Guild Wars 2

Ayperi.6139:

Sorry mate, I might be a bit edgy right now. I’m actually really enjoying Halloween and though some things (like bugs, bugs and cameras) could be better, I’m getting annoyed when I come to the forum and half the threads are about people complaining and then some more feeling entitled.
But seriously: you should have seen me and my guild mates in our first week trying the Dark Reverie Jumping Puzzle in Caledon. We actually went at it over the span of a week and “I will survive” became our inofficial guild song. Either you died from freaking brambles on the way up or that one jump on those higher up mushrooms got the better of you. So no, I don’t feel very frustrated with this one. It pricked a bit when two friends got to the top before me, but oh well. Now I’m fired up. ^^

No probs. For the most part, I’ve really enjoyed the other jumping puzzles. I actually get a weird thrill from the vertigo you feel when you’re really high up and shaking because the next jump looks so tricky. It’s exhilarating when you think you’re near the top, round a corner, and see that the steps/branches/whatever keep on going even higher.

But having that time to take it in, to breathe before attempting the next step, is such an important part of it. The Clocktower feels less like a jumping puzzle – more like learning a piano piece. You have to press the right keys in the right order at the right time, based mostly on memorisation, and not fluff a note.

The clocktower is my favorite part of the entire Mad King Event. I love this jumping puzzle exactly the way it is. If anything you can even make the green goo rise a little faster.

I finished this jp after 5 hours of multiple ties. I went through many states :
– After 1h30 : I was annoyed but the people around, I was annoyed by the wait
– After 3h : I wasn’t annoyed by the people, I tried to imagine they’re not there, I thouhgt i could never finish it.
– Last 2h : As I was going higher and higher, my waiting time grew smaller and smaller, and most of the puzzle is done with 1 or 2 people around you (or even none), so I wasn’t annoyed anymore and was even proud of my progress.

It’s nice to have 99% of the content of a game that is accessible but it’s also nice to have that +1% for trained players or very persistent players. When you finish a hard thing you’re proud of yourself and that’s a nice feeling in a game you like.

This jp doesn’t give any advantage by finishing it (stats are commons and skin isn’t nice or unique), you only get an achievement and not even a title.

I still didnt complete the puzzle and I’m having a lot of fun.
And I’m talking about me an my husband.

I dont think it should be changed because of some people.

The waiting time is ok and prizes are very decent for a “for fun” event.

The clock tower is complete BS. The jumping/timing has got to be the toughest in the game. I think given enough practice I might be able to get it, but not with the mob distraction element.

What the F are they thinking? This puzzle is insane difficult already, and all those other players jumping around at the same time makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to track what my character is doing, let alone see where to jump.

I am not complete yet, but I have managed to get all the Vistas and Jumping Puzzles so far, although I have spent HOURS and much frustration and grief on a few of them. At least with most if them you have a chance to get your bearings, but with this you might as well be doing the whole thing in the dark. Total FAIL ANet.

The problem I have with this puzzle is invisible walls right in the beggining like i jump while like in the middle and sometimes I don’t go up but the animation occurs and I’m going through the floor. Sometimes it can be difficult to with others around you, and the wait time before getting back to the tower to attempt it again.

To me I see this a problem where some form of the content is directed to one part of the audience while the other one is neglected, this has occurs in other MMORPG’s as well, like catering to the casual while the people who desire a challenge is left out, and in this case, catering to the core players while the casuals are left out. I wish they would work on making two separate versions of this for both sides where one wants a challenge they can go after this like how this tower may be in it’s current state and call it “hard mode” while make a nerf version and what have you and call that “normal mode”.

This puzzle feels more based upon retro arcade games, not truely based on skills but based on who has better hardware, time, and some of the puzzles faults rather than more based on a games skill if you mess up it’s by your own faults, one game that comes to mind is Dark Souls, and the devs who made Super Meat Boy have a good understanding of difficulty as in if you screw up, you want to get back in to the game right away rather wait cause that can be irratating to some including myself.

http://supermeatboy.com/13/Why_am_i_so____hard_/#b

To me what they could of have done is make “normal mode” where the acid rising is much slower and the reward is just a skin and less important rewards while the “hard mode” has its current difficulty, but doing somthings with invisible walls and the reward is the current sandles with the runes and stats plus maybe alot of silver or even gold, my point instead of thinking of one group, think for groups on both sides cause one suffers while the other benefits.

