Guild Wars 2

This isnt a rant about jumping puzzles and their difficulty , but more about the logic of where they are located, and their existance in the game .
Ive been playing the game for over 6 months now and only discovered that jumping puzzles existed a week ago.
Which brings me to the first issue, and thats for new players theres no way to know that these things even exist, let alone that theres one in every zone.
The 2nd issue is that there seems to be no logic about the difficulty of the puzzles and the zones they are in, so that you can get ultra difficult puzzles in beginner zones.
I accidentally found Goemms Lab in Metrica Province and not knowing that this is one of the ultra kittenes, tried to get thru it with no success whatsoever, and many hours of ultra frustration.
It would seem to me that the puzzles should scale like the zones, so the easy ones go in the beginner zones, and the kittenes in the higher level zones, but as its obviously too late now to change this then maybe some kind of difficulty rating system could apply, such that at the start of a jumping puzzle there is some kind of indication of how hard it is.
As for the existance of these things, maybe something along the lines of how vistas are advertised, like theres an undiscovered vista in this direction which now appears on the map, to theres an undiscovered level X jumping puzzle in this direction, where x is a number between 1 and 10, easy to hard.
Any thoughts.

I believe they have something in the Achievement panel for their locations.

I think one of the features of Jumping Puzzles, much like the Mini-Dungeons, is their obscurity. It’s fun to try to discover where they might be hiding.

For those that would rather not seek them out, there are the Wiki, guides, videos, etc. galore.

Belatedly…welcome to Tyria, and good luck!

You’re new which explains a lot..

The Jumping Puzzles were advertised quite a bit when Gw2 was in development which is how older players knew about them..

but they are not talked about much these days because most people have already done them which explains why newer players like yourself didn’t know about them

Jumping Puzzles are just an extra side thing to do, for some extra loot, fun and achievement points.. they are also a bit of a personal challenge too much like Mini dungeons are as well

There are plenty of guides.. video and text online that explain where they all are, where to go and how to beat them.. but honestly its fara more fun just to discover them yourself and beat them yourself

one bit of advice though is to use a trait or signet that gives you a 25% speed boost..
its not essential but it sure as helps I can promise you that

Gl and hope you enjoy kicking all the Jp’s butt

Map of all the JPs: http://gw2timer.com/jp

The obscurity of jumping puzzles are illuminated by having friends or helpful people in the map to show them to you. Otherwise it’s a rather serendipity that you discover them by yourself, and that’s where the fun is.

Jumping puzzles aren’t marked on the map (or shown to you by the content guide compass) because part of the fun and the challenge is supposed to be finding them, and working out as you’re exploring that you’ve found a puzzle.

One of my favourite memories from when I was new was deciding to go down a little crevice to see what was down there, finding a cave at the back and randomly deciding to climb the back wall, then finding a little gap and going through it to suddenly find myself in a jumping puzzle. Then spending the rest of the evening struggling to finish it. I love exploring in any game, so I’d go around all the edges of the map and try to climb up anywhere I can anyway, but the idea that I might actually find something hidden there is very exciting. In most games I’d just be wasting my time.

There are a couple of ways to find out they exist, the first being finding one as you’re exploring. But they’re also listed in the achievements on the hero panel, and I believe one of the level up rewards mentions them. You may also hear other players talking about them, especially in Lion’s Arch currently.

You’re right that the difficulty doesn’t always match the level of the zone, but that’s because the difficulty isn’t related to your level. Some puzzles do have enemies inside them, so they would be harder if you’re below the level of the zone, but the puzzle mechanics are identical regardless of your level.

But also quite a few things in this game are non-linear because, with the down-scalling feature, the intention is that once you reach the maximum level you’ll play in all the maps. And jumping puzzles are one of the things designed to facilitate that. It’s expected that you’ll miss at least some on your first time through the map, and then you can (if you want to) go back and complete them later on as part of the “end game”.

