Guild Wars 2

…but for the wrong crowd.

We get it, Tribulation Mode is where your true passion lies. However, while you’re obviously a talented designer, you completely misjudged the intrests (and skill level) of your target audience.

Things that non-hardcore player find too frustrating:
-Some of the non-cloud jumps in Infantile Mode are rather tough. For a mode designed for non-jumpers, that should never happen.
-The sword ninjas move to fast and require too specific aiming to hit (basically, you get 5 misses for every hit). Gets better with the chain stick thank the heavens.
-The throwing star ninjas’ projectiles cannot always be reflected. Sometimes they only block, sometimes they hit you regardless of reflecting. The glove’s timing is off compared to the attacks, to the point where just sucking up hits and using the catapult is a safer tactic.
-Ninja that ambushes you and throws you off the platform right after you take the last teleporter, forcing you to start all over.
-Gong bit that, if you’re too slow, forces you to go all the way back up again (and try remembering all traps when you have 4 completely similar floors).
-Ninjas knocking people off platforms in general.
-Ninjas sometimes knocking off, sometimes not.
-Instant kills in general.
-The fish tanks are instant-kill zones.
-Dodging past the fish tanks on the sides of the board reveals that there’s no platform behind it. The ‘scenery’ covers it up nicely. Tribulation Mode tactic.
-The frog hidden around the corner, sucking you up instantly and (often) killing you instantly the first time you meet it.
-The gong pagoda part requires a completely illogical path to be taken. Again, this is Tribulation stuff that shouldn’t have been in the normal game (or not that extreme anyway).
-The Storm Wizard requires some extremely vague dodging tactics in the 2nd part of phase 1. At least the Frog telegraphed its attacks.
-Owls stealing our hard earned baubles, making it impossible to relax and take in the next problem. You have to keep moving.
-Having to go back and grind the first 3 zones to get the torch. It would have been less annoying if the ‘go back’ had been reworked to ‘known upfront so we didn’t have to do everything all over again’.

Some other points for consideration:
You yourself advertised Tribulation Mode as being “not for everyone”, “where lives are cheap”. As for the first part, people can more or less accept that…provided you keep the Tribulation elements out of the main game. Finding out the hard way that some things will kill you instantly isn’t fun. And while the dart traps are somewhat visible, not all of them are. Especially the Gong Pagoda bit would gain a lot from having them appear on both sides.

As for the lives are cheap bit, making baubles harder to get whilst at the same time make an Infinite Continue Coin available for cash is sure to get players angry. But I trust you know that by now. :-)

All in all, I’m grateful that you spent so much of your own time on the SAB. However, there’s quite a few things in it that just add to frustration, and that’s the worst ingame emotion. As Scrooge McDuck used to say: “Work smarter, not harder!”. Personally, I think that would apply to you as well. A bit more thought next time can save you a lot of grief.

Agreed. I hated World 2 in normal mode, it has these weird bursts of brutality that make no sense there. Playing in tribulation, on the other hand, really lets the zone shine. From world 1 tribulation to world 2 tribulation the jump in difficulty and stage length makes sense, whereas in normal mode it’s just infuriating. It’s a little better since the nerf patch, but it’s still far too great a leap from the very forgiving world 1 to the suddenly relentless world 2. While I’ve grown to love tribulation mode it seems very unkind to the playerbase at large to base the content around it.

Which is odd because World 2 Zone 1 is spot on in terms of difficulty level. It’s zone 2 where things really go overboard.

Here is where you’re wrong OP. He reached his target audiance. SAB is a game with in a game. Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Tribulation mode is extreme yes, but even the SAB was advertised to be a more challenging jumping puzzle.

World 1 was a totorial, but the difficulty was always going to increase.

This is a small bit of higher difficulty content with in a big game of more casual, passive content.

There is nothing wrong with releasing niche cotent with in your game to cater to different groups of players at different times.

The mistake you are making is that all content should be for all people all the time, because no content can be that.

CryxTryx.9208:

The mistake you are making is that all content should be for all people all the time, because no content can be that.

