Guild Wars 2

I really don’t like it being timed, though the difficulty of the jumps themselves is fine. The time limit makes it stressful, and having to wait after failing just makes it worse. I’ve failed in jumping puzzles a lot but being able to jump right back in kept it fun. Here I get punished by having to stand around :\

the wait time is ridiculous

As someone who never played the Mad King’s Clock Tower and has done almost every open world jumping puzzle within the first three tries, this is near impossible. If I am lucky I make it to the peppermint platforms, it is just in time to watch the present staircase all vanish.

Having watched someone do the MKCT on YouTube, I would have never been able to do it because all the spinning crap give me vertigo just watching it. And I do not get motion sick easily.

quick question to the community who are asking for additional difficulty levels – if there were say an easy / hard / ridonkulous mode, after having completed easy mode, would it guarantee people won’t whine about there being different levels and having feel “compelled” to do all difficulty levels? what with especially different titles and or achievements or loot.

i think it’s a good idea but think it’d have to be fleshed out. again, can’t please everyone and i think it would further help alleviate the issues many of us are still having. that being said, if the loot / rewards are different, there will still be people who complain that they can’t finish the harder difficulties. on the other hand, if loot / rewards / titles were the same, then those who completed the harder difficulty levels would feel it was “unfair”. what are some further suggestions that ANet can take and keep improving these events?

i personally had a lot of fun. was challenging, but in a definite different way than the clocktower was. and can still be frustrating.

someone mentioned a score-board and i thought that was a good idea that would give the hardcore players incentive to keep beating their own scores and be able to “show-off”. while the more jump-casual players would be able to complete the puzzle, get rewards and not feel pressured or that they are “missing out”.

just thinking out loud…

The idea of selectable difficulties is a good one. Some players are just terrible at jumping puzzles in general, let alone timed JPs. This goes doubly so for touchpad users (argh! get a mouse already!)

Just put the players in different instances.

Scale 1: Tourist mode.
No timed aspect (or a very generous one), allowing the player to jump the puzzle at their leisure. Offer low-rewards but enough to make the player feel rewarded for exploring the puzzle.

Scale 2: Standard Difficulty
Timed puzzle. Difficulty level similar to the current jumping puzzles, with a daily reward being offered and then rewards for re-completing the puzzle scaled back to existing levels.

Scale 3: Hard Difficulty
Timed puzzle but with less forgiving time (similar to the Clocktower JP where you couldnt waste time in the early puzzle). Potential for more random events to occur (like how the presents pop prior to the snow boulders part). Daily reward, but also increased reward for recompleting.

Bonus Idea: Staggered wait times.
If we look at the last 2 holiday JPs. You’ll notice they have some aspect which imparts a sense of urgency to the puzzle. Collapsing platforms and creeping miasma are good examples of this and failing the puzzle early in the puzzle immediately takes you to the puzzle’s lobby. So my idea is this: Stagger the wait times. If a puzzle normally has a 2 minute wait time from start to completion and someone dies right away, then have the next set of waiters start while the first group is halfway through. Fail out the players who fail to make the checkpoint and start the next group. In this way you have 2 groups in the same puzzle at the same time, but one of the groups is on the ending leg of the puzzle while the other is just starting the puzzle. This would effectively halve the wait times and allow ANet to make longer JPs without pushing wait times into ‘absurd’ territory.

Zero Angel.9715:

No timed aspect (or a very generous one), allowing the player to jump the puzzle at their leisure.

And keep everyone else waiting? The puzzle is timed, so other people can’t start before the flakes respawn, and they won’t respawn until the timer ends.

Anyway, there are already puzzles with different difficulties in the game, just as there are dungeons with different difficulties, world bosses with different difficulties, mobs with different difficulties, etc..

Should there also be difficulty selectors for all those things?

What’s the advantage in having 3 different versions of the same content, with slightly different timers, instead of having 3 different puzzles, presenting different challenges?

It’s not like this is the only jumping puzzle in GW2. And I bet most people asking for an easier version haven’t done many of the other JPs in the game.

