Guild Wars 2

Black Frog.9274:

OP is kitteno-ling, fa la la la la, la la la la

edit: srsly? forums filter out t-r-o-l-l in a game that has them as NPCs?

Noticed that myself, why it replaced ‘T’ with kitten I dunno, gonna test it here – are staying apart of the events but this one was so easy.

Gilosean.3805:

ophidic.1279:

Yeah, they’re way too hard, way too long, and they’re not worth doing. I usually just give up after the first few jumps. It’s garbage enough I gotta jump on crap to get vistas for map completion.

Cut the jumping stuff out, it’s frustrating and not fun at all. If I wanted Super Mario 64 gameplay, I would turn on my N64.

I, and a lot of other players, love jumping puzzles. If you don’t like them, don’t do them. It’s that simple.

Draknar.5748:

I liked the JP, but like others have said, it is way too easy.

I know, I know, there’s a lot of people who think the difficulty is just right. But what do they consider too easy or too hard? In my opinion it should be hard enough to take you a majority of the event time period to finally learn it and finish it. Not spend 20min trying it and then you beat it.

Since this is part of a limited event, I think it should be pretty easy so people can participate and have fun.

For JPs in the persistent world? Go all out on the difficulty, sure. I won’t like some of the puzzles, but other people will. So long as there’s something for everyone that’s fine in the persistent world. But for special events that specifically draw casuals back to the game, I think the activities / JPs should be easy enough for most people to do.

Yeah, except it’s part of the schedule on holiday events now. rolleyes
I wonder when we can expect a kart racing diversion?

So let me get this straight: Some of you are against difficulty levels (in favour of only super hard holiday JPs) because people would still complain about not getting this or that? What do you care about people complaining on the forums?
I thought your complaint was that the current level of difficulty wasn’t enough of a challenge to you, so why should you not be satisfied if you did get your challenge?

Seriously thoug, not everyone has enough free time to spend hours and days on learning how to do a JP…or sees that as a fun way to spend their time.

Only tried about 5times so obviously I haven’t had enough time to get it right, but it does seem easier than the Clock Tower, which is fine by me since I wasn’t able to complete it. It doesn’t help that my mouse it messed up which makes it harder, but that’s my problem, not ANets. I’ll take another crack at it when I have time, and report back.

This puzzle is definitely easier than the clock tower but for me it’s still a challenge and after about 8 or so tries I haven’t been able to finish it. However if I keep trying I’m sure I’ll get it before Wintersday is over. Jumping puzzles are not my strong suit but I do enjoy the feeling of accomplishment I get when I complete one (even more so than some people, I imagine, since they’re not as easy for me as they are for some people).

I don’t think it’s too hard, I think I need to get better at doing timed jumping puzzles.

The design was great and I did fall a few times due to me being a complete idiot but it was pretty easy in the end. As I mentioned in the other thread (which this is soon to be merged with so THIS thread!) the difficulty wouldve been good had the puzzle have been longer. At the snowball bit I expected to have had to run down through some cave system, dodging giant snowballs and npcs flinging snow at you to hinder your progress. Wouldve made it more challenging but not necessarily any harder.

Great work on the design and idea though, cant fault that as it felt magical in there. Its just the actual puzzle side of things lacked a little.

ophidic.1279:

Gilosean.3805:

ophidic.1279:

Yeah, they’re way too hard, way too long, and they’re not worth doing. I usually just give up after the first few jumps. It’s garbage enough I gotta jump on crap to get vistas for map completion.

Cut the jumping stuff out, it’s frustrating and not fun at all. If I wanted Super Mario 64 gameplay, I would turn on my N64.

I, and a lot of other players, love jumping puzzles. If you don’t like them, don’t do them. It’s that simple.

Yeah, except it’s part of the schedule on holiday events now. rolleyes
I wonder when we can expect a kart racing diversion?

I don’t like PvP, so ANet should stop having PvP achievements and making PvP updates. Oh wait, that would take a huge part of the game away from other people who like it. Good grief, I guess the world doesn’t revolve around me.

You don’t need to do the JP for any reason if you don’t want to. It’s not even required for the achievement. The thread is for constructive feedback about the JP. If you don’t have something constructive to say (EX: Why you didn’t like it and how ANet could improve) then please go away.

P.S. Racing was one of the activities they planned for originally, and will probably be in the game soon.

