Guild Wars 2

I did zone 1 and 2 today of world 2. I do have a bit of a living story achievement addiction, and I’d hate to finally miss one, but I might end up throwing the towel in. Why?

These zones are too long. Don’t say ’You’re complaining about more content’, because I’ve played plenty of games with bad, repetitive mechanics, (if you ask for details, you won’t end up happy), and while zones 1 and 2 were initially interesting, they were heavily drawn out. With no method of just calling it quits for the time being, and realizing I’ve put an hour into a given zone already trying to figure out the mechanics, it’s simply irritating. Zone 2 is artifically lengthened by forcing me to look for any cheaply placed dart traps, and then suddenly having to backtrack to a spot I’ve deemed “safe” so I can deal with another pair of not-so-surprising assassins. The same mechanics got recycled (albeit in slightly different ways), such as the octopus-weight trap, and moving blocks to get through the area (I liked the dart trap one, to be fair, but it takes a while on the first run-through, and on repeats I’ll likely be double checking everything to avoid cheap deaths).

I’d also like to propose a possible reason as to why people are complaining about baubles not showing up from digging – I did not select infantile mode. However, I was, as of arriving to zone 3, at 2/33 (or whatever the number is) done for world 2 infantile mode. I believe it is enabled by default from a flag somewhere, despite the distinct absence of happy fluffy clouds making my escapades easier. If you want a screenshot, sure, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow given my real job and all that jazz, so I’ll just sum up my irritations:

Levels too long, need to be blocked out into multiple zones, making players look for too many things sucks any potential fun out (KISS), and pretend there’s a paragraph rant about no method of keeping track of achievement progress on bauble collecting / assassin killing / etcetera. It was a challenge with world 1, given how short (but expansive) the levels were. I’m just giving this world the bird with regards to doing them again, until someone makes a cheater guide so I don’t have to painstakingly scour the levels.

This pretty much sums up my 2 hours in 2-1:

Then I broke my mouse and that forced me to stop playing.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Ben.2685:

Stop being swayed by potential cash grabs (as evidenced through the limiting of baubles and one life given on map restart).

If I cared about cash grabs I’d be working at Zynga where they design based on MTX. We don’t do that here. I’m trying to make SAB (And I mean SAB, not the GW2 rewards, achievements, titles, MTX, etc) a good, solid, fun game. That’s my focus. If W2 is not fun I will make sure it is changed so that it is fun. As I said above, the one-life thing was to add fun. I don’t find mindlessly throwing away lives to be fun. I want death to matter in SAB like it mattered in Mega Man and Metroid. That creates tension. Causes you to be careful. To THINK about your environment, enemies, and how you approach jumps. It is fundamental to creating the experience I want to create. But if you can jump back to the hub, then back to your group at the end of a zone with 5 lives again those lives are next to meaningless. The tension, awareness and thoughtfulness slip to the wayside because it doesn’t matter how often you die. It has nothing to do with selling anything.

Too bad somebody down there cares about cash grabs. Recently it was WvW league rewards, where T1 servers changed from “full” to “very high” immediately prior to the announcement. Now an infinite continue coin in the gem shop that is essentially required to play tribulation mode, largely due to the time-gate that it allows you to pass. The start of pay-to-win, where the gem shop offers more than conveniences/skins. This was the final straw for me, as I will no longer be playing the game. Too bad someone made this decision right as the best content was released.

For what it is worth, I am actually glad this time I listened to my guild and friends, as I’m not even going to bother with it. They all despise it, made some good arguments and I think I might have actually lost a guild member cause of this new SaB… lol. Whatever, I have been noticing a trend with this game, and I’m sure I don’t even have to say it.

Keep up the good work guys, your getting better at it every living world update.

Mega Messiah.1734:

It makes me sad when this is being called to get nerfed after a DAY of being out there.

There are some hard parts but my goodness people, at least give it more than one day’s try before you decide it’s too hard and needs to be summarily whacked by the nerfstick.

Otherwise I’m worried what’ll happen when/if MK Clock Tower comes back.

Clock tower was doable after muscle memory kicked in AND it cost you NOTHING to continue to try.

SAB gives you a lockout in finite continue coins and wants you to try and try again. Only muscle memory won’t save you from bugs, obfuscated traps and op enemies.

Now we’ve brought up Final Fantasy? New game- take a shot every time a new nostalgia game gets name dropped.