Account.9832:

Zero Angel.9715:

No timed aspect (or a very generous one), allowing the player to jump the puzzle at their leisure.

And keep everyone else waiting? The puzzle is timed, so other people can’t start before the flakes respawn, and they won’t respawn until the timer ends.

Oh won’t you think outside the box a bit? You are assuming that the current timing mechanics will remain the same indefinitely. Programmers and game designers can be very creative at coming up with solutions to those problems. For example, in order to mitigate some of the issues with having the whole team stacking together on the clocktower JP, they split it up into 3 different smaller teams for the Wintersday JP and implemented a more forgiving timer. Staggered wait times or even no wait times by beaming the player directly to the start of the puzzle are quick solutions to the ‘problem’ you present. There are probably even more creative ones than that, but those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Anyway, there are already puzzles with different difficulties in the game, just as there are dungeons with different difficulties, world bosses with different difficulties, mobs with different difficulties, etc..

Should there also be difficulty selectors for all those things?

No. All world JPs by nature have their own levels of difficulty and nobody is compelled to do them except for the fun and challenge. You are not missing out on any limited-time rewards by failing to do a world JP and the loot is crappy anyways. The only thing you might possibly miss out on is getting the achievement for completing all JPs, but you have practically forever to do them all anyways if you are so inclined — and the achievement only matters to people who love JPs (like myself) or are just huge completionists.

What’s the advantage in having 3 different versions of the same content, with slightly different timers, instead of having 3 different puzzles, presenting different challenges?

It’s not like this is the only jumping puzzle in GW2. And I bet most people asking for an easier version haven’t done many of the other JPs in the game.

The advantage of course is less content for ANet to have to design. Asking ANet to design 3 different JPs for holiday events is asking a lot, they’re either going to have to expend twice the effort to create 3 seperate JPs (assuming the re-use of environmental assets) or have to compromise on the quality of each JP. I would rather have one higher quality JP than 3 low quality ones, or try to get them to expend an unreasonable amount of effort.

I liked the jp. Well done Anet!

I read trough some of the posts, so sory if I`m repeating someone.

I completed Mad King jumping puzzle 1 (once) after 86 trys, and was happy with that. Why? Because I just needed to see what was in the chest, but this one is allmost impossible for me, and looking other players completing 3 or 4 times in a row, while U can follow their progressfrom the “waiting post” just puts salt on the wounded ego. It`s fun and frustrating at the same time. Hope I make it under 100 trys, but it would be welcome for easy(players like me)/medium/hard modes of the jumping puzzle. Completing on any level – achievement, but chest loot would depend on the difficulty. I think that would be fair for all. So now I`m off spending 2 more hours in that torture chamber.

On a personal note: Charr RULE, all other are just MEAT and side dish.

P.S.: Sorry for bad english. I don`t use it that much in writing.

Personally I couldn’t complete the clocktower. It was too crowded so I could never see my character, let alone the edges of ledges etc. Apart from anything else, the waiting time in between was kinda scary/traumatic, too.

The WD jumping puzzle is just perfect, really. The 3 paths are brilliant for congestion, the platforms aren’t so bumpy (it was often not clear on the cogs in Halloween what had to be jumped and what could just be run up), and when you fail you get to watch other players continue/observe their skills in the wind section, etc.

Finally, the reward is not so uber that if you can’t make it you’d feel you missed out on OP/“essential” content.

So ANet, great job!

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.

I am unable to complete this puzzle due to lag. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQ-hz8-rBE Another player experiencing similar problems

I don’t find this jumping puzzle easy, nor do I want them to make things much easier. I find it a challenge and took me some time to clear it. The only thing that I don’t like is the waiting time for each restart.

I am actually looking forward to more good designed puzzles in the future. This is what makes this game awesome, with the variety of stuffs to do.

The snowball mayhem is another fun team event, once you start getting the hang of it, it is hard to stop playing. Haha, I really hope this mini team game can be a permanent feature. Maybe let it open for play during weekends or something like that.

Account.9832:

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.

