Guild Wars 2

The problem with the game is not that it’s too hard. Well, it is. But the real problem is that it’s too much at once. You cannot expect a new player to start learning and pressing all 10 notes at once. This is completely ridiculous.

You don’t start learning blind typing on a keyboard by learning all 50 characters at once, either. No, you start by learning 2 characters, and than another 2, and than 4. And so on.

The game should do the same, to make it easier to learn and fun to progress for a player. First songs should introduce players with only 2-4 notes to get a feel for it, and than gradually increase the number of notes by each next song. Even games like Guitar Hero use only 5 notes, but the bell choir has 10! Imagine playing Guitar Hero with 10 notes… Crazy, right?

So having to do all 10 notes at once from start is just way too much to grasp, and gives you no time or opportunity to learn. You would have to either decrease the starting number of notes which would than gradually increase the learning curve in the next songs (for those that want to achieve better scores), or decrease the overall speed of how fast notes are coming.

If it would introduce you to the game slowly, it could be a very fun game, but the state that it is in now is a complete mess. Instead of having fun with the game, players only look to exploit and hit 2 notes to heal them up to barely pass the game for the daily. Another good concept, but terrible, sloppy execution.

There are 8 notes, not 10, and you have to push only one note at a time. First songs in the round are slow and pretty much only a few different notes. Lower part is the easiest part to play for beginners to practice.

Not sure if… proving why NPE…

If there was Keyboard Hero, surely it would use more than a few buttons. You only have the 1 hand to press the guitar strings.

When playing bell choir, you want to point your camera so that you have a top down view of the notes. For keybinds, you want the default 1-0 keys and have both hands on the keyboard. As the notes pass the line, press the key. Keep trying.

Healix.5819:

Not sure if… proving why NPE…

If there was Keyboard Hero, surely it would use more than a few buttons. You only have the 1 hand to press the guitar strings.

When playing bell choir, you want to point your camera so that you have a top down view of the notes. For keybinds, you want the default 1-0 keys and have both hands on the keyboard. As the notes pass the line, press the key. Keep trying.

Is the bell choir the same as it’s always been?

If so, the only issue I saw with it was that it was embedded in the 3d space of the world and not just added some form of UI, (panel on side of screen scrolling down) or at least raise the line of contact (the line when you’d hit the note) to be well in sight/above your character so you don’t have to do camera stuff like look straight down.

Correct me if I’m wrong though.

Ameepa.6793:

There are 8 notes, not 10, and you have to push only one note at a time. First songs in the round are slow and pretty much only a few different notes. Lower part is the easiest part to play for beginners to practice.

The songs I got to play had up to 3-5 notes at the same time on the screen going very fast, which was way too hard for a beginner. You don’t even have time to get used to which of the 4 buttons plays which note, and than they send all 4-5 notes or more to press at once. It’s borderline stupid. This is equal to hardest difficulties in any music game, right from the start. First songs were far from easy for me, and many other players as well as you can read from the forums.

The pacing is off, and should be toned down to make it fun. The only way to do it as I said is to exploit the game and only spam 2 notes to hopefully heal you back, which basically sums up all the other content mechanic in this game as well, and this one isn’t any different either (just makes you look for how to exploit the system instead of actually playing it).

The keys are colored and in order of the colored area of the field. Watch a video of each section: lower, middle, upper, pick the one you like, practice and continue trying. Towards the end of the game, you’re given a minute to simply play with it where no songs are played.

nethykins.7986:

Is the bell choir the same as it’s always been?

Yes

It doesn’t help. There are too many buttons to concentrate. It’s frustrating to learn. Too much at once. I can only beat a song if I spam 2 of the buttons when notes are near, and hope I will heal for more than the damage I’ll take. And I think that’s what majority of the players do as well.

NeoCodex.2438:

Ameepa.6793:

There are 8 notes, not 10, and you have to push only one note at a time. First songs in the round are slow and pretty much only a few different notes. Lower part is the easiest part to play for beginners to practice.

The songs I got to play had up to 3-5 notes at the same time on the screen going very fast, which was way too hard for a beginner. You don’t even have time to get used to which of the 4 buttons plays which note, and than they send all 4-5 notes or more to press at once. It’s borderline stupid. This is equal to hardest difficulties in any music game, right from the start. First songs were far from easy for me, and many other players as well as you can read from the forums.

