Guild Wars 2

I’ve posted in a couple other threads on the same topic.

Some of these are impossible for me to do with the higher ping spikes in HoT maps, and not for lack of trying. I do think extra time would be better for that reason.

It would also help for these not to be locked.

I finally managed to get gold in Shooting Gallery with less than a second to spare. That put me on leaderboard rank 267. Someone remind me how many millions of people play this game?

I got silver in shooting gallery today and it felt very annoying already. The hitboxes of the target are a bit too small and I had to reduce my mouse from 6400dpi to 1700dpi to even somewhat reliably hit anything

Protip: cut out a bigger crosshair and tape it to your screen

I have thought about that, but it is hardly worth it for 20min of trying every 2 hours

yes. Please make the thing run like this. I cannot even get bronze from those games.
And just remove the related collection requirement.

Some of the adventures are fine, in that getting gold depends on a decent amount of practice, like sanctum scramble (took me a while to get gold) or flying circus. Others are just disgraceful, with shoddy design in terms of the mechanics and skills. The worst offenders are:
Shooting Gallery – an FPS in GW2? Really?? Who even thought this was a vaguely sensible idea…
A Fungus Among Us – bad mechanics, poorly designed and tested skills, frustrating and not challenging (there is a big different between the latter and former…) It also bugs probably every third time I try it, with skills cancelling halfway through and the gates not counting, no matter how many times I dance to and fro across the line.
Haywire Punch-o-matic – just a ridiculous requirement for this one
Masks of the Fallen – Same as Shooting Gallery. An idea that was implemented poorly and doesn’t belong anyway.

I only have silver in the floor is lava, will probably never get gold, and I’m not really too fussed. I don’t have an issue with the requirement sometimes being tough but poor design of the level in some of the adventures suggests nobody really tested them. Not even remotely acceptable if you’re going to hide mastery points behind them.

Furthermore, gating these adventures, just when you seem to be hitting your stride in terms of practice, is unbelievably infuriating. I’ve got gold in the majority but I’d happily see every adventure and all the related achievements and rewards disappear entirely if all the bullkitten went with it too.

tl;dr Remove the gating and either fix the bad adventures or remove them entirely. Otherwise, they’re a pointless, poorly designed, waste of space.

Chiming in to add my agreement with the calls for a balance pass for a lot of adventures. The crux of my complaint is that the incredibly strict time limits/targets for Gold (and Silver, in some adventures) make it extremely unfair for players like myself in distant countries (Australia, in my case). A lot of the tricks and techniques I’ve seen used in Gold run videos are simply impossible to pull off with a 200+ ms connection. Gliders will always open a split second too late, bouncing mushrooms will sometimes fail to fire, skill lag or server position latency means that you have to stop and ensure you are in the right spot before activating skills lest the server think you’re firing it from a previous position, etc. etc.

Furthermore, some adventures don’t open until very late in the event chain (Shooting Gallery is the worst offender), meaning you typically only have 10 or so minutes left to actually do the adventure before you get kicked out by the meta. It’s extremely frustrating because the forced stop means you lose all that muscle memory you’ve spent the last several attempts building up.

I appreciate the sentiment StevenL has in his post, but I think his changes are a bit TOO extreme. You shouldn’t get Bronze for just starting the adventure and doing nothing at all; that said, you should qualify for Bronze with basically the minimum level of participation. Silver should be achievable by anyone once you’ve played the adventure a few times and know the path/where the doodads are etc. Gold should be achievable by players who know exactly where and when to use skills, shortcut locations OR have Masteries to give them massive advantages. Two of the best designed adventures I feel are Flying Circus and On Wings of Gold. Why? Because even if you’re not terribly good at adventures, the higher masteries make these two adventures very easy. Thus, it both incentivizes players to acquire higher masteries AND it gives them a sense of accomplishment and “increased power”, the feeling that the time they have spent training the masteries has now allowed them to overcome previously undoable challenges. This mechanic could be applied to several adventures which I’ll detail below.

Finally, I feel more emphasis needs to be put on the leaderboards as a reward in their own right and less on mastery points/AP. My redesign of the scoring below has left a lot of leeway for skilled players to carry on collecting points far beyond the threshold for Gold. Thus, the leaderboards become a true representation of skill and a place for bragging rights, and not just “how many players have reached Gold on this adventure?” which is more or less what they currently are.

I’ve yet to try the ones in Tangled Depths, but here are my thoughts for the ones in Verdant Brink and Auric Basin:

Tendril Torchers
Bronze: 1 – 30 (previously 50)
Silver: 31 – 75 (previously 75)
Gold: 75+ (previously 110)

I feel that Tendril Torchers is fairly well balanced as it is, but no harm can come of easing the requirements back a little. This is likely the very first adventure players are likely to find in HoT, and there’s no sense in scaring them off by making it too difficult.