I have done most of the other JPs in the game, and I am well able to complete them – I was neither asking for a harder nor for an easier holiday JP. Heck, I was even fine with the Clocktower, although I wasn’t that good at platforming at the time and didn’t have enough free time to manage it, but it was kinda nice. Except for the whole failing because of too many large characters, camera jarring thing…
My point was solely this:
I can understand that there are people wishing for a more challenging JP, although I personally don’t think holiday JPs are the right place for it. What I cannot fathom are those who wish for a more difficult JP but are against several difficulty levels (in a holiday JP!) to allow both themselves and others with less skill at platforming to enjoy it.
Because even people who are bad at platforming might enjoy JPs :P However, they likely to have a much lower frustration threshold when presented with something that is far beyond their abilities. And holidays with their limited time and limited number of activities really should aim to be fun for (mostly) everyone IMO.

Again, I am perfectly fine with the difficulty of the Winter Wonderland, and may even beat the Clocktower next time around, if I am not quite so busy.

I think I’m probably “average” at jumping puzzles – I’m not totally awesome at them, but I don’t totally suck at them either. And from my point of view, this is just about perfect – not too easy, and not too difficult. Some nice variation along the path.

It took me quite a few tries before my first completion, but I never felt frustrated. The more I tried, the better/faster/further I got. When I failed, I always felt like “doh, I made a mistake” or “I was too slow” etc, rather than cursing the puzzle design.

My only annoyance (as usual) is the occasional super-sized norn/charr, completely obscuring the platforms :-P I wonder how they manage to see the platforms themselves. Just have to try and stay ahead of them…

It still takes me 4 or 5 attempts to complete it even now, but that’s not a lot of time. So I can do it once a day for the chest and still have some fun with it – without feeling like I’m grinding it.

Wintersday jumping puzzles seems to be designed for 5-6 years old players. Its too easy and reward is trash. Im was disappointed by these easy puzzles and more disappointed by reward from chest. This puzzle is totally not-comparable with Clock Tower. Tower was REAL challenge and reward was great.

I really liked the jumping puzzle, especially the gingerbread men at the end were awesome. The only thing that annoys me a bit was that in the beginning it’s almost impossible to see your character or the platform you’re standing on if there are any charrs or norns blocking the view, at least as an asura player. Also the waiting times feel a bit too long if you fall soon after the puzzle starts.

I think the suggestion of having two groups with separate timers is great and would help with the waiting times.

Runcore.5107:

Wintersday jumping puzzles seems to be designed for 5-6 years old players. Its too easy and reward is trash. Im was disappointed by these easy puzzles and more disappointed by reward from chest. This puzzle is totally not-comparable with Clock Tower. Tower was REAL challenge and reward was great.

I agree! Please don’t make future JPs any easier than they are now! I will gladly fail nearly 200 times again (like I did with clocktower) if it means that the puzzle is engaging and the reward is good!

Well it didn’t make me rage as much as the Halloween one but on the other hand it didn’t feel as special when I did it. Was fun though, will probably do it a few other times.

I finished the puzzle on my first try.

My friend is apparently having more trouble with this than the Clock Tower. The snowflakes part always gets her. She has a crappy mouse.

Allow players to hide other player models. This would be a nifty fix without having to resort to private instances.

Overall I’d say, compared to clocktower… it solved pretty much all its problems, but in the process also removed the very reasons people like me loved it so much. The reward, the atmosphere, the pressure, the beauty… and the tricks (though I suppose that’s halloween for ya).

I myself would like splitting a hard mode version (clocktower difficulty), with slightly higher repeat rewards but no achieves – of course assuming a dev enjoys making these. Thus nobody would need to do it for anything, other than “because we want to”.

Also: I’d love a spectator mode for the fallen (optional), so we can watch, and gloat when those fast players miss their jumps (hey, at least I’m honest! ^^). Think that’ll add to the atmosphere.

To put it simple: nobody will forget the clocktower (be it with hateful or loving memories)… and that’s something this JP may lack. Totally understand that (virtually) everyone should be able to get the achieve, but if you can do that AND keep the challenge (say by HM), I’d say that’ll be ideal.