I have 4 hours into it so far and have yet to beat it. Timed puzzles in general are very difficult to beat. The pressure to move quickly is what makes me fail most of the time. The peppermint jump gets me quite often too.

The one time I made it to the snowball, I was so close to death from lack of health, I doubt I’d have made it. I wonder if having more than 15 800 health would help…

For everyone who’s having problems – have you turned the mouse sensitivity way up (1st tab in Options menu)? That made JPs much easier for me. I think having it at least in the middle is needed.

Also, Spekk’s Laboratory is a similar JP that you can practice on. It’s in Caledon Forest (Sylvari starting area).

I complete jumple puzzle 4 times in a row =D It’s not very hard, just focus on steps.. only thing i hate is when charr or norn was on same platform, coz i don’t see my character xD /human/

ophidic.1279:

Yeah, except it’s part of the schedule on holiday events now. rolleyes I wonder when we can expect a kart racing diversion?

This is funny because Roller Beetle Racing was one of the big events in GW for Canthan New Years and it pretty much was cart racing.

One thing I’ve noticed from the original to this game is the amount of kittening that comes from event activities. I don’t recall anyone ever complaining they couldn’t get first place in roller beetle racing, or finish the snow man cave or a scavenger hunt because it was too hard, or that nine-rings was a scam (even though it was, you knew what you were getting in to).

People did the events they liked and didn’t do the events they didn’t. It’s that simple. There is no reward for the bells, or the jumping puzzle that you can’t get from presents doing four other different activities.

There are achievements, but by virtue of the name, if you want them then you need to achieve something. Achievements aren’t a handout. The 360, PS3 and Steam don’t patch out achievements that are too “hard” for people to get. Anet shouldn’t be pressured to trivialize their content for people that don’t like the activity to begin with thus want it to be as easy to complete as possible, or that want achievements they can’t naturally earn.

This JP is already easier than the Lost Shores Geyser and the Mad King’s Tower. So a concession on difficulty has already been made. How much easier can it realistically get before becoming just a bridge that gives you loot and an achievement for walking from one end to the other?

Gilosean.3805:

ophidic.1279:

Gilosean.3805:

ophidic.1279:

Yeah, they’re way too hard, way too long, and they’re not worth doing. I usually just give up after the first few jumps. It’s garbage enough I gotta jump on crap to get vistas for map completion.

Cut the jumping stuff out, it’s frustrating and not fun at all. If I wanted Super Mario 64 gameplay, I would turn on my N64.

I, and a lot of other players, love jumping puzzles. If you don’t like them, don’t do them. It’s that simple.

Yeah, except it’s part of the schedule on holiday events now. rolleyes
I wonder when we can expect a kart racing diversion?

I don’t like PvP, so ANet should stop having PvP achievements and making PvP updates. Oh wait, that would take a huge part of the game away from other people who like it. Good grief, I guess the world doesn’t revolve around me.

You don’t need to do the JP for any reason if you don’t want to. It’s not even required for the achievement. The thread is for constructive feedback about the JP. If you don’t have something constructive to say (EX: Why you didn’t like it and how ANet could improve) then please go away.

P.S. Racing was one of the activities they planned for originally, and will probably be in the game soon.

Yeah I remember doing beetle racing a bunch of times in GW1 for some reason or another… Yeesh, lol.

Just made a thread about this, but in short: creating separate difficulty tiers WILL NOT SOLVE ANYTHING. Difficulty is not the problem. Structure is the problem. Some players just cannot adapt to this structure of jumping puzzle.

For these players, the solution is the option for a different type of puzzle. Not an easier puzzle, just a different type. One that doesn’t involve survival timers. Or racing against disappearing platforms.

The best solution, next time Anet releases an instanced jumping puzzle, is to provide two options: a race-against-the-timer reflex-oriented puzzle; and an each-jump-is-a-small-puzzle-so-take-your-time, decision making puzzle. Both of them can be difficult, because difficulty is not the issue. You just have to provide a separation of pace.

There.

Here is my feedback on this holiday’s jumping puzzle. It is in my opinion both easier and more difficult than Clocktower. And some things remained the same of course, that could still stand to be changed or evaluated in the future.

EASIER: Many things I’ll miss noting here, but they probably obvious to those who felt it was fun and challenging and easy, as well as those who felt it was too hard.

