Hey all, long time lurker first time poster. I’m average at this game, so I’ve never felt the need to post, but SAB is different. It is easily my favorite part of this game and something I consider myself pretty good at. I just finished up World 2 Trib. so I figured I’d throw my two cents out here (attached screenshots for proof). Please forgive me if any of this info is repeated. I know some of my opinions have been stated before, but I believe more light needs to be shed upon these issues.
First off, I just wanted to give a huge thank you to Arenanet! SAB is the most fun I’ve ever had in a game and April is the only time of the year where I play GW2 consistently. Everything about it is awesome: the graphics, the music, the platforming, it’s all too good! I sincerely hope it’s not dead and that World 3 (and beyond) will come out eventually.
However, while doing Tribulation Mode I’ve noticed some severely frustrating things that I believe deserve a second look, all stemming from World 2. The reason I am only listing World 2 is because I finished World 1 last year and honestly don’t remember much of it. I do remember I did World 1 all by myself. I didn’t have to use a single guide. It was frustrating as hell, but it was a fun challenge at the same time. I can’t say the same for World 2, where I had to use guides. There were several reasons as to why I did this: Incoming wall of text
Length: The zones in World 1 were a perfect length. If you’re good at them you can zip through them quickly, yet Trib. Is still a challenge. The length of the World 2 zones are grueling. I think Arenanet realized this when they went through and added the shortcuts, but I just want to emphasize this. It also feels like the levels were rushed. I think all the zones of World 2 deserve their own worlds, as I believe they could be fleshed out and be very fun to play. The transition from the Sunny Glade to the Dark Woods to the Kingdom of Fungus made perfect sense. Going from the Rapids to the Pain Cliffs to the Storm Top didn’t feel organic to me.
Knockback: I’m not sure why in the world this was implemented, but this was easily the worst addition to SAB I’ve ever seen. The knockback when you come into contact with every enemy seems completely random and not well thought out. There are several instances, the White Assassin in W2Z2 on the lone island after the launch pad for example, where it is virtually impossible to not get knocked back (and fall off the platform) unless you have pixel perfect aim. And that doesn’t even take Trib. into account. I understand this was probably done to prevent people from rushing through NPCs, but it needs to be removed. There were countless times where I was chain “knockbacked” until I was killed/thrown into a spike trap, all while there was literally nothing I could do about it. Sometimes I could walk through NPCs, other times I was 5 feet (in game, not sure what the “official” unit of measure is) away from them and still got hit. And holy crap that Tribulation Cloud is even more frustrating now.
Hands: On a side note, the hands that shoot at you in Trib. I don’t know if this is a side-effect of the knockback discussed above, but I could not for the life of me dodge them consistently. I know there were times I would dodge too early/late and get hit, but other times I would dodge perfectly (exclusively jump-dodge) and die mid animation to the explosion.
Trampolines: Oh boy, these were the most RNG based interactions I’ve ever seen. Sometimes I would use them fine, other times I would not bounce at all, and still other times I was bounced horizontally off the platform instead of vertically. I never had a problem with mushrooms, so I have no idea how they messed up the code with trampolines, but man is there a monumental difference. This is obviously apparent in the trampoline/pillar section of W2Z2.
Ice: The ice physics needs some polish in a few places in W2Z3. I know they fixed the bug that caused the ice to be too slippery, but there are still some areas where if you move even a millimeter in one direction, it magnifies your momentum by 1000% and sends you flying off in that direction. This is most noticeable in the spike cavern area and when you need to hit the small block (not a portal block) after the ice wall portal block. I understand you could turn on walk to avoid it, but the spike cavern is grueling to walk through. I think the ice is a very fun mechanic and should be implemented, but just needs to be polished.
tl;dr: Shorten Zone length to that of World 1
Remove the knockback when you come into contact with a NPC
Fix trampolines
Polish ice physics
Again, thank you for such an awesome game within a game Arenanet and I hope there is more to come!