(Edit: in case it wasn’t clear, it’s still a nice JP, nice little thing for the holidays, thanks!)

Jumping Puzzles in event like this should stay as they are. What would be the point of making them easier?? Every game out there is easier cause some people complain about difficulty. You cant do it? So dont. The reward in itself is to finish it. Something easy is pointless and tasteless.
Got to the end and died the first time just in front of the big present. Afterwards it took me about 20 runs to finish it. So what? I didnt rage quit, i didnt give up and i did it. You need to have some Will once in a while.

i like them as they are, personally, even if i took 9 hours to complete it, because i am a disaster on jp. they are beautiful and challenging. keep up the good work anet^^

I swore I wasn’t going to post on these forums in case I caught something nasty, but I just can’t get rid of the itch (maybe I got that from posting the last time? :P). For your enjoyment/ridicule/rage inducement, I give you my opinion. You’re welcome.

Having completed both of the holiday JPs, I agree that this one for me was considerably easier than Clocktower. I actually enjoyed banging my head off that one for a couple of hours, knowing that the puzzle was doable, I just had to get everything perfect for one run. This one took a few minutes rather than hours and most of that was due to a) learning various mechanics that I had to look out for (melting snowflakes, mortars etc) and b) me derping on some of the jumps. My tag-team mmo partner in crime who did not manage to complete the CT event actually got further through the puzzle than me on his first run and completed on the attempt after I finished the first time.

This puzzle, IMO, was way more forgiving as it was pretty obvious that the frostbite mechanic was on a percentage of health per tick and that everyone moved at the same speed. I didn’t have the problems of Charr and Norns blocking my view (but then again I am one of those Norns :P), however whoever suggested “ghost” images for other players wins +1 cookie.

There wasn’t quite the sense of achievement as there was with CT (no punching the air shouting, Yes! on this one) but it was still enjoyable nontheless. I could have stood a bit more being metaphorically slapped in the face by the puzzle, but I was still happy with what we got.

If Anet are to continue to put one level of difficulty in for all people, then the arguments re: difficulty will not end. If they change it so that there are multiple difficulties then the arguments will merely change, dependant on whether the reward at the end is the same for all difficulty levels, or different. The joys of the internet and various other games who have handed rewards out on a plate to the baying mobs that frequent them mean that, unfortunately, Anet are the unwinnable position of not being able to please anyone at any time…well expect me, but I’m easily pleased and am still having a blast with this game.

TL:DR. Personally, CT was better. For the community, I suspect Wintersday wins.

I thought the JP was all right, the only thing that really annoyed me was the waiting. Alt+tab and check back a second too late and you can wait all over again. They can’t seriously expect us to stare at the same screen for two minutes every time we fall. It’s mind-numbing. I don’t mind that it’s timed or that there are other people, but the waiting is ridiculous.

It took me way more than just the few tries people here claim to have needed, but that’s okay. I managed eventually, as I did with the Clocktower.

I’m against difficulty settings. Harder difficulty will need to have a better reward (or people will complain) and then we’ll have the same scenario yet again that there are people who can’t complete it, but want the reward.

I don’t see why the JP can’t be a solo instance. Or why we don’t get the option to do it solo, in case there are people who like the charr blocking their view and the waiting. Hoping the people who are jumping with you will fall off soon seems to go against the whole point of the game, but maybe that’s just me.

The main difference between the Clocktower and Winder Wonderland for me personally: Finishing the Clocktower for the first time after about one and a half hours of trying = YESSSSS finally!! OMG, let’s do it again! Finishing Winter Wonderland after about 10 minutes and maybe 5 tries = Hm ok, what should I do next?

I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad, it’s just what the experience was for me personally. I’m especially disappointed because the jumping puzzle was the only thing I was really looking forward to after the experience with the Clocktower.

I enjoyed this Wintersday puzzle. It did take me about 20 tries but at least it wasn’t like clock tower. For events I would say keep them at this level of difficulty.

Happy Wintersday!