Some can say this will ruin the reward, I personally do not think so because this game is more based on skin grind rather than gear grind, you look at a legendaries stats and you will see little difference to its pre-cursor, while my suggestion sure you can get the skin, but you won’t have the “hard mode” versions stats or runes so you’ll need to invest time on it, but ofcoarse some people may have an exotic and good runes to do it off the bat, but some people may not.

Other people may not be so fortunate to have skills, time, and hardware so this may harm them for doing this ’it’s optional’ sure, and people chose the option to do it, and some may not want to give up on it so easily. While I am pleased this MMORPG decided to put a challenge forth, I just wish they wouldn’t pick one side only, and find a solution for the other at the same time and to do some tweaking ahead of time for this tower.

I find it infuriating, will I find it satisfying if I beat it? I doubt it because I’ve beaten a game that couldn’t implement game difficulty modes properly but is considered a challenge and that was Bit Trip Runner, so I don’t think it’ll be worth the rage to have a little sense of accomplishment lol but I’m taking this as a challenge and best of luck to others still trying to get this.

Focksbot.6798:

This is the platforming equivalent of asking someone to memorise a sequence of 100 different numbers. It’s challenging, it’s possible, but why put in so much effort to achieve something so singularly inapplicable to any future situation?

Because it’s fun.

Took me 5 tries. This puzzle is easy -.-… just load some mario music and gg.

buki.3108:

Took me 5 tries. This puzzle is easy -.-… just load some mario music and gg.

I’ve been farming it with the Super Meat Boy soundtrack playing, lol.

Well, it is like: D3 but Nightmare Mode Only.
Your only choice is complete it or fail, like you either have a legendary or nothing.
They should add normal mode, hard mode to the current nightmare mode, rewards 1-3 chests respectively, then more people would be happy.

I think everyone just needs to take their own time. It took me 17 hours but I eventually got it done =) I hated it at first but I felt relieved as soon as I finished.

The problem I basically keep seeing is this.

1. Everyone enjoys the Halloween event
2. Everyone wants to be a completionist and do everything in the event.
3. Some people are good at jumping puzzles/some people are not
4. The prior are happy, the later are not

There’s really no bridge between those two groups. I tend to agree with the later simply because the tower requires a level of dexterity and platforming usually not indicative of MMO games. It’s not that weird for people who like MMOs to NOT be good at jumping puzzles. I think Maple Story, ToR, and now GW2 are the only MMOs I’ve seen with them.

On evil design: Hardest part is at the beginning where everyone is clumped up. The game seems to do this intentionally by arbitrarily stopping everyone’s momentum and making sure they’re clumped up at arguably one of the hardest parts of the whole puzzle. I can’t really deny that this is kind of b/s.

Agreed, not fun. 3 hours, with speed skills on a thief, barely getting past the first pause / wall collapse.

No thanks. Not worth it.

In my opinion speed boosts hinder your chances of getting up there :[

I had problems with this as a norn, but i got the hang of it and completed it : P
Good ideas but unnessary, i thought it was fun and challanging, and the goo comming so close to me made it feel like i was actually doing a real jump quest, making it really exciting for me ^^

For any one that doesn’t know, if you play till 3 am and stay there till everyone leaves, you will be alone. It worked with me but i was trying it for 3 hours, ironically i didn’t get it on that day, i got it the very next day in 20 minutes. Lol

Is it difficult? Yes. Does it make me mad that I can’t get passed the wall crumble part? Yes. But that’s the point. It’s SUPPOSE to be hard. I saw a dev comment on a Youtube video saying he thought only 5% of the people would finish it, and was surprised to see completion video within the first 2 hours of act 2 being released. Plenty of people like the challenge, but if you don’t that’s your problem. There’s a reason why Anet didn’t make this achievement part of the Emissary of the Mad King overall achievement.

please do not blame the game if you are unable to complete this achievement.

The jumping puzzle is fine. Blaming Norn and Charr is mistaken. If you aren’t ahead of 90% of the people by the start, you wouldn’t have made it even if there was no one else around. Stop blaming other people for your own failings.

