Guild Wars 2

Jumping puzzle are awesome, and they should be more rewarding, and I have a solution how to prevent JP account parking.

SOLUTION:
- create npc/object that you talk to at beginning ( as a check point)
- player get 1 token for talking
- player can hold only one token
- chest requires token to open it
- once you open chest you lose token

OPTIONAL: disabling mesmer portals while holding token

REWARDS:
should give decent amount of gold / T5/6 material /

This is simple solution to prevent parking accounts with almost zero effort to fix and make jumping puzzles even more enjoyable and rewarding again. I also think Jumping Puzzles should have some key parts of crafting materials that would drop with fair rate to make them attractive.

NOTE: there will be many people talking how JPs should be only for fun, but that’s theirs opinion, and this is my opinion. As dungeons, world bosses and other things have decent reward, Jumping puzzles should be no exception. If someone enjoys them as much as me and i would love to have some decent profit out of it. I’m a sPvP/GvG/WvW person like, but other things that i enjoy in PvE are Jumping puzzles.

I enjoy the JPs as they are. Not everyone enjoys the frustration of jumping through them.

Perhaps your suggestion could apply to newly created JPs, and leave the others as is.

Good luck.

Well…why? I don’t see anything wrong with jumping puzzles as they are now.

Some puzzles, like the aetherblade, are so very difficult yet is one of the few places to get a reliable source or blade shards. I would agree that the reward is a bit lackluster, but the necessary ‘skill’ to complete a JP isn’t the same as doing speed clears for a dungeon.

And watch the Juggernaut become even more tedious to craft.

Should be good for if reward is better .

You’re presenting a solution to a problem in a hypothetical future that YOU created. This thread is pointless and your supposed “solution” is only taking away from the game in exchange for personal/material gain.
" disabling mesmer portals while holding token" No…just no.

I love jps, it’s a really interesting idea but I kinda think, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it – and they aren’t broke

Honestly, if someone can afford to use up a character slot just to have a char parked at a jp chest, then let them lol…I don’t have any beef with mesmers porting either really – I usually don’t use them because I love doing the jp, but it takes the frustration out of it for those who don’t

After two years of required jumping puzzle monthlies, I can’t say I miss it.

the few times i do jps (for ap rewards ofc) i do them on mez so that for the next couple of days i can port people who want bad loot or want aps as well. It makes me feel like a good citizen for saving them time and frustration for something that a lot of people really don’t like.

Don’t leave us mesmers unemployed

I think the good part of your idea was to boost rewards…the rest idk :p

Love the idea. I always thought that character parking at jumping puzzles and mesmer portals were cheap and unintended. You can’t feel accomplished for doing something if everyone just gets it the quick and easy way… and then camps the place. I would think that’s also why they don’t make it rewarding.

Make jumping puzzles rewarding, it’s one of my favorite content. If you don’t like the jumping puzzles but are parking your characters there just for the loot, you don’t deserve the loot to begin with. If you took a mesmer portal.. same thing, you don’t deserve the loot or the achievement for that JP… this makes achievements mean nothing, what’d you achieve? Pressing F? Please LET ACHIEVEMENTS MEAN SOMETHING. What they did with the Retrospective Runaround (the newest one in silverwastes) was awesome, just not rewarding enough.

Why not have both? Players can do the puzzles as they always do OR interract with a flag like the Guild rush flag, and get increased rewards. Much like how the Griffon puzzle works in Lornar’s Pass, you get a bomb that you need to bring to the end within a time limit, if you succeed you get extra reward, if you fail you get regular JP reward.

That way those who are currently doing the puzzles with portals, or by parking characters can still do it, but those who want the extra challenge can go for it!

Win-win for everyone

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

That’s why we should have both systems

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

If there are 3 groups of people at a JP and the solution removes 2 groups then imo, it would reduce the number of people doing the puzzle.