Thing is, you’ve combined all the frustrating parts of nostalgia games- grinding enemies from Final Fantasy to stock up and prepare, instant kills from games like Contra, difficult jumps from games like Mega Man 2, clunky controls and hit boxes and being killed by things that clearly didn’t touch you from games like Silver Surfer (take a shot!)- and combined them without taking note of what made those games (except Silver Surfer…) tolerable/enjoyable.

Mega Man 2, Contra, Super Mario- those games were short, levels were short; MM2 for example, if you perished enough times (note- more than twice) you’d start at the level’s start yes, but it’d only be a minute or two to make it back to where you were, and you had a lot of health- OHKOs were rare outside of jumping, you got fair warning on where you were going and what was coming and had time to figure things out, the only thing that really required you to be nearly psychic was the killer beams in Wily’s Castle. Contra- you died in one hit yes, but you could clearly see what was coming, and again- it was short. Super Mario- again, short, and while as one of the earliest games of its type it had some poor jumping controls- a, they fixed that in 2 and then perfected it in 3 to the point where those same controls have almost not changed in two decades, and b, multiple lives, regular hp boosts, and again you could see what was about to kill you, and other than some world 8 jumps most of it was very fair.

As for Final Fantasy and grinding- remember that this game gave you lots of hp, items- it was highly forgiving compared to near perfection, and you could save regularly at no cost- which is the most important part; before every difficult part in a Final Fantasy game, and I should note this has been my favourite series since I was a child- there is a save point. Why? Because even 20+ years ago they understood that after you grind up a bunch, get through a level, and do a whole bunch of tedious things to get to a boss fight- you don’t want to get X-Zoned or level ? pearled, petrified or doomed, mass confusion self one shotted, suicide ultima’d without life 3… actually, bad example there. But for the most part- there’s saves before bosses, there’s saves at regular intervals for long games. These zones are long, require grinding, are full of instant kills from nowhere, and top it off with 1 extra life only to get through it all?

This is nothing less than frustrating. You can make a nostalgia game without relying on the parts of nostalgia games like hit boxes, poor graphical cues and control issues to make it fun- those probably weren’t intended in the old games; and when a new Super Mario sidescroller, or Rayman Legends, or Castle Crashers, etc… nostalgia like games come out they get rid of the frustrating, annoying parts while keeping the most enjoyable parts.

This feels like you’ve made every difficulty mode into tribulation mode for no reason.

Yea what the kitten kat is this. I was excited at first but I’ve been cursing all night cause of this. This is about as fun as getting condition spammed in pvp.

@Josh

This is going to be as short and too the point as I can make it because I am currently akittenside SAB and I want to get back to it.

The new SAB content is not TOO difficult. It is difficult, and it is a welcome challenge.

I started World 2 today and it took me 6 hours to get through all of World 2. I was disconnected half way through zone 3 so that took a little bit more time then it should have.

Along the way I was able to complete the Ambush achievement, and the skater achievement. I must have missed an assassin somewhere.

I did not go for bauble or secret room achievements this run through.

I died a ton of times, but I had fun the whole way through. I encountered to content that I found overly frustrating except the rapids which a few people have mentioned. I have a feeling though that they will be much easier my second time through.

That brings up a good point. I feel many people who are saying this is too difficult are posting after dying a few times or after their first time through. Things get a lot easier after just completing them once.

That jumping puzzle in zone 3 that you have to climb straight up was quite difficult for me the first time through. After I was disconnected and had to repeat it, I was able to do it with no trouble, I only fell twice.

As for the darts in the assassin place. They were tricky, but if you look for them they are very obvious. Look for the dark shooters along the wall and spot the safe vectors. I will admit I cheesed the gong run. I died purposefully after releasing it and ran back from the check point and met it at the bottom to guide me out.

I post this only to say, Josh, please don’t be swayed by all the people saying this is too difficult. It is not. If someone can sit here with no walk through and figure it out for this first time in 5 hours, that is much quicker then any old school NES game. You are doing the right thing here. The people asking for difficult content like myself are thrilled with this and are looking forward to more.

I will post a more detailed review from work, but right now I want to get back into SAB.

Thanks Josh.

Okay. Having played World 1 story mode a few times, I can now say the camera is your worst enemy thus far.

I had this issue in Megaman Legends (take a shot) where by the time you turned to face the enemy behind you and the camera was in place so you could see/hit them/dodge, they’d killed you.

Not a great game mechanic…

Mega Messiah.1734:

It makes me sad when this is being called to get nerfed after a DAY of being out there.

There are some hard parts but my goodness people, at least give it more than one day’s try before you decide it’s too hard and needs to be summarily whacked by the nerfstick.

Otherwise I’m worried what’ll happen when/if MK Clock Tower comes back.

