Guild Wars 2

Crise.9401:

Essentially what you imply is that they are not allowed to fix bugs or change content to adapt to the shortcomings of an engine that was not designed for platformers.

I said nothing about not fixing bugs, nothing about the game’s engine, or platformer games. Where you came up with those, I’m not sure. The entire paragraph you quoted was in reference to dig site farming.

Josh Foreman.8250:

MagnusLL.8473:

Congrats on designing one of the most blatantly obvious (but still devious) money grabs I’ve ever seen implemented in an MMO cash shop.

Cranking the difficulty all the way up to “insane” for world 2 NORMAL mode, implementing an hard mode based on trial and error, reducing lives from 5 to 1, brutally reducing the amount of baubles with which you used to be able to buy continue coins, AND introducing the infinite continue coin which can only be purchased from the shop.

I’m assuming you already have the “real” world 2 normal mode ready to go live as soon as the bean counters think they’ve gotten enough money off all of this.

You’re brilliant, Josh. In a different way from what most of the people here are meaning it, but still brilliant

That’s not how things work here. I don’t tell the commerce team how to do their job and they don’t tell me how to do my job. My goal is to make a really fun and compelling experience for players. Insofar as W2 is not fun right now because of the crazy difficulty, that’s on me because I made some poor judgement calls. I lost the forest for the mechanic-trees. I liked this tree and this tree and this tree and this tree… and jammed them all in without taking the big picture in often enough, especially near the end when everything comes together and starts interacting in unpredictable ways. Last time we were just excited to get 8-bit UI, a bounce mushroom and turtles you could knock over for platforms. Now we have projectile enemies, ice, moving platforms, water spout platforms, spin flowers, push blocks, several cooperative puzzles, etc. Now I know next time to give the elements time to breathe, and go hands-off earlier, and if a last minute fix is required to make a new mechanic work (what happened to the water spouts that ended up making them terribad) it should be cut and saved for next time. These are the reasons World 2 is too hard. If the reason was to sell coins I would not be here and you would not see a huge suite of fixes we put together over the last couple of days come out tomorrow.

As to the Infinite Continue Coin I’ll repeat what I said several pages back. I think it’s a great item because it expands the number of people who can experience SAB. There’s probably a good-sized portion of players who don’t want to play it like a real stand-alone old-school game where you have to really learn the levels, find the secrets, earn the resources to get the power-ups etc. In that way it’s like a Game Genie. It also gives people who are really into SAB a chance to vote with their money and support future development.

We decided to do Tribulation Mode in the platform hell style back before we launched the first SAB. Before the idea of an ICC was ever thought up. It matches our personality and humor. We knew there would be people who were really really good at SAB and would wrack up huge numbers of extra lives, and thought Trib Mode would be a great way to spend them.

As to a ‘real’ World 2, that will have to wait for next release when we have time to make the major renovations necessary to put it in the proper context between Worlds 1 and 3. In the mean time, check out the changes we made and see if it’s more fun for you.

I’ll admit I felt the same way for a long time. However, your answers to this post have been adequate to me. Sorry for my own snippy comments too. They may have been a bit too harsh.

Finally got my yellow staff skin last night. I’m gonna get a couple more yellow skins (double daggers, maybe a shield and GS, too). W2-3 Trib Mode wasn’t too bad once you figured out the jumps, just like everything else in SAB. Probably took our group of 4 (yes, 4 people at once) about 2.5 hours for the runthrough.
Having 4 people made some parts go significantly faster (like the big room full of towers and icicles to knock down), and made some parts slower (like the part with ice, spikes, wind, bananas, barrels and what we’ve dubbed the “No-no Clouds”), as they take a bit longer as we wait for everyone to get the elusive clean run.

Icealen.3802:

Crise.9401:

Essentially what you imply is that they are not allowed to fix bugs or change content to adapt to the shortcomings of an engine that was not designed for platformers.

I said nothing about not fixing bugs, nothing about the game’s engine, or platformer games. Where you came up with those, I’m not sure. The entire paragraph you quoted was in reference to dig site farming.

Yes, and my point is why should they let you get infinite bauble’s for almost no effort and by extension bauble bubble’s. You very specifically said that because SAB is an omage to to old games that they should not rebalance rewards, and your argument was that the old games that it is influenced by couldn’t be updated like that either, more or less.

Just pointed out, that going by that logic, when in fact SAB doesn’t suffer from that restriction of old games is ridiculous because it would mean they should also leave all bugs intact, if you think about it a bit longer.

Crise.9401:

Icealen.3802:

Crise.9401:

Essentially what you imply is that they are not allowed to fix bugs or change content to adapt to the shortcomings of an engine that was not designed for platformers.

I said nothing about not fixing bugs, nothing about the game’s engine, or platformer games. Where you came up with those, I’m not sure. The entire paragraph you quoted was in reference to dig site farming.

Yes, and my point is why should they let you get infinite bauble’s for almost no effort and by extension bauble bubble’s. You very specifically said that because SAB is an omage to to old games that they should not rebalance rewards, and your argument was that the old games that it is influenced by couldn’t be updated like that either, more or less.

Just pointed out, that going by that logic, when in fact SAB doesn’t suffer from that restriction of old games is ridiculous because it would mean they should also leave all bugs intact, if you think about it a bit longer.