Astral Projections.7320:

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

If there are 3 groups of people at a JP and the solution removes 2 groups then imo, it would reduce the number of people doing the puzzle.

if there are 3 groups of people.. at the END of the JP.. people that do the JP, people that park there and people that get portaled there… There are 2 groups of people that don’t deserve to be there… imo. Because only that one group that actually DID the puzzle can be said to have been “doing the puzzle”.

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

If there are 3 groups of people at a JP and the solution removes 2 groups then imo, it would reduce the number of people doing the puzzle.

if there are 3 groups of people.. at the END of the JP.. people that do the JP, people that park there and people that get portaled there… There are 2 groups of people that don’t deserve to be there… imo. Because only that one group that actually DID the puzzle can be said to have been “doing the puzzle”.

Oooohh, so this is about who deserves to do the puzzle, not making the puzzle alive as the title said.

Strange, I could have sworn this game was about cooperation and helping others out. I have no idea where I got such a silly notion. Thanks for clearing this little misconception up for me.

Well if they improve reward, I would do them again.
But mostly I would park my alts in jumping puzzles if they dont implement that token reward…
Or they could do this: If you disconnect in jumping puzzle, when you get back in the game you will be teleported in front of the jumping puzzle.

Astral Projections.7320:

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

If there are 3 groups of people at a JP and the solution removes 2 groups then imo, it would reduce the number of people doing the puzzle.

if there are 3 groups of people.. at the END of the JP.. people that do the JP, people that park there and people that get portaled there… There are 2 groups of people that don’t deserve to be there… imo. Because only that one group that actually DID the puzzle can be said to have been “doing the puzzle”.

Oooohh, so this is about who deserves to do the puzzle, not making the puzzle alive as the title said.

Strange, I could have sworn this game was about cooperation and helping others out. I have no idea where I got such a silly notion. Thanks for clearing this little misconception up for me.

Camping a character at the end of the jumping puzzle.. or getting a portal to the end.. isn’t “doing” the jumping puzzle. Actually going through the jumping puzzle is doing the jumping puzzle. Anyone can DO the jumping puzzle.. but only if you DO the jumping puzzle.. do you DESERVE the REWARD from doing it.. yes, I believe that, even in this game of cooperation.

I will cooperate by helping people along the jumping puzzle, showing them where to jump and offering encouragement. But doing something FOR someone (portal) isn’t “helping” them in my opinion, it’s offering them a way out of completing otherwise mildly challenging content of varying degrees. Camping your character at the end.. is just a lazy way of acquiring rewards without any effort. You perhaps got there legitimately but I’d rather they increase the rewards for completion than making it more rewarding to do it once and park your character there forever. This removes the incentive to ever do it again making it not really repeatable content.

To me it seems like people just don’t want to put in effort for the reward. They want it for free. That isn’t a good thing, imo.

Another solution:
- Require interaction with something at the start of the jp to get a key.
- Let all skills be available (portals too).
- Place checkpoints (like the silverwastes flag system) along the jp.
- Open the chest at the end consuming the key.

This will not alter the current jps and bad jumpers could be still helped, but will remove the campers issue, consenting anet to tweak a bit the reward, that currently is severely lacking.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Require interaction with something at the start of the jp to get a key.

Something like this is already in place. You can’t get credit for the JP’s achievement if you don’t pass through some point at its beginning

Erick Alastor.3917:

Another solution:
- Require interaction with something at the start of the jp to get a key.
- Let all skills be available (portals too).
- Place checkpoints (like the silverwastes flag system) along the jp.
- Open the chest at the end consuming the key.

This will not alter the current jps and bad jumpers could be still helped, but will remove the campers issue, consenting anet to tweak a bit the reward, that currently is severely lacking.

I would be happy with that… maybe someday they’ll try it out. Considering they already do this for the newest puzzle I have hope (at least for new JPs going forward.. hopefully they go back fix the prior ones too).. but the rewards still need a bit of balancing… even for retrospective runaround, they aren’t very good even though you can’t camp it.