Bad design NEEDS to be NERFED! One badly designed route through the rapids.

Where is the exploration? No alternative routes to explore?

Josh Foreman.8250:

Thanks for the kind words, Crazylegs.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

1. Bauble Counter/Kill all/Destroy All

Many mentioned this in 1.0. We now have achievements that require players to kill/find/destroy an undetermined number of things, but absolutely no way of knowing ones progress.

Yeah, I remember Lisa was looking into a way to do this. I can’t remember why it didn’t happen. I’m assuming because it would require programming support we don’t have available to our team right now. I’ll follow up with her.

This is a problem across the game, it’s crazy that this doesn’t exist. I’ve mostly stopped achievement hunting for ones that are a guess as to what I’ve done. Please impress that we really need this.

I don’t have the time to read the whole thread atm, so sorry for that.

Had anyone got this weird bug where SAB would kick you out after dropping a fish?
I FINALLY was getting at the end of the second level of world 2, I believe since it was a really long while, I was on the dojo puzzle where I have to put fish on the thing, the second one, I died some good times and was finally getting the fish into the thing, then I dropped it to reset the one time it can… and It kicked me out.

Maybe, maybe maybe my mouse went nuts and I clicked on leave instance, but I wasn’t even pressing it at the time. :|

Really sucked to lose all those hours inside it haha, but eh.
I also got two DCs during rapids…

Josh, would there be anyway to reenter where we stopped after a dc or something?
In world 1 was ok, but world 2 the levels are so much bigger it gets painful.

Mega Messiah.1734:

It makes me sad when this is being called to get nerfed after a DAY of being out there.

There are some hard parts but my goodness people, at least give it more than one day’s try before you decide it’s too hard and needs to be summarily whacked by the nerfstick.

Otherwise I’m worried what’ll happen when/if MK Clock Tower comes back.

I hope MK clock tower NEVER comes back.

As this thread is getting the most response:
I wanted to do a quick run to preview the world 2 in infantile to get my bearings for the real deal. First i had to redo the whole world 1 to get it working. Then i got into it and it was fine for a while. I died a couple of times (curiosity and stupid knockbacks) but what did me in was the torch. Insert 400 coins to continue. What happened to giving the player the tools he needs?

You can not finish the SAB in infantile if you dont grind out 400 boubles! That is simply unacceptable.

Apart from that i can atest to the excruciating length of zone 2. Even in infantile mode it took a long time to get to the end. Most people do not have 3-4 hours or the will to sit trough this in one go. Not to mention the continue coins. You need to either split up the zone into 2 or shorten it.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Kojiden.8405:

This is the area that I can’t get past currently. It’s right after a checkpoint. I can get close to the waterfall near the end but I keep getting flung all over the place all the time. If I make any mistake it’s pretty much instant death because it’s so hard to get out of the water. I feel like I’m playing tribulation mode right now. I guess it’s a good thing I got the infinite continue coin. It doesn’t help that it feels so cramped and there’s so much stuff going on.

Ok. Thanks! It’s amazing how much I’ve reduced the difficulty of Piranha bend over the last week or so. Sounds like it needs a more radical solution.

I completed the area now. I think I was a little confused on where to go at the end of the piranha part. I just figured I’d try jumping through the waterfall. I think part of the difficulty is getting the timing down on the spouts. I just learned to wait until they all go down then all go up and jump then.

P.S Josh, it scares and saddens me a little when the content has not been out for 24 hours and you are already saying you might have made it more difficult then you intended.

Any time now people will be competing with youtube speed runs of this content. Hold on tight.

Aerlen.5326:

Okay. Having played World 1 story mode a few times, I can now say the camera is your worst enemy thus far.

I had this issue in Megaman Legends (take a shot) where by the time you turned to face the enemy behind you and the camera was in place so you could see/hit them/dodge, they’d killed you.

Not a great game mechanic…

How many times has the camera in GW2 been one of the central issues? It’s like this comes up every single time they have an update- nobody wants to be fighting with their camera. Yes, it’s cute in the one chaos zone jumping puzzle that fools around with your size/camera- but it shouldn’t be a constant problem in so many events. It was one of the most complained about issues with the gauntlet fights, along with difficulty to see cues before OHKOs- and lo and behold, it’s a big complaint once again.