• It is nice not to have the acid rising, the more passive death by freezing is still an indicator of how much you have to “hurry” but more forgiving of pauses here and there along the way (at least after you pass the snowflakes).
• It is nice not to have the grabbing hands. They often grabbed even when you felt the acid was not there, or they tripped you up etc. However, there are many times lag seems to glitch you on the snowglobe and you seem to land a jump and then load into start.
• It was nice not to all start together, the rushing horde really confused things last time.
• It was nice not to have one of the gating factors be right at the top of the two steps of stairs (eg, the stop and jump and hurdle those first blocks). I lost rhythm, and I had trouble with it the entire first night. On this puzzle I made it to the snowballs the first night and frankly if I had known the snowman was going to blow at me I may have finished that attempt.
• The speed buff was nice. I’m sure the puzzle was adjusted for it, incorporated the need for it, but psychologically it helped, and it helped make jumps that are obviously simple but when rushed, can cause a bit of stumbling.
• Thank you for removing the ability for others to grief us due to their elite skills and so forth.
• Thank you for not having there be any bumping into edges or having the camera go wonky, at least from my perspective.

Note, I use a laptop, have for years. I can’t sit at a desk to play, I can’t use a mouse. For clocktower and snowglobe I -had- to. This is a limited time accommodation for me, but I make it because I enjoy the content and the challenge, as much as I hate how unused I am to interfacing with my computer that way. It is a handicap I adjust to normally quite well. I’ve done all the puzzles in the game (save for the last 2 added, just haven’t bothered yet), and I find them quite fun. I just tend to need to take it slow, and my wrists won’t allow me much strain. I can go fast in a straight line or with some turning, it’s the 90 degree or hard turns that I really cannot do without my handy trackball wireless mouse.

HARDER:

• So thanks for breaking the group into smaller groups but uh … uh … please, please, don’t go making them all new all different. Or let us choose which ones we hate, heh :P Now, I love the snowmen, I am o.k. with the quaggan, and I hated the gingerbread men. I got my achievement on… gingerbread men. So I will do what it takes, but here’s the deal. I either tough it up and do ALL THREE paths, taking three times as long to learn something (this is hard for me, it doesn’t come naturally, this hand-eye coordination and muscle memory) — or, I skip one. And wait longer. And the RNG hates me, it seems and the times I just grumbled and skipped those evil breaded men, I got them over and over again. I half wonder if that was intentional or the universe goading me to get my prize. But… really. If I HAD been able to stick to ONE path, I would have finished in one third of the time, easily. To all the people who think “that nerfs it” — you guys are the ones who finished in 1, 2 or 10 tries. So no, I don’t think it nerfs it for you. It nerfs it for those of us who will invest the time to finish it come armageddon or high water, I just think it’s ridiculous to have to do that. I have snowball present carriers to annihilate.

I’ll conclude my feedback in my next post.

THE SAME:

• Please? Find something to do about the wait? I have a life. I am paying you, ANet, tons of money. Be considerate of that. I will be a lifelong customer, or you can irk me and I will go away. To those saying “stop your whining,” no. I invest my time, I stick it out and I finish. I could care less if you finish on your first, second or tenth try. Or after a half hour, or two. Clocktower took me thirty and I yelled so loud I got yelled at. This one took me 11. I did the same, only I yelled twice.
• Charr with big armor? It still created tension, though not quite as much. Many already took off big armor, some still delighted in tormenting others. And honestly, Charr did cause me to miss jumps a few times. I was already flustered for one reason or another, and it did not help. With the fractal where we all become charr, I know it’s possible to turn us into something. (Just not Charr :P or Asura. Something reasonably sized where the camera aspect won’t go akimbo at edges, and I can still see my feet.)

Clocktower made me a better platformer. I admit it. I had only done a smattering of the puzzles at that point, and as I said, now I’ve done all but two. But I never played console games that required much of it. And the ones I did play, that was MANY years ago. Never on a PC. But I am invested in GW2, and I intend to enjoy ALL of it. Even if it gasp makes me grow as a gamer. I will fight tooth and claw and rip out hair to be better, but please don’t waste hours of my life making me wait for others.

Sure, snowballs are ok. But even the first night when I got into an instance by myself (and stayed up many hours that I did not intend to because how could I pass up a chance to practice alone) … I could throw four or five snowballs just waiting after I failed. I don’t need time to surf the net, read the forums, shop the trade post. I want to do the puzzle.