Lol. It took me over 30 minutes to do one vista once. (I used a 30 minute tonic to change shape and the timer ran out before I got it done). The mind is willing but my poor stiff arthritic hands say that I can’t do the harder jumping puzzles and get the reward.

(And I don’t think someone beside me trying to help would do anything as I knew what to do and where to jump on that vista. It’s ability that’s lacking, not knowledge).

So you don’t like the fact that people can cooperate with others to help them complete a JP? And this “solution” would fix that? JP’s would be dead within a week lol

You think mesmer portals are being used in an unintended way on jumping puzzles? I’m pretty sure that Anet has had over two years to fix or, at the very least, comment upon this being unintended. And I know for a fact that I’ve ported people with Anet tags to Troll’s End.

Guhracie.3419:

You think mesmer portals are being used in an unintended way on jumping puzzles? I’m pretty sure that Anet has had over two years to fix or, at the very least, comment upon this being unintended. And I know for a fact that I’ve ported people with Anet tags to Troll’s End.

Then why did they introduce a system to prevent this in the newest jumping puzzle? For fun?

Getting help along the way is one thing… being ported directly to the end isn’t helping them “do” the jumping puzzle. It’s helping them get the rewards from the jumping puzzle. There is a difference.

Also… the “they’ve had time to fix it”, “they’ve had time to comment on it”… yep. They’ve had time to fix and comment on a lot of things and they haven’t done it to everything… why? Is it because they don’t care? No… it’s because other things take priority, plain and simple. It doesn’t mean that it was intended that people get ported directly to the end of a jumping puzzle. The new direction with the latest jumping puzzle makes me think that it wasn’t intended. Even if it was… It doesn’t mean anyone has to like it. Getting rewarded for no effort is not something I like.

Maybe OP should retitle his thread to

Making Jumping Puzzles only for the deserving [SOLUTION]

Since that is what he is really asking for.

I could see this if jumping puzzles were actually rewarding but other than a paltry amount of account bound mats for ascended armor (which you may or may not even need) they give absolutely nothing of value. And even worse is that the most difficult ones give the same rewards than the simplest and easiest.

Conncept.7638:

I could see this if jumping puzzles were actually rewarding but other than a paltry amount of account bound mats for ascended armor (which you may or may not even need) they give absolutely nothing of value. And even worse is that the most difficult ones give the same rewards than the simplest and easiest.

It was mentioned in the OP that rewards should be increased… I think that’s a big part of this. Remove the camping at the end, remove the ability to port directly to the end and then hopefully they would increase the rewards from doing the JPs.

Make JPs rewarding… and reward those that actually DO the content. So.. yes.. for the “deserving” if some people wish to call it that.

callidus.7085:

Conncept.7638:

I could see this if jumping puzzles were actually rewarding but other than a paltry amount of account bound mats for ascended armor (which you may or may not even need) they give absolutely nothing of value. And even worse is that the most difficult ones give the same rewards than the simplest and easiest.

It was mentioned in the OP that rewards should be increased… I think that’s a big part of this. Remove the camping at the end, remove the ability to port directly to the end and then hopefully they would increase the rewards from doing the JPs.

Make JPs rewarding… and reward those that actually DO the content. So.. yes.. for the “deserving” if some people wish to call it that.

I still don’t understand why not having both? Keep JPs as they are now, and add an extra reward for anyone that does the “harder” version. Simple solution, keeps everyone happy.

Yah, it’s wonderful being young, having good reflexes, living in an area with good internet connection or living close enough to the servers to have good ping, having good health and no hand/eye coordination problems and having people who are willing to spend the time each day (hours if need be) helping you through any JP you need to do to get these improved rewards.

Where can I sign up? I want to be among the deserving also.

Astral Projections.7320:

Yah, it’s wonderful being young, having good reflexes, living in an area with good internet connection or living close enough to the servers to have good ping, having good health and no hand/eye coordination problems and having people who are willing to spend the time each day (hours if need be) helping you through any JP you need to do to get these improved rewards.