The pacing is off, and should be toned down to make it fun. The only way to do it as I said is to exploit the game and only spam 2 notes to hopefully heal you back, which basically sums up all the other content mechanic in this game as well, and this one isn’t any different either (just makes you look for how to exploit the system instead of actually playing it).

You probably came in at the end of a game, not the beginning, since it’s hot joinable. That means there would have already been a high score on the right side. I entered a game today with a score of 400 already up and it was fast.

But if you start at the beginning of a game then it’s easier.

The biggest problem I had (and I’ve seen other player have) is not know when to actually push the keys. Once that was resolved, it is pretty easy.

NeoCodex.2438:

The songs I got to play had up to 3-5 notes at the same time on the screen going very fast, which was way too hard for a beginner.

There is no situation in the whole minigame where you have to press “3-5 notes all at once”. This is nothing specific to the songs you got to play, since everyone gets the same songs (even in the same order) each round. There are 2 songs that are particularly hard for a beginner, but “too hard” is proven to be wrong, since I regularly see beginners finish those songs without dying.

Some hints:
You need to press the corresponding keys one after another, right before the orbs reach you. You can imagine it like playing tennis (or baseball, or whatever game where you have to hit a ball that comes towards you). It is best to use the standard key binding for the minigame, since then your fingers follow the same sequence from left to right as the notes/colors in the minigame. Choosing the “lower part” could also help, since this is the easier part to play.

NeoCodex.2438:

You don’t even have time to get used to which of the 4 buttons plays which note, and than they send all 4-5 notes or more to press at once. It’s borderline stupid. This is equal to hardest difficulties in any music game, right from the start. First songs were far from easy for me, and many other players as well as you can read from the forums.

The first few songs are, more or less, tutorial songs. They are quite slow, with just a small amount of notes to play, and the notes are mostly not even far from each other. Often they are even a sequence from left to right or right to left, etc. The first few songs are for getting used to the bell which – in my opinion – works out quite nicely as a tutorial of some sort.

NeoCodex.2438:

The pacing is off, and should be toned down to make it fun. The only way to do it as I said is to exploit the game and only spam 2 notes to hopefully heal you back, which basically sums up all the other content mechanic in this game as well, and this one isn’t any different either (just makes you look for how to exploit the system instead of actually playing it).

The pacing fits the tempo of the songs perfectly and therefore is not off. The main problem I see is, that if you have someone on your platform who is reeeeally bad at that game and presses buttons randomly, it can get difficult for the other players to hear the actual pacing of the song or even the right melody. Then you need to rely on the visuals (the floating orbs) instead. In my opinion it would be better if every player heard the standard audio of the other two parts. But that would take away the challange of playing together… so maybe not…

For people who have a bad sense for melody, tempo, etc. maybe it is even best to mute the game while playing the minigame and fully concentrate on the visuals. I can imagine that the music (especially if someone is not following the melody or tempo next to them) is more distracting than helpful to them.

@NeoCodex: how often did you try to get into the game? I remember that I joined it last year, didn’t get at all what it is about, and left immediately. This year, a guild member said she played it for hours last year and it is really easy, so I tried again.

In the first 2 sessions, I scored 0. I made several mistakes:
- I tried to use keys 1-4 for the left hand and my customized keybinds for 6..9. This is wrong, the bell game works best if you use the default keybindings, that means 1..4 with the left hand and 6..9 with the right hand. No mouse.
- I didn’t change the camera view. First I left it so I looked over the shoulder of my character as always. This is wrong. It is necessary to view straight down on your character.

In the 3rd session, I scored about 150. And starting with the 4th session, I score 500 and more and was never thrown out. According to the statistics, I seem to hit only about half of the notes, but this is sufficient to not die. I’m sure if I practice a few more rounds, I get used to the few music pieces and will score higher.

The notes are not random: you actually play something, and it is always the same. I don’t know what the game becomes once you know the notes by heart, but I bet there are people who do. A few days into the event, I bet there are people who will play flawlessly and the next challenge will be to play together with the other 2 on your location. In the upper right corner, there seems to be a meter who measures how good you are playing together. I don’t know if you can score points with it, but it is an additional challenge.

:). I had to rebind my keys. Cause they were no were in a strait line.