It feels like I’ve been saying this too long- people will accept difficulty more readily when it’s not UI things like camera, or when you’re not trying to hide telegraphs with flashy spells, poor camera angles and projectiles that camo with the floor. It’s kitten poor difficulty when you’re relying almost exclusively on having the player not notice what’s going to kill him.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Well I said this earlier, but I don’t mind repeating. I wanted W2 to have a longer learning curve. I saw how people mastered W1 in a day or less and thought to myself: “Hey Josh, how can you make W2 take longer to master?” The answers were multitudinous, and the results are what you see. From day-1 response it appears that I pushed that goal too far, so that it overwhelmed my primary goal which was to make a really fun new SAB World. And if that appearance bears out over the next day or so I’ll make changes. Not sure how much more accommodating I can get!

Josh, no matter how challenging you make something, there will always be a group of players who masters it in one day and shares the result, leading to making it easier for more people. Someone’s gone through W1 in Tribulation mode and posted videos already, and it hasn’t even been a day since the patch. Some people are just that good.

The mindset that something seemed to be fairly easy for some players and so it needs to be made more difficult will only eventually lead to content that’s so difficult that only a tiny fraction of players will be able to complete it. But complete it they will, and some of them in a day.

I feel like you had good intentions, and I know that it really sucks to work kitten something with the intent of making it fun for others, only for it to be met with overwhelmingly negative reactions. Adding one or two elements to increase difficulty is one thing, but pretty much everything under the sun was added here: small hit boxes, large number of trash mobs (some with a lot of HP and some which can easily kill you), enemies with block/evasion mechanics, platforms you can be knocked off of to your death (constantly) by enemies, water that knocks you to your death, jumps requiring extreme precision (else you die) to just progress (I think those are nice for achievements, but not regular progression), hard to see OHKO mechanics, very long levels, fights in small enclosed spaces which can lead to death upon the slightest failure, timed jumps, mandatory upgrades without warning which cost a lot of baubles, baubles getting stolen, fewer baubles overall, etc etc—

Basically it’s a ton of elements, and they’re all pretty much thrown at you simultaneously, rather than introduced slowly with each level. I know you probably meant it for it to be fun, and I appreciate the effort, but perhaps some of these mechanics are best saved for world 4 (or the end of world 3).

That aside, I was really fond of the fight with the wizard. It felt like the kind of spot where you should be spending your continue coins. It’s not without its issues – lag messes with the timing of reflects and, in infantile mode, the clouds get in the way of the first half more than help (they block his projectiles, so you have to get up close and personal to reflect them). Overall, though, that fight was pretty great, and in general actually felt less punishing than the boss in rapids, who would essentially send you flying to your death pretty much every time you got hit.

Hard and Frustrating are two different things.

I dont mean to be a sourpus, but could you please fix this. i died several times trying to hit that gator =/
Basically i had to get off the log in order to hit him standing on some invisible ledge. tried it from different angles but only there i could get him. I wasted 4 coins on that lol.
http://imgur.com/B7enbYN

A preemptive question. From a design goal. Is jump between difficulty in World 1 Normal and World 1 TM same as in World 2 Normal and World 2 TM? Or the difference is smaller? Becouse World 2 is already hardish (its OK for what I would call hard more for most games) in normal and if the cliff to TM is as huge as in World 1, I should probably not even bother with it. Cant imagine the waterfall stream area boosted to TM levels. Or the pagoda with rolling gong in zone 2.

I must say, the difficulty is nice, but soloing World 2 Zone 2 Pain Cliffs . . . really indeed is a pain in the kitten . Currently stuck at the tower where you have to hit the gong, roll it all the way down and use it for covering against the traps. What I find unreasonable and frustrating is that the gong that rolls down after you hand palm it doesn’t turn very well. When it turns, it literally kittenblocks your path making your vulnerable to traps especially when you have 2 consecutive traps back to back on different sides.

I like the challenges, but I also finishing a zone is definitely taking too long as well might I add. Not cool since there isn’t any save progress in a zone.

My only beef with SAB W 2-1 is all the invisible water in the sprout-jumping part (after the yogi the bear). I aim so many times to wide open space and just get sent flying. I have died so many times not b/c I have a problem with timing jumps, but because some unknown force knocks me out of mid-air and send me down the river.

Also, when I hit the river, I just start teleporting random places and have no control over where my body goes. Even if my body ends up pressed against a rock, sometimes it just locks me out and I have to watch myself flop around until death. If it is gonna be near-instant KO, at least make it MAGMA!!! ;-)

Thanks for the hard work, just a few polishes that are needed so far.

Edit: if you’d like I can take screen shots of the areas or submit a support ticket if you don’t know the spots I’m talking about.

Josh Foreman.8250:

CryxTryx.9208:

P.S Josh, it scares and saddens me a little when the content has not been out for 24 hours and you are already saying you might have made it more difficult then you intended.