Where can I sign up? I want to be among the deserving also.

Then they should never add anything challenging to the game since it won’t be doable by people with horrible internet connections or bad hand/eye coordination.

Jumping Puzzles have terrible rewards for the time needed to do them properly. In the same time it takes to do Obsidian Sanctum or Aetherblade Retreat I can do 10 events in SW, 2-3 dungeon paths (depends on path) or a fractal run while I will get a couple of greens and blues.

It’s no secret that the reason JPs have terrible rewards is because of camping and portals. Even the devs admit it.

So why not add both systems, so every single player is happy.

maddoctor.2738:

Astral Projections.7320:

Yah, it’s wonderful being young, having good reflexes, living in an area with good internet connection or living close enough to the servers to have good ping, having good health and no hand/eye coordination problems and having people who are willing to spend the time each day (hours if need be) helping you through any JP you need to do to get these improved rewards.

Where can I sign up? I want to be among the deserving also.

Then they should never add anything challenging to the game since it won’t be doable by people with horrible internet connections or bad hand/eye coordination.

Jumping Puzzles have terrible rewards for the time needed to do them properly. In the same time it takes to do Obsidian Sanctum or Aetherblade Retreat I can do 10 events in SW, 2-3 dungeon paths (depends on path) or a fractal run while I will get a couple of greens and blues.

It’s no secret that the reason JPs have terrible rewards is because of camping and portals. Even the devs admit it.

So why not add both systems, so every single player is happy.

That’d be fine with with me too. I would prefer that achievements be tied to the harder version though, achievements should mean something.

As for the " being young, having good reflexes, living in an area with good internet connection" etc… no JP requires you to be young.. that’s ridiculous, keep this to the facts please. Most JPs don’t require good reflexes… as in they have no moving parts, these are the easier JPs. You can take your time on them and get it right no problem. Those ones also don’t require good internet connection. I’ll admit the more challenging ones that have moving pieces do require good reflexes and good internet, but that is a SMALL minority.

Considering that the whole foundation of this game is helping others and cooperation, I don’t see ANet changing the JP system to the one he is advocating,

callidus.7085:

maddoctor.2738:

Astral Projections.7320:

Yah, it’s wonderful being young, having good reflexes, living in an area with good internet connection or living close enough to the servers to have good ping, having good health and no hand/eye coordination problems and having people who are willing to spend the time each day (hours if need be) helping you through any JP you need to do to get these improved rewards.

Where can I sign up? I want to be among the deserving also.

Then they should never add anything challenging to the game since it won’t be doable by people with horrible internet connections or bad hand/eye coordination.

Jumping Puzzles have terrible rewards for the time needed to do them properly. In the same time it takes to do Obsidian Sanctum or Aetherblade Retreat I can do 10 events in SW, 2-3 dungeon paths (depends on path) or a fractal run while I will get a couple of greens and blues.

It’s no secret that the reason JPs have terrible rewards is because of camping and portals. Even the devs admit it.

So why not add both systems, so every single player is happy.

That’d be fine with with me too. I would prefer that achievements be tied to the harder version though, achievements should mean something.

As for the " being young, having good reflexes, living in an area with good internet connection" etc… no JP requires you to be young.. that’s ridiculous, keep this to the facts please. Most JPs don’t require good reflexes… as in they have no moving parts, these are the easier JPs. You can take your time on them and get it right no problem. Those ones also don’t require good internet connection. I’ll admit the more challenging ones that have moving pieces do require good reflexes and good internet, but that is a SMALL minority.

Uh huh.

One day Father Time is going to tap you on the shoulder and give you a preview of coming attractions and what is so easy now, won’t be.

Who has ever considered parking alts at chests a problem? Exactly why should it be (i.e. who exactly is it harming?)?

The real issue with JPs now is WHY would most players do them? I once did a dozen within the first week of a month for the Monthly Cheivo, but that has been removed…..haven’t done a JP since. (beyond clearing zone for a VISTA or access to a rich node at a few). Beyond doing them once for the AP (they hold no rewards I deem worthy of the effort and I pretty sure I’m not alone in that feeling.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Who has ever considered parking alts at chests a problem? Exactly why should it be (i.e. who exactly is it harming?)?

