Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I’ve completed the Halloween JP around 200 times, loved it. Completed Snowglobe 20 times, hardly any fails. My problem with the JP is not because I can’t complete it, but simply that I feel it’s so badly designed that I have no wish to grind it like I did the Clock Tower.

First section: Snowflakes. Same model used over and over for different sized platforms. All floating mid air.

Means there is no sense of perspective, hard to actually know what size the platforms are before jumping. Repetitive platforms makes the puzzle stale and grindy.

Candy cane suffer from same problems as all ledge jumps, ledges feel unresponsive, and seem to cheat to grab on to player, characters will often jump further or shorter than commanded making the ledges feel both cheaty and unfair at the same time. (Of course this is solved by side jumping, but I’d imagine most don’t do that.)

Second section: Mints. Same model used over and over for different sized platforms. All floating mid air.

Same problems as first section, but worse. Mints give even less perspective as they are whole models with no shadows and the inability to see through them for even minimal perspective.

Third section: Presents. Boxes seemingly disappear randomly, gives the feeling of luck instead of skill. The jumping pattern required is very unsatifying, back and forth over and over (assuming no presents missing), no aiming, no complex decision making.

Forth section: Candy cane. Wind creates a timed barrier, after racing to that point. Breaks pacing.

Fifth section: Snowballs. Skrit throwing things never actually threaten the player. Instead just create an annoying atmosphere where new players feel they could be thrown off at any moment. At the double mint off shoot, wall can throw you in to the ground if you hit the snow bank at the slightly wrong angle.

Sixth section: Presents. Jumping on blue presents requires no aiming. Simple and boring jump forward. No skill involved, makes no use of what could be a good final run up.

Summary: The Clock Tower (gold standard JP at this point) was hard, but even the cheap part felt like a failure of skill. There was no random component. Snowglobe seems filled with random, platforms are unreadable ahead of time, skrit snowballs (even though they don’t actually do something) make the player feel they are facing random elements, the presents are very random, the platforms feel random due to their complete flatness and weird angles (which is they obeyed normal game physics and wern’t sticky would not be able to be jumped on).

Summary summary: Snowglobe is too easy, and too cheap/random.

why do people always complain? HAVE FUN :-D

I agree with the OPs criticisms. That said I still think that the wintersday JP was fun. You don’t want to grind it for fun as much as you do the clocktower (after beating it) but it’s not a bad JP.

I never had any problems regarding perspective. I usually hold my W button all time, only stopping at the candy canes. You can jump the 3rd present row from the right all the way up, the pattern is fixed. I have never even noticed the wind barrier in ~20 runs as i can just keep running and finish the JP with more than enough hp left.

Risingashes.8694:

…reasons…

“Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man”

Frankly, I loved the jump puzzle. It’s beautiful, not as maddening as the clocktower and everyone I know was able to complete it (and some of them usually hate the jumping puzzles in this game).

So I believe it was much more INCLUSIVE and I’m happy that so many more players can complete this puzzle. Holiday events should always have this spirit of inclusion, rather than acting as divisive events in the community.

regarding models of snowflakes & mints: they are all big enough and not spaced to far, thus the not so easily distinguishable ledges are not a problem at all – you don’t have to stand right at the ledge to get to the next platform – it actually hinders you as you’ll land so far on the next platform you’ll have to stop to turn your camera. if you jump sooner you’ll land at the beginning of the next platform, can run a few steps (during which time you’ll reposition your camera) and jump again.
the lack of perspective might be a hindrance, I never noticed it, as I never had any problems with depth-perception in game. except maybe in the clocktower (which apparently you feel was perfect) – there I sometimes wasn’t able to judge the distance in time and had to learn/remember it.

skritt mortars have a cooling effect (no knockdown) which makes you to slow to get past the snowballs. you’ll have to dodge the red circles (as in.. everywhere else in this game, where red circle means bad). without these, the snowball part would be a bit to easy. and guess what: the circles ARE in a pattern and always at the same position at the same time – no randomness at all.

presents shake before exploding, easiest way to get across is the 3rd or 4th column on the left, don’t jump diagonally, just up =) and the pattern is fixed as far as I can tell, my way was ALWAYS there when I arrived in a timely manner (though if I screw up and am late some presents will explode)

complaining against randomness I generally support (I really dislike the RNG in this game) – but not if there in fact isn’t any randomness. please check your facts before posting a complaint like this. the only part which MIGHT contain randomness are the presents, and as I said, at least the 3/4 row are fixed – I’m pretty sure the rest is also, but haven’t confirmed it yet.

The only random thing in this puzzle is which path you spawn in at. The presents don’t disappear at random – it’s the same order every single time. Additionally, I don’t have the issue you’re claiming in points one and two, it’s not that difficult to determine the sizes of the snowflakes or mints before you jump, they are visibly different in size. Finally, the wind blowing can be completely avoided by rolling right through it, it’s not a time barrier like you claim.

That being said, I agree that this puzzle is dreadfully boring compared to the Clock Tower. My biggest issue is probably the one thing that others love about this one: I find it to be far too forgiving, the time to complete it is VERY generous. You’re not frantically going through it as the platforms disappear behind you. It makes it VERY boring, and not challenging at all, even after you know how to do it.

A solution to this would be to create a hard and easy mode for future puzzles, both of them granting the same achievement in the end, but different rewards.

Kagato.4061:

A solution to this would be to create a hard and easy mode for future puzzles, both of them granting the same achievement in the end, but different rewards.

yes please. I like to get my achievements easily (getting them I kinda consider work, everything afterwards I enjoy doing just because). bell choir was perfect – the achievements are easily obtained and they only force you to try it out for more than 2 minutes. by the time I got the achievement (half an hour or so), the choir really grew on me and stayed for hours afterwards just trying to get to 600

the JP as it’s now probably should be medium difficulty, with an easy mode for beginners (which already awards the achievement but only 1-2 gifts) and a harder mode which gives you more presents (and maybe a 2-5% chance at one of the weapon skins or something) but is more in line of the clocktower.

Hi everyone,

There is already a thread on this issue, you can find it here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wintersday/Jumping-Puzzle-Feedback-Merged/page/7#post1022452

Please feel free to join and give us feedback.

Thanks for your understanding. This thread is closed