Guild Wars 2

Josh Foreman.8250:

We’ll try to fix the Splat bug. Currently if you dodge at the right time you’ll break out of it. It’s sort of a silly thing and doesn’t change gameplay so we didn’t consider it a gamebreaker.

Yes, it’s not really a big deal. But I thought I’d mention it none the less.

Josh Foreman.8250:

There are a few spots where I have let the camera go wonky because I felt the level art or gameplay win I got out of that particular arrangement of geometry warranted the price. It’s certainly annoying, but like the physics, you can get used to it, and eventually stop noticing it for the most part. I’m not saying that’s a good solution, only that in the mean time it’s all I got.

Believe me, I know all about the woes of setting up cameras. So I understand completely that sometimes the game play or art wins out on the useability. One thing I do recommend though, and that’s regarding the leeway before a jump. If the camera is in a cavern of some sort, maybe have a bit more space for the camera to move around, so it doesn’t bounce right on top of our character and makes jumping really hard. Other than that, I love SAB, I think you all did a really great job. I’m just hoping there will be general camera fixes in the future.

Josh Foreman.8250:

And your targeting woes… I just don’t know what to say. I’ve never had the problem. But I have always clicked on the model of the monster I want to attack. I haven’t used Tab targeting since GW1.

Neither have I. But I did run into an issue where auto targeting can get a bit wonky. It would constantly auto select the wrong target, causing the gem to be thrown into the ground. I tried switching to manually targeting, but the game seems to be having issues with selecting “large enemies”. Its something I believe many players have run into, for example with the Jade Maw in Fractals, or the Risen priest of Grenth in Cursed Shore. You can sometimes be clicking that frog for dear life, and it would refuse to select anything but the amulet. This might be a general issue with the targeting in the game.

Anyway, thanks for all the feedback. It is much appreciated, and keep up the excellent work. I’ve mentioned on the GWO forums how you don’t get enough praise for your hard work. I felt really bad for you and the team, with all the complaining about the Mad King’s Clock Tower (Which was an awesome jumping puzzle BTW). When a lot of love has been put into a level, it really shines through. So keep up the great work.

Josh, I just want to thank you for all your responses on this thread. It’s very interesting to hear about the development process and things you would like to see changed or just your thought process for the decisions that were made. I’m having a blast in SAB, and I can’t wait to see more of it!

Josh Foreman.8250:

This is something I’ve been looking into over the past week or so. It would be great to have as rewards, and/or as gemstore purchases. I would LOVE it if you could only unlock some incredible Mega Man or Sonic knock-off transform skin for beating various places on hard mode. It’s just a matter of figuring out how much time is involved. Might be a pipe dream.

Re-skin Primeval Armor to cobalt blue. Put on large white goggles instead of the eye slit. Make the boots bright stinkin’ red, with white accents.

There, Speedy the Porcupine is born. Make it happen Anet.

i’ll give mi 2 cents on jumping difficulty, is true that nowhere as far as i recall you need dodgeflip jumps, but this doesn’t mean that it Leaves more room if you do mistakes.

try dodgeflipping in that secret room, and the first two jumps will be the problem then;)

p.s.
i’m not even sure that dodgefilp actually results in a longer jump but this Always worked for me, and i think i red it in some devs post, but don’t expect proof on this.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Keep in mind we’ve only done world 1, and haven’t got our hard mode working yet. Things will be getting much more difficult. At some point I think most people will have to use easy mode to complete the game.

If the point is to make the mini-game progressively difficult to the point where most people cannot complete it, then why bother having a hard mode at all?

Because that’s how Mario works. Seriously, the normal mode would start off painfully easy, then progressively got harder as you graduated to the next level. By the end of the game (on normal mode) you either were so good you could complete the game, gave up in frustration, or gave it to a friend who could complete it for you.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Keep in mind we’ve only done world 1, and haven’t got our hard mode working yet. Things will be getting much more difficult. At some point I think most people will have to use easy mode to complete the game.

If the point is to make the mini-game progressively difficult to the point where most people cannot complete it, then why bother having a hard mode at all?

Because that’s how Mario works. Seriously, the normal mode would start off painfully easy, then progressively got harder as you graduated to the next level. By the end of the game (on normal mode) you either were so good you could complete the game, gave up in frustration, or gave it to a friend who could complete it for you.