Bugs in the Branches
Bronze: 1 – 10 (previously 10)
Silver: 11 – 20 (previously 20)
Gold: 20+ (previously 30)

This adventure isn’t too difficult, especially once you’ve unlocked the higher Glider Masteries. (Lean Techniques in particular makes it fairly straightforward to get Gold.) I toned down the requirements a bit mostly because it’s needed for Bo.

Flying Circus
Bronze: 5:00 (previously 3:00)
Silver: 4:00 (previously 2:30)
Gold: 3:00 (previously 2:00)

My impression of Flying Circus was that it was fine as it was, but again, no harm in easing the requirements up a little.

Shooting Gallery
Bronze: 1 – 15 (previously 15)
Silver: 16 – 30 (previously 30)
Gold: 30+ (previously 40)

This adventure is sorely in need of some balancing. Let’s face it, GW2 isn’t well suited to being an FPS. The targeting is clunky and server latency means that anyone with bad ping is going to find their shots shooting at where they thought they were pointing one second ago. The RNG associated with this adventure should also be removed; all the targets should be active from the start, and the player just has to shoot as many as they can. (Previously shot targets will respawn after 30 seconds.)

Salvage Pit
Bronze: 1 – 10 (previously 10)
Silver: 11 – 20 (previously 15)
Gold: 20+ (previously 30)

Salvage Pit doesn’t really need any changes since it’s pretty easy, but in keeping with the spirit of the post, Gold has been toned down a bit.

On Wings of Gold
Bronze: 1 – 10 (previously 10)
Silver: 11 – 20 (previously 20)
Gold: 20+ (previously 30)

One of my favourite adventures, and one that I always point to as an example of a very well designed adventure. As with similar adventures, I reduced the threshold for Gold so that skilled players have more room to compete with each other in how many essences they can collect within the time limit.

Sanctum Scramble
Bronze: 5:00 (previously 3:30)
Silver: 4:00 (previously 3:00)
Gold: 3:00 (previously 2:30)

A tough, but reasonably fair adventure. Again, lowered the threshold for Gold a bit to allow more leeway for players to compete on time. This adventure can also benefit from Exalted Mastery in the following new additions:

- Training Exalted Markings grants you access to two special Exalted portals scattered throughout the JP. These allow the player to bypass small parts of the adventure that involves jumping. Together they allow the player to shave off about 5 or 10 seconds from their time.
- Training Exalted Purification reduces the cooldown of all your Egg Bearer skills by 25%.

The Floor is Lava?
Bronze: 1 – 10 (previously 5)
Silver: 10 – 20 (previously 15)
Gold: 20+ (previously 25)

This is another adventure that players with worse ping struggle with. Latency can mean that spores fail to register when you kick them, or you’re a second late before it launches you back up into the air. Pinpoint gliding is also a lot trickier. Accordingly, I eased the requirements up a bit to allow more leeway.

Fallen Masks
Bronze: 1 – 10 (previously 10)
Silver: 10 – 15 (previously 15)
Gold: 15+ (previously 25)

The RNG spawning of the masks should be removed for this adventure. The adventures should be a pure contest of skill and not one that can be influenced by “lucky spawns”. As with Shooting Gallery, have all the Masks spawn at the start and then the player has to calm as many masks as they can within the time limit. Masks respawn after 30 seconds.

A Fungus Among Us
Bronze: 4:00 (previously 2:30)
Silver: 3:00 (previously 1:40)
Gold: 2:00 (previously 1:20)

This adventure needs some serious tweaking. As others have mentioned, the mushroom skills sometimes do not work properly (the jump skill fails to trigger, or it’s blocked by a ridiculously low platform that they should be able to jump over easily), and the time limit is far too unforgiving for anyone without good ping. However, as with Sanctum Scramble, I propose giving players with greater Masteries more advantages in this adventure:

- Add in a few more Speed Boost Mushrooms scattered throughout this adventure. For instance, while the [Soggy] condition states that it can be removed by Celeritas spores, there are no Speed Boost Mushrooms anywhere near the water hazard section where it could be of use.
- The Adrenal Mushrooms mastery adds an additional third “dodge” to the end of skill 1, and increases the range of skill 2’s bounce to 1500 (thus allowing them to make some truly amazing leaps that opens up new shortcuts).

The only adventures which I feel need adjustment: A fungus Amongs us, Shooting Gallery, Haywire punchomatic, Scrap rifle test, golden mask and the floor is lava.

There are only 3 adventures which need a change the rest can be completed with a bit of practice which is fine, if you dont put in the time why should you get the rewards?