If you MUST group people together because of server load, and if having groups is part of the “fun” or “challenge” (I am not knocking small groups, 2-3 at a platform was fun, I followed someone on my successful run, not that I needed to to “know” the path) — PLEASE find a way to take those that finish and dump them into an “empty room.” Recycle instances. Don’t make us wait for them to finish. A minute or two is a long time when you group up all the failures due to learning or stupidity or fat fingers or spacebar not jumping or lag over the course of 11 hours.

And lastly, thanks for letting us watch others do the puzzle. Having had to wait it was nice to be able to watch. But you could have put the snowman holding us on the other side, so we could have watched all of it. Sure you probably wanted people to have some suspense getting to the end, but it’s not like the puzzle was not on youtube within 20 minutes of going live. Would have made the last half of the unbearable wait slightly more bearable.

Anyways, thank you for the thought that went into this puzzle.

Honest feedback? I thought the clock tower was more fun, and not because it was harder. It was just more fun.

As for this, I think the puzzle was okay. Some of the major complaints of the clocktower were addressed. I have no problem with group jump puzzles and I don’t think they’re likely to go away for holiday events. That said, it definitely feels less crowded, and the jumps don’t have to be as precise. There’s room for error, albeit small.

What I think A-net needs to move away from is timed puzzles for the next holiday. An interesting, maze-type thing would be fine. Maybe include an incentive for doing it fast (I would suggest a higher quantity of loot, not new or special loot), but don’t make it a requirement. While I have no fundamental problem with timed jps, I think we’ve seen them for two holidays now so it’s time for something new.

I agree that the wait time is too long. Clock tower seemed about right. This seems too long.

Other than that, I have no specific qualms at this point, and I can’t even pinpoint why I found this one less fun. It was still a quality puzzle just less exciting I guess.

The main problem is the start of these puzzles – fix that and much of the dissatisfaction will go away.
The start of these puzzles is a) harsh, very harsh, on learners and b) disadvantages people playing small characters.

1. The massive failure rate in the first few seconds of the puzzle and resulting long wait times are enormous disincentives for people who have yet to master these sorts of puzzles.

Why have such a vicious timer on the early jumps when we start as a crowd?
All that does is massively increase the failure rate at the start. Instead of encouraging people to learn how to master these, the harshness of the starter timer punishes learners with persistent early failure, minimal opportunity to develop their skills and excessive wait times. Small wonder some people give up in raw frustration.

To be challenging a jumping puzzle does not have to have to be so vicious at the start.
Better to reward people with some early progress before pushing them back into the wait queue. Just the increase in playing vs wait time that would give will be enormous for learners, and that’s without adding the benefits of increased practice and satisfaction from experiencing early progress.

2. These puzzles are severely unbalanced when it comes to the small races (Asura and some Sylvari).

I play an Asura, and it sucks for these puzzles. I do just fine with jumping puzzles out in Tyria – not as well as some, better than others, overall fine. But put me in a timed jumping puzzle with larger races and I’m at a huge disadvantage.

Sure it’s only the start that’s a problem before the crowd thins out. But try doing 3, 4 sometimes up to 6 jumps and changes in direction in a row blind and see how well you do. And when I do miss a jump the penalty is a long wait that breaks my rhythm.

It’s one thing to fail because I made an error. It another thing to fail because I just can’t see my own character.

If these puzzles are meant to be PvE then fix the balanced for all races.
If they are means to be PvP competitive (even in part) then fix the balance for small races.

The solution, tweak the start of these puzzles to be bit more rewarding for learners and small characters.
Make the puzzles just as long, make them just as hard. But make them a bit more forgiving at the start. The result will be far higher overall satisfaction with these puzzles.

While this one is WAY easier than clock tower (10 mins vs 10 hours for me, although I was playing on a crap computer for clock tower), I feel it is fair and was still satisfying to complete. Not everyone wants to spend 10 hours on one holiday event, especially when there is so much else to do.

Edit: Although I can’t fathom why they kept the draconian wait system in. Surely you don’t have to wait for EVERYONE to finish or die before starting a new run. It’s not like having a huge group makes the puzzle a better experience anyways (I find it to be the opposite case).

I found the jumping puzzle to be rather easy, and very enjoyable. It was orders of magnitude easier than the Halloween puzzle for me.
It took me about 20 minutes to get it done. Once I figured out the proper way to get past the sugar canes, it was a piece of cake.