Yes, retro games had no rebalancing. What you got on the cartridge/disk is what you got. For example, if the game gave you 100 lives to start with, that’s what you got, no matter if you played the game in April or later on in September.

As for fixing or not fixing bugs, I have no opinion/comment on that either way and cannot help you on that. I encountered no bugs in SAB while playing. You’ll have to ask someone else about that.

Icealen.3802:

Yes, retro games had no rebalancing. What you got on the cartridge/disk is what you got. For example, if the game gave you 100 lives to start with, that’s what you got, no matter if you played the game in April or later on in September.

As for fixing or not fixing bugs, I have no opinion/comment on that either way and cannot help you on that. I encountered no bugs in SAB while playing. You’ll have to ask someone else about that.

Correct, SAB however, is not an old game. All I am saying is that the reason you gave for why they should not rebalance rewards is silly. As for bugs, I didn’t really pose a question at all, just pointed out that yes it is good to to get rid of some of the old tropes, while keeping others… bug fixes and by extension the inability to change game balance are not one to skip just because it is more in line with how games of that era used to be.

Also, as for the not living world argument, story wise SAB is an incomplete game in development by the Asura known as Moto, so the fact that it keeps changing is perfectly fine narratively and even to be expected.

Crise.9401:

Icealen.3802:

Yes, retro games had no rebalancing. What you got on the cartridge/disk is what you got. For example, if the game gave you 100 lives to start with, that’s what you got, no matter if you played the game in April or later on in September.

As for fixing or not fixing bugs, I have no opinion/comment on that either way and cannot help you on that. I encountered no bugs in SAB while playing. You’ll have to ask someone else about that.

Correct, SAB however, is not an old game. All I am saying is that the reason you gave for why they should not rebalance rewards is silly. As for bugs, I didn’t really pose a question at all, just pointed out that yes it is good to to get rid of some of the old tropes, while keeping others… bug fixes and by extension the inability to change game balance are not one to skip just because it is more in line with how games of that era used to be.

Also, as for the not living world argument, story wise SAB is an incomplete game in development by the Asura known as Moto, so the fact that it keeps changing is perfectly fine narratively and even to be expected.

You’ve totally lost me in all of your fine details. I’m moving on.

Another disgusting bug dealing with 2-2 in tribulation mode: The checkpoint near the end of the level that leads to the icy area is placed on spike traps. You will lose a life sometimes when respawning, and if you respawn after using a continue coin, you will lose a life. Also, falling in that area leads to the loss of two lives. Finally, the checkpoint cloud before the final checkpoint doesn’t work, which means you have to go through the stepping poles all over again if you fail to hit the checkpoint directly before the final boss.

This is absolute bullkitten.

Oh, also, world 2 zone 3 has a new thing now where everything is DARK
I can’t see anything anymore
I don’t know why it’s at night time now when it was semi-bright before
Not sure if this is a bug or it’s just more artificial difficulty that needed to be shoehorned in for god knows why

ThiBash.5634:

I’ll admit I felt the same way for a long time. However, your answers to this post have been adequate to me. Sorry for my own snippy comments too. They may have been a bit too harsh.

Maybe. Maybe not. I still feel the same

Let’s make a totally hypothetical example.
A game company, let’s call it ColiseumNet, creates a new MMO called “Build Wars 2” about who can build the best houses.
During the game’s early life they release frequent patches with which they trial new types of content. One of them, called Super Atomic Bombers, is a tribute to 8-bit shoot ‘em ups.
That particular patch happens to be the most popular by far, with lots of people playing it a lot and heaping praise on it.
ColiseumNet’s higher ups duly take notice. Since the game works on a microtransaction’s business model, they obviously start to think about how to monetize Super Atomic Bombers.

Evil executive A has a brilliant idea: “let’s crank the difficulty of the next installment to eleven and release a cash shop item which brings it back to normal.”
Evil executive B raises an objection: “wouldn’t that cause a strong negative reaction? We could lose too many customers to it”.
Evil executive A prompty replies: "ah but you see, we already profiled similar items from other games in the past. 99% of the purchases of such items are impulse purchases due to frustration and happen in the first 7 days after the introduction of the content, after which the income reduces to an insignificant trifle. So we can simply ask our brilliant coders to have 2 versions ready, the first one with the difficulty cranked up, and the second one with what’s supposed to be the “normal” difficulty level, ready to be patched in after a few days. So we get the money, AND we look like good guys who listen to our customers and make adjustments where needed".

Tinfoil hat conspiracy? might be.

But ask yourself this: do you really, honestly believe, that the guys who decided to introduce the infinite continue coin in the shop, never had a talk about it with the guys who code SAB?
Because if you do, I have a bridge to sell…

MagnusLL.8473:

But ask yourself this: do you really, honestly believe, that the guys who decided to introduce the infinite continue coin in the shop, never had a talk about it with the guys who code SAB?
Because if you do, I have a bridge to sell…

Obviously they had a talk about it, but before your theory holds any water we would need to know which came first the talk or the design.