As for ranking the difficulty it’s not a bad idea, but it would be hard to do accurately because it’s very subjective. I find puzzles where I have to figure out where to go much harder than ones with an obvious path but timed jumps. Whereas other people seem to find where to go easily and really struggle with timed jumps. Other people might find particular kinds of jumps (like going around corners) extremely difficult. If they rank the difficulty there will always be some people who get angry that it’s inaccurate for them.

- When you go levelling, around the 20 few, you are told about the existence of jumping puzzles.

- About of it, there is also the achivement panel as Knighthonor says.

- But the most usual way to disvover them, is the chat, with people speaking about them or asking for mesmers to teleport them into the final chest.

Like many other things, there are players looks like to be playing blindly and just running from target to target. GW2 is a game to explore, enjoy with freedom. To have anyone sending me from A to B like a messenger, there are tons of game out there.

They should all be located in a separate game called Jump Puzzle 2 (which is what gw2 feels like sometimes..).

The should rename them Mesmer Jumping Puzzles. As people instead of trying them out themselves, actually asked Mesmers to port them up to the final chest. Sigh…..

There are only a few that have entrances obscured enough that I might find them a problem (Hello, Griffonrook Run and, to a lesser extent Scavenger’s Chasm).
I’d have preferred the achievements and listing of them never existed though.
Then again, I’d prefer that for all exploration-related bits since they turn the world from a place to adventure in to a checklist. :-(

Dark Saviour.9410:

There are only a few that have entrances obscured enough that I might find them a problem (Hello, Griffonrook Run and, to a lesser extent Scavenger’s Chasm).
I’d have preferred the achievements and listing of them never existed though.
Then again, I’d prefer that for all exploration-related bits since they turn the world from a place to adventure in to a checklist. :-(

I know it’s tempting but you can avoid looking at them.

I used the JP achievements list to check how many I had left, but avoided clicking on any of the ones I hadn’t done so I wouldn’t be told which zone they’re in.

You can also turn off map markers for things like points of interest and vistas (and merchants). Although I’d hate to try to find POI’s without markers.

The new jumping puzzle ’Troll’s Revenge’ is located in Lions arch and can easily be reached by using mesmer portals. In total you need 4 keys, before you can open the end chest. The four keys can be obtained by using the mesmer portals in the following locations:
Key 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SqjS6soqjc
Key 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF8x2ocNvZ0
Key 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAQpcvecRcc
Key 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGE6p6rvNbI

Jumping Puzzles were certainly more talked about/better known earlier on in the game.

Like somebody said, JPs were talked about a lot during development, probably because GW1 lacked jumping and JPs were really exciting.

Moreover, there were lots of achievement that brought JPs to players attention. When Monthly Achievements were a thing, players could jump 12 and get a bonus of 10 AP- doesn’t seem much now, but this was pretty cool at the time. A lot of the Living World episodes (both S1 and S2) brought people’s attention to JPs and Mini Dungeons, which helped publicise them a bit.

Personally, I found a load of Jumping Puzzles just by exploring. There’s at least one in every starter area. Many I stumbled upon because they were close to a vista or point of interest, others I found because the start was located somewhere interesting, like Shaman’s Rookery inside that cave in Wayfarers Foothills. I probably discovered the fact that JPs were a thing because I clicked on the achievement notification that popped up from completing a simple one and discovered that there were plenty more.

I can understand your annoyance at the fact that some JPs are ridiculously hard for starter areas, but like you said, that can’t be helped. Personally, I think the difficulty of the JP can be picked up on at the beginning of the JP- in most instances you get a clear view of what jumps and what kind of jumps you’ll need to do and also the length of the JP.

JPs are for explorers. Those people who want to poke their nose into every nook and cranny. They’re also not something that’s actually necessary for the game, just an added bonus. On both accounts they don’t need to be blatantly broadcast ingame.

As has been mentioned there are plenty of ways to discover them. I support the method of wandering around doing your own thing. Notice a cave and that you can jump around and get higher. Deciding to see what’s up there and finding that it just keeps going. Eventually reaching a chest and getting an achievement which leads you to realize they’re all over the place and this is a whole new aspect to the game.

Not knowing is sometimes more fun, because you can only have that eye opening experience one time, then it’s over.