You’ve misread my post. I’m perfectly fine with things like Tribulation Mode existing in the game. However, for normal mode his target audience should be the majority people playing Guild Wars 2. Now, like I said, I have no issues with Tribulation Mode being painfully hard. It was announced that way, it was intended that way and if I can’t complete it, I have only myself to blame because I was warned in advance.

Normal mode however, is even called normal mode. It shouldn’t be stupidly easy (that’s what infantile mode is for) but when you have a specific mode for hard, unpredicatble and unfair content, it has no place in normal mode to the extent that is currently present.

Wheter Josh reached his intended target audience is irrelevant. The fact is that for the majority of the players, normal mode is too frustrating, not too hard. If they’d like frustrating they would have played Tribulation Mode. Forcing it down their throats in Normal Mode is just bad design.

CryxTryx.9208:

Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Then what’s the point in having 3 modes? To have 2 modes for highly skilled players and one for bots, and nothing in between?

The main issue lies with the hidden instant kill stuff in zone 2. The rest of the content is fine.

OP you also mention certain things like ‘instant death’ not being fun.

I hate to break this to you, but that is subjective opinion and in no way fact.

Even before I tried out tribulation mode I had lots of fun with the dart trap puzzle.

So If I say it is fun and you say it isn’t, where does that leave us. Where we have always been, there is nothing wrong with the content, no content is for everyone.

For example, I hate crab toss. To me, it is not fun at all. However you don’t see me on the forums complaining about it and spouting it off as fact.

Your ‘advise’ for Josh, a brave, artist and profession in his field is just one more opinionated blog post. Posting your opinion about the content is fine, trying to pass it off as fact and wisdom however makes a lot of assumptions.

What is this ‘unpredictable and unfair’ content you mention? When you play a platformer or an action game, do you know all the enemy placements in advance or what their attacks do? A modicum of frustrating obstacles is essential to a successful game. It’s by overcoming these frustrating challenges that you get your reward: a sense of accomplishment. If you cannot deal with the slightest frustration my advice is to stay out of SAB, it will only get harder from now on.

ThiBash.5634:

His target audience should be the people playing Guild Wars 2. Now, like I said, I have no issues with Tribulation Mode being painfully hard. It was announced that way, it was intended that way and if I can’t complete it, I have only myself to blame because I was warned in advance.

Normal mode however, is even called normal mode. It shouldn’t be stupidly easy (that’s what infantile mode is for) but when you have a specific mode for hard, unpredicatble and unfair content, it has no place in normal mode to the extent that it’s currently present.

And wheter Josh reached his intended target audience is irrelevant. He should cater to the Guild Wars 2 players. And there’s room for improvement on that front.

CryxTryx.9208:

Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Then what’s the point in having 3 modes? To have 2 modes for highly skilled players and one for bots, and nothing in between?

The main issue lies with the hidden instant kill stuff in zone 2. The rest of the content is fine.

Many Guild Wars players loved this content. I’m not sure what is hard to understand about it being impossible for everyone to love all of the content.

You are posting this because you had a problem with it, and for no other reason. It didn’t specifically cater to you and so all of the suddenit is not for Guild Wars players. That amount of entitlment egocentric view is pretty astonishing.

Not everyone likes every update. The game has enough content to allow for that.

The next update you might love and I might hate. But you won’t catch me on the forums proclaiming that it wasn’t desinged with guild Wars playesr in mind

CryxTryx.9208:

OP you also mention certain things like ‘instant death’ not being fun.

I hate to break this to you, but that is subjective opinion and in no way fact.

Granted, that’s true. It can get very tedious to have to walk all the way back all the time because you missed a small thing. If you like that, good for you. A large number of players does not. Hence we can cater to both by not having it in Normal Mode, and lots of it in Tribulation Mode. Everybody’s happy right?

For example, I hate crab toss. To me, it is not fun at all. However you don’t see me on the forums complaining about it and spouting it off as fact.

Crab Toss has no Tribulation Mode.