Lost Levels.

I never tried them after the first attempt.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lost Levels.

I never tried them after the first attempt.

Is that the level in Mario where you’re on some kind of boat and you have to navigate through enemies, flying bullets, and canon balls coming from all angles? I remember a level like that. I cant imagine how that would be here in SAB, especially since when you get hit you get tossed like a beach ball.

But I thought killing the frog boss was something i couldn’t solo but i did. Then i completed the rapids level. Im pumped for more!

Fairymore.8609:

Is that the level in Mario where you’re on some kind of boat and you have to navigate through enemies, flying bullets, and canon balls coming from all angles?

No, that’s the end of basically every world in Super Mario Bros 3.

This is the Lost Levels, also known as Super Mario Bros 2 in Japan.
It was never released overseas, so the Super Mario Bros 2 that we got, was an entirely different game.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The Lost Levels were also designed to keep ramping up from the difficulty of the first game’s World 8-4. Which is why you get things like “Poison Mushrooms” and “Reverse Warp Zones”.

But it was the platforming that killed my interest. I could go back and try again, but if I want terribly hard I’ll find my disc of “Devil May Cry 3”.

For the most part i really have no issues with this content. Love it really, it’s fantastically silly and makes me feel like I’m 9 again.

I have found one “bug” though that while avoidable is a tad annoying. When you first enter the fight with king toad, at least in my experience, it’s impossible to break the gem. no matter how many times I hit it nothing happens. I’m not positive when it actually becomes “damageable” but the best strategy I’ve found (and it has yet to fail) is to hide in the safe spot until he does his first tongue attack then fight him like normal. other than that i have no problems with his difficulty or anything. I’m assuming this is a bug but it may just be that i’m missing something key.

I’d also really like to jump higher for pressing the space bar longer as it was in mario
also i’d like turtles to turn themselves on their back by jumping on them, but well not everything can be done
and i’d want someone like toad to tell me our princess is somewhere else

IMO, the backpeddling/strafing mechanic should be disabled in SAB. It’s a cumbersome mechanic, unnecessary for the level of combat in SAB, and it forces players to have to re-angle their cameras needlessly.

Grendel.7918:

For the most part i really have no issues with this content. Love it really, it’s fantastically silly and makes me feel like I’m 9 again.

I have found one “bug” though that while avoidable is a tad annoying. When you first enter the fight with king toad, at least in my experience, it’s impossible to break the gem. no matter how many times I hit it nothing happens. I’m not positive when it actually becomes “damageable” but the best strategy I’ve found (and it has yet to fail) is to hide in the safe spot until he does his first tongue attack then fight him like normal. other than that i have no problems with his difficulty or anything. I’m assuming this is a bug but it may just be that i’m missing something key.

I normally do this as well or try to dodge the first beam. Sometimes, when you stand right under him on the very edge of the lily pad you can avoid that first beam.

2. I’m pretty sure we are keeping them character bound. That’s the best way to experience it more than once if desired.

Once I got the hang of the place, I didn’t really have any issues “leveling up” subsequent characters (I currently have three characters near-maxed, aside from the slingshot and gust move on the latter two). What I would do is go in with around 100 baubles from another character, and then get a shovel. Then I would rush through towards the end, picking up a candle along the way. If I had enough for a bomb, I’d buy it, if I had enough for a purse, I buy it, otherwise I’d just continue to the end. When I got to the end, if I still needed either of those things, I’d just load up with the appropriate amount before going in, and then just start in 1-2 or 1-3 and run to the nearest store to pick them up. The whip and slingshot would just be casual purchases whenever I had the cash on hand, but the shovel is the must-have tool.

In either case, you can fully kit out a character in less than a half hour if you know where you’re going. I assume this will get harder to do with 3-4 worlds in and the many upgrades you’ve been promoting, but I find that even on the “efficiency” runs I’ve been doing I’ll come out with 300+ baubles per run.

I don’t think we have the tools to control the camera target. The going bonkers part is the real issue. I try to stay on top of the crenelations and I don’t usually have any problems there.

Yeah, it can be avoided, but it is kind of annoying, especially when you don’t have ti all down yet. It’s also a bummer when you trip over a crenelation and get zapped into the drink. I’ve got the pattern down fairly well now, but it takes a lot of trial and error.