Any time now people will be competing with youtube speed runs of this content. Hold on tight.

I had a gut feeling going in that it was. But since I wasn’t hearing it confirmed by QA or alphas I let it go. So the main reason I’m paying so much attention to this thread is because I suspected there was a problem to begin with. I really, really don’t want to alienate a ton of players by making them miserable and frustrated. We made a whole mode for people who like that sort of thing!

Fair enough, but you have also made infantile mode for the players that don’t want a challenge.

I guess I’m glad I got to go through the content at least once before you nerf it. I’m not the game developer here, so I know I don’t know what is best, but you always go into this thing saying you want to bring back that old school feel where games actually had a learning curve and the people who are complaining here are the ones refusing to learn the game.

Complaints about long zones before they find the short cuts, complaints that they can’t just up and buy everything they want as soon as they see it in the store.

I remember farming for days for things I found in Legend of Zelda shops or Final Fantasy shops.

400 baubles takes a half hour to collect even if you don’t know the dig spots.

The ones who complain are always the most vocal, that is why your QA and alpha’s were fine with it. Because they didn’t expect a free ride.

99% of the content in Guild Wars you can do with your eyes closed, all people like me are asking for is that you leave that 1% alone.

You didn’t see the last team nerfing Liadri day 1, or at all for that matter.

BBQFlavored.4706:

I must say, the difficulty is nice, but soloing World 2 Zone 2 Pain Cliffs . . . really indeed is a pain in the kitten . Currently stuck at the tower where you have to hit the gong, roll it all the way down and use it for covering against the traps. What I find unreasonable and frustrating is that the gong that rolls down after you hand palm it doesn’t turn very well. When it turns, it literally kittenblocks your path making your vulnerable to traps especially when you have 2 consecutive traps back to back on different sides.

I like the challenges, but I also finishing a zone is definitely taking too long as well might I add. Not cool since there isn’t any save progress in a zone.

ANET at the 20 minute mark sums that up nicely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4YBCt-1JNs

fungihoujo.8476:

Aerlen.5326:

Okay. Having played World 1 story mode a few times, I can now say the camera is your worst enemy thus far.

I had this issue in Megaman Legends (take a shot) where by the time you turned to face the enemy behind you and the camera was in place so you could see/hit them/dodge, they’d killed you.

Not a great game mechanic…

How many times has the camera in GW2 been one of the central issues? It’s like this comes up every single time they have an update- nobody wants to be fighting with their camera. Yes, it’s cute in the one chaos zone jumping puzzle that fools around with your size/camera- but it shouldn’t be a constant problem in so many events. It was one of the most complained about issues with the gauntlet fights, along with difficulty to see cues before OHKOs- and lo and behold, it’s a big complaint once again.

It feels like I’ve been saying this too long- people will accept difficulty more readily when it’s not UI things like camera, or when you’re not trying to hide telegraphs with flashy spells, poor camera angles and projectiles that camo with the floor. It’s kitten poor difficulty when you’re relying almost exclusively on having the player not notice what’s going to kill him.

On a second play in Baby Mode where I reached the boss, I found the camera for sure is an issue.

At the boss, it zoomed out which was incredibly disorienting but when I got hit and knocked back… it zoomed in again so I was staring at the block in front of me again and again and, yes just like before, I couldn’t get up and get reoriented before I was killed thanks to the camera. So the strategy is apparently not to be hit because the knock back will detroy your camera angle and you won’t see the monkeys who appeared out of no where hitting you nor the laser.

If this were a 2D game with a fixed angle, I know this would be a non-issue. It’s not fun at all when a game mechanic works against you. =/

Josh Foreman.8250:

That’s terrible. I’m guessing the fish thing was a coincidence. I really wish there was a way we could detect disconnect as opposed to exploit. Sorry.

I understand. :~~
Luckily I didn’t have problems back in April, but some people did suffer getting all bubbles on level 3 and getting dc, but it’s a risk. XD
The jumping pads to get the elite skill were a pain back then too, due to how the game try to locate us to tell the server etc, it still shows on the rapids, a lot, but I think it got better, atleast for me.

frostgibbon.3284:

I dont mean to be a sourpus, but could you please fix this. i died several times trying to hit that gator =/
Basically i had to get off the log in order to hit him standing on some invisible ledge. tried it from different angles but only there i could get him. I wasted 4 coins on that lol.
http://imgur.com/B7enbYN

Hahahahaha, the moment I saw you saying “trying to hit that gator” I knew which one it was, it took me two deaths before I decided to try. Just use the projectile weapon (forgot the name in english, sorry) just before jumping on the plank of wood. Done deal. =)

Josh. i love you. that is all.
can’t wait to jump into SAB 2.0 and 1.0 revamp.
updated client, but i was good and went to bed like i should last night. XDD

Ivonbeton.6814:

It’s not THAT bad, atleast the part where I am at. I seem to be “stuck” though. I never played the first time it came out and so I don’t have that many baubles. Right after fending off the assassins, there is a sign with fire and a forest. I assumed you need a bomb or torch? However I don’t have enough bubbles for those, I lost 2 coins alone trying to find a way there without buying something.

