Guild Wars 2

OP never beat portal, he thought the mechanic was broken and uninstalled.

I’ll mail you some cake =b

CryxTryx.9208:

In both your examples I have lost something. Which is not the case when I offer someone a portal.

here ill quote you back to yourself

I don’t loose anything when they skip the content.

so you lose something when others trivialize content at your expense agreed?

in the case of portals in puzzles EVERYONE loses because by trivializing the content you cause Anet to trivialize the reward

many posts in this thread follow the theme of

“who cares jumping puzzle rewards suck anyway”

the point is they don’t have to, but by allowing the content and difficulty to be completely bypassed they cant be improved because they have to balance it around “how much time/effort can the content be completed with?” for every person that takes a portal to the end the answer is none.

Kanto.1659:

Can someone say first world problems?

Edit: http://imgur.com/t6O7WbD

you know this was moved here by mods ….

havoc.6814:

Wow, every post argueing in favor of portals in this thread is being posted by mesmers. Those mesmers are immediately and vociferously attacking anyone who posts in support of my OP. I think this is very telling. I think that you know that portals are breaking the game and trivializing content. I think you know that you are wrong. I think that is why you are so aggressive. I think you just want to have your liscence to steal at any cost.

I main a guardian, support portals 100% and now I am convinced you are trolling

I shelved my mesmer after the 50% damage nerf to confusion in WvW and after hearing about scepter buffs, I decided to take a peek before continuing on in sPvP on my necromancer.

What can I say about that portal skill, lol. You can:

• Bypass boss mechanics in dungeons
• Skip to other paths without having to restart the dungeon
• Give entire servers a free ticket to a chest and an achievement from the bottom of the jumping puzzle to the top of the jumping puzzle
• Portal bomb in WvW (Not necessarily a bad thing)
• Place a portal, use a waypoint, then place the exit so you can others can go great distances, lately from the waypoint outside of the Aetherblade jumping puzzle to the chest itself

My image of the mesmer is a walking time machine. The fabled “Chronomancer” from Guild Wars: Utopia the GW1 campaign that was cancelled for Guild Wars 2’s development. Think about it, what are mesmers good for in PvE? Time Warp, portals, their evasion skill from the sword, pull from focus, feedback/null field, ethereal fields for chaos armor, reflect trait, definitely NOT for their conditions. You can speed up time, blur the space around you, travel between portals, use shatter skills, and summon phantasmal versions of yourself as well as exact copies of yourself, but your signature debuff, the condition that the mesmer is adept to using, is trash.

Taking the portal skill from the “Chronomancer” would be a another heavy hit but it will do more good than harm to the game. The only place I see portal being used as the developers intended is in WvW/sPvP with people confusing enemies by summoning clones, attacking, and leading the enemy on a wild goose chase as they teleport between portals for laughs.

I doubt the devs put portal into the game so they could teleport entire server populations to the end of a jumping puzzle that was released on that same day. I doubt the devs put portal into the game so that boss mechanics could be skipped.

A REAL MESMER has Hexes like panic, Migraine, Overload, etc. Notice how the mesmer class in GW1 loved causing single damage and AoE damage to players and monsters alike whenever they casted spells and used a little something called Health Degeneration while extending the cool down of skills if interupted and draining energy from foes.

TL;DR – You’re not a real mesmer, your signature condition which was released alongside with the mesmer profession called “Confusion” is too poor in PvE and beaten with the nerf stick in PvP. You’re a time machine on two legs (four if you’re a Charr) and I support the removal of the portal skill or the nerfing of it so that the only person, dungeon or not, that can use a portal is the mesmer itself. Unless you’re using the portal skill as shown in this video, you’re doing it wrong:

@OP and others who would like Portal get nerfed:
This is just as bad as a thief stealth-revives teammates when they go down in dungeons only to find out people whine on forum that thieves provide little to none group support in dungeons.

You look at the matter as if everything in the game is about competitive play. Well, it’s not. GW2 is the best MMO in my opinion because the developers went to great lengths to provide us a good balance between cooperative and competitive gameplay experience.

In PvE and WvW, everything (game mechanic, quest structure, skills, etc.) is designed to encourage teamwork, and the skill Portal just happens to be a perfect example that we mesmers are gifted with.

As a mesmer, I love to help people in need and when I decide to do that, I take on the responsibility to try my best so that I can get ahead to make ports since i don’t want to let the team down. After all, i’m just an average player that keeps making a lot of silly mistakes in jumping puzzles but certainly I don’t expect to get bashed in the face when I try my best and help out other people.

For the people are not involved like you, it might look cheap and trivial. But for the porter and ported, this is a big deal. It is teamwork, interdependence, engaging experience that results in long-lasting friendship between players (who might be complete strangers to one another at start).