It was designed to be hard. You don’t HAVE to have every achievement in the game. It’s called challenge. Do something else if you can’t accept that.

Piss poor design .. this puzzle needs to be a solo puzzle ALOT of people including myself having a very difficult time seeing our jump over huge chars.

i agree, this is ridiculous, i cant even see my own character and the fact that its timed makes it impossible, if anyone knows if you can still get the halloween completion thing in the achievments like the daily completion thing without doing the jump puzzle please let me know and also try to see if arenanet will make the jump puzzle single player or take off the timed thing or something

Once again, people complaining about not being able to see their character wouldn’t be able to complete it anyway. Face it, you’re too slow. End of story.

Why do people think that if they can’t do something in a video game, it needs to be changed for them?

I like difficult things in this game. Makes me enjoy the game a lot more than single player games too. It’s what I’ve been wanting a very long time and I’d be disappointed if they DID change something like this.

The jumping puzzle is perfect. If you can’t do it, that’s fine. It’s not on the achievement so you don’t HAVE to. It’s a fun mini game.

-edit- I’m an asura, with the smallest model it can be. I endured the charr and norns on top of me. If you can’t get use to where your character is, you can’t do the puzzle fast enough anyway.

Number one problem, take off the multi-player. You can’t learn it if you can’t concentrate on your character.

Stevoli.8795:

Cakoluchiam.6901:

This jump puzzle is harder than Mega Man 9.

I’d like to see AVGN review this jumping puzzle, haha.

Seriously though, I loved this puzzle, when you first make it up to the 2nd part your heart starts racing. When I made it I almost jumped out of my chair

That guy would have no problems with this. In his latest video he completed what could arguably be one of the hardest games ever made, Ghouls and Ghosts for the NES.

The clock tower is hard but compared to actual platform games out there it doesn’t even compare. I just think some people need to be reminded of what games used to be like. I’m not a huge fan of them or anything but I grew up with them so there weren’t really any alternatives.

Have to say this was some of the most fun I have had yet. Challenging but fun.

Took about 5 hours before I got to the top.

I understand some people probably won’t be able to do this for various reasons but still very very cool.

Only complaint is it would be nice for stuff like this if everyone was the same model. Maybe everyone does it as a skeleton or something. Large characters make it very hard to see where you are. Camera angle was a bit annoying at a couple spots but manageable.

Yea, I never found the Tower puzzle “hard” after 15-20 mins or so of failing, I was able to do it on my main and consecutive runs on my first try with most of my alts (even did 8 of them back to back for fun just to see how many bags I can get from the chest). The reason why it was never hard for me is due to doing close to 90% of the jumping puzzles in the entire game because it helps you learn the “limits” of your character’s jump and what you can get away with. The beginning is meh… I guess for some* the mob of people is annoying, but after the first 3 jumps (of first collapse) if you know what you’re doing you will easily be ahead of the entire pack. I would actually like to ask if the people who “cannot” complete it did most, if not all of the jumping puzzles in the game? I think it’s impossible to do all of them and not be able to do this relatively easy one (the hardest part is just being fast but the jumps are super easy compared to some other jumping puzzles)

Tarage.8632:

Once again, people complaining about not being able to see their character wouldn’t be able to complete it anyway. Face it, you’re too slow. End of story.

Not true at all. I think the only serious flaw is that you have to do it with other people and I’ve completed it with two different characters. That has nothing to do with speed and everything with playing a tiny Sylvari and jumping in tandem with a Charr. It’s very disorienting.

Other than that, it’s fine.

I did Dark Reverie and Loreclaw Expanse but this has been eluding me for at least 6 hours. It’s not something they should nerf but I feel extremely dumb.

well i try this jp for about 12hrs and i just find out that it’s hard to finish it if you got a bigger model player in your group.It would be nice if the developer chance the jp into a single mode jp.

I would have zero issue with this JP if i could do it solo. Sorry but being unable to see my tiny little character in a mountain of norn and charr is impossible. I find it a fun challenge if it was a solo challenge best jumping puzzle ever. With other people blocking your vision it just turns it into super frustration.