Tribulation mode was supposed to be a thing in April already, as in they had it in game, but they had to disable it due to it tanking the servers or some such reason. So unless they did a total 180 on their original design for Tribulation mode after such talk or they pre-planned this in April before they had any idea how popular SAB would be or if it would even live to see another day. I can’t see them planning this far in advance to just net few extra microtransaction dollars. Especially when the coin can be bought about 30 in-game gold as well, which people always seem to conveniently forget when coming up with these theories.

Seeing as how large the zones in World 2 are, annoyingly so for the first run, I highly doubt they had the time or the man power to do such radical changes in what is three to four months development time (including QA presumably) with their current four team setup.

Assuming Josh isn’t lying through his teeth in this topic, World 2 suffered from feature creep… and some people working on it way more than anyone expected them to. I doubt they could have prepared two versions in advance even if they wanted to. Also the hotfix has some suggestions directly from this topic so it obviously wasn’t pre-planned.

Also, the over arching progression to SAB was roughly planned in April as is evidenced by the fact that upgrades beyond what was available in April or now were datamined way back then. The super explosive finisher for instance is apparently the same animation as the final upgrade to bombs inside SAB.

Yes, they did nerf bauble farming but they added continue coin drops inside SAB which wasn’t the case for the April iteration of it (they could only be bought from Moto, or farmed from jumping puzzles other than SAB itself, both of which can still be done).

raahk.2786:

Oh, also, world 2 zone 3 has a new thing now where everything is DARK
I can’t see anything anymore
I don’t know why it’s at night time now when it was semi-bright before
Not sure if this is a bug or it’s just more artificial difficulty that needed to be shoehorned in for god knows why

Those darkened areas are intended to be places to use the torch (the light sticks around, it is not just for burning things), candle provided far less light, so it makes sense that darker areas in World 1 would not be completely dark.

The blizzard on the other hand is very manageable without the torch, assuming you are not zoomed all the way out. The Moto’s Finger area is probably the hardest bit of the blizzard section and it is completely optional.

Crise.9401:

raahk.2786:

Oh, also, world 2 zone 3 has a new thing now where everything is DARK
I can’t see anything anymore
I don’t know why it’s at night time now when it was semi-bright before
Not sure if this is a bug or it’s just more artificial difficulty that needed to be shoehorned in for god knows why

Those darkened areas are intended to be places to use the torch (the light sticks around, it is not just for burning things), candle provided far less light, so it makes sense that darker areas in World 1 would not be completely dark.

The blizzard on the other hand is very manageable without the torch, assuming you are not zoomed all the way out. The Moto’s Finger area is probably the hardest bit of the blizzard section and it is completely optional.

No, I just remember it being..brighter, at the start, but my mind is sort of buggy so maybe I just thought it was.

I think the changes in the last patch are a great improvement. They made things more fair, and the difficulty curve less steep.

That said, they should fix the bugged checkpoint, and the bugged checkpoint cloud in TM. That’s absolute rubbish.

Ok. I have no problem with the content being difficult. They are achievements after all, and meant to be tough.

I am currently trying to get to Moto’s finger, the last item I need for the Enchantment achievement. This is the first time in all the content where I feel like skill of the player makes no difference. I can do everything perfectly and still be knocked to my death repeatedly by flying mountain goats. You hear them coming, but can’t see them.

Then, if you are finally able to get lucky enough to survive the flying goats, you need to make a series of jumps onto disintegrating clouds that cannot be distinguished from the incessant fog.

There were some really difficult spots in SAB one where I died countless times and wanted to pull out my hair—NEVER did I feel like my skill couldn’t get me past. I felt like there was always something for me to figure out and do. This seems random and nearly sadistic.

I am trying to give you guys at A-Net the benefit of the doubt, but seems curious that this one is SO much more difficult now that there is a real world money Gem Store item people can buy if they die too much.

I really hope that’s not the idea. Get people hooked, and then get them to open their wallets because players are certain to fail.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

Ok. I have no problem with the content being difficult. They are achievements after all, and meant to be tough.

I am currently trying to get to Moto’s finger, the last item I need for the Enchantment achievement. This is the first time in all the content where I feel like skill of the player makes no difference. I can do everything perfectly and still be knocked to my death repeatedly by flying mountain goats. You hear them coming, but can’t see them.

Then, if you are finally able to get lucky enough to survive the flying goats, you need to make a series of jumps onto disintegrating clouds that cannot be distinguished from the incessant fog.

There were some really difficult spots in SAB one where I died countless times and wanted to pull out my hair—NEVER did I feel like my skill couldn’t get me past. I felt like there was always something for me to figure out and do. This seems random and nearly sadistic.

I am trying to give you guys at A-Net the benefit of the doubt, but seems curious that this one is SO much more difficult now that there is a real world money Gem Store item people can buy if they die too much.

I really hope that’s not the idea. Get people hooked, and then get them to open their wallets because players are certain to fail.

Since the patch, the UNintended difficulty seems to be resolved.

The part you’re talking about it hard, but definitely doable.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

Ok. I have no problem with the content being difficult. They are achievements after all, and meant to be tough.

I am currently trying to get to Moto’s finger, the last item I need for the Enchantment achievement. This is the first time in all the content where I feel like skill of the player makes no difference. I can do everything perfectly and still be knocked to my death repeatedly by flying mountain goats. You hear them coming, but can’t see them.