The real issue with JPs now is WHY would most players do them? I once did a dozen within the first week of a month for the Monthly Cheivo, but that has been removed…..haven’t done a JP since. (beyond clearing zone for a VISTA or access to a rich node at a few). Beyond doing them once for the AP (they hold no rewards I deem worthy of the effort and I pretty sure I’m not alone in that feeling.

Parking alts at chests harms the puzzle rewards so it harms everyone. Parking alts and portals is one of the reasons JP rewards are so low, they can’t increase the rewards if parking and portals are still used to skip them.

The token part reminds me of the elemental jumping puzzle. My favorite map and jump puzzle.

Malox.5416:

You’re presenting a solution to a problem in a hypothetical future that YOU created. This thread is pointless and your supposed “solution” is only taking away from the game in exchange for personal/material gain.
" disabling mesmer portals while holding token" No…just no.

I give solution to people to use JUMPING skills, not cheating skills, by …
“whups I did just fail, now worry i can portal back up..”

Well giving every one fair chance to do jumping puzzle and get rewarded for it is awesome feeling. Rewards are HORRIBLE just because people cheat, park accounts up there and eat the loot daily by just logging in to open the chest…

You are one of them, that’s why you reacted that way.
My solution is great solution, to give joy to players that actually do jumping puizzles, and i do them for fun, but at the same time I ask why there is so shameful reward for fairly enough effort.

I make EB ~OS jp daily, just because i want to break my record every time that I run it, but i feel i deserve to be rewarded more for something this awesome.

champ.7021:

the few times i do jps (for ap rewards ofc) i do them on mez so that for the next couple of days i can port people who want bad loot or want aps as well. It makes me feel like a good citizen for saving them time and frustration for something that a lot of people really don’t like.

Don’t leave us mesmers unemployed

I think the good part of your idea was to boost rewards…the rest idk :p

Exactly, I made mesmer to help people, but then again i noticed mesmers are the worst for JPs, while you can do every JP a lot faster with Necro or Thief.

I want to prevent parking because parking is main reason why rewards are so bad. People know it, we know it and arena net knows as well. Solution is here, question is, do we want to be rewarded, or just sit up there every day and log for junk, every one has own opinion, and you are right, You can read my opinion, but I don’t expect you to like it:)

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

This.

Astral Projections.7320:

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

callidus.7085:

Astral Projections.7320:

Since OP’s proposal would remove people who are at jps and decrease the numbers doing them (removing those who need a portal) shouldn’t he have titled his proposal

Making Jumping puzzle dead again [SOLUTION]

I Suugestion OP go back and edit his title to make it more correct.

It wouldn’t reduce the number of people doing them. It would reduce the number of people camping at the end.. and the number of people taking portals to just get to the end. It WOULD however give people incentive to do it legitimately if the rewards were appropriate. That’s what I’d personally like to see.

If there are 3 groups of people at a JP and the solution removes 2 groups then imo, it would reduce the number of people doing the puzzle.

if there are 3 groups of people.. at the END of the JP.. people that do the JP, people that park there and people that get portaled there… There are 2 groups of people that don’t deserve to be there… imo. Because only that one group that actually DID the puzzle can be said to have been “doing the puzzle”.

Oooohh, so this is about who deserves to do the puzzle, not making the puzzle alive as the title said.

Strange, I could have sworn this game was about cooperation and helping others out. I have no idea where I got such a silly notion. Thanks for clearing this little misconception up for me.

Would you attack Teq for 20 min, if you know you could just press F on chest every time that Teq is killed? Would you park there? Sure you would, same goes for JPs.