However, Punch o matic, fallen masks and the shooting gallery need to be fixed in some way. Masks and shooting gallery are way to random and your success ultimately relies on getting lucky spawns and not any sort of skill. Also practicing them doesnt really aid you in success as you cant even practice an optimal route. I feel both of these could either do with having fixed spawn locations or an added 15 seconds or so to the timers for gold.

Punch o matic I don’t think anyone has managed to get gold on yet so it just needs changed in some way, either the amount of Chakk or an increased timer.

Note that I have gold ranked everything other than punch o matic much like many other people and can say that with enough time any of these can be gold ranked, play shooting gallery and fallen masks enough and eventually the stars will align (although I still think they should be changed).

StevenL.3761:

I managed to get 39/40 targets in Shooting Gallery. I’m now ranked 469 on the leaderboard. Only 469 people have a score of 39 or better, which isn’t even the gold requirement.

I was so proud of my self when i got silver on that one

Sanctum Scramble is so painful, either remove it or make it no longer required for the collection.

Sanctum Scramble is probably the most lenient of the challenges as you can get at gold with at least 30 seconds left before it would have shifted down to silver.

But it’s even hard to get silver.

Slowpokeking.8720:

But it’s even hard to get silver.

Do what he did.

I was gonna wait until Wintersday was over to make a big post on Adventures, because I’m sure a majority of Adventure players are busy getting mad presents in the jumping puzzle, but I’m glad to see at least some positive discussion and criticism beforehand.

I love the Adventures. They are my GW2 HoT end-game content. Why? Because they allow me to choose my goals, and then go and achieve them my way. I choose which ones to play, and which ones to skip. I feel bad for the players who had their own goals (skins, collections, mastery points) that were forced to do Adventures and soured on them because of this lack of choice. ESPECIALLY if you couldn’t play them due to ping/lag.

I can tell a lot of care went into designing them, and props to all the devs that worked on them, for going out on a limb and trying something new and fun.

To all the complainers, instead of whining about “waaah too hard Nintendo” or “waaah FPS in my MMO”, why not appreciate how great it is that this game is flexible and adaptable enough to even offer these fun Adventures at all?

That said, obviously there are some issues with them. It feels mostly pointless to suggest changes to the rewards without data, because I’m sure ANet has a much better idea of how many times each Adventure has been played, how many unique accounts have tried them, and the Gold/Silver/Bronze percentage, and could adjust accordingly.

But here’s a summary of changes I’d like to see:
1) Fix the 0:00 display bug , of course

2) Remove all collection/mastery/whatever requirements tied to Adventures, or make them super easy Bronze. LEAVE THE LEADERBOARDS ALONE.

3) No, for real, please don’t change the Leaderboard, or anything for that matter. It will probably make it worse.

4) But if you can change things without removing or ruining the Leaderboard, fix the Gold/Silver/Bronze requirements. Did I mention to please not mess up the leaderboards?

Darak BG.5396:

Well the topic states the question. From what I see playing through I believe some of the adventures need changes but what about you?

To list those I believe need some changes:

- fallen masks / shooting gallery (either needs a bit more time or for the masks/targets to not appear at random, I admit I’d prefer a bit more time but that’s just me)
- The floor is lava? (would like 10-15 seconds more as the current time doesn’t leave any margin to error (it might be too much so ANet should definitely playtest it a bit to find the right margin))
- salvage pit (feels slightly too easy at the moment, a few seconds less maybe?)

Those I believe are fine as they are:

- Tendril Torchers
- Bugs in the Branches
- Flying Circus
- On Wings of Gold
- Sanctum Scramble
- A fungus among us

I have yet to play the Tangled Depths one and will thus not post any opinion on those.

There you have it, my opinion, what’s yours?

You believe A Fungus Among Us is fine? This event has laughably short goal timers with clunky skills that barely function.

I’m all in favour of them not changing them at all. Mainly because all this gated/timed/locked gimmicky ‘mastery’ ‘adventures’ has made me realise I’d rather be doing something else rather than spend time and money on an exercise in frustration.

So apart from daily log ins (inflate those ‘players playing’ numbers, a good ploy by games companies) I’m ‘taking a break’ from GW2.

Problem is, if I do anything and see the mastery progress bar getting fuller, I feel like I should be trying some stupid gimmick in order to gain enough points before the bar fills. I personally find the gimmicks (or waiting for hours for some spawn to possibly happen, or lfg on the off chance a map is about to start when I’m able to log in, etc) make me want to go do something I consider fun in my leisure time.

The horse riders in the community can defend them all they like- for me this type of gated/timed/locked/gimmick content has nothing to do with the core of GW2 and pulled the game in precisely the wrong direction for me- it’s become ‘do this because you have do’ instead of ‘play how you want’.

HiggsBoson.1976:

But here’s a summary of changes I’d like to see:
1) Fix the 0:00 display bug , of course

2) Remove all collection/mastery/whatever requirements tied to Adventures, or make them super easy Bronze. LEAVE THE LEADERBOARDS ALONE.

