Guild Wars 2

No persistant checkpoint system

No counter for baubles

Still fun, needs work.

Way too many whiners.

Rewards could stand to be a bit better though. If I spend 4 continue coins on 2-2 I hope to have at least some baubles left, but I don’t.

schooled is not funnn

Grinding Lives To Play.

Honestly though, if there were no lives SAB would’ve been much less frustrating. I would have even tried doing trib mode.

Dying repeatedly to try the learn how to beat it is enough of a grind (especially if it takes you HOURS to beat it because it’s so long) AND there’s no checkpoint saving your progress if you decide to take a break, that’s just really silly design IMO.

Other than that it was/would’ve been nice. I actually enjoyed W1 Z1 a lot.

Been there, done that.

TLDR
QQQQ
Body needs 15 characters

But I am playing…

Topher.1684:

But I am playing…

And so am I!

5 words about Tribulation Mode
Pixel jumping has to stop.

Zanshin.5379:

Too long. That’s it.

This. What he said.

I loved the first adventure box. This one seems to have levels that are too long and nowhere near as fun as world 1 imho. But I can deal with that. The biggest issues with this version of the box are lackluster rewards, no developer communication, and its insanely buggy. Spent 3hrs in tribulation mode, beat it, and still did not get an achievement. There is no reason spending that much time on very hard content should be rewarded with nothing.

You suck at jumping.

Only 2 lives available.

How do you know that nobody is playing? I know it often looks that way because everyone is in a private instance.. Its like saying nobody runs COF because you don’t see anyone outside of the gate….

Most of my guild runs it constantly.. seems popular from my point of view..

Fun, but poor incentives.

SAB not for you

W2Z2 has a shortcut, for God’s sake. World 2 had some annoying bugs but they were fixed and many parts were simplified. I feel sorry for Josh…

Thinking outside the Box

I enjoyed W2. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I now run it daily for baubles. Takes me about 45 minutes to finish all 3 zones, and that’s if I take my time.

I am still playing.

Busy with real life.

Little.1635:

must buy, infinite coin
three days, one skin
two three, still bugged
still no, mod answer

These are all wrong.

Absconditus.6804:

No communication from developer(s).

Try reading the forums.

Porterhouse.6304:

Because, as World 1 was designed as a fun experience for the player base…

…World 2 was designed to sell Infinite Continue Coin’s.

Bad grammar, false statement.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

You shouldn’t be too harsh to yourself. I hope you remember that there are still many many players (including myself) who really enjoyed W2. [Only frustrating thing: the terrible Master of Baubles 2 situation – no one knows if its a bug or not, two weeks after release.]
Anyways, I’m sure W3 will be really really great, you’ve learned your lesson, don’t you?

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

I hate to say it, but its true.

As much as I enjoyed W1, I just can’t seem to enjoy W2. For the reasons you said.

Remember the days of nes, how sometimes the games would just cut out and you would lose your progress? And sometimes even saved games would erase. It made me very paranoid…just as I was about to beat the game, boom someone slams the door and the nes game goes out and cycles over and over to the title screen. Yeah…..

Thats how it feels with w2, I’m always very edgy because at any moment I can get a internet outage, a error 7 crash or anything that disrupts progression. After that its GG and I have to start alllllllllll the way over again. Quite frustrating.

A lot of the enemy mechanics are too unforgiving. Ninja’s knockdown is op, because its seems random and you can’t dodge it (because there isn’t very much room to dodge in most parts) and they go invul. I was thinking back about the days of ninja gaiden (nes). All the enemies could knock you back but they also died in one hit. So if you memorized the patterns of the enemies and their lay out on the level, it was possible to go through the entire stage without getting touched.

I don’t like the bauble achievement either, because you must do the entire stage without d/c to earn it. If it was done in the same way as the secrets achievements, were it has a counter then it would be ok.

Darts should be nerfed too, its very punishing for something so unsuspecting.

Already beat World Two

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

The difficulty spikes aren’t that bad in and of themselves but that combined with the longer levels do make it feel very tedious at times.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

I am fine with all of that. But Turn off the timer after the boss fights (frog) on tribulation mode. It sucks to spends tons of time in there and not get any credit because you somehow died after the boss died, but before you could get to the chest were warped out.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

Difficulty spike, yah. The jumps are just as difficult as they were in w1, maybe slightly more, it’s just less forgiving.