Your ‘advise’ for Josh, a brave, artist and profession in his field is just one more opinionated blog post. Posting your opinion about the content is fine, trying to pass it off as fact and wisdom however makes a lot of assumptions.

My apologies for trying to help ArenaNet improve their game so more people can enjoy it. I’m obviously annoying you too so I’d best get on my knees and beg for forgiveness?

My advice for Josh, was well meant. He’s obviously worked hard and got a lot of grief. Rather than giving him more grief I tried to give him some constructive criticism. I take it you don’t appreciate that either and would rather see me bashing him instead?

CryxTryx.9208:

Many Guild Wars players loved this content. I’m not sure what is hard to understand about it being impossible for everyone to love all of the content.

You are posting this because you had a problem with it, and for no other reason. It didn’t specifically cater to you and so all of the suddenit is not for Guild Wars players. That amount of entitlment egocentric view is pretty astonishing.

Not everyone likes every update. The game has enough content to allow for that.

The next update you might love and I might hate. But you won’t catch me on the forums proclaiming that it wasn’t desinged with guild Wars playesr in mind

I’m guessing the huge thread with complaints doesn’t exist then. My mistake, must be China altering my internet again.

ThiBash.5634:

CryxTryx.9208:

Many Guild Wars players loved this content. I’m not sure what is hard to understand about it being impossible for everyone to love all of the content.

You are posting this because you had a problem with it, and for no other reason. It didn’t specifically cater to you and so all of the suddenit is not for Guild Wars players. That amount of entitlment egocentric view is pretty astonishing.

Not everyone likes every update. The game has enough content to allow for that.

The next update you might love and I might hate. But you won’t catch me on the forums proclaiming that it wasn’t desinged with guild Wars playesr in mind

I’m guessing the huge thread with complaints doesn’t exist then. My mistake, must be China altering my internet again.

Huge threads for complains exist in many forms and multiple threads for nearly every aspect of the game. In fact the Guild Wars 2 forum in general has more complaints then anything else.

Yet I go in game, in my groups, in map chat, in guild chat, everyone seem to be enjoying themselves.

You are taking one thread of the forums to represent the general opinion of all guild wars players? There are just over 1000 replies on this thread, my guess is around 20 or 30 unique posters, lol. There are half a million people logged into Guild Wars 2 at any given time.

This thread, this entire forum in no way represents a majority view of this event, or the game as a whole.

It also stands to reason that the people actually enjoying the content are doing just that instead of coming to the forums to complain. With that in mind it is likely there will always be more negative then positive on the forum which should not be assumed to be true in game.

I hope that offers a little perspective to you.

Tribulation Mode is an extreme mode and is fun to play, however just because I enjoy that content doesn’t mean I don’t play normal mode.

Super Adventure Box has been advertised to be a challenge from the very beginning. When it came out in April it came under fire for being to easy, which is why I am sure Josh ramped it up.

Yes there are three modes. Your argument that the players who want it more difficult should be happy in Tribulation works the same way if I say people complaining about Normal mode should be in infantile mode.

Normal mode was also intended to be a challenge. It is intended to be more challenging then any jumping puzzle currently in game. It is working as intended. Even before the recent nerf.

I don’t know why people take the complaint thread as such a definite show of quality. Like someone just said, there’s only 20-30 unique posters. Honestly, when do you ever go onto a forum and say “man this is pretty good. I like it, thanks”? You don’t. If you like it, you play it. Only one in so many people who like the content will bother to make a thread about it. And even if they do, they aren’t nearly as descriptive about everything. This gives the complainers the illusion of having nothing but fair points.

If you don’t like SAB, don’t play it. ALL the other GW2 content is still there where they left it, so go play that. The fact that you said

“-Some of the non-cloud jumps in Infantile Mode are rather tough. For a mode designed for non-jumpers, that should never happen.”

regarding a platformer minigame just shows that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, just like 80-90% of everyone else who is boo hooing on this forum.

Even on Infantile Mode, World 2 in general was just annoying and stretched on longer than it should have. I still refuse to ever play Zone 3 ever again. Just wanted to get the World 3 preview so I could see the little story bit, so I thought “hey, Infantile Mode, so I can just get there and maybe have fun looking at the level!”