So here’s my suggestion: if you main a different class and refuse to roll a mesmer and enjoy helping out people. I suggest taking it to Anet to make similar transport skill for your own class. I even have some ideas for you:
- how about Engi constructs a mechanical helicopter that flies you (and your friends) up to the very top end of the jumping puzzle.
- how about Ele with a cloud-bridge that allows you (and your friends) walk to the chest.
- thief’s steal/shadowstep skill with range scaled with the value of chest’s contents? say 1g on TP = range: 10,000?
- ranger with grapple gun?
- necro’s zombie pillars that provides solid footing for you to jump and even catch you when u fall.
- warrior grows wings on head, back, hands, and feet to elegantly fly to the chest?
- guardian’s Symbol of Hope: whoever falls to the ground covered with this symbol has 10% chance to take no falling damage and teleport to the chest’s location.

Ok rant’s over. I am normally a very polite and peaceful person but this kind of post really pushes my tolerance.

Portal bombing is no longer really a thing. Plenty still do it, but unless you use it for a tactical advantage it actually costs the side using it more. Now that you no longer have invisible enemies facing you it is too easy to use Guardians to box in the spot where the exit portal is, subjecting the people porting in to a Feedback bubble + massed AE exposure with no way to escape quickly for most of them.

It can be useful as something which isn’t bombing. I’ve seen zergs move 25%-50% of their force behind the enemy with a surprise mesmer, designating 4 organized groups to backstab this way while another 1-3 groups manually flank (so the enemy sees that and prepares for it).
It works extremely well, but it’s not the same as the classic invisible-loading-shield portal bomb.

People are being ported to the end chest of the new jumping puzzle from the waypoint outside of the puzzle. They never even have to enter the puzzle. They need not make a single jump. They don’t even have to find the jumping puzzle entrance.

The devs spent alot of time developing that content. Portal, as it is, is just a slap in the face to their efforts. That’s just not right.

I’ve nothing against seeing people helping others, but this has gone way beyond just helping someone. Porting someone up a jump, or even a small series of jumps, that they can’t seem to make is great and desired. At least with that they are seeing the content and trying to do it. Bypassing all the content, the entire jumping puzzle is not.

Bypassing walls in WvW, and using the skill to skip content in dungeons is not justifiable either. I don’t think people should be rewarded for skipping content.

Those of you who can claim this is right are just dishonest.

havoc.6814:

The devs spent alot of time developing that content. Portal, as it is, is just a slap in the face to their efforts. That’s just not right.

Seriously, HOW is that the fault of the Portal ability?
Jumping Puzzles are a very noticeable type of content, and their fun is directly derived from their difficulty. Much like people want complex combat to feel immersed in it, a jumping challenge which cannot kill me or at least mock me in a number of ways isn’t immersive.

But, if someone wants to skip the content, then isn’t that their loss? They lose out on the JP, well, apparently they want to.

Ofc, the issue you probably want to mention is how they still get the chest at the end? While indeed a certain market-problem (but too minor compared to CoF to even register), it’s not a pressing issue, and it is not a Portal-issue. People are.

Carighan.6758:

…People are.

Very well said. In game or in real life, there are always people like that, you just have to put up with them. Upon reading your last post, i do feel for you, OP. But you aim at the wrong solution. I cant speak about the right solution, all i can help to improve the situation is to persuade other mesmers in game to shy away from such abuse of Portal. Nevertheless, the skill itself is not to blame.

havoc.6814:

I think that you know that portals are breaking the game and trivializing content. I think you know that you are wrong. I think that is why you are so aggressive. I think you just want to have your liscence to steal at any cost.

You think a lot, obviously.

havoc.6814:

People are being ported to the end chest of the new jumping puzzle from the waypoint outside of the puzzle. They never even have to enter the puzzle. They need not make a single jump. They don’t even have to find the jumping puzzle entrance.

So they get the reward easly – what is the problem with it?

havoc.6814:

The devs spent alot of time developing that content. Portal, as it is, is just a slap in the face to their efforts. That’s just not right.

The devs also created portal, so every use of it is a tribute to their creativity.

havoc.6814:

I’ve nothing against seeing people helping others, but this has gone way beyond just helping someone. Porting someone up a jump, or even a small series of jumps, that they can’t seem to make is great and desired. At least with that they are seeing the content and trying to do it. Bypassing all the content, the entire jumping puzzle is not.

From what I seen bypassing most of the JP using portal was desired by many.

havoc.6814:

Bypassing walls in WvW, and using the skill to skip content in dungeons is not justifiable either.