Inadequate rewards? Can’t farm? Oh thank GOD!

It’s a mini game. It shouldn’t be farmed. One of the things I absolutely did NOT like from SAB w1 release was that you were able to get legendary materials from it. This made people farm farm farm and FARM HARDER and more. It took people away from dungeons, took people away from mapping, took people away from stories; everything. The entire game of guild wars 2 was forgotten. It was just SAB SAB and more SAB.

It is still a nostalgia joy for those of us who grew up with these types of games. The rewards this time around are exactly what they should be… rewards for the minigame. You don’t have to farm it in order to get the rewards… unless you want every single weapon.

Don’t be so kitten yourself. Everyone has bumps in the road! The fact of the matter is that you were so excited about your minigame that you created an awesome second part to it… juuuuuuuuust a little harder than we were expecting. ;-) Still, it was a relief from the first one. Different. Good.

ALSO – darts, nerfed? really? Once you know they’re there, they’re easy to avoid! They’re not exactly hidden.

I’m not one of the biggest fans of Super Adventure Box for several reasons… but that doesn’t mean it was BAD. It’s still awesome. :-D And thank you for a great mini-game that can be enjoyed beside the regular game that is guild wars. :-P

BEST EVER: No falling dmg! (provided you hit the floor. ;-) ) dat gravity..

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

Time Spent Farming Ascended.

Seriously, I still haven’t touched SAB because I use my available time for ascended and for dailies. I feel this is the biggest problem with the return of sab: it came at the wrong time. It came at a time where the comunity is priotizing the new ascended shinies over anything else. But to be honest, I think it would greatly help if sab had a daily associated to it, like the last few patches, if the final acchievement award offered more acchiv. points, and maybe if it was a viable way to invest for ascended gear.

I won’t deny that all of those factors played a part in World 2 getting a nastier reception, Josh, but for what it’s worth, I still think it’s great that you guys took steps to fix the more pressing problems, and acknowledged how it could be improved for the future. I’ll probably write a longer post later with my thoughts, opinions and suggestions. Regardless, I look forward to getting to World 3 in the future!

P.S. I’m sure you’ve seen the posts by now, but there seems to be a bug where Master of Baubles for World 2 isn’t completable. Would love some feedback about this!

I like 2nd world, it’s a bit long, but well… not too long.

BUT I refuse to play it when there’s no response to the problem with master of baubles achievement in world 2.

Haven’t been inside SAB at all this time around. Just not my thing. Could probably go through in Infantile mode but that is just AP, not worth it. It’s been a nice break from all the LS updates.

I am doing SAB almost every day – now that i learned World 2 it’s a lot easier and more fun to do. Looking forward to World 3.

How bout the fact that SAB was released at the same time as ascended weapons?!
JF put so much work into this content and it shows. SAB probably took more time to make than all the other Living Story content combined. It might not be perfect, but most of the problems have been fixed. It certainly deserved to have two weeks devoted to it SOLELY without other distractions like new gear grind. And tomorrow, we’re gonna get even more new content running concurrently. THAT is the real problem.

4word

The only actual complaint I had about the world 2 stuff is that it was a bit lengthy. In particular, I nearly missed my weekly guild missions because I was 3/4 done with W2Z2, which felt like more than double the length of the W1 maps. I felt they could’ve been at least a bit shorter in length. However, I was able to do it much more efficiently after beating it the first time, especially since I don’t need to collect all the baubles, kill all the assassins, and discover all the secrets again every single time.

There’s also this seemingly bugged W2Z3 bauble collection achievement, but that doesn’t seem like a design issue.

I’m also wondering a bit about world 3… Logically, it will need to be a step up from world 2, although I think the step between world 1 and world 2 was maybe a bit larger than it should have been.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Can’t farm

I think maybe this is one of the main reasons why the numbers are lower than last time — why they may have dropped off more quickly. Being able to very easily farm for skill points and obsidian shards is probably what drew a lot of people in and kept those numbers high throughout.