But apparently Infantile Mode is not really an easy mode, just a “We’ll let you skip most of the annoying jumping, but everything else that can be a pain, will still be a pain” mode.

Right…I’ll just stick to World 1.

A few things and then I’m done with you guys and your elitist attitude:

-People that enjoy Tribulation Mode cannot percieve how those that dislike it percieve the game. I don’t blame you for it, but forcing your opinion on me by calling me a whiner isn’t going to make me change mine.
-Don’t like it don’t play it works for forums as well: don’t like it, don’t read it.
-Seperate modes are made specifically because you cannot cater to every player. You obviously completed Tribulation Mode with ease. That means the other modes are easy for you. That doesn’t mean it’s easy per definition, nor that it’s flawless.
-Tribulation Mode was compared to games where the number of lives are irrelevant. Not only is that not true for the Tribulation Mode, there’s also a $7 fee for those that want to play it the way it’s intended.
-It is NOT unreasonable to have something called ‘normal mode’ to be suitable (and fun, don’t forget fun!) to the majority of players. Call it advanced mode instead if that’s a problem. Your friends may like it. Most of mine have a ‘never again’ attitude. The rest hasn’t tried it yet.
-If you design something for a subgroup of players (small or large), it’s unrealistic to demand the remainder to remain quiet.

Raziel.9738:

“-Some of the non-cloud jumps in Infantile Mode are rather tough. For a mode designed for non-jumpers, that should never happen.”

regarding a platformer minigame just shows that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, just like 80-90% of everyone else who is boo hooing on this forum.

That’s a good argument. I have no reply to that. No wait, I do…you don’t have any argument. It looks like a platform game, but it also has Final Fantasy elements. So it’s not strictly a platform game. But that’s irrelevant because:

Infantile Mode is by ArenaNet’s own design made for people who want to experience the Super Adventure Box but are unskilled at jumping. That means that per definition it shouldn’t include tough jumps. To me, you’re the one who has no idea what you’re talking about. The difference however is that I actually have an argument, which ’it’s a platform game’ doesn’t refute.

Finally, I may be a noob in your eyes. I don’t care, nor is it relevant to the discussion.

I’m not sure if you realize that you are simply coming at this from the opposite perspective and perspective and opinion is all it is. Yet because it is your opinion you are precieving it as fact.

All of your points can be countered with the opposite opinion. Here, I’ll respond to your post below.

ThiBash.5634:

A few things and then I’m done with you guys and your elitist attitude: You call me elitist, yet you are offended by being called a whiner. There are just opposite ends of the spectrum. I am not elitist and I don’t think you are a whiner.

-People that enjoy Tribulation Mode cannot percieve how those that dislike it percieve the game. I don’t blame you for it, but forcing your opinion on me by calling me a whiner isn’t going to make me change mine.
People that do not enjoy Tribulation Mode connot percieve how those that disklike it precieve the game. I don’t blame you for it, but forcing your opinion on me me by calling me an elitist isn’t goign to make me change mine. ~ See what happend there?
-Don’t like it don’t play it works for forums as well: don’t like it, don’t read it.
If I stop reading your posts will you agree to stop playing SAB?
-Seperate modes are made specifically because you cannot cater to every player. You obviously completed Tribulation Mode with ease. That means the other modes are easy for you. That doesn’t mean it’s easy per definition, nor that it’s flawless.
I did not complete Tribulation mode with ease. It was very difficult, It took me hours, and many deaths, with out an infinite continue coin. Normal mode World 2 is still a challenge for me. The difference is, I enjoy that challenge and I don’t want it to change.
-Tribulation Mode was compared to games where the number of lives are irrelevant. Not only is that not true for the Tribulation Mode, there’s also a $7 fee for those that want to play it the way it’s intended. The number of lives is always relevent. The penalty for loosing lives is always time. Even in a console platforming game, when you run out of lives the game is over and you start over. I did not use the ICC to complete Tribulation mode.
-It is NOT unreasonable to have something called ‘normal mode’ to be suitable (and fun, don’t forget fun!) to the majority of players. Call it advanced mode instead if that’s a problem. Your friends may like it. Most of mine have a ‘never again’ attitude. The rest hasn’t tried it yet.Normal in this case, is challenging for you and Normal for me, it is subjective. Name it what you want it changes nothing. Super Adventure box was designed to be challenging as a whole.
-If you design something for a subgroup of players (small or large), it’s unrealistic to demand the remainder to remain quiet.