Then, if you are finally able to get lucky enough to survive the flying goats, you need to make a series of jumps onto disintegrating clouds that cannot be distinguished from the incessant fog.

There were some really difficult spots in SAB one where I died countless times and wanted to pull out my hair—NEVER did I feel like my skill couldn’t get me past. I felt like there was always something for me to figure out and do. This seems random and nearly sadistic.

I am trying to give you guys at A-Net the benefit of the doubt, but seems curious that this one is SO much more difficult now that there is a real world money Gem Store item people can buy if they die too much.

I really hope that’s not the idea. Get people hooked, and then get them to open their wallets because players are certain to fail.

The goat bounces along a set path. You can see it. You can let it go by you and then move forward.

Goat’s are trivial and the “elite” skills are optional, I believe back in April they were saying that they would not be needed to progress through any future levels… but it has been several months.

Thanks for the replies… I will look for the goats again and see if I can find the pattern. I will also try to adjust my screen settings for contrast. I am just not making anything out at all. Maybe I need to get my eyes checked, lol.

Post script: Thanks again for the replies. Adjusted video settings some and was able to see a bit better. Enough to find the pattern in the goats. Finished the achievement not long ago. Very difficult, but yes, doable. Thanks again.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

Thanks for the replies… I will look for the goats again and see if I can find the pattern. I will also try to adjust my screen settings for contrast. I am just not making anything out at all. Maybe I need to get my eyes checked, lol.

It’s not a pattern, it just bounces from 1 square of snow to the next coming towards you if you’re proceeding normally.

Usually there is a place were you can wait for the goats to pass you buy, the checkpoint where you fork to go to the Moto’s finger is one exception, afk there and they repeatedly- kill you (if I am thinking about the right checkpoint, writing down from memory).

If you move to the next platform right after a goat passed you and then find a safe place to wait for the next “wave” before making the next jump… you will never get knocked off by them as long as you repeat this, because the time between goats is plentiful.

I’ve read a lot of complaints saying that people are forced to buy the infinite coin in order to complete tribulation mode,and that is not the case. I can speak for my self,as well as many of my friends that we completed tribulation mode in both World 1 AND 2 without having to spend a time so it’s completely doable. I also completed it within 2 days at my leisure,so I didn’t find it to be that time consuming. I agree it’s challenging,but that was the whole point. They have even made it easier after the patch. I also think Arena Net was extremely generous in adding the infinite coin. You don’t need it.

Fayoria.2569:

I also completed it within 2 days at my leisure,so I didn’t find it to be that time consuming. I agree it’s challenging,but that was the whole point. They have even made it easier after the patch. I also think Arena Net was extremely generous in adding the infinite coin. You don’t need it.

Did you play in bursts of 10 minutes followed by breaks of over an hour? Or did you play in bursts of an hour, followed by a break of 10 minutes? The problem with the time consuming bit is that a single zone takes a long time to finish. So those that can only play for, let’s say, 30 minutes at a time don’t even have to try.

I agree on the coin. It’s nice and I bought it to show that I like the content. I don’t need it. I still have 6 characters with 99 lives (got those in April…) and 30+ continuation coins.

When I heard that there was a purse update in W2Z3, I just had to rush through the other two zones so I could get it. I even found the Eagle, which did make the level really short… (naturally, I had to find him twice because I needed that hand…) I just wish there weren’t those bees up there, so I could enjoy the ride….

I think I might be speaking for a lot of players when I point this out:

There is a difference between creating challenging content and content that is difficult to complete due to random events. I for one really enjoy content that is challenging and was excited when I heard that Super Adventure Box was going to have a hard mode. What I found while playing normal mode was that it was indeed challenging but mostly due to unpredictable events. Like Ninjas not getting hit by attacks, the launcher doesn’t shoot me far enough, hitting my head on invisible walls and falling to my death. I can’t overcome these things by becoming a better player, I just have to hope that they don’t happen. Sure after many deaths I’ll get an attempt that I can get through on but its not due to me or my skills improving, its more like the stars aligning just right for me to get through.

It seems like more and more of the new content is being made “challenging” by having a lot of random effects that can kill you even when you are playing well (Liadri the concealing dark anyone?). I don’t have much interest in finishing Adventure box as it is, but I would like to see challenging content in the future be more about thinking and planning than about praying for the video game gods to smile upon us.

Fayoria.2569:

I’ve read a lot of complaints saying that people are forced to buy the infinite coin in order to complete tribulation mode,and that is not the case.

Yes it is. World 2, zone 2. Hundreds of lives. Hundreds!

Losing 2-3 lives per respawn at that checkpoint is kind of rough. My connection was terribad tonight, so I kept rubberbanding off the tramampomalines and dying. Result: 14 times through moto’s continue chamber.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

I am currently trying to get to Moto’s finger, the last item I need for the Enchantment achievement. This is the first time in all the content where I feel like skill of the player makes no difference. I can do everything perfectly and still be knocked to my death repeatedly by flying mountain goats. You hear them coming, but can’t see them.

Then, if you are finally able to get lucky enough to survive the flying goats, you need to make a series of jumps onto disintegrating clouds that cannot be distinguished from the incessant fog.

