Guild Wars 2

I don’t really like jumping puzzles, since the early Super Mario games… ever hated.
But when the whole Living Story actually IS a jumping puzzle…

I agree, I had my share of frustration to finding all the points, especially the inquest fair took me almost an hour to find because I was at the ceiling of the world and the markers kept telling me to go higher..

that sad, I really quickly mastered the Druids Touch, it’s like being spiderman with wings, it took some getting used to, but now I love it

its not that hard ant the map is actually really great… Think of it as challenging open world endgame

This sounds better and better every post. And no… I’m not being sarcastic. I actually love JPs!

Ardid.7203:

This sounds better and better every post. And no… I’m not being sarcastic. I actually love JPs!

Me too, I’m now looking forward to completing this map.

Thanks OP!

I just now completed it, except for two of the mastery communes. The vine-pull is super helpful in getting places or escaping a fight. You can even pull to a high vertical surface and then glide, which opens up ways to reach cliff tops you couldn’t directly move to. I still have to succeed at the dive goggles, and find two of the three communing MPs, and talk to three more druids for a collection, and kill a number of things for achieves, and … and … and … but I at least got the map completion reward! Which had a transmute charge rather than a key, oh well.

Also it’s super fast to get to the Apex via a wp and a thermal tube. From there one can glide down to most everything. I’m only stopping learning the map stuff and seeking the achieves due to fainting levels of hunger .. ta!

Wait, so I can’t complete this map if I don’t get the new mastery???

I think you can, it’ll just take a little longer. A friend without the mastery was able to jump up to me to get to the back way into the Golemancer’s Tomb, and I’m pretty sure the vista atop a tall jut of rock I spidermanned up to could be reached via gliding down from a higher level of the map.

It’s a totally awesome fun mastery, though, so get it if you can!

I had fun exploring the map, and only a few of the PoIs were annoying to find a path to. But I can’t see staying around for long to do events. It’s just too much of a hassle to figure out which level many events are on, and how to get to them in time.

I think it will end up like Tangled Depths. Events never getting done because people just can’t be bothered to find them. And the few that do stumble onto them will just move on because they don’t want to wait around for others or have to give directions through a maze to get there.

For me, I like the Living Story, I’ve never missed a chapter ’till now. However, I love to play to kill stuff, using skills the right moment, cooperate with others in some mechanics to take a huge boss down (yep, à la Raid)…

But spending 2 hours and a half jumping on a rock to reach the next story step is… ridiculous. If people loves spending time in exploring, getting PoIs and masteries in hiden corners in the map… it’s ok, it can be fun, and I also do that myself sometime. But gating the LS behind difficult jumping puzzles is just frustrating and reveals that Devs don’t have any idea on how to make PvE entertaining

Askadia.4395:

I don’t really like jumping puzzles, since the early Super Mario games… ever hated.
But when the whole Living Story actually IS a jumping puzzle…

There are no timed or precision jumps, you can reach all the relevant story bits without doing anything you wouldn’t do for an easy vista.

Mind you: that wouldn’t be the fast or efficient way to get around the map. But you can actually walk all the way up and glide down.

I don’t mean to suggest that makes the map trivial to navigate (I’m definitely confused). I just think it might be worth giving it another shot and running around without treating it like a JP.

Big tip: beg, borrow, or steal enough mastery points to get the new skill. You can point it up (at something) and it will launch you in the air, allowing you to glide without finding an updraft or a ledge. There are very few places without any of the nodes for refreshing the skill.

Askadia.4395:

For me, I like the Living Story, I’ve never missed a chapter ’till now. However, I love to play to kill stuff, using skills the right moment, cooperate with others in some mechanics to take a huge boss down (yep, à la Raid)…

But spending 2 hours and a half jumping on a rock to reach the next story step is… ridiculous. If people loves spending time in exploring, getting PoIs and masteries in hiden corners in the map… it’s ok, it can be fun, and I also do that myself sometime. But gating the LS behind difficult jumping puzzles is just frustrating and reveals that Devs don’t have any idea on how to make PvE entertaining

The story steps don’t require any difficult jumping to reach, or really any jumping at all. The thermal tubes around the map actually drop you right in front of some of it. I stumbled right into 2 of the story vaults (before even starting that story step) just by following the chain of tubes from the starting waypoint.

I think I had reached all the relevant areas for the story within the first 30 minutes or so, just by following the first few tubes and obvious paths. They lead you pretty much right along the path you need for the story.