I appreciate it, that the developers listened to the complaints with the Halloween puzzle, and implemented distributed spawns this time, so that screen was not crowded. Also the platforms were HUGE, which also made it way easier to get through the puzzle, even with other people on the screen.

The same problems that made me dislike the Halloween Jumping Puzzle remain in the Wintersday Jumping puzzle, just to a reduced degree.

1. Character model size is still an issue, along with being clumped with others. I tend to do better with Norn and Charr characters. I can get far with my Asuran main if there’s only a few other players with me.
2. Camera collision issues remain. Certain routes cause the camera to freak out and screw me up. I can survive two or three cases of the camera suddenly shifting and essentially blinding me from the action, but by the third time I’ve fallen behind too far to cope.
3. The push concept is never well liked in platforming games. Push being a level that pushes you constantly forward, but in a multiplayer atmosphere its far worsened.

For example, if I screw up a boss level in Super Meat Boy that uses the push method, I can immediately restart and nothing gets in my way. In the case of the GW2 jumping puzzles, I have to sit and wait for others to finish and then hope they don’t blind me when I do attempt the level again.

It just stops being fun at a certain point and without other players it might still be fun, but with their presence what should be a fun social event quickly becomes frustrating.

Don’t know if this has been stated yet(I’m not about to read through 6 pages of comments) but here’s the deal with the puzzle:

There are three paths; Gingerbread, Quaggan and Snowman.

Gingerbread seems to be the easiest path. Reasons:

Gingerbread Path:
1. The candy cane branch jumps are as easy as the Quaggan path.
2. There are two jumps near the candy cane swirls that you can skip snowflakes. be careful and mindful as to which they are.

Quaggan Path:
1. The candy cane branches are the easiest part about this path.
2. There is a large jump via snowflake to candy cane swirl, if you don’t keep moving, chances are you might miss it.
3. I’m not sure if its this path, but there’s a cc swirl that you can jump to that is part of another path. it doesn’t speed up your time though, but incase you are going to miss the last swirl, there’s that extra landing spot.

Snowman Path:
1. hardest path out of the three. Contains cc branches that are hard to get on and easily miss-able.
2. right after branches there’s a hard to land snowflake on an angle and another hard to land small/flat snowflake.
3. quite possibly the slowest path, but not by much.

I honestly hope this helps. I’ve been gathering this information over the last two or three hours.

Happy Wintersday and Happy Jumping!!!

Just to remind the elitists…

This is a CHRISTMAS EVENT PUZZLE . I hope people irl treat you the way you’re treating the community. Get over yourselves and your “uber l33t skillz” that aren’t being met by this one puzzle.

Frotee.2634:

The only thing that’s puzzling me, at this point, is the challenge-seekers who are soundly against difficulty levels because they don’t want people lacking their particular skill being able to enjoy part of the event.

Have you done every other jumping puzzle in the game?

No? Well, there are your “difficulty levels”, then.

Maybe we should also have multiple difficulty levels for every dungeon path? What about multiple difficulty levels for every world boss? Or multiple difficulty levels for each renown heart? Or maybe whenever you’re exploring and a mob attacks you, it should start by asking which difficulty level you want…?

Or maybe (here’s a crazy idea) we should just have several different dungeons, each with several different paths, and populate the world with several different bosses and creatures. Some easier, some harder. And then let players explore and fight the ones they want. And maybe we could do the same with the jumping puzzles.

I for one prefer a game with 30 different jumping puzzles over one that has 20 puzzles with 3 different “difficulty levels” (meaning rehashed content with a slightly different timer or whatever).

If you can’t climb the Everest, don’t ask God to make the Everest shorter; try climbing the Kilimanjaro instead.

arjeidi.2690:

Just to remind the elitists…

This is a CHRISTMAS EVENT PUZZLE . I hope people irl treat you the way you’re treating the community. Get over yourselves and your “uber l33t skillz” that aren’t being met by this one puzzle.

the one thing i absolutely love about this event is the snow.. apparently the irl weather doesn’t understand the time of the year around me.. =[

I put this up the other day and lot of peeps in this thread may have seen it already. I think it will break the monotony to the ones having trouble with the puzzle and a chuckle for the ones who have been though it a few times.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wintersday/Frosty-the-Snow-globe/first#post1007082

Leave me some love if ya like it. plz

Getting the overflow message mid-jump and then not being able to move isn’t good. I really liked the puzzle except for this. Always get this message on my first run and it’s always after I have started the puzzle. I invariably fall to my doom and then have to wait for the timer all over again.

