Guild Wars 2

Hi,
So I just completed Hidden Garden for the first time. First, let me say that Arenanet should put more of these…mini dungeons in the game. I also have enjoyed the dwarven one.

However, slightly challenging at times it can be, nice puzzle jumping and scenery. I got all four cantles…and I should have known…the Sylvan chest rewarded greens. Intrinsically it was very fun and enjoyable, only to be halfway deflated by greens in that chest. I spent about 30-40 minutes, for greens.

Thanks for the fun, no thanks for the reward…

You spent 30-40 minutes doing something that was “very fun and enjoyable”, and you’re upset because you weren’t properly rewarded?

I remember a day when “very fun and enjoyable” games were enough reason enough to play, but evidently having fun and enjoying oneself isn’t the reason people play video games these days. Sad. So sad.

While having fun, it would be nice to be rewarded semi appropriately.

The problem with being rewarded semi-appropriately is that players can park their characters at the exit and get the free “good” reward.

Wait until you do the one in Malchor’s Leap…

Try thinking of the fact that you had fun doing it as part of the reward.

I did that puzzle a few months ago. I don’t even remember what I got from the chest now. Could have been good, could have been terrible. What I do remember is the experience of finding and completing the puzzle, the time I spent staring at the waterfall in the cave thinking ’I’m sure this is the way up, if I can just figure out how to get started’, the view from the top when I finally did it, another player showing up just as I began to think I was going to lose to the earth elemental….

Honestly that should really be the main reason for playing a game anyway, to have fun. If you’re not having fun then there’s not really much point playing a game no matter how good the rewards are.

Danikat.8537:

Try thinking of the fact that you had fun doing it as part of the reward.

I did that puzzle a few months ago. I don’t even remember what I got from the chest now. Could have been good, could have been terrible. What I do remember is the experience of finding and completing the puzzle, the time I spent staring at the waterfall in the cave thinking ’I’m sure this is the way up, if I can just figure out how to get started’, the view from the top when I finally did it, another player showing up just as I began to think I was going to lose to the earth elemental….

Honestly that should really be the main reason for playing a game anyway, to have fun. If you’re not having fun then there’s not really much point playing a game no matter how good the rewards are.

The sad, and somewhat frustrating part is, there are not enough of these types of areas or challenges. Solo-able content, but can be difficult via vets/champs and/or jumping puzzles… They need to do more of these.

Fun and exciting can be totally eliminated with the expectation of loot as a reward. Reward > everything else in a game. If completing the puzzle was a great experience and there was no loot, it would be great, but the fact is you are rewarded with an achievement. This achievement provides drive for some people to complete it. The addition of a chest at the end of all the puzzles is drive for others. It wouldn’t matter what type of puzzle it was, there is a reward at the end and that is what drives people to do it. The disproportionate reward for time in-puzzle is frustrating only because there is a reward at the end. But if there wasn’t a reward at the end, most people wouldn’t do these types of things. It is a double-edged sword.
Anet provides puzzles to the few who like to discover neat things and do all the content and have no reward, or provide rewards at the end so most other people will do them.

It takes me less than a minute to normally do the Shaman’s Rookery puzzle, probably the easiest possible jumping puzzle in the game, I don’t expect much in terms of loot from the chest. Then there’s the one in Orr that wants you to gather orbs to open 3 chests with, besides the WvW puzzles, it is the only pve puzzle that I have not been to a second time, let alone finished once. I don’t care what the reward is, it is way disproportionate to the amount of effort and time required to complete it for me. My OCD wants me to check all the boxes on the achievements but the frustration in me says “NO!!”.

runeblade.7514:

The problem with being rewarded semi-appropriately is that players can park their characters at the exit and get the free “good” reward.

That doesn’t work for Hidden Garden. On the other hand it isn’t so hard that it feels like it needs some special reward. It’s a nice looking JP but not a hard JP.

Nah, the Greens at minimum (They USED to be Blues loot before an update) kinda fits most JPs to be honest. There is a chance for more of the rarer loot, but with Greens I don’t feel to bad throwing into the Mystic Forge for chance at a Rare.

That said though, I wouldn’t mind more rewarding Loot to be honest. A random T6 Mat with a chance for multiple though would be a nice addition to JP chests, and shouldn’t cause much of a problem.

Jumping Puzzles are a part of a way for me to unwind by doing something completely different, yet I still walk away with a little something before I go back to a dungeon/farm/wvwvw/etc. The scenery in quite a number of them are quite nice as a reward as well.