This time around, the only thing I can think of farming are the skins — the trib skins — and I think there are only a handful of us that enjoy pain and suffering enough to farm those ;P

Other than that, I really enjoyed the increased difficulty, though I can understand if some people consider it to be too much. And for those of you claiming the longer zones are a big problem, yes, it’s true that this makes it more difficult, but I think it’s not as bad as people make it out to be, because even if you end up not having time to finish a zone on your first attempt, your second or third will be muuuch faster. For example, it took me 3+ hours to finish 1-1 trib mode on my first attempt with a group, but on my second time through I did it in 20 minutes.

Thanks for all the hard work Josh! And glad you’re still allowed to make some posts!

Too much living world.

These two week temporary content roll outs are draining. If this was permanent – or even if just world 1 was now permanent it would be better. But having to rush to complete something, often in a buggy state, isn’t exactly fun for a lot of people.

The “can’t farm” point is true as well… farming champs is likely more rewarding than the original skin grab.

Stop posting long posts.
Four word responses only.
Best thread I’ve read.
and now some favorites:

Echo.1694:

Been there, done that.

Mario Lemieux.9107:

You suck at jumping.

Little.1635:

i hate, those clouds.

Zeigy.5863:

Too many noobs whining.

See how that works?
I enjoyed, the SAB.
Josh Foreman, you rock.
Continue releasing fun things.

i play, every day.

Amazing fun boss fight!
Intriguing <spoilers spoilers> achievement!

Not repeating world two.
It wore me out.
Each zone is long.
Play zone without breaks.
Otherwise, you lose progress.

You can SEE those dart traps… If you can’t find them plz buy glasses.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Rocky launch

Difficulty spikes

Inadequate rewards

Can’t farm

Also, I’m bad at the maths.

Time Spent Farming Ascended.

Seriously, I still haven’t touched SAB because I use my available time for ascended and for dailies. I feel this is the biggest problem with the return of sab: it came at the wrong time. It came at a time where the comunity is priotizing the new ascended shinies over anything else. But to be honest, I think it would greatly help if sab had a daily associated to it, like the last few patches, if the final acchievement award offered more acchiv. points, and maybe if it was a viable way to invest for ascended gear.

Ascended isn’t new content. I completed dungeons a year ago, I did world event a year ago, I killed champions a year ago. No new content was added with ascended, they just made old carrots redundant as BiS and upped stats on a new grind which involves all the same stuff we’ve been doing for a year already.

I hate that “can’t farm” is a stated flaw of the current SAB. I fully agree that rewards go hand in hand with content – this is an MMO, acquisition of shinies is an essential part of the game but I feel like farming is too often confused with adequate rewards. You shouldn’t feel like you have to repeat stuff in a farm like state to be adequately rewarded (shortest path to completion run over and over). I’m sure players running SAB world 1 12 times a day back in April looked good on ArenaNet’s metrics (“Wow look at all the people logging in every day and spending 2+ hours in SAB! This content is GREAT!”), but were people really enjoying themselves the 30th time through or were they enjoying acquiring the skins? Back in April Josh mentioned that he didn’t like people felt encouraged to grind (create and delete alts) to acquire rewards and I thought that might mean the rewards would be easier to get without grind as in, you would acquire the skins in the game from secret rooms or completing achievements. I should have known that it just meant a daily lock out (ArenaNet official policy now, not “Is it fun?” but “Is it a daily?”) without a reduction in the blue skin prices (which are going to be rarer than the green/gold ones which are less time consuming to “farm”).

The inability to farm like before might be a reason for why the number of hours spent in SAB is lower this time, but I don’t think it hurts how enjoyable the content is.

Shiren.9532:

I should have known that it just meant a daily lock out (ArenaNet official policy now, not “Is it fun?” but “Is it a daily?”) without a reduction in the blue skin prices (which are going to be rarer than the green/gold ones which are less time consuming to “farm”).

Blue skins are going to be more rare than green/yellow skins? lol, are you crazy?

Long Levels

Instakill darts

I still enjoy SAB. I really love the idea and the art and design quite a lot.

But I must honestly say world 2 was not fun for me. The main thing was the instakill darts and having to run through 4 floors of them in that one dojo — then having to run with the gong out of it, too. One failure meant doing it all over again, and it felt more like sadism rather than fun level design. It was at that point I threw in the towel and don’t feel like going back.