I could not do the clock tower at Halloween because I have eye issues and I need to pause to adjust so I can see where I am going by then I’m back at the start after 2 jumps. Winter wonderland one same issue BUT it also triggered a migraine and I spent a day in bed with it. So for those who can do it, kudos to them. Those who get migraines, do not even bother with it unless you are darn lucky it does not trigger yours.

Special Event activities – and this includes jumping puzzles – should not take more than half an hour to complete. They are festivity gimmicks and they ought to put people in a good mood. With the Event Puzzles, the Clocktower in particular (but also this, to some extent), many people are getting frustrated, and that can’t really be the aim of an event puzzle. Making them soloable/groupable and adding different difficulty modes [with no differentiation as to final result, preferrably, or people will still get frustrated over hard mode in the end], might alleviate some of that.
Edit: Difficulty levels for event puzzles make more sense than difficulty levels of regular content because 1. they are available only for a limited time and purpose; 2. their mechanics seem to work thusly that it is easy to adjust them – even just alleviating some of the time pressure or nearly removing it (removal would be possible in a solo instance, for example). This has nothing to do with regular content, because it has little to do with it – and, seriously, nobody would lose their feeling of achievement just because someone took a bit longer to complete a silly jumping puzzle.

Personally, I hate timed jumping puzzles. Hate, hate, hate. They frustrate me to no end and even a puzzle like this one, which I know for a fact is not the hardest I have completed so far, can make me terribly aggressive. Sorry, but I don’t enjoy these types of things. The only reason I’ve been trying as much as I have is that I would have to do the PvP stuff to get the event title…

I’ve enjoyed it. Plus the fact that there are several different ones that the players in your overflow get put on makes it a lot easier to do. I enjoy watching the ones that made it farther than me too. Plus if you get bored the snowballs are a nice distraction. I’ve only beat it twice but have enjoyed it and will continue to do so.

Great job Anet you’ve improved on the JP keep up the good work.

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

make it like fractals where you level up and the timer speeds up for higher prizes

I like this suggestion a lot. Everyone I talk to either says it’s very easy or very hard. If it started easy and got progressively harder with each level, that might allow the very skilled to see how high a level they can get, while still allowing the casual/new jumpers to at least see the course. (I don’t think everyone should just be handed rewards and achievement points, but it would be nice for everyone to at least see the whole puzzle.)

You people who can put this on farm…

Please may I have your jedi skills?
Jumping puzzles I can do.
This one, I cannot.

I try, and try and try.
And eventually rage quit.

I really like the bell one though I’m 1st or 2nd each time for that lmao.

I’ll be one of the rare voices that says the jumping puzzle isn’t too hard, and isn’t too easy. I’m still working on cracking it, but I’ve gotten close to the end. Only here because the game is updating.

Thanks, ANet, for a very fun holiday feature. I’m enjoying the jumping puzzle a lot. Giving us the snowball fight to pass the time in the lobby is wonderful. My wife and I laughed for a long time.

Keep up the good work guys.

I really love both this puzzle and the clock tower, and I really think they addressed some of the problems that people had with the clock tower.
Splitting up the starting groups into three separate paths to reduce congestion at the start and having the snowball piles to give you something to do while waiting for the next run are both very nice solutions to issues people had with the waiting times between each run and the fact that it got too crowded right at the start of each run.
I’m glad to see ANet listens to the fans.
Good job ANet!

I loved the clock tower even though it took me a few hours to get. After the first time finishing it I found it became much easier to finish and then almost laughably easy once you got the rhythm down. This puzzle was to simple for my taste though I loved the design it had going and the multiple paths. As for people wanting puzzles to be easier I would love to see them implement a non-timed puzzle, just make it longer and more based on timing the individual jumps/ making it more focused on skill and concentration and not rushing as the floor falls out from underneath your feet.

I personally love this jumping puzzle, but at the same time timed jumping puzzles aren’t my thing.

If they are going to add in a timed puzzle, then there should be a difficulty setting attached to it so people don’t feel rushed while doing it.

Keep the rewards and achievements the same so those people don’t feel compelled to tackle the hard setting.

What I disliked about the clock tower was the lack of clarity. The platforms had literal stumbling blocks on them, you couldn’t tell from looking if a bump could be run over or if you had to hop. Everything was tight so there was little leeway to get ahead or fall behind the screen-blocking Charr and Norn.