Also there is a keyboard hero. It was called frets on fire

I’m seriously considering changing my keybinds jut to get this achieve. I use a gaming mouse and I had to rename the keys, plus it’s kind of new so I’m not too used to it.

The songs are kind of annoying to play, but at least it’s better than the buggy jumping puzzle.

If you are a beginner to games in general, I can kinda agree with you.
If you are of really old age and doesn’t play games often, I also kinda agree with you.
If you are just beginner to GW2 but played other games, you are just bad at Bell Choir, the solution is “get good”.

ofLegends.9853:

I’m seriously considering changing my keybinds jut to get this achieve. I use a gaming mouse and I had to rename the keys, plus it’s kind of new so I’m not too used to it.

The songs are kind of annoying to play, but at least it’s better than the buggy jumping puzzle.

You can double assign keys too. I use a Razer Naga Hex (key bindings for that are in the 2nd column in the control options in my case) and additionally have the default keybindings just for playing instruments. Maybe you could do the same, so you don’t need to continuously change your settings.

Bell Choir really isn’t hard. It can be overwhelming at first but so are games such as Guitar Hero, of which this is an implementation.

I playing this game since beta, participated in every piece if gameplay since then, and Bell Choir is a WORST activity in this game, ever. It’s not fun for beginners, requires lots of learning effort just to stop failing miserable and cause too much frustration.
It’s like throwing the ragtag team of spvp beginners into WSL tourney match and call this “fun experience”.

Also turn your settings to best performance. Any type of delay can throw off the timing. Point the camera straight down so you can get a good view.

The main problem is that’s unintuitive.

I’ve practiced harp for quite some time and am able to play melodies with number sheets, but I fail Bell Choir because I simply don’t get what I have to press in that all-over-the-place combination of non-consecutive numbers, colors and radial lanes.

Lishtenbird.2814:

The main problem is that’s unintuitive.

This. There are 8 notes to press. So you use keys 1 to 8 right? NOPE

There should be 9 bell skills, so you’d assume, the devs not being kittened, that they’d ignore skill 9 and you’d press 1 through 8 for the 8 notes that light up. But instead, you press notes 1 to 4, then notes 6 to 9, because they got rid of note 5 from the middle, though not the 5th note along on the board.

So for 1 on the board you press 1, 2 press 2, 3 press 3, 4 press 4, 5 press…wait there is no 5.. press 6, for 6 you press 7.. for…

What the actual kitten.

You don’t need to be good right away, lol. It took me multiple tries to make it through my 1st song but after that it’s pretty fun

Lishtenbird.2814:

The main problem is that’s unintuitive.

I’ve practiced harp for quite some time and am able to play melodies with number sheets, but I fail Bell Choir because I simply don’t get what I have to press in that all-over-the-place combination of non-consecutive numbers, colors and radial lanes.

You mean real harp or gw2 harp?
Just like Guitarhero may be impossible for real guitarplayers so can bellchoir be for other real-life musicians. The end result, the music, may be similar but the way to produce it isn’t

NeoCodex.2438:

The songs I got to play had up to 3-5 notes at the same time on the screen going very fast, which was way too hard for a beginner. You don’t even have time to get used to which of the 4 buttons plays which note, and than they send all 4-5 notes or more to press at once. It’s borderline stupid. This is equal to hardest difficulties in any music game, right from the start. First songs were far from easy for me, and many other players as well as you can read from the forums. ….

I’ll take your exaggeration and raise you this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zkz-ff_bKg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BHI_wDk55E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hVzKg3Hg5U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8aDpAOmcUI

The set of songs is fine; it starts off with a breeze, and escalates to something with a challenge but perfectly manageable. Just park your fingers over 1-4 & 6-9, and your wrists have to do nothing.
Also, it’s a music mini-game. You don’t just sight read it; you press the keys with the rhythm and identify the note patterns that come.

Swizzle.7982:

Lishtenbird.2814:

The main problem is that’s unintuitive.

This. There are 8 notes to press. So you use keys 1 to 8 right? NOPE

There should be 9 bell skills, so you’d assume, the devs not being kittened, that they’d ignore skill 9 and you’d press 1 through 8 for the 8 notes that light up. But instead, you press notes 1 to 4, then notes 6 to 9, because they got rid of note 5 from the middle, though not the 5th note along on the board.

So for 1 on the board you press 1, 2 press 2, 3 press 3, 4 press 4, 5 press…wait there is no 5.. press 6, for 6 you press 7.. for…

What the actual kitten.