I got it yesterday, maybe this helps:

• You’re safe from the goats in the corners of the square pillars that they jump on. I always waited in the corner before the cloud jumps for a bit to gather myself.
• Press 7 to activate the flute before you hop on the clouds.
• The cloud path splits up in two places. The first time you take the path leading to the right, the second time the path leading to the left. It has some longer jumps and a hard right jump in so I counted clouds in my head. It really helped. (Like: “1 – 2 – long jump – 1 – left – long jump – up – up – up – down – press 3 – …” from memory, so this might not be 100% accurate)
• Just before the wall with the mouth there is a group of three clouds.
• Before even jumping on the last group, press “3”. The first note always takes so long to play.
• Jump on one of the clouds in the group. Play “32”
• Jump to cloud #2 of the group. Play “33”
• Jump to cloud #3. Play “1”. Jump into mouth

It took me quite a few tries, but it is doable.

The jumps along the clouds (especially hard right, hard left jumps and slightly longer jumps) are a bit more difficult since you have to be zoomed in in order to see anything. However, one final bit of advice:

Remember that the jumps aren’t that challenging: it is your nerves!

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

There were some really difficult spots in SAB one where I died countless times and wanted to pull out my hair—NEVER did I feel like my skill couldn’t get me past. I felt like there was always something for me to figure out and do. This seems random and nearly sadistic.

Sadistic, yes, absolutely! This part would be hard enough with just clouds + flute (but without fog) or just clouds and fog (without flute). Curses on you, Josh!

I think I spent something like 30+ minutes on Moto’s finger last night. I spend a whole bunch of continue coins (10 or so), but still haven’t bought the infinite continue coin (and I’ve hardly played any PvE this months – just dailies.) I still have 15+ continue coins left.

I spent 2-3 hours on getting Moto’s breath in April. It had some really weird jumps, especially at the beginning, and was extremely unforgiving as you always fell into the green goo. I spend a lot of lives there.
It was made worse by the fact that we suffered from slight latency and therefore additional problems with the jumping mushrooms.

To me, getting the first elite skill was harder than getting the second.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

I am trying to give you guys at A-Net the benefit of the doubt, but seems curious that this one is SO much more difficult now that there is a real world money Gem Store item people can buy if they die too much.

I really hope that’s not the idea. Get people hooked, and then get them to open their wallets because players are certain to fail.

I’m not sure whether I’m in the minority here or not, but that isn’t my impression at all. On the contrary.

Imagine the silver continue coin wasn’t available in the gem store. It would have taken all of 4 hours for people to demand for one, so they can safely fail in both tribulation mode AND the more challenging bits of normal mode. We would have demanded it. And if we would have been really lucky, ANet would have considered it.

Now ANet was a little quicker. That is all.

How did this thread reach 1k+ posts..
If you die for any reason other than technical problems/bugs it’s your own kitten ed fault. You don’t have skill. Get better at the game or suffer.
End of story.

Antediluvian.5169:

How did this thread reach 1k+ posts..
If you die for any reason other than technical problems/bugs it’s your own kitten ed fault. You don’t have skill. Get better at the game or suffer.
End of story.

There were a number of technical problems/bugs. (Josh admitted that the geysers were bugged and in his words were “terribad”.) Many posts are documenting bugged areas, or areas that are too unforgiving to any amount of latency. A lot of the posts complaining about “nerfs” have not looked at the changes in the context of the dialogue going on in this thread.

rfdarko.4639:

Antediluvian.5169:

How did this thread reach 1k+ posts..
If you die for any reason other than technical problems/bugs it’s your own kitten ed fault. You don’t have skill. Get better at the game or suffer.
End of story.

There were a number of technical problems/bugs. (Josh admitted that the geysers were bugged and in his words were “terribad”.) Many posts are documenting bugged areas, or areas that are too unforgiving to any amount of latency. A lot of the posts complaining about “nerfs” have not looked at the changes in the context of the dialogue going on in this thread.

This is a thread where you have to skip to the end. You can’t enter it at any point but the end because it’s a continually evolving conversation about the state of the game.

I have a question for the developer, Josh. Have the JP(s) and SAB been tested using only the keyboard for moving and jumping? If not, they should because that should be the baseline for the difficulty. Not all of us can do mouse-directed movement (especially us older folks). I strongly suggest any new content be base-lined without mouse directed movement.

To the people trying to get moto’s finger. If you zoom all the way in you can see the clouds and it becomes much easier than trying to memorize the path. I tried changing my resolution/contrast/brightness and it never helped. Zooming it makes it much easier to see.

curtegg.5216:

I have a question for the developer, Josh. Have the JP(s) and SAB been tested using only the keyboard for moving and jumping? If not, they should because that should be the baseline for the difficulty. Not all of us can do mouse-directed movement (especially us older folks). I strongly suggest any new content be base-lined without mouse directed movement.

Sorry, but mouse directed is the standard for this game. You can play without the mouse, I guess, but it’s definitely not the intended design.

Crise.9401:

Yes, and my point is why should they let you get infinite bauble’s for almost no effort and by extension bauble bubble’s.

They should have made them all character bound, and capped the runs per day at the number of available character slots. At this time, the blue skins simply take too long- I’ve gotten six tribulation skins in three days, but only enough bubbles for 2 regular skins.

The original sab release, meanwhile motivated me to get the sixth character slot I’d been debating.