I think Anet should release official stats on the number of players that have completed the jumping puzzle just to shut up the complainers. I would estimate that by now a significant portion of the player base has beaten it as I have been farming the puzzle for tot bags and every few minutes I see a new person complete it and get happy. Right now I have about an 80-90% success rate with the puzzle and I have never played a platformer, but complainers will complain. People need to learn that they can’t have everything, just like legendary items require way too much time for me to craft so should I make a thread complaining that people with jobs and a social life aren’t being treated fairly? No, I just decide I won’t get a legendary, it’s that simple.

You can go into non-overflow, it’s almost empty.

Not sure if this has been touched on yet

But I love the jump puzzle, but theres a few things I would fix if I could. Few things at the start you can get stuck on horribly and that takes off a few seconds. Normally getting stuck screws you. Yes I know you keep jumping through, but sometimes that doesn’t work. The slime is a tad to fast, even if you nail the start and plunge through the part above I still have trouble. I’m one that lines up his jumps and you really have little to no time to do so. Thus your mostly playing a 50/50 chance as you speed through the jumps of making them if your not lined up right. Would slowing the slime down like one second be bad? Also I’ve jumped through platforms I should have landed on, been randomly ported out half way through (when I was doing good and was like OH YA I CAN DO THIS) and other small manners.

But over all I love the puzzle, I like speed jump quests … I loved the lab one in the volcano with the disappearing platforms.

But I don’t love the glitchness of the tower

I agree with the topic.

Laufey.5129:

Tarage.8632:

Once again, people complaining about not being able to see their character wouldn’t be able to complete it anyway. Face it, you’re too slow. End of story.

Not true at all. I think the only serious flaw is that you have to do it with other people and I’ve completed it with two different characters. That has nothing to do with speed and everything with playing a tiny Sylvari and jumping in tandem with a Charr. It’s very disorienting.

Other than that, it’s fine.

Guess what? I’m a tiny Sylvari too and I had no problems. You need to be faster.

Astrid Crow.1275:

I really don’t see the big problem here.
Yes it’s a hard puzzle, took me about 1.5 hours to do, don’t expect to do it in a few minutes.
I didn’t notice a big camera problem, what control settings are you all using? I have it set so I just hold right click and move my mouse to turn, that way I wan just hold ‘W’ down and keep turning my mouse to navigate the puzzle.
The problem of other characters shouldn’t matter once you’re past the first section because if you aren’t at the front of the pack you simply aren’t going fast enough, you’ll never make it anyway.

You might not have experienced the camera issue but others have. Others are also more sensitive to it. I am sensitive to it as well for the reason explained in my initial posting in this thread. I have tried playing zoomed out to max. (which I still prefer), zoomed in, camera right, left and center, free camera/fixed camera. The camera would still focus on the edge like when doing the first jump to that stair-like block making it wobble back and forth rapidly. That is highly irritating and frustrating. If it were a camera with proper behaviour then it would not even flinch and keep that distance

The second suggestion is a bit off. I am always jumping ahead and miss that jump more often than not if my toon was occluded. So I followed the most common suggestion of waiting 1s – which is still a compensable amount of time – until the big guys jumped. The problem is that this assumes the big guys have lightning fast jumping reflexes but more often than not if playing with other big guys the “I can’t see my feet!” issue is also a problem for them. So the jump becomes an uncoordinated mess – exactly the opposite what a jumping puzzle is about.

I think you’re all just trying to justify your inability to do the puzzle.

If it were just as easy to simplify that then I would simplify it like that. I am very capable of self-criticism and I can shake head about myself. I don’t need other people to fill that role for me. I don’t see why people are so eagerly defensive about their previous challenge thingie anyway. It’s not going away if you fix those issues but I can finally have a chance to improve based on my own failings. The very essence platform/arcade games are about.

Tarage.8632:

Once again, people complaining about not being able to see their character wouldn’t be able to complete it anyway. Face it, you’re too slow. End of story.

This is part of the problem. You cannot LEARN if you cannot do better run after run.

When I have to make the same mistake dozens of times and somehow get it right once or twice in there, without rapid reinforcement and rapid ability to train myself to get it right over and over again, I CANNOT teach myself to do it right.

So I am essentially learning to do it WRONG.