If this bothers you a lot you can always remap the keys.
Personally, I just place my fingers on the relevant keys from the start (1 hand on 1-4 and the other on 6-9).

Fransson.7910:

You mean real harp or gw2 harp?

GW2 harp, I’m bad with real world instruments.

vana.5467:

Personally, I just place my fingers on the relevant keys from the start (1 hand on 1-4 and the other on 6-9).

I did it like that last year and do it now. But I discovered that I’m performing way better with 2-3 fingers on the numpad instead. Which I can’t really use here… unless I make an overlay with numbers, which I might (since it’s not modifying anything, it’s allowed).

The biggest problem is not knowing when to hit the note. The platform design is just awful and gives no hint as to when to hit the note without taking damage. I’ve tried hitting the notes when they hit the white outline, the blue inner circle and right before it touches either circle and I take damage in all three situations. Make a “buffer zone” circle to clearly indicate when we need to hit the notes and incorporate a tolerance period so that those playing with lag don’t die every time because they’re not hitting notes within the 1/10000 of a second you expect them to. Another poorly designed mini game, Anet.

Thanks to everyone for the tips. I will try the game again tonight, and hopefully get better after readjusting the camera and the keybindings.

Also, the main problem was probably I was hot-joined on the allready heavy songs – but there were about 3 or 4 times with the score sheet coming up, 3 of those i scored 0 and last one I managed a few points to complete the daily (by only pressing 1 or 2 notes to heal myself). So I figured once the score sheet pops up we start from begining. Right..? It’s possible I missed the tutorial, there really is no way to know. It’s all very confusing when you enter the game. At least those were my first impressions of it, as it stands.

Also this. I don’t know when to hit the note. It’s all very poorly described and you don’t really see or feel any indication of when you should be hitting it. Yeah, I will try hitting them right before they come to me like a tennis ball that was suggested, but even than the response from the UI is lacking.

How do you find the “easy” part?
I’ve tried 2 times for the bell choir, only option was for southeast arena, nortwest arena or something like that, no Iower or upper, and the notes came fast (for me) and a lot of them.
If thats for beginners I probably never get the daily

The real problem with the Bell choir game is the frigging “Waiting for more players”. Not enough time to go do something productive and enough time to drive you insane. Please, make so people can join the ring and start playing as soon as the next song starts.

i find it easier to do if you use one hand for 1-4 and the other with the mouse

JoeytheHutt.1742:

How do you find the “easy” part?
I’ve tried 2 times for the bell choir, only option was for southeast arena, nortwest arena or something like that, no Iower or upper, and the notes came fast (for me) and a lot of them.
If thats for beginners I probably never get the daily

To find the “easy” part, check the time remaining at the top of the screen. If it’s 6-7 minutes or less, you’re in the “hard” part already. Don’t panic. Give it a try, if you’re there, you don’t lose anything if you flub it. But stick around. Once the activity ends, stay in it and it’ll restart at 10 minutes left, and you’ll get to begin right away with the easy songs.

You could also try to leave the instance and join a new one in the hope that it’ll be early on, but that’s liable to cause frustration if you wind up in several late instances one after the other. Just wait it out.

The first songs are slower. The later songs are faster.

I actually think the faster songs are easier. You can get into the rhythm more easily.

My biggest problem is I’m getting a perfect score, then a player joins next to me and messes up within 5 seconds, gets kicked off the stage and messes up my rhythm.

One time someone ran a vacuum in the room and I did flawless twice in a row because I couldn’t hear the misplaced notes.

Giggityman.2837:

The biggest problem is not knowing when to hit the note.

This too. I like to press stuff earlier because I think it’s time already, but nope.

DarkWasp.7291:

One time someone ran a vacuum in the room and I did flawless twice in a row because I couldn’t hear the misplaced notes.

Ahah… I actually got a better result when rushing this achievement with sound off too.

this thread shoulda been called Hells Bells :^P

Even if the activity clearly marked when u are supposed to press the key, your client’s lag still affects your success too. The activity is very punishing.

I also think the hard songs are easier, because you regain health on successes and a couple of successes can cancel out a few misses.

OP makes a good point. I’ve been playing guild wars since beta, but the first time I tried the bell choir (today) it was kind of alot to take in. I was able to deal with the left bar no probs, but the 6-0 notes ended up getting wild past the easy songs.