Oh, and one more thing I’d like to see, there is a delay after beating each boss, which gets longer after each one, so the final boss is like 40s+. This is good in that it gives players time to reach the prize if they’ve fallen or died (and even still they miss it sometimes), but is annoying when not needed. I was hoping you could add a “poll” element to this portion, similar to choosing paths in dungeons, where you can ask the group “Continue on? 1 yes, 2 wait” and if everyone picks 1 then they teleport instantly to the next zone, while if anyone says 2 or picks nothing then they get the 40s time before zoning.

Ohoni.6057:

Oh, and one more thing I’d like to see, there is a delay after beating each boss, which gets longer after each one, so the final boss is like 40s+. This is good in that it gives players time to reach the prize if they’ve fallen or died (and even still they miss it sometimes), but is annoying when not needed. I was hoping you could add a “poll” element to this portion, similar to choosing paths in dungeons, where you can ask the group “Continue on? 1 yes, 2 wait” and if everyone picks 1 then they teleport instantly to the next zone, while if anyone says 2 or picks nothing then they get the 40s time before zoning.

So basically the dialog that pops up after the end of each fractal?

My list:
1. Fix poison. Sometimes I can stand in it 5 seconds, other times it hits me twice in about half a second
2. Increase skin drop rate. It’s horrendous.
3. Make the frog boss amulet actually targetable, it’s nearly impossible to target his amulet most of the time.

Thanks!

So basically the dialog that pops up after the end of each fractal?

Does it? I haven’t played Fractals in forever, I seem to remember getting oved along from a Fractal without ever agreeing to do so, I think those might be majority rules rather than unanimous consent, but yes, if so, that.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It would help a lot if the achievement for collecting every Bauble in a stage, tracked them as you collected them. Right now its always stuck on 0%, and jumps to 100% after collecting them all. It would help if we could see how many Baubles were left in a stage.

I agree with everything except this.

A achievement for collecting all the Bauble’s in a stage would imply map completion. I don’t want feel like I discovered all the secrets in a stage. In my opinion it should be a mystery if there is any secrets left to find.

After having just completed 100% of the SAB, I have a few thoughts

Before I start, I just want to say that by far, the SAB has been one of the most enjoyable additions to this game thus far.

Moto’s Breath

For my girlfriend and I, this part was by far he most infuriating part of the game. We both spent over an hour, and countless lives attempting to get the baubles and the item.

The thing is, the mushroom jumps aren’t particularly difficult on their own, but when you factor in the erratic camera, glitchy jump animation, and inconsistent bounce mechanics, the whole thing becomes a desk flippable task.

The only way I was able to complete it was by forcing my character to fall, which would glitch the game and cause my character to lay sprawled out flat. This would remove the fall/ground impact animation, and allow me to make the jumps with relative ease.

I understand why these mushrooms were added in, and in most cases it isn’t that noticeable, but this particular area pushes the limitations of the engine too far in my opinion. We eventually got the achievement, but in the end it was difficult for all the wrong reasons.

Driving me coconuts!

I personally wish there was a half second longer delay between the coconuts the monkeys throw. The animation for getting up after being knocked down takes too long. This means that there are quite a few instances in which you find yourself unable to recover long enough to avoid death.

Just a split second longer would make all the difference.

Corner Jumps

In my opinion, every jump in the game should be able to be done by anyone, regardless of what method they use to play. What I mean is, there are a few instances where jumps are made more difficult by requiring the character to jump around objects.

One particular example is the secret door where the roots are located. My girlfriend, who has gotten used to using the mouse to turn her character in the air, was able to complete this in only a few attempts. Me on the other hand, being a keyboard player wasted about 15 lives trying to attempt this jump before forcing myself to use the mouse.

There are undoubtably many players out there that use the same method as I do to navigate the game. Forcing me to use a different control method to me is like saying the only way you can beat Plant Man in Mega Man, is to use the Power Glove.

All jumps in my opinion should be attainable using both control methods. Requiring one specific one is unfair to many players.

Don’t stand so close to me!

This happens outside of SAB as well, but for some reason it’s much more noticeable inside. When you are standing right next to an object, you are unable to jump onto it. One example is the crocodiles. If you hit them, and then attempt to jump onto them while too close, your character will be unable to get up.