There is only one issue I am having with the jumping puzzle and that is I have a slow connection so it takes awhile for me to load in and when I do I get hit with a giant snowball before I can even move so this makes me fall off. I have now given up as it seems you need to have a really fast connection and in my area we don’t we are lucky if we have a 2mb connection

I was struggling with this one until I turned off Core Parking in Windows and my FPS really improved quite dramatically.

Now I can mountain-goat my way through the whole thing without letting go of “W”.

I believe that’s one of the flaws of that map, actually. A slow hard drive/connection could mean that the player never actually gets a chance to start because the puzzle timer goes off while he is still loading.

Anyways, try defragging your hard drive and see if it helps (it helped me when I was experiencing that problem).

I liked the puzzle this time. It wasnt SUPER hard, but it wasnt that easy either. A friend of mine couldnt make it yday, so he will continue trying today. And in general I like the Christmas atmosphere more than the Halloween (maybe because I am not from the USA, also I am wondering why the Halloween event was introduced as a Halloween event, while this one is introduced as Wintersday, instead of a Christmas event they both are religious anyway, right?) one, so I liked this puzzle more than the clocktower.

I cannot jump, so I have not gone in to even look at the jumping puzzles. Jumping puzzles are permanently on my: “Nalora sucks at this” list.

That list is pretty long.

My 2 cents.

Clocktower took me about 4 hours total to clear the first time. The first hour was rage, but by the end it really brought me back to old NES platforming games. For me this was a good thing.

Wintersday puzzle took me exactly 4 tries to clear the first time. It took me another 20 or so runs before I realized all the mechanics (like the wind, or the always safe path across the boxes).

Clocktower was better, but wintersday had its up sides.
*The snowball fight in the waiting room was a nice touch, but doesn’t help you get better at the puzzle. Maybe add practice jumps you can play on safely instead.
*Seeing the other jumpers was great. No complaints about that, wish it was that way in the ClockTower
*The multiple routes were nice, and I was excited to try them all. That they weren’t very different and none were ‘hard’ routes was dissappointing.
*The ‘secret’ jump bit in the reward room was a nice touch. Watching other jumpers from there was fun.

Overall, I look VERY forward to the next event jump puzzle. These have been my FAVORITE parts of the each content push, so PLEASE don’t tone them down. If you have to tier it, do so, but keep the challenge for those of us who love it.

TLDR; Clock tower was a work of art. Wintersday isn’t as good but is fun at least. Don’t drop the challenge!

Cyzaine.8061:

TLDR; Clock tower was a work of art. Wintersday isn’t as good but is fun at least. Don’t drop the challenge!

Wait what? I can’t belive I’m reading this… Clock Tower took me 4 hours and it WASN’t fun nor good. It also wasn’t fun when I had a giant Charr in group and couldn’t see a thing…
Wonderland is much, MUCH better but I still wish that all Charrs die in a some kind of “Charrapocalypse” before next event…

I completed this JP on my 2nd try. I feel it was too easy. Especially after the intense challenge of the Mad King one.

That said, I found it enjoyable, just way too easy. I really enjoy the jumping puzzles, overall. And, I especially like the timed ones, as they are more intense and challenging.
But, honestly, the timer on this one is a joke. You really don’t have to rush much to beat the cold timer on this one. Whereas, in the Mad King one, you had to really be on the move to keep up.

Suggestion: Have two different levels of a JP in the future. One for the people who aren’t good at them, and another that’s challenging/hard. Maybe the hard one could have a decent reward, and the easy one would simply only give you the achieve without the loot.

^On that note, the chest in this one didn’t actually have much of a reward for me(at least not yet), so it’s not like the easy mode would be missing much

Thaia.5146

Wait what? I can’t belive I’m reading this… Clock Tower took me 4 hours and it WASN’t fun nor good. It also wasn’t fun when I had a giant Charr in group and couldn’t see a thing…

Takes all types =) I’m not alone in my adoration for the clocktower, but not all of us grew up speed running Ninja Gaiden 1. I had room mates who couldn’t do it, but I finished it on characters of every race (I’m obviously not a great roommate as I didn’t do it for them).