The only problem I have with this game is that in many areas if the assassins land one attack on you, you will die. You get hit then knocked 1) off a ledge 2) into water 3) into darts

There needs to be either a way to standing parry them or remove the knock back and make it a flat knock down

Scaramuth.2317:

…

What I found while playing normal mode was that it was indeed challenging but mostly due to unpredictable events. Like Ninjas not getting hit by attacks, the launcher doesn’t shoot me far enough, hitting my head on invisible walls and falling to my death. I can’t overcome these things by becoming a better player, I just have to hope that they don’t happen. Sure after many deaths I’ll get an attempt that I can get through on but its not due to me or my skills improving, its more like the stars aligning just right for me to get through.
…

Hm? What kind of unpredictable events? The ones you said were probably bugs due to your latency… Not a thing random by design.

I’d like to give my input in this:

Josh, SAB is one of my favourite modes, and I’ve found its brought back many fond memories of my childhood games.

As for difficulty, I enjoyed world 2 zones 1 – 3, (including the dart traps) <— nice touch… (PS. I know I’m a little late jumping in the discussion here)..
Once I got the path, it became much easier to do things (including the gong tower).

I live in South Africa (so latency, I have), however, I enjoyed the timing mechanics of the geysers (I see they were since made static though), and trying to find my way around the rapids (after much sliding backwards, I got the jumps).. and found the (secret? ) routes around the rapids.

I’ve found SAB to be one of my favourite modes/ challenges, since Jumping Puzzles are some of my favourite content in GW2

I’ve now done tribulation mode worlds 1 and 2, and (apart from a checkpoint/spike and checkpoint/cloud bug in zone 2) I’ve really enjoyed it.

The enemies react very much like they used to in games that I used to play (took a while to figure out good ways to fight them) :P

I only realised there was a difficulty nerf later < I realise that this is to accomodate most players, but I will say that I really did enjoy it as it was

So, thanks for this mode.

Piogre.2164:

Crise.9401:

Yes, and my point is why should they let you get infinite bauble’s for almost no effort and by extension bauble bubble’s.

They should have made them all character bound, and capped the runs per day at the number of available character slots. At this time, the blue skins simply take too long- I’ve gotten six tribulation skins in three days, but only enough bubbles for 2 regular skins.

The original sab release, meanwhile motivated me to get the sixth character slot I’d been debating.

Yes, that’s the only thing bugging me too. I finally have all the upgrades from world 2, so now all my baubles can go into bubbles, but no way will I be able to get all skins. Now, if we know they’ll come back when world 3 will be released, I don’t mind because I’ll have another shot at them. But as it is, I’m a bit miffed I cannot complete my collection of skins.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Piogre.2164:

Crise.9401:

Yes, and my point is why should they let you get infinite bauble’s for almost no effort and by extension bauble bubble’s.

They should have made them all character bound, and capped the runs per day at the number of available character slots. At this time, the blue skins simply take too long- I’ve gotten six tribulation skins in three days, but only enough bubbles for 2 regular skins.

The original sab release, meanwhile motivated me to get the sixth character slot I’d been debating.

Yes, that’s the only thing bugging me too. I finally have all the upgrades from world 2, so now all my baubles can go into bubbles, but no way will I be able to get all skins. Now, if we know they’ll come back when world 3 will be released, I don’t mind because I’ll have another shot at them. But as it is, I’m a bit miffed I cannot complete my collection of skins.

I must agree. It’s not so much ‘hard’ now, but long and annoying. It feels like you MUST farm baubles to get the upgrades, skins if you want them, and/or the mini as well.

Grinding for baubles in an 8-bit game isn’t exactly what I expected from Guild Wars 2.

I’ve hardly ever given up on anything I’ve played, but World 2 Zone 2 was the first time I felt that I was running into a brick wall. I liked that there were some clever puzzles you had to work out, but I didn’t like the manner in which you were punished (repeatedly) if you failed.

Dying endlessly is not fun.

Entry into the ‘fish temple’ is annoyingly difficult as you’re forced to jump onto that small pillar (monument?) whilst dozens of fish fly past you, meaning the jump has to be made very quickly. The gong run was simply put the single most frustrating experience I have ever faced. Not only because you have to do so much just to get to the gong, but also because even AFTER you survive the run you’re then tasked with making yet more hair raising jumps with no continue spots.

I gave up at this point after spending more than 50 lives in the attempt. To put some contrast in, I can complete the whole of World 1 without losing a single life, and even World 2 zone 1. The jump in difficulty was ridiculous.

I really love SAB, and it pains me that I won’t be able to enjoy it fully. When it first came out I felt that it was one of the most enjoyable additions they made. But that second zone was a killer and sapped my enjoyment so much that I can’t help leaving with a very disappointed feeling.

It’s great that some people still enjoy it and to those people, more power to you. But for me, I think the love affair ended with those dart traps. They’re just too many and often too unfairly placed for such an early stage. It felt more like the map was intentionally trying to kill me rather than entertain, and that’s never a good sign.

Until next we meet, SAB.

Josh Foreman.8250:

It’s most helpful to us if you are specific about areas that have difficulty spikes for you.

You want to hear comments, about specific difficulty spikes??
LOOK AT THE WHOLE W2Z2

This world area is more insane, than anything in W1 before, cause of lots of absolutely unforgiving instant kill traps in those pagodas full of overpowered assassins.