I just place my fingers on the 1-4 keys (left hand) and 6-8 keys (right hand), then play it like a keyboard. Stick with the same key (upper, middle, low) every time too. It’ll take a few tries till your brain gets familiar with the notes and you develop muscle memory, but once you get that down, it’s easy to get almost 90+% success each and every time.

Zaxares.5419:

I just place my fingers on the 1-4 keys (left hand) and 6-8 keys (right hand), then play it like a keyboard. Stick with the same key (upper, middle, low) every time too. It’ll take a few tries till your brain gets familiar with the notes and you develop muscle memory, but once you get that down, it’s easy to get almost 90+% success each and every time.

Do exactly this. I thought this was a troll thread, but if I think back to when I first encountered the Bell Choir I guess I was also struggling to grasp the timing/memorization until maybe after my 3rd or 4th round in the game. However, it really doesn’t take much effort to get 90% once you get used to it.

JoeytheHutt.1742:

How do you find the “easy” part?
I’ve tried 2 times for the bell choir, only option was for southeast arena, nortwest arena or something like that, no Iower or upper, and the notes came fast (for me) and a lot of them.
If thats for beginners I probably never get the daily

The “beginner songs” are the first couple played in each round.

If you’re already getting full groups and stages when you join and seeing people with scores, you’re probably joining rounds that are already partway completed and already on the harder songs.

Stay until the end of the round so that you get into a fresh round, and the easy songs will be at the start.

As for the TC’s suggestion, I personally think the first couple songs are fine for an introduction, but I wouldn’t mind an even slower “introduction mode” for new players IF it was a separate thing from the main game.

However, the first songs are already relatively slow for people who do know what they’re doing, so I would not agree with making the first songs even easier in terms of the main game. I don’t want to sit through a couple of “training wheel” songs with only 2 notes every round when I’m trying to enjoy playing Bell Choir.

Its not like you lose gold trying… just keep at it and you’ll get the hang of it.

Also, if you really don’t know, talking to the NPC tells you exactly how to play it (even the camera control).

Wait until the note disappears into a white flash, then hit it. 99% of the time it will work, the rare 1% where it just doesn’t do anything or explodes early doesn’t do much.

As I mentioned in another Choir thread and don’t see here, the one thing that you just won’t know unless you stumble on it or are told is that you can heal between songs. Once the event bwomp sounds so you are no longer in song-play time, spam any note to heal back to full before the next song. As long as you hit a few right notes in the song, you’ll stay alive.

I’m someone with negative musical ability and rhythm, and very low twitch skills. I’m just lucky not to be tone-deaf, so I can appreciate beautiful music, but heaven help the sanity of anyone listening to me sing or do anything music-oriented. Back when I waltzed I did it by muscle memory, and had to ask when hearing new pieces of music whether they were waltzes or one-steps or polkas … I really can’t hear the measure.

Yet I can do ok at this. Left hand on 1-4, right hand on 6-9, and I let the color coming trigger which finger is going to hit. I remember blue is left forefinger, the yellow next to it is right forefinger, and then just track how far from each the descending note is. I tap as the note hits the white bar. Maybe my lack of musicality helps, along with my near-perfect color vision, so the sounds of my platform companions and my own notes become utterly irrelevant. I’m still messing up on the fast songs, even playing the low octave which is the easiest, but last year I vaguely recall getting a perfect score at least once.

TLDR: aim your camera down from above, keep your hands on the keys no matter how much you want to /say or /g a comment, don’t take time to open the event chests until you are in free-play, and go by color not by sound or rhythm. Tap when the note kisses the white line (adjust to fit your ping), and heal up by spamming a note between songs.

If you’ve ever played the game Guitar Hero or Rock Band, this is very similar to those games.

JoeytheHutt.1742:

How do you find the “easy” part?
I’ve tried 2 times for the bell choir, only option was for southeast arena, nortwest arena or something like that, no Iower or upper, and the notes came fast (for me) and a lot of them.
If thats for beginners I probably never get the daily

The selection of “low”, “mid” and “high” part comes after the teleport options, shortly before the game actually begins. You need to talk to the snowman again and he will show 3 options for that (but you have to be fast if there are more than 3 people waiting there, otherwise, if there are already 3 on the platform you get the teleport options again).