Rewarding people that gave some effort would make:

• feeling that they achieved something (AP)
• they got rewarded for awesome job done
• they will come again because they enjoy it + enjoy the reward
• every one loves rewards for doing good job

Lets put it that way, every time you accomplish something alone, without unintended cheating by parking characters at the end or using help by over jumping parts of JPs, you don’t deserve the reward, that’s why you mostly get blue/green loot for 10-20-30 min of jumping. People see JP they like it, and never do it again because rewards suck. If dungeon would give junk as JP, no one would ever do it more then 2x like JPs.

You mean, a solution to make the puzzles even more dead than they already are? No, thank you.

I would like to see these Dev quotes about why the JP rewards are as they are.

If JP rewards are bad (and I believe the rewards come from Chests which are the same rewards whether the particular kind of Chest is at the end of a JP or anywhere else), the Devs must have been psychic (knowing in advance that JPs would be ‘abused’), as the rewards have only been increased from these Chests found in JPs and not decreased.

Perhaps, it would be best to just wait and see what the new Maguuma maps’ JPs have in store for us.

Good luck.

Astralporing.1957:

You mean, a solution to make the puzzles even more dead than they already are? No, thank you.

They are as dead as they ever will get. I don’t count people parking characters at the end or people taking portals to the end as jumping puzzles being “alive”. If they made them worth doing.. and prevented those things.. people would do them for the rewards, probably daily, and THAT would be alive. So.. Yes.. please.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I would like to see these Dev quotes about why the JP rewards are as they are.

If JP rewards are bad (and I believe the rewards come from Chests which are the same rewards whether the particular kind of Chest is at the end of a JP or anywhere else), the Devs must have been psychic (knowing in advance that JPs would be ‘abused’), as the rewards have only been increased from these Chests found in JPs and not decreased.

Perhaps, it would be best to just wait and see what the new Maguuma maps’ JPs have in store for us.

Good luck.

You can already see what the newest JP has in store for us. You can’t park your character at the end of the newest JP and you can’t take a portal there. Go figure.

callidus.7085:

You can already see what the newest JP has in store for us. You can’t park your character at the end of the newest JP and you can’t take a portal there. Go figure.

And as far as rewards go, it’s not worth doing more than once.

I hate jumping puzzles. Jumping higher would be nice but I’ll still hate them.

For those who like JP’s and want a reason to revisit them (now that monthly JP’s are gone), then why not introduce a JP race system?

The idea is that in a manner similar to how bosses have spawn timers, JP’s can have race timers. So every 15 minutes, a race will take place at a specific JP somewhere in the world. People who want to take part can wait in the starting area for that JP (just like you’d wait for a boss), and then when the spawn timer enters its window, it gives a 30 second preparation time for everyone. Then the race starts and everyone tries to finish the JP before the rest of the competition.

Give nice prizes for the top few places, and you could even have leaderboards showing the best time for each JP. If you break an old record, give a special reward, etc.

Also, to prevent screen clutter, ANet could use the same mechanics as they did for the Clock Tower, where other players are shown as wisps during the race. This would make it easy to see where you’re jumping irrespective of how many other players are partaking in the race with you.

Also, during the race you can disable class skills to prevent any particular class with leap skills, swiftness or portals, etc, from having an edge over the rest.

I love JPs and did every single one in the game more than once. I loved the clock tower and jumped up there just for fun. So I do love the idea of making them more rewarding.
As cruel and hard as this may sound I think not being “young” or “fit” enough to do them should not be an argument against that. Since you can do other things to get rewards. So if all you can do is doing the boss train, well then do it and get rewards there. No one forces you to do jumping puzzles.
BUT – and this is important – forbidding a mechanic like a mesmer portal should be a no go. This should always be available.
The reason is simple: Other situations.
If a mesmer manages to hide inside an enemy keep and ports his team in, lets say other mesmers which again port etc. and at the end 80 people are in and killing the lord, should they also get a smaller reward since they did not open the doors with rams?

What if people join the karka queen fight when queen is at like 10%? Should they not get rewards since they did not shoot off her armor?

If you restrict place A you should also restrict place B.