All the people telling me to keep trying and I’ll get there, do not understand how learning works, much less PHYSICAL learning.

Great, I’m glad you all played other comparable games and know how to do these things. Or have the appropriate tools to do so quickly.

Not all of us do, but we’re willing to try to learn. Many of us. I am not whining about difficulty. I am COMPLAINING about the lack of consideration for those of us who want to learn but are not being afforded the opportunity to participate in the fun and given the chance to learn.

I’ve been a teacher. Of Math. I’ve had students who have historically failed math. I know well the difference between giving them the resources to get B+’s in classes they previously failed, and just ignoring them and giving them the chance to fail again.

This puzzle is like going into a class you’ve failed before, and not getting any help to learn. You want to learn, but no one cares, and the people who HAVE mastered the material all point and laugh and demean. The person who put the class on the curriculum say it’s optional and not to take it.

This is all missing the point. Some of us do want to learn and be included and participate and have fun doing so.

You’re all missing the point that no two people learn in the same fashion, and we’re asking to be included. Not catered to, not having it watered down. But that the designers be creative and provide opportunities for people to be successful in surpassing the difficulties that they may never have encountered before in order to gain the tools needed to succeed.

Yes, it’s just a game. But think about what a game is. It’s recreation. It’s what we do to re-create ourselves, to take a break from the stress, to have fun, to let go of all the crap we deal with in the “real world.”

It’s not something to be trivialized so much as everyone else seems to think.

Hard is one thing. Not feeling as if you are learning anything in the process is entirely different. Not feeling as if the experience is AFFORDING you the opportunity to learn enough over the dozen plus hours you have invested. Or feeling that the ratio of learning, fun, and progress compared to the amount of stress, griefing and hassle experienced is unbalanced…

These are some of the things that are being said, and said loudly.

Why the people who walk in and complete the puzzle after two tries or twenty minutes seem to think that the feedback translates to whining for those who have invested 12-20 hours… well, it boggles me, and makes me question their reading comprehension capabilities.

I don’t agree with the topic.

I’m a Sylvari Ranger, I did the Jumping puzzle in half an hour, more or less…what took the most of the time was when I didnt know where to go. I did like 3 or 4 tries before realising that I had to jump down to the splendid chest.

I do agree with only one point, the fact that there are a lot of players doing it all together.

Overall it was a lot of fun doing the jumping puzzle in my opinion.

Yeah, let us dumb down every single game (or mini-game) because some people can’t do it.

I’m tired of this, if you find this too difficult, do something else. There are a lot of easy things to do in this game, and if you find the game too difficult then there are plenty of other games on the market.

Stop blaming the developpers for your incompetence or for your friend’s disability. Stupidest feedback ever given.

Btw, the tower is hard but actually not that hard (got it in 45 minutes without any guide). Next time, they can even make it worse !

Tarage.8632:

Laufey.5129:

Tarage.8632:

Once again, people complaining about not being able to see their character wouldn’t be able to complete it anyway. Face it, you’re too slow. End of story.

Not true at all. I think the only serious flaw is that you have to do it with other people and I’ve completed it with two different characters. That has nothing to do with speed and everything with playing a tiny Sylvari and jumping in tandem with a Charr. It’s very disorienting.

Other than that, it’s fine.

Guess what? I’m a tiny Sylvari too and I had no problems. You need to be faster.

There’s a limit to how fast you can be and other people can get there, too. Regardless of whether you mean speed because of passive boosts or because of skill, other people will always be able to do the same.

Besides, I did complete it and can do it again fairly easily now, so I don’t think I need to be faster at all. I quoted your post to bring it to your attention that I can and have completed it, but still think not being able to see my character during the first couple of jumps is poor design and adds a layer of fake difficulty that we could do without.

Don’t assume the only people who dislike this particular aspect of the jumping puzzle are the ones that haven’t completed it yet.

Lol. It’s hard, not impossible. Honestly, Donkey Kong last levels are far harder

Honestly, the Clock Tower was hard at first, but after you beat it once and know your way around it, it is ridiculously easy and extremely short.

If they made the Clock Tower any easier, i probably wouldnt have enjoyed it as much.
I love challenge and since i was waiting for the tower’s release ever since i saw the picture of it, i hoped that it would be really challenging, as it is a special jumping puzzle.