This behavior is inconsistent classic games, and counter intuitive while playing. In al other cases I can force my character to move forward or backwards while in the air, but not here.

This can be particularly annoying when you find yourself in poison water and are attempting to jump out. Walking right up to a log means your character will be unable to jump out, and unless you back up, and jump from further away, you will most likely find yourself dead.

Bauble Counter

As others have mentioned, a bauble counter would be a welcome addition. My girlfriend and I attempted to get all the baubles without the use of online help (Nintendo Power), but were forced to resort to them after missing an unknown number of baubles numerous times.

We really, really wanted to do the SAB spoiler free, but, “collect all the baubles” is far too vague when you have no idea which are counted, or how many remain.

Even classic games showed you your remaining tasks. This wouldn’t change anything about the difficulty, as the locations aren’t revealed, but it would allow players to realize before the end that if they want the achievement, they’re going to have to backtrack a d look for the missing ones.

There are a few other annoyances that I found, but nothing too major. For my girlfriend and I, these were just some of the more prominent and annoying things we experienced. Again, I’m super impressed with the SAB and can’t wait to play more.

Also, I want to say that if all ANet employees were as open, honest, and engaged as Josh is, Guild Wars 2 would be an unstoppable game. The way he has embraced feedback, and explained concerns has made the SAB a thousand times more enjoyable. Lets hope that someone over at ANet recognizes how much nicer things are, how much smoother things go, and now much improvement can be made in a short time when a dev takes the time to listen, instead of ignore and criticize.

Thanks Josh, for treating us like people and players.

Hey Josh can we get this thread to stick plz

Thanks for answering my questions, Josh.

I have another suggestion. The timer in zone 1 before being ported to zone 2 could stand to be increased a little bit, maybe by 5 seconds or so.

Granted, this has only happened to me once in many, many runs, but the last time I got zapped off the top (all the way to the bottom) right as the cage was destroyed. By the time I got control of my character and ran around to a point to where I could start climbing back up I had about 5 seconds left to make it to the top, which was not enough. Needless to say, I completely missed the chest and had to repeat it.

I agree with everything except this.

A achievement for collecting all the Bauble’s in a stage would imply map completion. I don’t want feel like I discovered all the secrets in a stage. In my opinion it should be a mystery if there is any secrets left to find.

The achievement already exists. If you have this achievement then you’ve found every secret bauble (although presumably there could be other little tricks to find). The only thing Malafide’s asking for is that currently, if you have 95% of the hidden baubles in a zone, the achievement still reads zero until you find that last bauble, instead she’d like to see it show that you’ve earned most of them and only have a few to go, and more importantly that if you’re at 90% and find a new one, you can tell that it was a new one. I think this would be a nice idea.

Personally I’m speedrun the SAB several times, found most of the hidden areas and all the gear, but still have none of the full “completion” ones. I’ll maybe pick those up later at some point.

I would love to see some kind of bauble radar as an in game item. Or any mechanic that makes finding all the baubles in a zone more realistically doable without using a walkthrough.

I personally believe that any challenge in any game should be somehow doable without using a walkthrough and without causing any ‘bad stress’. An example of ‘good stress’ is the kind you get when you fail the same jump again or get stuck with a puzzle but know that a breakthrough moment or idea could turn it all around. I consider trying to find an unknown number of baubles in an entire zone a cause of ‘bad stress’ since It’s easy to miss one bauble somewhere but have no way of progressing towards finding it instead of just running around everywhere hoping it will turn up, which is not fun.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess introduced a great new way of finding heart pieces. A lady in town would show you a picture of an area where a heart piece can be obtained but not how to get it. It was immensely more fun being able to discover all the heart pieces myself this way. It made collecting everything without a walkthrough very possible but didn’t take away any of the challenge of solving the puzzles. Perhaps something could be learned from this for SAB? If we knew roughly where baubles were on the mini map but not how to get to them, bauble collecting would suddenly become 10 times more fun in my opinion. You could even randomize bauble locations and have some kind of daily/weekly reward for finding all the baubles!

Hi Josh,

first of all kudos on a) making a super super awesome adventure box and b) responding to feedback on here like a boss.

Secondly I wanted to elaborate on the mushroom jump glitch that crazylegsmurphy described above. For me, if I stand straight on a mushroom and just keep bouncing up without doing anything else, every fourth or fifth bounce (I think) it’s like the game skips half a bounce and I start the animation in the wrong place (vertically). If that happens to be the moment you attempt your jump, it will of course screw you over.

