Guild Wars 2

RoseofGilead.8907:

There’s a notice in red letters on the pop up that appears as you walk up to the SAB. It warned you. So yeah, read before clicking blindly.

I did read it and didn’t lose my buffs, but can’t do the games because of my buffs?

It doesn’t have to be an annual thing. It could be permanent so anyone can play it whenever. It helps recruiting new players too.

Piogre.2164:

HUGE thank you to Anet for bringing this content back. Hopefully it really is going to be an annual festival this time.

Hopefully not… It needs to be a permanent addition to the game!

Paulie.6215:

RoseofGilead.8907:

There’s a notice in red letters on the pop up that appears as you walk up to the SAB. It warned you. So yeah, read before clicking blindly.

I did read it and didn’t lose my buffs, but can’t do the games because of my buffs?

You can do the games even with the buffs. You’ll just lose them.

You have to decide which is more important to you. Keep in mind SAB is going to be a yearly thing now so it’s not like you have 19 days to do everything or miss out forever.

Sure, SAB is unique… but high-quality content? No profit (at least none I’ve found anyway- new to SAB), no XP… no real ties to the game beyond Moto’s experiment. I didn’t grow up on 8-bit, platformer games… so I’m not really seeing the hype here.

I mean, if they want to make it permanent they can, but in a year or two of that you’ll be wondering why there’s constantly updates to LS or expansions but never new levels to SAB (here’s why, SAB is a mini game and not directly related to GW’s story). It’s great as a festival though (better than the Dragon one that’s solely PvP), but permanent content WITH experience (dungeons) are dead because tokens to grind skins isn’t incentive enough (either because everyone has the skins already, which SAB will fall into, or because they don’t feel they’re worth the time).

The no XP thing really takes all the fun out of playing this for me, I’ve spent 2-3 hours in there today and, ultimately, feel like I have nothing to show for it. No weapon skins, barely any bauble bubbles, and no new levels. 2-3 hours is 3-4 levels just exploring the world.

As a casual player, it is kinda daunting to realize that- in the 19 days- I might be able to earn 1 weapon skin from this, ultimately what turned me off of the Wintersday ascended thing, as a casual (30mins-1hr, under normal circumstances) there was no way to earn that other than to drop lots of real world money on it and pray to the luck goddess that I get in some snowball fights that my team miraculously wins.

SAB prizes are in the same boat for me, 35 bauble bubbles (not to mention gold- another thing SAB doesn’t provide, not even 1 copper in those 2.5 hours) and 2.5 hours has only earned me 2. I probably won’t bother. If it was permanent, still wouldn’t bother because- again- there is absolutely no character progression within that part of the game beyond unlocking things for SAB.

As for ‘recruiting new players’ , I point to the no XP thing again. It might be a nice gimick to get them to play, but after they spend 5 hours in it, get out and realize they’re still level 2… I don’t want to know how they’d react to that.

Paulie.6215:

RoseofGilead.8907:

There’s a notice in red letters on the pop up that appears as you walk up to the SAB. It warned you. So yeah, read before clicking blindly.

I did read it and didn’t lose my buffs, but can’t do the games because of my buffs?

Correct. But you could do it on an alt.

Considering its a single portal in Rata Sum, it never made sense to me why it wasn’t permanent content, with the new bits to it being new levels.

Honestly, with the drought of content, it would be foolish to not leave it in place.

Not to mention the Infinite Restart Coin….Milking the $$$ for people that bought that and then had to wait several years to use it again.

Stramatus.5219:

Considering its a single portal in Rata Sum, it never made sense to me why it wasn’t permanent content, with the new bits to it being new levels.

Honestly, with the drought of content, it would be foolish to not leave it in place.

Not to mention the Infinite Restart Coin….Milking the $$$ for people that bought that and then had to wait several years to use it again.

Finally… Someone gets it! Thank you!

I don’t think it has anything to do with “penalizing people who purchased buffs”. Rather, its probably to prevent potential issues that could be caused by certain buffs like HP regenerating food and such, which have historically created issues in modes like this which aren’t supposed to utilize normal game stats. Flashbacks to never being able to die in stuff like Dragon Ball, for instance. So rather than code something complicated to go through and nullify / remove only the problem buffs, they probably just put a simple “remove all buffs” flag on it.

Not the “best” solution perhaps, but the easiest and one least likely to be gotten around.

If they made SAB permanent Anet would probably have to spend some time adjusting the rewards again to not make it a total skin farm that most complete in a month or two. I’d rather Anet focus more on LS3 and improving the expansion they sold. I think SAB fans are a highly vocal minority and it would be a waste of developers resources to accommodate that.

Just wanted to say “I told you so!”

