blown off the bridge about 15 or 20 times and the checkpoint was always back at the beginning.

2) After the 15 or 20 times, the last time I was blown off I was presented only with the, “You Are Defeated” screen and not given my Downed skills so I could no longer self res with Downed 4.

Bah.

and i’m guessing stability doesn’t work on this one.

i am typically good at platformers and my machine is about average. the reason i have issues with this quest is because the level of interface coordination ( not hand eye coordination ) is too concentrated to be enjoyable even when you are successful. For me the difficult part was not even the first leg which offers a ‘short cut’ if you get the chance to start from checkpoint. My frustration was in the roughly hewn wall section which requires tremendous accuracy with the already ‘janky’ movement controls and jumping. Specifically, the interupt between a stream of ‘run’ command input and ‘jump’ command input is too delayed. In most of the critical jumps by the time the character is responding to the jump he has passed the critical margin for making the needed aperture.

I love this game but because i am being required to apply precise control of an imprecise interface its becoming frustrating. Its like putting mittens on someone and then asking them to sew stitches.

my thoughts as a gamer as amateur game builder, peace homies

quick followup in case anyone else has issues with this quest….

Use infiltrator arrow to cover the jumps in the second part. i completely forgot about that skill and using it made the puzzle wayyyyyyyyy easier.

I just finished this mission. And, well,.. I only died 5-10 times until I noticed the pattern:

You are only blown off as soon as the flag reach their highest “waving”, directly after that, you can go. There is no time span in which which you are blown off, only a single point in time.

After that, the platform jumping forces you to face a player’s worst nemesis: the camera. Seriously, at some point I had no idea where I was heading as the camera was too close to my character.

There is a lesson to be learned here:
jump&run and platforming passages outside of jump&run/platforming games are never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, ever fun.

In any single MMO that tried it (DDO comes to mind), they suck. GW2 is a good game, but it cannot into jump&run. Please don’t do this.

this mission is more difficult than the clock tower. flags and wind are completely random. often falls even from yards checkpoint, and sometimes the wind comes twice in a row after a few seconds. I am sorry to say but it’s the most boring and frustrating part of all the game

Voltar.8574:

and i’m guessing stability doesn’t work on this one.

Stability works for this. I’m surprised nobody else mentioned it…

~5s of stability is enough to get through each half of the bridge run. Wait on the middle island for cooldowns.

Elementalists, warriors, guardians have it easy with their stability-granting utility skills. Other classes can use their elite skills – Necromancer’s Plague or Lich Form, Engineer’s Elixir X, Thief’s Dagger Storm, Ranger’s Rampage As One. Mesmers can probably manage by charging Mantra of Concentration, popping it twice and using Blink to cover half the distance on the second leg.

marsplastic.7405:

this mission is more difficult than the clock tower. flags and wind are completely random. often falls even from yards checkpoint, and sometimes the wind comes twice in a row after a few seconds. I am sorry to say but it’s the most boring and frustrating part of all the game

I agree that the way this is designed is ill chosen. It can be done though, but you really need to watch the flags directly opposite of you. (so at the starting point, the flag at the halfway point, and at the halfway point, the flag at the end).

Like previously posted it has changed now. If you fall off, do not use 4 to heal you, but wait till your dead and retry again from the respawn poin t. Then you’ll be behind the bridge.

The jumping still has to be done, but take your time and you’ll be okay.

I’m so hating these “jump puzzles”, especially with “Bad Blood” I’ve been doing it since November, and I have yet to get close to crossing that chasm of wind. Is there an alternatives should you have trouble completing something on your storyline when it takes this long and kills your stats?

This quest is just awful. The poor design is a jarring distraction from what is otherwise a pretty polished gameplay experience.

I tried to cross the chasm 5 times. Each time it was IMPOSSIBLE to tell when to move forward. I got knocked off before I even jumped down behind the wall. I would get knocked down even standing besides the wall.

I died and that was enough to teleport me to the waypoint only to die to the pressure plates which incidentally still trigger when you jump over them. The only way to prevent the damage was to dodge-roll over them which is completely unintuitive!

Terrible quest that needs to be fixed.

I had to get my husband to do this for me, I just don’t have the skill to be able to do 3D jumping puzzles like this one. I need to have time to do stuff. All the jumping puzzles for World Exploration don’t have timers or winds to knock you off, so I was able to complete them eventually. Some took a couple of days as I’d try for a while, then give up to try later. But after 3 days of trying to get past this one, I just asked for his help, he had no trouble. That change where you can appear on the other side will help tremendously

The camera positioning for this is terrible. At the start you have to pivot to see any indicator banners, then quick repivot to move forward properly at the right time…

Why is there a chasm that’s unlit and un-viewable at the third safe zone? “Oh yeah I did it, let’s get to the wall of safe-teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-aaaaaaaagh!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sigh, Back to the start. Maybe I should just go do something productive instead”

Stop hiring people who hate video games and video game players as designers, please.