The Moto’s Breath tree trunk of hell was so difficult (in reality it took us over two hours to get up) because of the combination of three difficult jumps to even get started, swamp water, glitchy mushroom bouncing and our nerves getting the better of us after a while. With any one of these four factors removed I think it would have been a nicer experience while still being a challenge.

Only my achievement OCD kept me going (and the fact that I really didn’t want to start over with collecting all zone 3 Baubles). I mean, at that point I really felt that the SAB can go die in a fire, and I resolved not to play it anymore for at least a full day, although that wore off really soon so of course I was back in there the next day.

Thank you also for the clarification about corner jumps; I’m a mixed keyboard/mouse player (never thought about it, but when walking around outside I exclusively use keyboard turns, in jumping puzzles I seem to subconsciously switch to mouse camera) and I am not keen on corner jumps at all. But I guess at least now I know what’s coming, so I can use the time we have before world 2 release to practice those bad boys.

By the way, here’s my suggestion for that one; how about putting one of those rooty trees on ground level somewhere in zone 2, so you can use that to practice the corner jumping without losing a life every time? It is world 1 after all (If there is one, I haven’t spotted it, at least not in zone 2.)

Keep up the good work, the SAB is amazing and I love it, no matter how frustrating.

just a small suggestion, will there be room in the specials part of the storage for bauble’s, continue coins and bubble baubles so im not wasting inventory space or storage space?

Important improvement: Give me a Bunny Minipet! <3

Josh Foreman.8250:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

but this particular area pushes the limitations of the engine too far in my opinion. We eventually got the achievement, but in the end it was difficult for all the wrong reasons.

You’re probably right. We don’t have much lag at the office, so I never ran into the problem. I’ll see if I can break that up a bit and compensate by getting some super annoying monkeys in there.

No, Josh, please don’t change that! That was the only part of the whole world 1 that was a legitimate challenge for me. They were all ‘edge’ jumps, which is to say I had to plan the jump perfectly and bounce in place a few times to line it up. I did it all while standing up and without inciting the lay-down animation either. I would, personally, be very sad if you changed this. If you want to make it easier, give easy mode some clouds that let you get to the top easily, but don’t change the way the normal mode plays. (Remember, players, you can get the bauble and upgrade achievements in easy mode!)

Rising Dusk.2408:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

but this particular area pushes the limitations of the engine too far in my opinion. We eventually got the achievement, but in the end it was difficult for all the wrong reasons.

You’re probably right. We don’t have much lag at the office, so I never ran into the problem. I’ll see if I can break that up a bit and compensate by getting some super annoying monkeys in there.

No, Josh, please don’t change that! That was the only part of the whole world 1 that was a legitimate challenge for me. They were all ‘edge’ jumps, which is to say I had to plan the jump perfectly and bounce in place a few times to line it up. I did it all while standing up and without inciting the lay-down animation either. I would, personally, be very sad if you changed this. If you want to make it easier, give easy mode some clouds that let you get to the top easily, but don’t change the way the normal mode plays. (Remember, players, you can get the bauble and upgrade achievements in easy mode!)

I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. Easy mode does not help in this particular area.

I don’t think it needs to be easier at all actually. The problem is more that it’s difficult because the game engine (at least on my machine) tends to fail quite often. This makes what should be a nice challenge into a inconsistent, and annoying task.

I personally love the concept. Those jumping/bouncing puzzles are very reminiscent of old games. If there was some way to smooth out the way the game engine behaves, it would be a very cool experience. Perhaps Josh’s idea of breaking it up with a ledge or two would be enough to at least give players a chance to do it without having to rage quit.

Either way, I hope something can be done. I really look forward to more of the same types of puzzles.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

By the way, here’s my suggestion for that one; how about putting one of those rooty trees on ground level somewhere in zone 2, so you can use that to practice the corner jumping without losing a life every time? It is world 1 after all (If there is one, I haven’t spotted it, at least not in zone 2.)

I think this is a fair compromise. I suppose if I could actually have jumps or test jumps where I could start to learn and expect the game mechanic change, then it wouldn’t seem suddenly so hard.