3) No, for real, please don’t change the Leaderboard, or anything for that matter. It will probably make it worse.

4) But if you can change things without removing or ruining the Leaderboard, fix the Gold/Silver/Bronze requirements. Did I mention to please not mess up the leaderboards?

I’d actually love to know your thoughts on the list of changes I proposed in my post earlier in this thread. The heart of the changes was that I drastically reduced the requirements for attaining Bronze/Silver/Gold, thereby making it easier for players who just want the AP/Mastery points/collection stuff to get, but at the same time, it also opens up a much wider field of play for players who use Adventures as a new “competition arena”. For example, in an adventure like Floor is Lava, 25 is the highest score anyone can ever obtain, because there’s a maximum of 25 spores to collect.

By reducing the thresholds for Gold to just 15, you’re effectively narrowing down the pool of people obtaining that score, which allows for more room for people competing on score, and also on time.

HiggsBoson.1976:

To all the complainers, instead of whining about “waaah too hard Nintendo” or “waaah FPS in my MMO”, why not appreciate how great it is that this game is flexible and adaptable enough to even offer these fun Adventures at all?

I appreciate creativity with the game mechanics when it’s fun for me. I have a hard time doing so when it asks me to accomplish things that are questionable even from a technical point of view.

The most successful platform games, for casual and hardcore audience alike, have some things in common: Tight controls and getting the players to the places where they failed in order to try again without spending an arbitrary amount of time on things they’ve already completed.

GW2 gates the minigames in general behind metaevents, thus preventing you from getting back to them outside of a small time frame. The controls are clunky because of lag issues to the point where you simply cannot pull off difficult moves time and time again because of it.

The PC is the best platform for FPS games. The GW2 engine however is not suited to that genre by any stretch of the imagination. If you still want to include a FPS minigame, make it fun and casual experience. Don’t expect the players to go out of their way to handle the clunky mechanics in order to hit small targets with a crosshair that’s nowhere to be seen when you need it.
Make the players cheer for you for implementing it by keeping it as a fun distraction while you wait for the main event instead of forcing them through it and making them do things the engine handles rather poorly to begin with.
Shooting gallery gives you a gameplay experience (or torture) usually found in shovel ware or asset flips, and not AAA material by any stretch of the imagination. That’s a disgrace.

All this can be summed up under “don’t try to shove an expansion out of the door without giving the developers enough time to get the job done”, though. Some minigames work well, some are even easy to do, while others simply don’t work well on the live servers. Under normal circumstances you would cut the latter out of the final product, in HoT however they’ve bundled together everything they got to have at least some content to show for, including unpolished minigames.

In my opinion the mastery points / collection items etc should be available on your first completion of the adventure no matter how well you do in the adventure.

Completion should be easy whilst higher scores can give you some daily rewards .

Please listen carefully to the feedback from all the Oceanic/Asian players in this thread and tune the timers more leniently for adventures.

As stated, some of these adventures are excruciating enough when you’re close to the Anet servers – which makes them basically impossible for all of us suffering at 200+ ping and beyond.

Zaxares.5419:

I’d actually love to know your thoughts on the list of changes I proposed in my post earlier in this thread. The heart of the changes was that I drastically reduced the requirements for attaining Bronze/Silver/Gold, thereby making it easier for players who just want the AP/Mastery points/collection stuff to get, but at the same time, it also opens up a much wider field of play for players who use Adventures as a new “competition arena”. For example, in an adventure like Floor is Lava, 25 is the highest score anyone can ever obtain, because there’s a maximum of 25 spores to collect.

By reducing the thresholds for Gold to just 15, you’re effectively narrowing down the pool of people obtaining that score, which allows for more room for people competing on score, and also on time.

They were mostly fine, it’s just that there shouldn’t be a reason for us to guess or feel what proper Gold/Silver/Bronze levels should be, because with varying levels of skill and practice and setups and conditions and preferences etc. we all have a biased view of what is easy and what is hard.

ANet has the data, it’s right there in the Leaderboards. They just have to choose how often and easily they want people to get Gold, look at the Leaderboard data, and adjust accordingly. Here’s an easy start: If by now there are still people getting Silver yet showing up on the Top 1000 Lifetime board, perhaps those are good candidates for lowering the requirement for Gold.

Yes, but not all of them. I would say the majority were fine. Some gave me more trouble than others but with some practice, strategy, and repetition, I was able to get gold.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Shooting Gallery, Fallen Masks, The Floor is Lava, and Scrap Rifles need to be tuned down a bit. Goes without saying that Punch-O-Matic does as well since no one has gotten gold there.

These ones are not only incredibly tightly tuned but also have either an RNG element, an absurdly high requirement, or both for gold.