Any advice?

EDIT: also what’s this about hidden treasure and once a day? Where do you find those?

theres a free torch in a shop, where the shop merchant is outside and not in. Its like in world 1. zone 2 i think

Just going to cut in here without reading the later half of the thread but…

Just finished world 2 – normal mode and I have to say, yes it was hard. Seeing he difficulty jump like that was surprising but since I was playing with another fried, it was hilarious.

2-1 is easy enough if you know what you are doing but the water seems to push you even when you are in air, jumping from geysers, or seemingly making it to solid land. I guess the lag here is making everything harder. Other than that, no complaints.

2-2 is unforgiving (demon souls). The spike traps are all reasonable (except the first) but the gong tower is almost impossible to beat by yourself. Perhaps a shortcut could be placed at the top after making it to the gong? The enemies and platforming seem fine as they are.

2-3. Evil. With the toughest platforming and the 400 baubel requirement, this level is just insane to try to beat. I can’t recall any hard parts off the top of my head except the long climb in the cave. I hate that cave. Oh, and that last block pushing, spike impaling bit that leads to the ice bridge. I hate those bananas. Then there is the wizard battle. Actually, that was well done, end world bosses are supposed to be hard. Great job!

One last bit of whining… I think that there should be more baubels rewarded on higher levels (throughout the level, not at the end) or less on the lower levels since the difficulty is far greater and it would prevent mindless farming on 1-1.

Anyways, think that this is another great piece of Adventure Box (hard but still fun) and I hope to see more of it!

Dan.8709:

Josh Foreman.8250:

That’s terrible. I’m guessing the fish thing was a coincidence. I really wish there was a way we could detect disconnect as opposed to exploit. Sorry.

I understand. :~~
Luckily I didn’t have problems back in April, but some people did suffer getting all bubbles on level 3 and getting dc, but it’s a risk. XD
The jumping pads to get the elite skill were a pain back then too, due to how the game try to locate us to tell the server etc, it still shows on the rapids, a lot, but I think it got better, atleast for me.

frostgibbon.3284:

I dont mean to be a sourpus, but could you please fix this. i died several times trying to hit that gator =/
Basically i had to get off the log in order to hit him standing on some invisible ledge. tried it from different angles but only there i could get him. I wasted 4 coins on that lol.
http://imgur.com/B7enbYN

Hahahahaha, the moment I saw you saying “trying to hit that gator” I knew which one it was, it took me two deaths before I decided to try. Just use the projectile weapon (forgot the name in english, sorry) just before jumping on the plank of wood. Done deal. =)

i i had to use the whip(in the picture), i regret not getting that slingshot

Josh Foreman.8250:

Yeah, I remember Lisa was looking into a way to do this. I can’t remember why it didn’t happen. I’m assuming because it would require programming support we don’t have available to our team right now. I’ll follow up with her.

Well, at the very least the achievement description could tell players how many they’re supposed to be looking for. It’s not ideal, but at least we could count on a notepad as we go.

If there were no way of programming this, at least we could map out each location as we go. Right now its blind. Did I miss one, or two, or twenty?

Josh Foreman.8250:

I’m not sure how to do that without completely trivializing the cool mechanics. I wish we had a lag detector that could activate draw bridges! I’ll roll your idea around in my noodle for a while.

The problem of course, is that cool mechanics are only cool if they work. It’s kinda like designing websites in Flash. Sure you can make them look amazing and do all this fancy stuff, but if your audience can’t view the content, then its useless.

Say you have path one with all the fancy stuff, and path two, which is longer, but more straight forward, then it would allow for a wider range of latency. Players who don’t have issues, will more than likely choose the more direct, and fun path. whereas those who are experiencing issues, have an alternative to wasting coins as they hope for a smooth moment, or a lucky glitch.

In the end, what path a player chooses really shouldn’t matter as long as the overall experience is positive.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Clearly you haven’t tried Tribulation Mode, or that would be a WTF Josh?!!!!11 list.