I’m not asking one to be quiet here. Voicing your opinion in a constructive way can be helpful to future development.

We also don’t mean to come of rude with the ’don’t like it don’t play it’ attitude but here is the thing. So far, all of the Guild Wars 2 has been desinged casual. ‘Everyone is a winner’ everyone can complete everything. There is nothing wrong with that, but a portion of the player base has asked for more challenging content and this is what we recieved in response.

You don’t like the content, yet instead of playing the content still available to you, you demand that the content you don’t like be changed so that you do like it.

What we are saying is to let the content created for niche groups be. It doesn’t happen often and it is a small percentage of the content released.

There has been content, events and activities that were not my cup on tea. I didn’t come here asking for them to better suit my play style. I continued to play the content I enjoyed because I reconize the fact that just because I don’t enjoy something others might.

You don’t like the content, yet instead of playing the content still available to you, you demand that the content you don’t like be changed so that you do like it.

I don’t recall ever asking for Tribulation Mode to be easier, since I don’t even play it.

Nilkemia.8507:

You don’t like the content, yet instead of playing the content still available to you, you demand that the content you don’t like be changed so that you do like it.

I don’t recall ever asking for Tribulation Mode to be easier, since I don’t even play it.

You’re not actually reading my posts. I don’t just play Tribulation mode. I play Normal mode as well.

All of SAB is intended to be challenging as from the beginning.

Not to mention as we already have seen changes to Normal also effect Tribulation.

Then stay on Tribulation Mode if Normal Mode is just too easy for you enjoy it. There are 3 difficulty settings for a reason.

Sounds like you’d prefer it if Tribulation Mode was the only mode, which would spell an early grave for the Super Adventure Box if that was how it was back when it first came out.

I actually understand where you’re coming from OP.

All I can say is to think of it this way: The normal mode in SAB is meant to be as hard as every JP that exists currently. That content is meant for normal players too, and I know plenty of people that can’t finish the Aetherblade JP. Those same people will have trouble with SAB. They are the normal ones and are supposed to have trouble with it, in the same way a hard JP would give them trouble. Think of each checkpoint as a hard JP. I can’t think of any part of W2 that I died more than I had died on some of the tough JPs in the past (Mad King especially).

If you think of it that way then you will understand why Normal has some of those tough features in them. It’s supposed to be frustrating.

CryxTryx.9208:

Here is where you’re wrong OP. He reached his target audiance. SAB is a game with in a game. Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Yeah, because World 1 really stressed the skill-based gameplay with instant deaths and unforgiving puzzles.

/sarcasm

CryxTryx.9208:

Here is where you’re wrong OP. He reached his target audiance. SAB is a game with in a game. Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Higher skilled players? LOL. After they added infinite continue coins, all “skill” requirements went out the window. Now it’s just a matter of patience and time.

Zaeon.3846:

CryxTryx.9208:

Here is where you’re wrong OP. He reached his target audiance. SAB is a game with in a game. Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Higher skilled players? LOL. After they added infinite continue coins, all “skill” requirements went out the window. Now it’s just a matter of patience and time.

Well.. There are always pay to win content though you still have to work for it to win.

ThiBash.5634:

…but for the wrong crowd.

You yourself advertised Tribulation Mode as being “not for everyone”, “where lives are cheap”. As for the first part, people can more or less accept that…provided you keep the Tribulation elements out of the main game. Finding out the hard way that some things will kill you instantly isn’t fun. And while the dart traps are somewhat visible, not all of them are. Especially the Gong Pagoda bit would gain a lot from having them appear on both sides.

this.