JustTrogdor.7892:

If they made SAB permanent Anet would probably have to spend some time adjusting the rewards again to not make it a total skin farm that most complete in a month or two. I’d rather Anet focus more on LS3 and improving the expansion they sold. I think SAB fans are a highly vocal minority and it would be a waste of developers resources to accommodate that.

Yeah, there’s something to be said for that aspect of it too, for sure.

But still, world 1 and 2 have existed for years. I really don’t know how that takes away development resources???

Whether you leave them permanent or not makes no impact on development resources. If it turn into a Festival with new content every year, then that is where the development goes. Existing content already exists…Why take it away? It’s a game within a game like the other mini games that exist in the game. Granted bigger, but its more that then it is a festival.

JustTrogdor.7892:

If they made SAB permanent Anet would probably have to spend some time adjusting the rewards again to not make it a total skin farm that most complete in a month or two. I’d rather Anet focus more on LS3 and improving the expansion they sold. I think SAB fans are a highly vocal minority and it would be a waste of developers resources to accommodate that.

SAB doesn’t have to be a priority but it has the right to exist permanently for those who enjoy it or want to discover it. It’s a mini-game for those who want a break from the real game without leaving the real game and it works. I rather more resources go to LS3 story cause I wanna know what happens next in the story because I enjoy story missions, and exploring, but keeping SAB perminantly so I can go back to take some breaks is something I always wanted to do. When you remove it then that’s the only thing I want to do because it will go away and that ruins the overall enjoyment of “Play when you want, what you want” concept of GW2… Seriously

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Piogre.2164:

HUGE thank you to Anet for bringing this content back. Hopefully it really is going to be an annual festival this time.

Hopefully not… It needs to be a permanent addition to the game!

So it can be as abandoned and neglected as Meatoberfest or the Crucible of Eternity?

Stramatus.5219:

Considering its a single portal in Rata Sum, it never made sense to me why it wasn’t permanent content, with the new bits to it being new levels.

Honestly, with the drought of content, it would be foolish to not leave it in place.

Not to mention the Infinite Restart Coin….Milking the $$$ for people that bought that and then had to wait several years to use it again.

I think the content drought is ending.

Sartharina.3542:

Stramatus.5219:

Considering its a single portal in Rata Sum, it never made sense to me why it wasn’t permanent content, with the new bits to it being new levels.

Honestly, with the drought of content, it would be foolish to not leave it in place.

Not to mention the Infinite Restart Coin….Milking the $$$ for people that bought that and then had to wait several years to use it again.

I think the content drought is ending.

I sincerely hope so.

I only have a stick, none of the rest of the items I spent a ton of time grinding to get. My guildie had all of his items upon entering SAB, so I know something is really messed up. Changing to the character I originally used (which should be irrelevant) only improved the situation by starting me with 4 lives instead of 1.

Please fix!

mmmm…SAB, how I’ve never missed you.

Make sure you’re on the character you took through it last time

Read the post again. I tried that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. O’Brien

Just play it on a different character?

Given that they’ve already had nearly 3 years to work on worlds 3 and 4, this sounds pretty final.

We decided we couldn’t justify the sacrifice to Guild Wars 2 to make more new worlds for SAB. But we did have time to dust off the cobwebs (we had to fix a lot of stuff that breaks as the engine evolves and improves) and make sure SAB has a great, regular home in Guild Wars 2.

Nah, it’s just another reason it should be permanent.

Esper.4078:

I only have a stick, none of the rest of the items I spent a ton of time grinding to get. My guildie had all of his items upon entering SAB, so I know something is really messed up. Changing to the character I originally used (which should be irrelevant) only improved the situation by starting me with 4 lives instead of 1.

Please fix!

If you’re sure that you’ve made more progress on Character X, contact support and in your ticket, specify the character name and the progress you think you should have.

There’s nothing any of us on the forums can do to help you, sorry.

I’m glad that lots of people love SAB, but people also love other seasonal content. Doesn’t mean it should be permanent.

(Although, ANet should consider spinning off another company, Weyandt’s Revenge, whose focus would be “mini games” like SAB, with complicated JPs. Done well, they could integrate it into GW2 for other festivals. It’s clear that some people are ready to plunk down US$40-50 to have a permanent SAB, so why not take their money?)

Sartharina.3542:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Piogre.2164:

HUGE thank you to Anet for bringing this content back. Hopefully it really is going to be an annual festival this time.

Hopefully not… It needs to be a permanent addition to the game!

So it can be as abandoned and neglected as Meatoberfest or the Crucible of Eternity?

Pretty much. There’s value in Seasonal events.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’m glad that lots of people love SAB, but people also love other seasonal content. Doesn’t mean it should be permanent.

(Although, ANet should consider spinning off another company, Weyandt’s Revenge, whose focus would be “mini games” like SAB, with complicated JPs. Done well, they could integrate it into GW2 for other festivals. It’s clear that some people are ready to plunk down US$40-50 to have a permanent SAB, so why not take their money?)