So we can begin first maybe by balancing this difficulty peak by letting SAB SCALE by the amount of participating players, so that if you run those places Solo, that you have to kill then also lesser enemies.

Next point. The instant kill traps – make them for infantile mode and normal mode more forgiving.

But thats not the most annoying thing of W2Z2. The most annoying thing is that huge pagoda with the gong on the top, that either forces you to run with it and risk multiple times your lives due to the dumb instant kill dart traps everywhere , or forces you to kill yourself to be quick enough down at the spot where you need that goong to pass through 3 annoying dart traps that block your way out of the pagoda..

If you fail here, you always have to make the dumb way back up to the gong.
Yes, you implemented that stone thing to be able to create a short cut, but what helps this pointless shortcut, when you can use it only, once your done with the pagoda??

Why can’t you just implement a normal short cut, that allows players to skip this pagoda hell, without having to make it, by placing somewhere a hidden switch, that lets us DEACTIVATE the annoying dart traps in that pagoda, because that awful pagoda is anyways just only important for people, which want the become a master achievement, as it has no spheres, just only on every floor a bunch of assassins that need to be killed for the achievemen.

Really I absolutely can’t imagine at all, how ridiculously way too hard the Tribulation Mode of W2Z2 must be, if even the infantile mode is so super annoying hard that it totally scares me off to ever put a single feet again into that place, after collecting all spheres there, when .yes when oh I nearly forgot.. the bachelor of spheres achievement for that place wouldn’t be BUGGED STILL.
I tried that achievement yesteday, followed the video guide of dulfy, which are always perfect so far and I didn’t got the achievement at the end of that hourlong collecting mess of getting the 42 needed spheres finding all 3 chests, 9 hidden rooms and doing some increadible hard jumps that require sometimes even to “dodge jump” just to be able to jump far enough.
A Move, that even doesn’t officially exist in the game that can be used by just 1 button press, but that is more kind of a positive not harmful movement glitch that seems to be tolerated by you Anet by pressing Tab and V together to jump and dodge at the same time (a thing what would make certain Trib Spots surely impossible to do, like W1Z1 with those lots of Whump Stones as they have a way too big shockwave effect that can catch you even mid air off, which can be only avoided by dodge jumps that are also always a risk to use, because they never execute 100%ly.

Often you fail those jumps, because the character makes only a normal jump or doesn’t jump but dodges only, as you have to press both buttons really at the same time.
Just 1 button pressed a millisecond too early and you don’t execute a perfect needed dodge jump, cause its a move, that doesn’t officially exist in the game.
Here I’d suggest, that if you really seem to tolerate this move and using this isn’t an exploit to you Anet, why can’t you make then not out of Dodge Jumps a real implemented Move, that can be executed 100% sure by just 1 button press???
Example = V for normal Dodge, press Y/X for Dodge Jump as Y/X has currently no usage in the game)

Another thing that could scale down when playing solo is the End Boss HP/Cage HP and rewards. There you always see, that they are designed for groups. Naturally what could be scaled down too could be the Sphere Rewards that you get for example only half of the rewards when you play solo. That would also give a great incentive to people to play together with groups to maximize their rewards instead of doing everything just only solo what shouldn’t be the intention of the SAB as the game itself always tells you that it is made for 5 man groups!!!!

I really hope you take these complaints/suggestions to your heart Anet (even if you can hear out my frustration out of this that makes it partwise maybe sound like just a rant …)

What’s this pagoda everybody is talking about? I’ve done zone 2 in normal and infantile mode, and didn’t encounter this gong bit… At least not with the annoyance everybody else is apparently experiencing…

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

What’s this pagoda everybody is talking about? I’ve done zone 2 in normal and infantile mode, and didn’t encounter this gong bit… At least not with the annoyance everybody else is apparently experiencing…

I found the gong section ok.. on infant, normal, and tribulation (there seems to be nothing different in TM for it) . Reminds me of Indiana Jones.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

What’s this pagoda everybody is talking about? I’ve done zone 2 in normal and infantile mode, and didn’t encounter this gong bit… At least not with the annoyance everybody else is apparently experiencing…

A recent patch changed parts of this zone. The gong section specifically now has less dart traps, and they switch sides less frequently. Before it was extremely hard to keep up with the gong, and switch to the correct side of it. So it’s much easier and less frustrating than it was before.

I still think this zone should be a lot shorter, and easier. It’s a bit of a drag.

Orpheal.8263:

(snip) doing some increadible hard jumps that require sometimes even to “dodge jump” just to be able to jump far enough.
A Move, that even doesn’t officially exist in the game that can be used by just 1 button press, but that is more kind of a positive not harmful movement glitch that seems to be tolerated by you Anet by pressing Tab and V together to jump and dodge at the same time (a thing what would make certain Trib Spots surely impossible to do, like W1Z1 with those lots of Whump Stones as they have a way too big shockwave effect that can catch you even mid air off, which can be only avoided by dodge jumps that are also always a risk to use, because they never execute 100%ly.

Often you fail those jumps, because the character makes only a normal jump or doesn’t jump but dodges only, as you have to press both buttons really at the same time.
Just 1 button pressed a millisecond too early and you don’t execute a perfect needed dodge jump, cause its a move, that doesn’t officially exist in the game.