CryxTryx.9208:

CryxTryx.9208:

Here is where you’re wrong OP. He reached his target audiance. SAB is a game with in a game. Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Higher skilled players? LOL. After they added infinite continue coins, all “skill” requirements went out the window. Now it’s just a matter of patience and time.

And without that infite coin you cannot complete that, because hidden traps are… hidden, no hint, nothing to understand why they are there or how to avoid them… until you die.

Play level 2 two times. Done, now everything’s easy on it.

The design was spot on for me, z1 was a bit overnerfed imo, but I get that the mechanics weren’t working as intended, so it’s fine.
Everything else was really well designed in my opinion, with the exception of TM w2z2 at the end of it where the checkpoints are bugged (it was a hotfix), but they should fix it soon enough.

W2Z1 was nerfed to make it fairer for people with poor latency. There’s videos on Youtube of players getting knocked back by waterspouts that are still clearly in the air, or rubber-banding halfway through a flower jump and falling into the abyss, or getting knocked back by “rapids” even though you obviously made the jump to the rock/log according to your screen.

These are players who have the skills to beat SAB, but they can’t due to getting incorrect information from the game itself. It would like trying to beat a dungeon boss that’s constantly moving, only the game shows you where he was half a second ago and you have to try and guess at his real location to aim your attacks.

Zaeon.3846:

Higher skilled players? LOL. After they added infinite continue coins, all “skill” requirements went out the window. Now it’s just a matter of patience and time.

This is a broken argument. Patience and time are what develop skill. You still have to use skill to complete Trib mode. All the infinite coin does is afford time to the player that would have otherwise been wasted grinding out more baubles for continue coins. There is functionally no difference between walking into Trib mode with 2000 continue coins that you farmed baubles for or an infinite coin that you farmed gold for (or paid for in cash). The only real difference is that one person spent an inordinate amount of time grinding baubles. It’s 80’s arcade design specifically built to make you use more tokens by putting traps in place that ‘skill’ doesn’t help you with. You’re meant to die and memorize by design, then use skill and a good memory to carry you through.

Styx.1047:

Zaeon.3846:

Higher skilled players? LOL. After they added infinite continue coins, all “skill” requirements went out the window. Now it’s just a matter of patience and time.

This is a broken argument. Patience and time are what develop skill. You still have to use skill to complete Trib mode. All the infinite coin does is afford time to the player that would have otherwise been wasted grinding out more baubles for continue coins. There is functionally no difference between walking into Trib mode with 2000 continue coins that you farmed baubles for or an infinite coin that you farmed gold for (or paid for in cash). The only real difference is that one person spent an inordinate amount of time grinding baubles. It’s 80’s arcade design specifically built to make you use more tokens by putting traps in place that ‘skill’ doesn’t help you with. You’re meant to die and memorize by design, then use skill and a good memory to carry you through.

Exactly, TM requires a lot of skill, anyone who did all the levels can vouch for it, world 2 can get pretty insane and frustrating sometimes, the levels are long and require some pretty precise jumps, fast reaction and planning.

I’m loving it. It’s great to have some challenges like this and Liadri. I quit for 8 months because I felt like I had nothing to do. So I’d like to thank those who made it!

Zaeon.3846:

CryxTryx.9208:

Here is where you’re wrong OP. He reached his target audiance. SAB is a game with in a game. Anet obviously gave him artistic licence to develop content geared toward players with a higher skill level.

Higher skilled players? LOL. After they added infinite continue coins, all “skill” requirements went out the window. Now it’s just a matter of patience and time.

If the Infinite Coin rezzed you where you died or something then I’d be inclined to agree with you, but it kicks you back to the checkpoint like anything else. You need skill to get through the levels. If you suck you will be running from checkpoint to death forever. Infinite coin is basically Freeplay mode at an arcade. You can spend as much time as you want, but either you have the skills to beat it or you don’t.

Have you ever played a hard game that has infinte lives? Having those infinite lives really means nothing if you can’t beat the content.