Oh….we tried for a good hour.

We gave up counting in there. Really…exploding flowers? Geez!

Josh Foreman.8250:

SonicTHI.3217:

You need to either split up the zone into 2 or shorten it.

Shortcut Eagle. Find him.

shortcut eagle is only available after you get the glove, and “skip half the level” is not exactly the best answer to “levels are too long”.

obviously, it’s too late for world 2, but for world 3 and 4, try to increase the number of levels and decrease the length of each individual level.

i saw you comparing SAB to old school mario platformers, how you’d have to redo the levels multiple times to get the hang of it. but thing is, mario levels are short. really, really short. as in “they literally have a 6 minutes time limit to them”.

SAB levels can take more than an hour, and even when the speedruns begin, unless people are taking the shortcut eagle, i don’t see them being faster than 10-15 minutes. and when your speedrun takes that long, then something is off.

on a side note, zone 2 is considerably less frustrating, even with the instakill darts. i actually started laughing when i jumped over one dart trap, only to land on another. however, combat is not SAB’s strength, and the ninjas (mainly the red ones, since they dodge while attacking and take 3 hits to die) are more annoying than challenging.

however, i feel there’s a disconnect between the amount of lives it takes to go through a level, and the amount of baubles you can collect without relying on the very finnicky shovel. i still have no idea how to get the sweetspots, because it’s so specific about which tile you have to hit, and the shovel has a 5 second cooldown, it just ends up being too much work for too little reward.

I have just finished a current run on world 2 with a friend. Sadly, we got all the way to the storm wizard then disconnected much to my annoyance but it was worth the time. I’m seeing lots of people complaining here over things I never had any problems with. Such as the rapids, hitting crocodiles, insta-kill mechanics etc etc.
I believe people are making huge mistakes in attempting to treat world 2 with world 1. You cannot rush it, you have to be methodical and really pay attention to your surroundings. Learn the tells of all the mobs and work out a tried and tested strategy and remember you have more than 1 weapon at your disposal! I’m looking forward to taking on the storm wizard again and being able to take him down.

Well done Josh, this content has provided a huge challenge to the game with a difficulty that matches some of those games in the era pass.

(ps concerning the above posts about that crocodile, use the slingshot from the shore then jump across – and if you don’t have the slingshot, go back and get it! It’s invaluable)

Omega.4950:

BBQFlavored.4706:

I must say, the difficulty is nice, but soloing World 2 Zone 2 Pain Cliffs . . . really indeed is a pain in the kitten . Currently stuck at the tower where you have to hit the gong, roll it all the way down and use it for covering against the traps. What I find unreasonable and frustrating is that the gong that rolls down after you hand palm it doesn’t turn very well. When it turns, it literally kittenblocks your path making your vulnerable to traps especially when you have 2 consecutive traps back to back on different sides.

I like the challenges, but I also finishing a zone is definitely taking too long as well might I add. Not cool since there isn’t any save progress in a zone.

ANET at the 20 minute mark sums that up nicely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4YBCt-1JNs

There’s 3 of them and they still failed all the way up to the 27 min mark and didn’t finish!

Josh Foreman.8250:

CryxTryx.9208:

Fair enough, but you have also made infantile mode for the players that don’t want a challenge.

I want Normal Mode to be squarely in-between Infantile and Tribulation. Right now it’s leaning too far to the Tribulation.

I am sorry, I dont want to sound rude or anything so please dont get me wrong. But why you came to such conclusion now? Merely hours after patch went live? This is another thing which makes me think that bi-weekly content release makes the testing process… lacking. I mean, look at “that other game”. They have content on PTR for weeks or months and tune it multiple times in the process based on feedback. I miss that in GW2

I enjoy the difficulty but did you guys have to include continue coins in tribulation mode. No one finds farming for baubles fun. I understand that you’re a company and you have to make your money somehow. Im not telling you to change it. I just wanted to tell you that you’re kittens for doing it that way.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Hm. That makes me sad panda because of how hard I worked to make sure I was introducing the elements in gradual stages.

First rapid you see is off to the side. Second can be crossed by a bridge. NPC gives you hint about rapids. THEN you actually have to navigate rapids.

First piranha pool kills you if you jump in it. Next ones have the piranha jumping out. THEN you have to clobber the ones that land on the ground.

First dart trap is on a very simple piece of architecture, very close to a check point. Second one also close to a check point in a slightly more complex area, etc.

First push block goes from A to B allows you access to higher area. Next one lets you jump over darts. Next ones are a dependency puzzle to block darts.