As Josh stated earlier in this thread, dodge jump is never required, even in TM. I recognize it is really usefull to make some jumps easier though. And FYI, you should dodge after jumping to execute a proper dodge jump. The timing is extremely narrow but can be mastered with practise.

Thank you for the changes. My husband and I were finally able to beat all of world 2 together without getting overly frustrated. The only thing is that the levels are way too long. I’m glad I beat world 2 but i think i’ll hang around in world 1 for the majority of the time =3

I only got into SAB after the patch, so I don’t know how significant the changes were, but I can say I’ve found sections of it very difficult. Times ‘very difficult’ by around a billion for Tribulation mode.

But that’s the nature of things; some folk find this kind of challenge a breeze – anyone who can get though any of the Trib zones with zero deaths, I am in awe of you – while others find it a struggle getting from one checkpoint to the next without dying multiple times.

At the end of the day though, as frustrating as I have found it at times (as much due to my own lack of skill, let’s be honest), I have, on the whole, enjoyed SAB. I’ve completed World 1 Zones 1 and 2 in Trib mode, and fully intend to complete Zone 3 and then World 2. And many, many more death will ensue.

It’s not fun (for me). I got burnt out after getting all the baubles/secret rooms in 2-1 and I didn’t to go back. Aside from being too large and having too many new mechanics/world it was also very very long, but these are things I’m sure you’ve heard many many times by now.

I’ll finish the achievements, because I am a kitten and I can’t stand having only some completed, but I do so with a grudge, not because it was fun.

Furthermore making everything account bound is completely 100% lame. In SAB 1 I would go and do it multiple times a day on all my characters, it was fun and I got rewarded for it, now it seems like a chore to bring out a single character.

I’ll give world 3 a shot whenever that comes out since Josh seems like the kind of person that learns from his mistakes. (Sorry you got your forum privileges revoked Josh, your honesty and straightforwardness is far too much for anet to handle)

The original SAB was made fun because it was a surprise to us all and it was the most fun a minigame had to offer, especially for the elder-gamer. This time, even after the adjustments have been made to ease things from the ramped-up state they were in before, it’s still at a point of difficulty where the minigame that it was before (fun) is no longer.

Assassins are a right PITA, and getting bounced off the chest platform at the end of each zone (be it through lag or slow reactions, the latter probably because I don’t play like everybody else does (see below)) are the pinnacle of frustration.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Some number of people hit a little resistance and quit and come to complain about it. And some number hit that same resistance and are inspired to overcome it and they are in the game right now doing that. I don’t have a good sense of those numbers are right now. I’m more than happy to adjust it when I have better data to work from. Thanks for your feedback.

Josh, the resistance comes from not only making this content harder, but also the fact that the content isn’t even permanent. I’m glad to see it’s made a return to the game, but those people who play casually and try to get their AP’s for this content won’t bother with it because it’s just not fun anymore, and so if/when it makes another comeback in the future, I’m guessing it’ll again be temporary, and the casual players will have to play catchup AND endure the stress this now induces. This isn’t fun.

There’s one thing you haven’t allowed for here, and that’s people who don’t use mouse-look for directionality. As a consequence, my reaction times might be slower than everyone else’s, but I can’t adapt to the mouse-look method AND jump when required. A lot of people probably won’t know what this is like, but I’ve tried my hardest to master this technique (WASD, Spacebar & mouse-look) on other games like Skyrim and the like, but I fall into the same trap each time where I’m more used to using arrow keys and spacebar and can’t get the coordination right like most other players will.

This is the bane of my playing style and shows up worst during jumping puzzles. Throwing in unknowns like those relentless assassins (and almost zero thinking time) on top of what was a great minigame back in April, tends to sap the fun out of it for me. I had heard of a lot of people on my server talking about how hard this iteration of SAB was and that kind of put me off it a bit, because if they can master jumping puzzles better than I can, for instance, I know I’m gonna be screwed when it comes to something like this.

If the purpose of making this harder was in the spirit of learning progress, then ok I can see where you’re coming from… but as was alluded to in a post from some 20-something pages back, if it’s in the spirit of getting people to cave in to convenience and get the infinite continue coin from the gem store because it’s just easier, then that is bad ethics and I won’t be taking part in what used to be a great minigame.

Good job on the patch, great fixes overall, kudos for listening to feedback folks.

Edit: Josh, just read your blog post. Boo on anet for giving you crap about actually being open and communicating with the playerbase the way all devs should. You should be giving communication classes to them!

It’s alright to make mistakes if one is willing to own up to them and work on a resolution as you guys did, I’m sure you’ve all learned from this experience and the next SAB release will be only better for it. Just keep up the good work and don’t get discouraged.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Josh and his team, and Arena Net for SAB. I have thouroughly enjoyed and continue to enjoy the Super Adventure Box, and frankly it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in game.

In terms of difficulty I would say they have it very nicely balanced with the three modes. I love Tribulation mode (though frustrating at times :p) I feel the harder something is to complete, the better one feels about earning the skins and titles associated, and the more prestige they hold. I have done all of SAB in every mode, and it is possible! It just requires some timing and endurance (both in game and out