But as this is about the Winterday puzzle, the guy earlier in the thread who suggested multiple exit points from the puzzle is probably on to something. Have a long puzzle, where you can ditch out at various points for escalating rewards. That seems like a solid design suggestion. Would have been cool to say, continue past the puzzle box exit and up the mountain further for a different exit. As long as it doesn’t escalate the wait time further.

I loved this jumping puzzle, its challenging, but very doable.

I feel like I ought to post my feelings on this jump puzzle too.

I enjoy the heck outta this thing! Took me a few tries to get it, but after that I’ve been getting runs down smoother and smoother.

The quaggan trail (one on the very right) is kind of boring… and the snowman one (the one in the middle) has that really annoying jump from the side-sticking candycanes to the snowflake waaaaay off to the right…

But I have a lot of fun with the gingerbread path (one on the very left)! It’s got a lot of semi-tricky jumps that get easier once you get a feel for what spot on the previous snowflake is safe to jump from, and that nice split in the path near where the snowflakes turn to peppermint-disc platforms.

Also, the pacing feels about perfect, really. There’s enough leeway for some pause and maybe one or two small mistakes, but enough pressure to keep you moving.

PS: If you’re running into issues with snowflakes disappearing from beneath yourself, you’re moving too slowly to finish the puzzle. Keep the pace up, don’t stop moving unless it’s to position a very difficult jump or to wait for mechanics (wind/snowballs), and be sure to use right-click turning and full wasd movement for precise positioning!

My son found a mini-jumping puzzle at the end of the jumping puzzle. Takes you up to the star, but not sure if there’s more beyond that… anyone else find it?

I completed this puzzle earlier today. I had also completed the Mad king puzzle too. Now in comparison, it is a fair bit easier to complete. A guildie of mine who couldn’t finish the mad king puzzle finished this one on the very first day. It took me a couple of tried to get it, compared to 4 hours on the mad king one.

Things that were done better in this one:
1. having snowballs to throw at others to pass the time while waiting,
2. Being able to see others do it while waiting.
3. Having split parts so not too many people are crowded together, though they were differnt, it wasn’t hard to figure out where to go.
4. A timer in the form of losing HP added a sense of urgency without putting on too much pressure and gave us enough time to position ourselves for tougher jumps.

After completing this once i actually felt liek doing it more as it was very pleasent and people who fell earlier on were having fun watching others and playing with the snowballs.

Suggestion for next jumping puzzles:
Make a non timed one. Have a huge area with multiple paths, but limited jumps. Different coloured platforms will give x amount of jumps, once you’ve run out of jumps you get ported to the start of the puzzle and let some platforms move around for added complexity. This way people actually have to think about where to go. It adds the puzzle element to the puzzle. Just my thoughts

All I can say is that the waiting to do these types of puzzles needs to be cut down significantly. I can complete the puzzle just fine but in the case that I make a bad jump and then you have to wait for everyone to finish is very frustrating.

I think overall the puzzle itself is better than the camera nightmare that people call the clocktower but there is still room for improvement. Splitting people up into three groups helped a bunch we just need to work on the waiting in between attempts.

I thought it was fun!! Easier then the clocktower. I was surprised they did another race against the clock thing again, not a huge fan of that. I think a lot of people got tons of practice with clocktower which made this one easier to do.

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.

I obviously read this hastily and missed like every part of it the other day.

…except PVP is 100% part of an mmorpg, platforming is not, would be my argument there… The improvement would be to take it away. So there’s that.

Look, I don’t mind putting in work to earn things, but I don’t play an mmo to jump around. The jumping in this engine is for getting over obstacles and up rocks, not for elaborate puzzles.

I miss the old style event quests where you’d go do like a little 3-4 part quest, kill some Christmas themed things and then go turn in for whatever Christmas crap there was and then that’s it you’re done until it comes time to wait for the hat.

I enjoyed this JP the design is awesome, looks great. I undestand that it’s easier than the clock tower so more people can complete it but I’d have liked it to be much harder.