I’ve done it before, but I just can’t see doing it again. I would be maybe ok with it if it was just 2 floors of them even, but to have 4 where making one slight mistake makes you start all over is just infuriating.

Rekeah.1046:

Shiren.9532:

I should have known that it just meant a daily lock out (ArenaNet official policy now, not “Is it fun?” but “Is it a daily?”) without a reduction in the blue skin prices (which are going to be rarer than the green/gold ones which are less time consuming to “farm”).

Blue skins are going to be more rare than green/yellow skins? lol, are you crazy?

In the 1 month it’s out people who run trib can easily make over a dozen green/yellow skins. The blue skins are actually more time consuming to get and, unlike green/yellow, they won’t be coming back. (A green skin takes what? 40 minutes tops on repeats?)

Living Story. Burned Out.

I actually don’t really like Living Story, and I came back just for SAB. I love Super Adventure Box! As well as Halloween JP! My two favourite things in GW2.

I actually think the rewards are quite good in SAB. It’s possible to get more skins more often in this SAB than the last SAB.

I also think that the way to acquire the rewards are a lot better than all the alt swapping in the first SAB.

Player Character.9467:

Rekeah.1046:

Shiren.9532:

I should have known that it just meant a daily lock out (ArenaNet official policy now, not “Is it fun?” but “Is it a daily?”) without a reduction in the blue skin prices (which are going to be rarer than the green/gold ones which are less time consuming to “farm”).

Blue skins are going to be more rare than green/yellow skins? lol, are you crazy?

In the 1 month it’s out people who run trib can easily make over a dozen green/yellow skins. The blue skins are actually more time consuming to get and, unlike green/yellow, they won’t be coming back. (A green skin takes what? 40 minutes tops on repeats?)

For one, you can buy blue skins on the Trading Post. The average price might range between 5 and 15 gold depending on the weapon skin, which isn’t really that expensive at all. On the other hand, Tribulation skins are account bound, which definitely adds to its rarity.

You can farm 14 Bubbles every day if you just focus on completing both worlds and their bonus round. If you spend the time to learn most of the dig sites and chests in each world, you’re looking at another 6 Bubbles (1,500 Baubles converted). I am NOT including Baubles dropped from enemies or those found naturally throughout the level that are not locked daily. I’ve done these runs. They take no more than 2 hours, with the first world taking less than 30 minutes.

On the other hand, you have Tribulation mode, which requires a certain level of skill to beat even when you have memorized where all the traps are located. The tokens are also account daily, so at best, you can only have 30 of any Tribulation skin, and that’s assuming you have beaten an entire world starting since the first day.

If you REALLY care about those blue skins, you can comfortably play for 2 hours and get 20 Bubbles each day. Within 5 days you can get 2 blue skins playing for 10-12 hours. And that’s not even taking into account that there are plenty of Bauble spots in each zone that can be repeated over and over to get 250 Baubles in less than 20 minutes, which means you can get an EXTRA 3 Bubbles with no time restriction within an hour. Plus, some people could have simply saved up their Bubbles since during the first update it was really easy to farm Bubbles back then.

In conclusion, if you care about the blue skins, you can get 20 Bubbles daily PLUS 3 more for every hour you spend doing Bauble runs that aren’t daily bound. If you have a life like most people do, you’re not going to waste your time getting extra Baubles that aren’t daily bound. So you pretty much get 20 a day. In 5 days, you can get 2 blue skins for 10-12 hours of work. Also in 5 days you can get 10 Tribulation skins, half from World 1 and half from World 2. But how long would it take to get those skins, though?

That’s the main comparison being drawn here.

NO G V G …….

Tribulation Mode also gives Bubbles and a lot of Baubles. So if you did TM, you can get even more Bubbles than 20 per day. I’m not that good at TM World 2, but I can finish TM World 1 in 40 minutes. TM World 2 for me currently is more like 3 hours.

I currently have more TM skins than I have Blue skins.

But yeah, just giving some numbers for sake of comparison.

Overall though, there’s probably still gonna be a ton more Blue skins than TM skins. The population that can farm TM is probably pretty small in comparison, and the TM skins are all account bound anyway.