Guild Wars 2

World 2 has a lot going for it, but it still suffers from the fatal flaw it did when it was first released: it’s about 3 times as long as it should be. Each individual stage is as long as the entirety of World 1, which results in some gruelingly long play sessions without adequate exit points, since there’s no way of saving your progress within a level and doing something else. The new shortcuts somewhat alleviate the problem somewhat, but not nearly enough, and only at the cost of removing large (and fun!) chunks of the level for anyone who isn’t going for particular achievements.

The solution, of course, is to take the time to rework each World 2 stage into its own world, with 3 stages and a boss in each. Each stage already has a cohesive theme, the same way World 1’s transition from meadow to forest to swamp keeps the same general feel through it all, and there’s plenty of content to fill out three meaningful levels about the same length as those on World 1.

It’s not a trivial task, of course, and it would probably require as much work as building a new world, but it would ultimately result in an even better SAB than we have today, and I think everyone would be much happier to see the rest of SAB become more like world 1 and less like world 2 going forward.

tl;dr rework stage 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3 into worlds 2, 3, and 4 so they’re a similar length to world 1. If more worlds are added, start at world 5 and keep them about the same length as world 1.

No. World two is fine how it is. If people want to simply blow through them then they can take the shortcuts. For those of us who enjoyed those maps, we can play it the normal way. Everyone wins.

Unfortunately they said they do not have the time or manpower to make new SAB content so I doubt they would do what you suggest. I would be fine with them reworking world two into world 2/3/4 and eventually giving us the last just to tidy it all up. But it almost feels like a waste with them constantly reworking old content, plus doing that to world 2 would be a massive amount of work.

If they did have time and manpower it might be best to keep world 2 as is and just give us one new zone at a time on each release. It will take a while to get a full world, but it would lessen the overall work load and give them time to make something spectacular each release.

Aedelric.1287:

Unfortunately they said they do not have the time or manpower to make new SAB content so I doubt they would do what you suggest. I would be fine with them reworking world two into world 2/3/4 and eventually giving us the last just to tidy it all up. But it almost feels like a waste with them constantly reworking old content, plus doing that to world 2 would be a massive amount of work.

If they did have time and manpower it might be best to keep world 2 as is and just give us one new zone at a time on each release. It will take a while to get a full world, but it would lessen the overall work load and give them time to make something spectacular each release.

Yeah, I doubt we’re getting any new SAB content anytime soon no matter what they do to it. I suppose my main concern is that they try to make world 3 and follow the pattern set by world 2, with levels as long or even longer that drag on so long they stop being fun. As long as the next release (whenever it happens) follows the world 1 formula of reasonably-sized levels, I don’t really care what happens to world 2.

i agree , how the levels get broken down is just details but they are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long and i feel it would really benefit from being shortened.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

i agree , how the levels get broken down is just details but they are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long and i feel it would really benefit from being shortened.

It’s not even that they need to be shortened, per se. All I’m really asking for is two places in the middle of the level where you can re-enter if you leave. For that matter, allowing checkpoints to remain active when you quit (resetting when you beat the boss) would fix the issue as well.

Don’t touch my World 2 stage 1. I just enjoy this level so much.
Thanks.

Ayrilana.1396:

No. World two is fine how it is. If people want to simply blow through them then they can take the shortcuts. For those of us who enjoyed those maps, we can play it the normal way. Everyone wins.

Khyan.7039:

Don’t touch my World 2 stage 1. I just enjoy this level so much.
Thanks.

For what it’s worth, I’m not even suggesting shortening the levels or altering them significantly. In fact, this would actually lengthen the “standard” run of the level by removing the new shortcuts. You’d still be able to play through the whole thing untouched save for maybe a couple short loading screens. The only change would be that you could start 1/3 or 2/3 of the way through the level if you wanted to (for example, if you were halfway through the level and had to quit for some reason, and didn’t want to repeat as much to get back where you were).

World 1 is well designed in that aspect. The individual levels are short enough that you don’t feel bad if you quit halfway through, because it’s fairly quick to get back to where you were. Quitting in the middle of a level of World 2 feels awful, because you’ll have to spend 10-30+ minutes, depending on how good you are at jumping, just getting back to where you were. Having to choose between playing something other than SAB with your friends or losing half an hour of your time for absolutely nothing just isn’t fun.

Edit: This may be a familiar argument considering it’s also a huge issue with how HoT maps are structured. They’re working on fixing those, and it would be a shame if future installments of SAB suffered from the same issues rather than avoiding them from the get-go.