There are a few corner jumps in the first few zones, but nothing as extreme as jumping around an entire structure. I think Pixelpumpkin’s suggestion would at least allow those of us who aren’t mouse jumpers to practice a bit.

The communication in this thread is fantastic!

I have one question though, can we expect Hard Mode in April?

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Hi Josh,

first of all kudos on a) making a super super awesome adventure box and b) responding to feedback on here like a boss.

Secondly I wanted to elaborate on the mushroom jump glitch that crazylegsmurphy described above. For me, if I stand straight on a mushroom and just keep bouncing up without doing anything else, every fourth or fifth bounce (I think) it’s like the game skips half a bounce and I start the animation in the wrong place (vertically). If that happens to be the moment you attempt your jump, it will of course screw you over.

The Moto’s Breath tree trunk of hell was so difficult (in reality it took us over two hours to get up) because of the combination of three difficult jumps to even get started, swamp water, glitchy mushroom bouncing and our nerves getting the better of us after a while. With any one of these four factors removed I think it would have been a nicer experience while still being a challenge.

Only my achievement OCD kept me going (and the fact that I really didn’t want to start over with collecting all zone 3 Baubles). I mean, at that point I really felt that the SAB can go die in a fire, and I resolved not to play it anymore for at least a full day, although that wore off really soon so of course I was back in there the next day.

Thank you also for the clarification about corner jumps; I’m a mixed keyboard/mouse player (never thought about it, but when walking around outside I exclusively use keyboard turns, in jumping puzzles I seem to subconsciously switch to mouse camera) and I am not keen on corner jumps at all. But I guess at least now I know what’s coming, so I can use the time we have before world 2 release to practice those bad boys.

By the way, here’s my suggestion for that one; how about putting one of those rooty trees on ground level somewhere in zone 2, so you can use that to practice the corner jumping without losing a life every time? It is world 1 after all (If there is one, I haven’t spotted it, at least not in zone 2.)

Keep up the good work, the SAB is amazing and I love it, no matter how frustrating.

I don’t find it glitchy just takes practice to know what to do. also take your time.
I have run SAB more times then I can count and had no problems but my own.

since the slingshot and bombs doesn’t seem to target I always have to eyeball them… I just figured the gems pieces don’t either. I simply face the frog while holding a gem, and when his mouth opens I click the fling icon. I never actually click the boss. The amulet is not targetable during a belly flop or a mouth opening cycle. The only real times you can target the amulet is when the frog is stomping to the left or right, starting when he looks in that direction with his eyes and ending just after the stomp. I tried to destroy the amulet twice, on infantile mode with bombs. The second time I used ctrl+t so I could keep track of the amulet’s health. ctrl+t only allowed me to target the amulet and only if it was available to be targeted. I could only target the amulet during the side stomp cycles, the targeting always fell off if a belly flop or a mouth cycle began.
Btw. when the amulet’s health reaches zero it rolls over to full health on the next hit. During my first attempt I must have gotten the amulet to zero several times without knowing it (I didn’t target at that point, I just threw 500 bombs. I knew that I was hitting it because bits flew off and 50 kept popping up)

Josh: “I’ll see if I can break that up a bit and compensate by getting some super annoying monkeys in there.”

… I hope in that case that there’s some Monkey King boss that we can beat the snot out of as a form of catharsis. :P

On poison:

- Maybe make the first check activate a flag on the player, instead of immediately damaging them
- Said flag can wear off after 2-3 seconds of not being in the water
This would ensure a minimum amount of time that players can expect to not take damage for.

On adding more skins in the future:

- Remember that new zones are going to increase the rate at which players can acquire bauble bubbles to some degree
- However, it won’t be fair to charge more for the new skins just because the rate of acquisition has increased
- So, we’re going to need something else to spend bauble bubbles on as well which is a decent target with the increased rate which we can earn them at.

I’m thinking new minis, “Super Mystery Tonics” and maybe a second set of weapon skins as long term goals taking the increased bauble bubble rates into account. Just, something new other than Super Skins in the next release as a target.

…heck, Super Ranger Pets? Could that be a thing?

Note that I didn’t suggest armor. I don’t know how you could make armor properly meet the theme while including dye zones. Maybe town clothes could work?