All of this was solved in this Wintersday puzzle. I felt that every time I failed it was down to me and not due to unclear graphics like having to guess what stuff was passable and whether slopes were too steep or not. It was all literally crystal clear.

I think the multiple difficulty suggestions are good ones. Maybe have the course split into different paths with different difficulties and rewards. By difficulty, I’m thinking faster/slower pacing, smaller platforms… skill based stuff.

But whatever happens, as long as future content continues to ensure failures are down to player error and not fuzzy/unclear understanding of the environment, I’m happy.

I thought the jumping puzzle was good. Assigning players to different paths alleviated the congestion that many people disliked about the Mad King’s Clocktower. It was a little easier than I expected – took me 3 attempts, as compared to 3 hours of attempts at the clocktower – but that should allow the majority of players to complete it, which I am fine with for a holiday event.

Everything about this jumping puzzle was better than the Clock Tower, and I loved that one too. The only thing was that it was maybe too easy, but reward felt all the more appropriate because of that.

Only complaint – I could not do this on my computer even with the graphics turned down all the way for some reason. Never had a problem before, but it would just load up too slowly and I’d be ported back to the entrance/ snowflakes gone by the time the loading screen popped. I didn’t even have that problem with the Halloween puzzle with graphics turned up. Thankfully I could go play on my boyfriend’s ridiculous gaming rig, but without that I probably would not have been able to to the puzzle at all. Something to look into.

I enjoyed this one – I’m not the most coordinated, but I managed to get it after about an hour of tries. Not as harsh (time-wise) at the Halloween one, but I preferred that and think the reward was appropriate. I still enjoy the timed style of these.

I liked how clear the course was laid out (mandatory imo since it is timed) and that any failures was my fault. I did not like the Halloween puzzle as much because of how many places you could get accidentally hung up. I liked being able to watch other people do the course so I could get a heads up on future problems like the wind."

I especially liked how the start was split up.

Saxon.1908:

I agree the Clocktower was MUCH harder and therefore more fullfilling when I did complete it. But my mate is not so good at Jump puzzles and struggled with the Wintersday one.

Someone above suggested 3 tiers of difficulty. I think this is a great idea, it gives everyone to have that same feeling of satisfaction. Seems easy enough to do. For example the Easy version of this puzzle might have been to get to the exploding Toy box’s- while the mid one stays as it is now and a hard one either adds more jumps after that OR ramps the existing one up a bit more with higher damage and/or other elements like wind or moving platforms.

I didn’t feel fulfilled when I completed the clock tower, only relieved that I’d never have to do it again.

There’s a sweet spot in challenge for people, if it’s too easy, it’s not satisfying, if it’s too hard, it’s frustrating and not rewarding when you complete it, only relieving that it’s all over.. the spot between is it’s challenging but in a way that is rewarding and not frustrating.

Personally, I think the clock tower was too much, and a lot of it being artificial reasons. I actually think had this been a solo instance, the clock tower would have hit the sweet spot, I started having fun once the first 1/4 of the tower was done and most of the other people had thinned out and the challenge was 100% derived from the jumps and timer alone. I could see myself improving steadily each attempt when I got past that first 1/4.. however that first 1/4 I’d fall 9/10 times and not make any progress. It’s not consistent improvement because the people around you obscuring your view aren’t consistent. Same here to some smaller extent. The hardest part is the snowflakes part where you have multiple people going at once. You get in the line with all the max size norn and Charr and you’re screwed.

This puzzle I felt was a bit closer to the sweet spot overall, and if there hadn’t been other people obscurring the view I would have thought it could have been a little more challenging in design.

I tried it 7 times. I’m not very good at jumping. But I am persistent. However the long delay in between each try sucks.

That’s all.

First off I would like to say nice job and thank you Anet. Though this jp is not perfect it is obvious that you have listened to comments about the clocktower and considered things for yourselfs. You neither ignored players or gave in completely, but rather sought a balance. So again thank you.
Now on to particulars:
1) the divide at the start rather than the large bunching like in clock tower was a huge help. As an asura player those large crowds kill. With this setup there is still a chance that you can get paired with a bunch of trench coat wearing norns and hulking armored charr, but the chances of that are reduced and i thought it went rather well.
2) The difficulty was improved though I think a big part of that was that people weren:t so bunched together.
3) However i understand people not wanting a timed one. Partially because the last two are now timed so it would be nice for a change. In addition timed events add a challenge that goes past figuring out the jumping puzzle and is based more on reflexes limiting those that have the natural talent or skill to complete. (personally i have completed both ct and this one though the clock tower took me uncountable hours with a final 12hr straight push at the end. this one 30min-ish)
4) A suggestion i think would make a lot of people happy is to do a check point system like in the asura jumping puzzle. That way you could do different challenges (even a timed part) and yet people wouldn:t feel like they were losing out on everything everytime they fell. There could be real progress. In addition it would give people a break between hard parts if you chose to do some timed events in it.