Navigating the rest of it to get 100% or reach events before they fail/get completed by others is a different story.

Askadia.4395:

For me, I like the Living Story, I’ve never missed a chapter ’till now. However, I love to play to kill stuff, using skills the right moment, cooperate with others in some mechanics to take a huge boss down (yep, à la Raid)…

But spending 2 hours and a half jumping on a rock to reach the next story step is… ridiculous. If people loves spending time in exploring, getting PoIs and masteries in hiden corners in the map… it’s ok, it can be fun, and I also do that myself sometime. But gating the LS behind difficult jumping puzzles is just frustrating and reveals that Devs don’t have any idea on how to make PvE entertaining

You sir stepped into the same trap I did and tried to bruteforce your way to different story steps.

A hint for the future, take a different waypoint, look at where some of those thermal tubes take you, profit.

As others pointed out, you can reach all story relevant steps by simple navigation and gliding. Granted, some of them are a bit hidden. Took me about 2 hours on my first character (and probably 30 minutes of that was trying to use the vine pull to get somewhere the hard way). Took me 15 minutes my 2nd character.

Donari.5237:

I think you can, it’ll just take a little longer. A friend without the mastery was able to jump up to me to get to the back way into the Golemancer’s Tomb, and I’m pretty sure the vista atop a tall jut of rock I spidermanned up to could be reached via gliding down from a higher level of the map.

It’s a totally awesome fun mastery, though, so get it if you can!

Where is that tomb? I completed even the jumping puzzle (the real one) but can’t find that tomb

Getting those blessings was painful…

If you are going to do vertical maps, make them properly and make a good minimap for navigation. I’m not going to bother ever to do that story again.

Something that took me too long to figure out but made navigation much easier – the waypoints each are on one of the 3 map levels. So if you need something on that level, use the waypoint on that level, even if it is not ‘close’ (map wise) to where you want to go. It made my life a lot easier once I realised that.

You definitely do not need the mastery to complete the story. I completed the story last night in a group of four. One of us never got the mastery. It does make it much easier to get around, though.

Bigsexy.8302:

If you are going to do vertical maps, make them properly and make a good minimap for navigation. I’m not going to bother ever to do that story again.

For me, the maps are pretty much the only issue, though I do understand that a lot of others do not like vertical or jump puzzle-ish maps at all. Aside from just not liking that style of gameplay, GW2 is a rather bad game for platforming because of how its terrain collision is set up. But I’ve not encountered many situations where that has a large impact on gameplay outside of jumping puzzles.

It’s the world and mini maps are really bad in Draconis Mons(as with Tangled Depths, which made it surprising to me that Anet would try this design again). They are designed in a way that is good for showing a few distinct large layers, not numerous mini-layers that constantly shift and merge into others. The maps are largely useless because they make marked locations appear to be in a certain layer, when they are really several thousand units above or below it, in an in-between/mini-layer with no entrance path visible.

You’re forced to rely on exploration and memory to navigate, which isn’t too big of a problem for map completion or story. It becomes a major annoyance when you’re trying to locate and get to an event or commander. You don’t have the luxury of wandering around to figure out the path when your destination isn’t just waiting for you to arrive. An event is likely to be completed or failed before you figure out which level of the map it’s actually in, which means you don’t even where to go the next time it appears.

Mea.5491:

Wait, so I can’t complete this map if I don’t get the new mastery???

Not to worry. You can reach every point associated with map completion on the new map without once touching the new mastery.

The collection event does seem to require it (some of those things are in some CRAZY spots), but that isn’t needed for anything other than that single collection. I don see anything else where it is really necessary.

That said, you should level up the new mastery for no other reason than that it is REALLY fun.

Acnologia.6934:

Donari.5237:

I think you can, it’ll just take a little longer. A friend without the mastery was able to jump up to me to get to the back way into the Golemancer’s Tomb, and I’m pretty sure the vista atop a tall jut of rock I spidermanned up to could be reached via gliding down from a higher level of the map.

It’s a totally awesome fun mastery, though, so get it if you can!

Where is that tomb? I completed even the jumping puzzle (the real one) but can’t find that tomb

Approach it from the south. Hug the extreme left side of the map. You will end up on a trail with a lot of mobs and eventually enter the cave entrance.

Been through half the map and there hasn’t been anything jumping puzzle like at all.

There do seem to be a lot of dead ends though, so feel free to find WPs and then go back to the start.