Finally, one more niggling issue: When my character’s taken damage in SAB, the bloody effect around the edge of the screen from regular gameplay starts to show up, and obscures my vision. Firstly, that doesn’t fit the mood of normal/infantile mode SAB at all, Secondly, having my vision getting reduced in a jumping puzzle doesn’t feel good, Thirdly, unlike regular play it won’t go away by itself when I’m safe, becaue there’s no automatic health regen in SAB.

Perhaps you could make the health work more like Costume Brawl’s health (a status on the character) that kills the player when it hits 0, to avoid that? Might be easier than disabling the blood effects, I don’t know.

Jezz this Josh guy should be a Forum Mod with an inside connection with the devs, he actually communicates with the players…….Ah Maze Zing!

Thanks for all the info…..

Aeonblade.8709:

3. Make the frog boss amulet actually targetable, it’s nearly impossible to target his amulet most of the time.

Thanks!

Stop targeting the amulet at all, there is no point in it. If the frog glances left or right in preparation of ground slamming that side the amulet is targetable. As such, all you have to do it run up to the amulet when you see him glance and hit 1. You will swing your stick, regardless of what is targetted, and you will hit the amulet. When he looks down to ground slam the middle you can’t attack the amulet. When he looks side to side then opens his mouth you can’t attack the amulets. The only time you can attack the amulet is when he attacks left or right.

Learn the boss mechanics and the fight becomes significantly easier.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Aeonblade.8709:

3. Make the frog boss amulet actually targetable, it’s nearly impossible to target his amulet most of the time.

Thanks!

Stop targeting the amulet at all, there is no point in it. If the frog glances left or right in preparation of ground slamming that side the amulet is targetable. As such, all you have to do it run up to the amulet when you see him glance and hit 1. You will swing your stick, regardless of what is targetted, and you will hit the amulet. When he looks down to ground slam the middle you can’t attack the amulet. When he looks side to side then opens his mouth you can’t attack the amulets. The only time you can attack the amulet is when he attacks left or right.

Learn the boss mechanics and the fight becomes significantly easier.

I wasn’t having any problem with mechanics as I had researched the fight prior to engaging. Thanks for the tip though

About corner jumping, you shouldn’t need SAB just to practice the technique. There are dozens upon dozens of corner jumping “opportunities” in the open world. One that I can remember just off the top of my head is in Lion’s Arch. Look up “Urmaug’s Secret,” a jump puzzle in the eastern side of the map. At about the middle of the puzzle is a jump that requires you to swing in and then arc back a bit. If you can pass it, great, if not, you only fall very slightly and it takes little time to get back into position to try again. I’m sure if you spent some time looking at the world from a parkour perspective you’d be able to find plenty of places where one could choose to “corner jump” from point to point, even if there would generally be no point to doing so.

The 90 degree corner jumps I have encountered in jumping puzzles so far are different from the almost 180 degree jump around the root, and did nothing to prepare me for it. I do Urmaug’s Secret on a regular basis and don’t struggle with any of the jumps in there, but the root was a different animal altogether. So no, I don’t think that one corner jump is like the next, or that you can use Urmaug’s Secret or any random corner in Tyria to practice the root-jump… otherwise I would have had no problem doing that jump in the first place.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

The 90 degree corner jumps I have encountered in jumping puzzles so far are different from the almost 180 degree jump around the root, and did nothing to prepare me for it. I do Urmaug’s Secret on a regular basis and don’t struggle with any of the jumps in there, but the root was a different animal altogether. So no, I don’t think that one corner jump is like the next, or that you can use Urmaug’s Secret or any random corner in Tyria to practice the root-jump… otherwise I would have had no problem doing that jump in the first place.

Where in the world are you jumping 180 degrees? The only necessary corner jump I can even think of in the game is near the beginning of Rapids. There is a minicorner jump onto the pillar, then across to the cliff, then you have to jump around a 90 degree angle to get to the other side of the cliff. Then another half wrap around jump not unlike what you would experience in Urmaug’s and then it’s just straight forward jumping from then on.

There is nowhere else in the game where corner jumping is necessary. If you’re getting yourself into that position you should take a step back and see if there’s a better, if longer, route you could take instead.

The 180 degree jump is for one of the secret doors in world 1 zone 2, where you have to jump full around a root 180 degrees to reach the hidden area in the roots near the abyss. Let’s be real, though; it’s not that hard of a jump, just takes a bit of practice.