Alright well i am tired but i just wanted to again thank you and nice job you are on the right path.

oh and in response to people asking to use shapechange, please make it optional if you do that. It is hard to see myself as an asura, that is true, but i know where my stand box is in relation to by character image. Now that people are split into smaller groups i had only minimal trouble with not being able to see due to my height (like the round with 3norns and a charr lol)

Iason Evan.3806:

Getting the overflow message mid-jump

As with the fact that players still block each other’s view (which would be easily fixed by rendering all other players as small snowmen, for example), that’s another example of Arena Net not paying much attention to the feedback they got from the Halloween JP.

Overflow pop-ups are horribly implemented to begin with (they should just be a small icon that pops up on your minimap, not a huge modal dialog box in the middle of your screen that interrupts control of your character), but having them inside an instanced jumping puzzle is too dumb for words.

I think Anet did great!

Definitely not as difficult as the clock tower, but Idk if that’s a bad thing. I’m all for crazy difficult jp’s, but I don’t think holiday events are the place for those. Keep holidays inclusive of as many people as possible, imo.

Definitely need difficulty levels. People who are extremely good at the puzzles find them too easy and the rest of us are still frustrated. I think that makes the case pretty well for difficulty levels!

I’ll be trying this one a few times a day until I (hopefully) succeed, but I don’t find it fun at all. I can do most jumping puzzles if there is no time limit or there is a set time limit only. The disappearing snow flakes kill the fun for me. I just don’t have the level of dexterity and mouse control to not have to occasionally take a second or two to readjust.

I didn’t get too much time on the clocktower so no idea if I could have ever completed it.
I think this puzzle is just about perfect for me. Took me about 30 mins the first day. The second day thought I was going to make it on my first try only the fail on the path to the present. Took about 4 more tries to make it. So far I’d say yeah sure not too difficult, but not a cake walk either. About the difficulty I would hope for in a holiday event.

Account.9832:

Iason Evan.3806:

Getting the overflow message mid-jump

As with the fact that players still block each other’s view (which would be easily fixed by rendering all other players as small snowmen, for example), that’s another example of Arena Net not paying much attention to the feedback they got from the Halloween JP.

Overflow pup-ups are horribly implemented to begin with (they should just be a small icon that pops up on your minimap, not a huge modal dialog box in the middle of your screen that interrupts control of your character), but having them inside an instanced jumping puzzle is too dumb for words.

I would love for them to move the overflow message to a real small thing in the bottom corner, that doesn’t interrupt play. So annoying getting this message every time you zone

I hate timed things. I suck at jumping so times puzzles are hard for me. The absolute worst thing about the puzzle is waiting 30 seconds or more to restart it if you fall.

I find the timed ones annoying. I’m not a pro at jumping around. I can do them but get flustered at the time aspect. I’m all for difficulty levels for those that want a greater challenge. Like the halloween one would have given you the piece of armor on any difficulty level, additional levels could be more challenging for those who like these things. The chest on harder levels could be geared to drop higher level loot but people would not have to complete them on the hardest level to get the basic completion for a fun event.

I’d love to see the timed component dropped from future puzzles. It’s not just a case of liking or not liking the timed element. Making the puzzles timed makes them much more difficult for players with physical and mental challenges. They completely shut out players with mobility issues (arthritis, limited arm/hand motion, etc.) who would be able to complete the puzzle if they could work on it slowly but surely. They also are very frustrating to people like me with spatial learning disabilities. I love jumping puzzles (in fact, the challenge of navigating them in an artificial 3D environment helps me hone my spatial skills!), but I need time to be able to judge the jumps correctly.

Since there are plenty of challenging jumping puzzles out in the world that don’t rely on a timed element, I have every faith that developers can put out puzzles that challenge players without forcing them to go quickly in order to artificially inflate the challenge level.