This is true. If they sell me permanent SAB box in gem store I will buy it in a heart beat. No questions asked…

Ticky.5831:

Sartharina.3542:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Piogre.2164:

HUGE thank you to Anet for bringing this content back. Hopefully it really is going to be an annual festival this time.

Hopefully not… It needs to be a permanent addition to the game!

So it can be as abandoned and neglected as Meatoberfest or the Crucible of Eternity?

Pretty much. There’s value in Seasonal events.

I dont have a problem with seasonal events. I just dont want SAB to be a seasonal event…

OMG, this just made my month! Thank you for bringing it back, Anet dev team!

Mixed feelings on this, while I do love SAB, it would need some major reward adjustments to be made permanent. Also as others have said other seasonal/festive content is awesome too, it’s not permanent, and that’s part of what makes it so special when it comes around.

I really think you should add a permanent access gem store item to get in when we want! I would pay 1000 gems for that!

Please leave it in so we can play it at our own paces…

There may not be a World 3, but Thank You for finally bringing SAB back! Time to farm for some Tribulation skins.

Also I liked how you changed world 2-2 and 2-3. It feels kind of weird knowing how much was cut to make it shorter, but you can still do the non-skips if you so choose/want the achievements, and those levels were far to long anyway.

Might get me to log in for a few hrs but that’s about it ..

I really like SAB but I do not think I would enjoy it as much as I do now if it where permanent. I like this festival theme of it and I think it should stay like that. If it where permanent devs would have another part of the game to monitor and pit down dev time to bug fix every now and then and after a month some players would start to complain that there are no new levels for it and we’ll on and on it goes. SAB is a good lifeline for Anet to use when players are starting to leave :P

I got 40 bauble bubbles today. and I have no idea how

Is it just me or is “Enviromental Science 202” impossible to complete due to the “shortcuts” added into world 2.

if u keep it permanent, it gets old and it will die out

it wont have the same feel as a yearly content.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

They didn’t say never, they just said this time around, they couldn’t justify it. And frankly, I agree. It’s a fun mode to have but there are core systems that we all know need improvements that will give us a lot more hours of satisfying gameplay than a few hours in SAB.

Basically, this is what I was going to say. HoT’s still relatively fresh, and hasn’t entirely had all the kinks worked out of it. As much as SAB is an awesome diversion, Arenanet would actually have to be stupid to prioritize its growth over the main game’s.

Let’s just say, I want to see World 3 before we get our next expansion pack.

As for any nerfing, I only had time for a romp through world one, so I can’t judge the changes to world 2. I do, however, remember it having a DISTINCT jump in challenge from W1, when it came out last time (the ninja HQ was absolute murder, and if I hadn’t bought the ICC, I would never have cleared it). If the difficulties kept going up like that each world, people might give up and play something easier, like Battletoads.

I heard Tribulation mode’s gonna remain unchanged, in any event. The people who truly want an incredible challenge know where to go.

I’ve beaten king toad 3 times (and played through each zone each time) and I didnt get the scholar achievement at all. It isn’t even showing that I completed the zone

Is this happening to anyone else?

The same goes with Adventuring 101. Unless you need to do it in non-infintile mode. I can’t find ANY mineral spots for mineral 103 either.

SkyShroud.2865:

if u keep it permanent, it gets old and it will die out

it wont have the same feel as a yearly content.

Complete nonsense.

People that like the content will always play, nothing new in Guild Wars 1 PvP but people still play that. Plus Guild Wars 2 constantly has new players coming to it, that will always keep such activities active.

Hellllloooooo.
So, currently already have the color-scheme pieces I want or need from the last time SAB came out.
Please tell me there is a new world 3 I am simply having difficulty locating and getting into!
Please. xD

Nope no new world three, only new rewards.

Don’t think it counts on infantile mode.

World 2 was nerfed. The shortcuts cut off over half of zones 2 and 3. The wizard now doesn’t even damage you.

Thank you so much for finally bringing SAB back! It was one of the things a friend of mine showed me when he tried to convince me to start playing Guild Wars 2 but when I had finally bought the game it was gone and I’ve been waiting for it to return ever since. I just wish I wasn’t moving to a different town next week because I’ll be missing 5 whole days of the festival

It’s possible, you just have to ignore the shortcuts. Follow the sad faces, rather than the happy ones.

See #35, find the kingpin, in Dulfy’s old guide to find the stump.

Besides the ones you get for completing World 1&2 achievements I think it would be awesome if you got a title for completing the weapon collections, for example you could have:

Super Adventurer for getting all blue skins
The King Toad for getting all green skins
The Storm Wizard for getting all the skins

etc.

If there’s anything in this game people love more than SAB it’s fancy titles