The flags are unreliable. I’ve had help on this from a warrior friend who has charged forward and skipped half the second puzzle in about one second, only to be knocked off the end right before he gets there. The wind animation causes a lot of lag, making it hard to navigate the tiny, thin ledge…. walking straight at times can get you to fall off. The flags are not reliable as when I am crossing the second part of the wind bridge, I cannot see them. Even when I time it just right, five seconds is not enough to get across as you get caught on the ledge. If the wind was turned down and seeing it pick up before the gust came would be helpful in timing this, because when running across that chasm of aggravation, it’s very hard to try and look at the flags while running forward as fast as you can and hoping you do not get caught on the tiny ledge. Waiting to jump up takes too long… and speed boosts have not helped me on this.

horribly made quest, the constant wind streams make it look like the wind is ALWAYS blowing, stupid illogical mechanic

CaptainPicard.3095:

Sorry Jeffrey if you designed this content, but its not fun-at all. After 60 tries, I am done with the personal story.

Exactly. I kept trying and trying and trying and… eventually gave up. Got most of the dungeons now, lvl80 with exotics & ascended, but I’m still stuck on the Bad Blood with my main (engi).

I understand the deal: you watch the flags and run when they stop moving. But it’s much trickier than it sounds. When reaching half the way, it’s difficult to see the flags. And I keep getting surprise-blasted as I reach the middle section. I was hoping the “checkpoint fix” would kick in after reading this thread and retrying, but apparently I get pushed off too soon. Also, the speed buff runs out by half way, making the second part or the acursed bridge even more difficult.
To make things worse, the NPC’s holier-than-though dialogue really invokes murderous intentions.

Sadly, I really like the Durmand Priory (favourite of the orders of Tyria) and would want to finish this story, but I’m avoiding them with all other characters.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

The checkpoint activates the first time the wind blows, but you must die and retry at the checkpoint. If you bandage yourself back up after falling off and teleporting to the start of the story, you’ll have to run it again. I don’t see how it’s possible to be forced to retry 60 times unless you’re choosing not to allow yourself to die.

Perhaps because it’s not truly intuitive? I would have never thought to not rally after being teleported to the beginning in a downed state.
I don’t think I missed an ingame direction for this(?).

I did this two days ago on my Guardian and it was a cake walk.

The first time I fell I found myself downed outside the cave and rallied. Tried it again, missed a jump or two and made it. No check points, just jumping puzzle.

I understand that not everyone likes jumping puzzles, my wife particularly can;t stand them. I’m not entirely convinced that the engine behind GW2 is the best one to power a platforming game. Still, they are part of the experience, and with such a varied game you can be expected to sometimes be asked to try something you don’t normally do. The trick is to see it as refreshing, not some violation of your play style.

If you’re really having that much of an issue on this section you might want to look into your machine specs or play style in general. I’m pretty casual in both respects and didn’t find anything odd here.

I just scanned through most of the posts and didn’t see anyone suggesting the use of a stability skill or trait. I have done it both on my storyline and for the achievement. I used the elite skill “rampage as one” on my ranger for stability and just ran across without regard for the wind. I’m at work so I can’t check and I also don’t recall, but I think every class has some sort of stability that can be used.

Gator.5729:

I just scanned through most of the posts and didn’t see anyone suggesting the use of a stability skill or trait. I have done it both on my storyline and for the achievement. I used the elite skill “rampage as one” on my ranger for stability and just ran across without regard for the wind. I’m at work so I can’t check and I also don’t recall, but I think every class has some sort of stability that can be used.

Every class has at least one but the mesmer version is 2 seconds. Elementalist is 6(I don’t think you can jump as a Tornado). It is random for Engineer.

It think it is worth comparing this personal story bit to the Geom’s Lab JP. Both have wind that can blow you off but the cue that the wind is blowing in the JP is better. The fluttering flags are not the greatest cue. There is also an annoying bump on the beginning of the ledge you have to jump. I probably get snagged on that 50% of the time.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

The checkpoint activates the first time the wind blows, but you must die and retry at the checkpoint. If you bandage yourself back up after falling off and teleporting to the start of the story, you’ll have to run it again. I don’t see how it’s possible to be forced to retry 60 times unless you’re choosing not to allow yourself to die.

Ok, I retried this yesterday and it worked. Not immediately though.
Wind blew me down quite soon when I got to the bridge, I fell, didn’t heal myself and dropped dead, yet the checkpoint returned me to the start (just like the teleport when healing).
However, the second try did work when I got about half way (that first little platform thingy). I fell again, but this time when I died I got the checkpoint.

So yay, I can continue with the Durmand Priory story. Thanks Jeffrey! But just to report, in my case the checkpoint doesn’t appear to activate until about half way.

To all those who suggested Stability, I guess it depends on the class. On engineers it doesn’t last very long at all, certainly not to get you anywhere on that bridge.

If one wanted to make this little puzzle intuitive, you would have the wind streams actually stop when the flags also stop moving. Whats with having wind streams still blowing, but apparently the flags stop blowing. That’s what makes this puzzle so difficult.