I don’t agree with OP at all, this was the best puzzle I’ve done so far.
Unlike EB, you can’t be griefed.
You do not need speed buff to complete it.

Camera issues? Yes, I agree, this puzzle can suffer from them and this should be fixed.
Traits / Items influencing the players? Also a bug and should be fixed.

If only the models of other players wpouldn’t show, I think I wouldn’t have any more complains, i actually loved this one even though I’m not usually one for times stuff (hated the griffon puzzle).

I like Guild Wars 2, but the nature of this puzzle is the first feature that created some distance between me and the game. Which is the sort of thing that always comes before I eventually change (back) to another game.

So here’s hoping that for every person like me, there is another person where this puzzle created even more fondness for the game. Most likely the people wearing the Mad King Slippers right now.

Tyncale.1629:

I like Guild Wars 2, but the nature of this puzzle is the first feature that created some distance between me and the game. Which is the sort of thing that always comes before I eventually change (back) to another game.

So here’s hoping that for every person like me, there is another person where this puzzle created even more fondness for the game. Most likely the people wearing the Mad King Slippers right now.

Rest assured that there is and will be us who enjoy it and think even higer of developers after this.
It´s just brilliant, personaly i sunk 1-2 hours trying to do it, and when i finaly made it, it was awesome.

Camera issues are issues, as are other characters blocking your view (i´m asura, and i tried doing it with few skirt wearing norn, i know what i´m talking about), but even with all the faults, it was great fun.

I certainly don´t think anet should refrain from making this kind of harder content in the future too…just maybe with hint more polish considering visibility issues. But all in all if they made something similiar with double the amount of problems, i think i´d still enjoy it.

The idea is fun but you have to be too fast with the rising goo. On my screen I had 2 seconds or less between jumps and I don’t lag a lot normally. Will likely be the only thing not finished so yea not a feel good to walk away from.

Yeah, I am not advocating they should make it easier or some. I know lots of people will love it. I am a little suprised at myself that I really dislike it so much. I mean, I soloed the Mad Kings Dungeon with my ranger which took about 80 minutes and like 8 deaths, so it is not that I do not like to stretch myself a little bit now and then. But this puzzle just seems completely anachievable for a good chunk of people. Which is usually ok in my book, I am not of the “everyone should have it all” crowd. Then again, maybe I am . I like jumping puzzles, just not this timed gauntlet-run.

Gratz on the slipper though.

Read through a good portion of this thread. I tend to have more sympathy for the argument of the people who are having difficulty then those that don’t. If you’re not particularly good at twitch mechanics, fighting the camera, running and jumping at the same time, it can be very frustrating. Not everyone has the same abilities and this isn’t CoD or Mario Brothers.

As far as the clock tower is concerned, it seems a bit over-tuned toward the “twitch” side of things and there are a couple external factors that really impact the puzzle.

I believe one good suggestion to fix this was to reduce the speed at which the mist raises (gives time for people to fight their camera and do the jumps) and make the tower a solo instance.

Alternatively, remove the achievement from the world event. Not sure about anyone else but I don’t really care about the loot that drops, I want the clock tower because of the achievement associated with it. Remove the achievement and the clock tower becomes optional.

I would also recommend for future holiday events that such jumping puzzles do not have associated achievements with them or you’ll just end up with the same type of thread where people who have completed the event ridicule the folks who have difficulty.

Aside from the tower jumping puzzle it’s been a great event so far, lots of fun

Constantly running into inconsistencies with this puzzle. Sometimes I get stuck on invisible things and other times I don’t so I never know when an extra jump is needed or if its a waste of time to jump that extra. 12+ hours at this puzzle and counting..

Clocktower is challenging and a little bit difficult, it grows easier as you keep trying, improving your times and finding optimal paths. When you manage to get to the top you really feel like you accomplished something, and that’s what is most important.

ArenaNET, please don’t listen to people who want to dumb down your game, clocktower is perfect. My friends and I had a lot of fun figuring out where to go, cursing at the big characters (:P) and watching everyone try.

I would be VERY VERY disappointed if people just went there, tried a couple times and got to the top in 5 or 10 minutes.