Etc.

I think you did just fine here. I think the issue is that players are dealing with a bunch of other things as well. They’re falling, getting attacked, missing jumps, going the wrong way, having to star over, etc.

If I had to make a suggestion, it would be to introduce a new mechanic, then allow the player to play that mechanic a while before introducing a new element. For example, in World 1, you introduced leaves and lillypads that disappear when you step on them. The player has a lot of opportunity to practice these mechanics before they reach zone 2, where falling from one can mean death in green goop.

In Rapids, players are required to learn new mechanics at almost every turn, add that to the glitchy and unforgiving rapids, and players can suddenly feel like learning/practicing comes at a heafty price.

I wouldn’t be too kitten yourself, I think the issue here is more the limitations of the engine more than your level design.

Am I the only one that feels as if tribulation mode, in combination with the infinite continue coin, is just a blatant cash grab? I’ve died at least seventy times in world 1-1 alone, so far. My skill is average-above average at best, but this is just trial-and-error gameplay, and is not skill based at all. A large amount of grinding baubles would be required to get the amount of continue coins to proceed through these levels, at least without using a guide. I had to transfer 31g into gems to purchase a coin after suffering from the ridiculousness of it first hand.

I was hoping for legitimately challenging gameplay, not this. Liadri was -almost- a step in the right direction, but this is way off center.

I have yet to try world 2 in tribulation mode, but the normal mode is rather unforgiving, as well. It’s at least something that’s actually difficult, though.

Hawk.3574:

Please dont dial back the difficulty we have infantile mode for those who cant complete this and we need more challenges like this for players like myself.

1. Infantile Mode doesn’t give the reward chests. It’s also way too far out the other end.

2. They added Tribulation Mode specifically for “players like yourself”. That’s actually a big reason why the difficulty of Normal Mode is so out of line.

Hey Josh, just gave a good read to the thread.

I’ve played level 1 and 2 of W2 (almost finished 2, I really believe I was close… off to find that eagle when I can play again – thursday). It really was pretty hard, I bought the infinite coin the moment I saw it because it would make things much easier and I would’t feel guilty of using too much coins. It was a very nice and thoughtful addition to put them on the daily chests too.

I believe the mechanics present themselves pretty well and don’t overwhelm that much, but the difficulty of everything was pretty startling at first, it felt like I imagined TM (I didn’t do it yet).
I intend on getting all the achievs just like W1 and will try my best on TM, so I consider myself casual/bit hardcore in the sense that I’ll try non-stop when I can and for hours and I get pretty good at it.
After having finished rapids for the first time, I do believe I can finish it a lot faster now, the things that were blocking me the first time were misunderstandings of how to act, now that I learned by myself the way, it’s easier. It still is a longer level, of course, but not that much.

The second one, full of assassins, still seems pretty hella big to me, but I didn’t complete it or found the shortcut, so indeed I’m not that experienced with it.
I still “don’t get” how to go that much faster on that one, the jumps are a lot trickier and require better positioning, the assassins are a lot harder as enemies too.

I consider the difficulty good… But only because I am willing to take the pain and all the frustration I felt while playing, so indeed for a “normal mode” it felt more like hard (I like to think of TM as insane, but didn’t try it yet so Idk), so I do believe it will push some people away in the state it is now.
I’m not saying I think it needs changing, just my perception of it while playing.

It required more thought and will to complete than W1, by far and far, that’s good, I learned a lot and believe I’m better prepared for what’s to come, but maybe that wouldn’t be the case for the target audience you were hoping for.

Josh Foreman.8250:

CryxTryx.9208:

Fair enough, but you have also made infantile mode for the players that don’t want a challenge.

I want Normal Mode to be squarely in-between Infantile and Tribulation. Right now it’s leaning too far to the Tribulation.

Infantile mode IS a challenge for some players and some of us playing it WANT to be challenged =/ I’m sure eventually I’ll ace it but the “one life, start over if you die LOLZ” mechanic combined with bad camera angles is giving me a headache.

And no, I can’t buy an infinite continue right now and I’m afraid to waste the five continues I do have.

I will say I love the Super Adventure Box and kudos to the developers for the 8-bit homage masterpiece, but good grief, the latter half of the Rapids is so unbelievably frustrating.

My biggest gripe is that you’re constantly pulled into the rapids even if you haven’t touched the water. Recovering before the rapids pull you backwards further is near impossible because it’s completely erratic where you’ll reappear after you get back up… sometimes you won’t even be facing the same direction.

I’m fine with something being difficult because it’s designed that way, not because it’s plagued with bugs.