The ones who say it is P2W clearly don’t want/can’t afford to shell out $6-$7 for the Freeplay option (think of it like 28 quarters, I know I spent at least that to get 4 levels into the old Simpson’s arcade game before running out of coins).

Arcades were meant to bring in money. The content was designed for you to die and put more quarters in. Giving people the ability to Freeplay does not make the content any easier, it just saves you money…

How they probably came up with the infinite coin and tribulation mode:

- Hey guys, how can we make money with SAB?
- We could add a gemstore item that gives players infinite lives.
- Yeah but they don’t need that many lives to complete SAB.
- Let’s add a mode that is so hard, where they die so often, that they will NEED infinite lives.
- GENIUS!!!

Zanshin.5379:

- Let’s add a completely optional, billed to be old school hard mode that is so hard, where they die so often, that they will NEED infinite lives like some of those old games required
- GENIUS!!!

Fixed that for you.

Honestly, with all the drops you get from champions now… you can easily, easily buy the infinite coin with gems from converted gold. This ‘muuu it’s pay to win’ nonsense is laughably simple minded. You don’t understand what p2w is.

Raziel.9738:

Honestly, with all the drops you get from champions now… you can easily, easily buy the infinite coin with gems from converted gold. This ‘muuu it’s pay to win’ nonsense is laughably simple minded. You don’t understand what p2w is.

Agreed. I’ve played APB, now that was P2W

For W2-z2, you may learn dodge-jumping and get the shortcut eagle. On the eagle, just stay behind his head, tank the first three waves of owls, drink health potions three times, then repeat until the eagle drops you to the very last boss. Easy, huh?

The main issue lies with the hidden instant kill stuff in zone 2. The rest of the content is fine.

Well, once you die to it it’s not really hidden, isn’t it? So learn from it and move on.

What’s annoying is a game crash in tribulation mode. Normal mode is EASY and I think this whole topic is pointless.

No1 ever said that “normal mode” is “mode for all”. It’s called “normal”, you see. If “normal” is too hard for you then go to “infantile”. They already nerfed everything to the ground to a point that you can do whole world 2 zones 1-2 without losing a single life, probably some guys can do the same with zone 3.

I have absolutely no idea why some1 would think that insta-death areas are frustrating. Learn how to avoid them or don’t do it… :/

Iris Ng.9845:

For W2-z2, you may learn dodge-jumping and get the shortcut eagle. On the eagle, just stay behind his head, tank the first three waves of owls, drink health potions three times, then repeat until the eagle drops you to the very last boss. Easy, huh?

Dodge-jump is not needed there btw. Other than that – I agree.

ThiBash.5634:

you completely misjudged the intrests (and skill level) of your target audience.

Intended audience for SAB are people who are into jumping puzzles/platformers. It’s painstakingly obvious based on complains on the forums that SAB is not for everyone. I wish they hadn’t already completely nerfed the difficulty of world 2 to make it more accessible for people who aren’t into SAB/platforming anyways.

ThiBash.5634:

-Some of the non-cloud jumps in Infantile Mode are rather tough.

I’m very curious what jumps you’re referring too…

ThiBash.5634:

The sword ninjas move to fast and require too specific aiming to hit (basically, you get 5 misses for every hit).

They actually have quite a simple fighting mechanic that’s easy to combat.
wait for them to lunge>sidestep/dodge,>hit twice,>wait for them to lunge.. repeat.
You could also:
wait for them to lunge->dodge,->whip,->kill.

TDWIG.9712

They actually have quite a simple fighting mechanic that’s easy to combat. wait for them to lunge>sidestep/dodge,>hit twice,>wait for them to lunge.. repeat. You could also: wait for them to lunge->dodge,->whip,->kill.

It’s trickier if you have latency like I do, but I generally deal with them by circle-strafing while auto-attacking. Works like a charm as long as you have enough room to move.

ThiBash.5634:

The throwing star ninjas’ projectiles cannot always be reflected. Sometimes they only block, sometimes they hit you regardless of reflecting. The glove’s timing is off compared to the attacks, to the point where just sucking up hits and using the catapult is a safer tactic.