Loved the Clock tower, took me almost the whole weekend to complete it but the harder it is the mre I enjoy it.

I can also live with the puzzles being this sort of difficulty in future but would much prefer almost impossible ones

All in all though I did enjoy it…it just didn’t absorb me for the amount of time the Mad King did.

Clock tower was very challenging while the Winterday puzzle was only marginally so. I made it to the boulders on my first go and only the fact that, in my rush and inexperience I went left instead if right did I lose.

I think that challenging puzzles with some sort of timed mechanism are the key, then include a ‘challenge’ or ‘hard mode’ version that isn’t part of the Event requirements.

ophidic.1279:

The jumping in this engine is for getting over obstacles and up rocks, not for elaborate puzzles.

If they can make these additional things and get them in game why shouldn’t they? Loads of people enjoy them.
At the end of the day if you don’t like that part of the game then just play the parts that you do like and let the rest of us enjoy the bits we do.

All told I’ll bet I spent about 6 hours before I was successful and I felt I real thrill when I did finish. I am now a much better jumper than I was before which I found interesting. There were alot of fine points of jumping, changing direction, landing and so forth that I thought I had a handle on and apparently did not.

I personally loved the wintersday jumping puzzle. I saw many improvments from Mad King’s Tower.
1. Seperate starting points—genius idea! That really helped with the congestion.
2. A lower difficulty level. I know that many were disappointed with it, however many more were really pleased with it and I think something like that should be accessible to everyone. However, I think there’s still room for improvement. As many have suggested, an additional difficulty level or two might possibly make everyone happy.
3. Adding the ability to watch other players still going and snowballs to the waiting room was a great improvement.
4. I appreciated the lack of bad poetry and discouraging comments. /wink
5. This doesn’t really have anything to do with the puzzle itself, but I really enjoyed the scenery. It was beautifully done! I love the Christmas/wintery atmosphere. Anet’s done an amazing job bringing out the joy, wonder, and beauty of the holiday season in my opinion.

I do have a couple complaints though. First, there were several incidents in the jumping puzzle when I knew I was completely safe but was kicked back to the waiting room for seemingly no reason. As a result, completion of the puzzle took much longer than it should have for me. I’m assuming this is a bug of some kind because I was not experiencing lag. (Believe me, I know lag when I see it)
Second, the waiting time is still frustrating. Especially when I get kicked out before even starting the puzzle. Perhaps lowering the number of players to a server and creating more overflow servers would solve the wait time because it is based on how quickly players get through the puzzle. As soon as the last person falls or makes it, the puzzle resets and everyone gets to go again.

This jumping puzzle was ok. But I was really hoping to see another exciting and challenging jumping puzzle like the Mad King’s Clocktower… now that one was amazing (finished Wintersday JP on the 3rd try, took 2 hours to do Clocktower).

Both special event JP’s have time limits, they were presented in vastly different ways. Wintersday puzzle has your HP tick down (boring). Clocktower had boiling goo raising, skeletal hands grasping, you could see your fellow players being swallowed up as they fell behind in time (very exciting). Also the music plays a roll in the excitement.

After arriving in the room with the chest for the Winter JP, I noticed more jumps that seemed to go up further. I got excited and thought, “Ahhh sneaky Anet! That was just the beginner JP and this is leading to the real one!!”… then I was disappointed to find out that it was simply some jumps up to a higher vantage point with invisible walls, nothing else.

Ravbek.7938:

ophidic.1279:

The jumping in this engine is for getting over obstacles and up rocks, not for elaborate puzzles.

If they can make these additional things and get them in game why shouldn’t they? Loads of people enjoy them.
At the end of the day if you don’t like that part of the game then just play the parts that you do like and let the rest of us enjoy the bits we do.

Well, because they’re terrible. Straight up.

Feedback doesn’t mean all candy and roses. I don’t have to “like it or shut up” as per the impression i’m getting from several responses. Lots of people enjoy Fox News too, but that doesn’t make it good.

Anet, you have your feedback. Can the jumping.