If you can’t get the reflecting timing down… just move abit to the left or right when they throw the stars, or jump. Best to melee them kiting in a circle.

ThiBash.5634:

Ninja that ambushes you and throws you off the platform right after you take the last teleporter, forcing you to start all over.

I assume you mean near the end on world 2? I’ve never experienced this after many runs… so i’m not quite sure.

ThiBash.5634:

Gong bit that, if you’re too slow, forces you to go all the way back up again (and try remembering all traps when you have 4 completely similar floors).

They already removed/made alot of these traps easier. But if it’s still giving people trouble, the extremely easy alternative is to activate the gong, die, and wait for the gong on the ground floor. This way, people who have mastered it don’t need to loose a life, but the difficulty can be avoided for those who don’t like it.

ThiBash.5634:

Ninjas knocking people off platforms in general.

It’s not that hard to dodge them once you’ve figured out their patterns.

ThiBash.5634:

Ninjas sometimes knocking off, sometimes not.

Again, just dodge them and don’t take that risk.

ThiBash.5634:

Instant kills in general.

Welcome to GW2, there’s alot of them everywhere.

The fish tanks are instant-kill zones.

It’s not a platformer without places to avoid. Just don’t jump in the pirahna pools, seems like something your average player would figure out.

ThiBash.5634:

Dodging past the fish tanks on the sides of the board reveals that there’s no platform behind it. The ‘scenery’ covers it up nicely. Tribulation Mode tactic.

Not sure what you’re talking about here.

ThiBash.5634:

The frog hidden around the corner, sucking you up instantly and (often) killing you instantly the first time you meet it.

They nerfed the frogs, they take away like 1 heart now. Also, things are supposed to be harder the first time you experience it. Remember when explorable dungeons were “impossible” at release? not so much anymore…

ThiBash.5634:

The gong pagoda part requires a completely illogical path to be taken. Again, this is Tribulation stuff that shouldn’t have been in the normal game (or not that extreme anyway).

In tribulation you don’t even see the traps. The traps can easily been located if you’re paying attention and planning your route in advanced.

ThiBash.5634:

The Storm Wizard requires some extremely vague dodging tactics in the 2nd part of phase 1. At least the Frog telegraphed its attacks.

It requires learning boss mechanics. It only took me a few runs to learn how to completely avoid his attacks. I honestly believe the average player wouldn’t have much trouble learning his attack patterns/how to dodge them.

ThiBash.5634:

Owls stealing our hard earned baubles, making it impossible to relax and take in the next problem. You have to keep moving.

Dem owls are trolls.

ThiBash.5634:

Having to go back and grind the first 3 zones to get the torch. It would have been less annoying if the ‘go back’ had been reworked to ‘known upfront so we didn’t have to do everything all over again’.

It’s literally 1 minute into the level, and baubles are definitely not scarce.

ThiBash.5634:

You yourself advertised Tribulation Mode as being “not for everyone”, “where lives are cheap”. As for the first part, people can more or less accept that…provided you keep the Tribulation elements out of the main game. Finding out the hard way that some things will kill you instantly isn’t fun. And while the dart traps are somewhat visible, not all of them are. Especially the Gong Pagoda bit would gain a lot from having them appear on both sides.

There’s a big difference between tribulation traps and the dart traps in world 2-2. Everyone has the capability of being observant and planning their route ahead of time to avoid the dart traps.

ThiBash.5634:

As for the lives are cheap bit, making baubles harder to get whilst at the same time make an Infinite Continue Coin available for cash is sure to get players angry. But I trust you know that by now. :-)

In just a few runs of SAB, you can muster up ~50 lives. I’ve also found i can get more baubles now than last time with all the new zones/secrets/digspots. Continue Coin is a convenience item for people who want to save themselves some time or support anet for their content. I think this is an awesome way for people who want to enjoy SAB who are not particulary good at it, especially for people who wouldn’t do tribulation mode otherwise. GW2 has no sub fee and the Continue Coin is an excellent example of why GW2s pay model is so awesome, especially knowing everything gem store can be purchased with gold.