This is a valid tactic. In WvW it can be countered with mesmer sweep, in PvE using portals only benefits the team, no one is hurt that way.

havoc.6814:

I don’t think people should be rewarded for skipping content.

Why not? Skipping is approved by the devs. Also skipping can require more skill than actually killing the mobs, if it weren’t that way you wouldn’t have threads about skipping being awful thing because people can’t skip properly and just die.

havoc.6814:

Those of you who can claim this is right are just dishonest.

I think they just have a different opinion than you. Nothing dishonest in that.

I think your primary problem is that you like some way of playing the game that not many people care about. Just play as you like and let others play as they like and we’ll all be happy.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

CryxTryx.9208:

So I guess my question is, why does it anger you to see other people trivialize their own game playing expirience?

It angers me because a legit alternative to making money instead of CoF farming doing something I like (JP’s) was nerfed because of this skill.

It angers me because I can work with a small team for 20 minutes to take a keep in WvW just to have to flooded with an enemy zerg because of this skill.

So it has nothing to do with players trivializing their own experience, they are actively making my experience worse.

I have to respond here to your comment regarding WvW. If you guys take a tower/keep and do NOT sweep for mesmers, it is entirely your fault if it gets recapped via portal. It is not the skill being at fault. Do not call for a skill to be nerfed/banned because of laziness.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

It angers me because a legit alternative to making money instead of CoF farming doing something I like (JP’s) was nerfed because of this skill.

I call bs on this one, a vendor price of 60s was clearly a bug, just like the patch notes state.

and this is when i say, y dont you create a mesmer and ge the free look, mmm no.. Y DONT WE ALL CREATE A MESMER AND GET EVERYONE FREE LOOT so we are balanced?

you know…. More mesmers less QQ

havoc.6814:

People are being ported to the end chest of the new jumping puzzle from the waypoint outside of the puzzle. They never even have to enter the puzzle. They need not make a single jump. They don’t even have to find the jumping puzzle entrance.

The devs spent alot of time developing that content. Portal, as it is, is just a slap in the face to their efforts. That’s just not right.

I’ve nothing against seeing people helping others, but this has gone way beyond just helping someone. Porting someone up a jump, or even a small series of jumps, that they can’t seem to make is great and desired. At least with that they are seeing the content and trying to do it. Bypassing all the content, the entire jumping puzzle is not.

Bypassing walls in WvW, and using the skill to skip content in dungeons is not justifiable either. I don’t think people should be rewarded for skipping content.

Those of you who can claim this is right are just dishonest.

That’s a pretty loaded statement. Dishonest. Setting aside the obvious QQing. There are mobs in the jumping puzzle, no? Should a person have to kill each mob individually in order to get the reward? Am I exploiting if I come upon a monster spawn and the monsters are already dead and I move on to the next part of the puzzle?

I’m going to guess you’re going to say no. Because any other answer is irrational.

So why should a person have to make each and every jump themselves?

What if someone shows me where to jump, so I can avoid the trial and error portion of the puzzle? Is that ok? After all I’m skipping part of the content, someone is showing me what to do. That’s half the battle right there.

What if an engineer uses his rifle jump thing to skip a platform or to make a difficult jump easy. How do you feel about that?

havoc.6814:

People are being ported to the end chest of the new jumping puzzle from the waypoint outside of the puzzle. They never even have to enter the puzzle. They need not make a single jump. They don’t even have to find the jumping puzzle entrance.

The devs spent alot of time developing that content. Portal, as it is, is just a slap in the face to their efforts. That’s just not right.

I’ve nothing against seeing people helping others, but this has gone way beyond just helping someone. Porting someone up a jump, or even a small series of jumps, that they can’t seem to make is great and desired. At least with that they are seeing the content and trying to do it. Bypassing all the content, the entire jumping puzzle is not.

Bypassing walls in WvW, and using the skill to skip content in dungeons is not justifiable either. I don’t think people should be rewarded for skipping content.

Those of you who can claim this is right are just dishonest.

Why do you care so much on how others deal with their achievements & accomplishments? It’s pointless. Taking choice away from people will hurt this game. I hope you can understand that someday.

It’s kind of a non issue really if we’re talking about it from the development side. Fact is anyone who wants to do it will do it, and may even come back later to do it again.

Those who don’t take their rewards and disappear. (As opposed to just not bothering)

In JQ the puzzle was still packed with people trying to jump along the pipes next to the console rooms even with mesmers announcing warps and others asking for them.

(ALSO ONCE AGAIN the mesmer had to be able to get there themselves to begin with.)

And fact remains that it’s a puzzle design issue if they don’t want it to be portal accessible they’d design it like other puzzles where you can’t, which I’m sure will happen if we get a legit reward instead of soul bound Armor without a unique skin xD.

Personally I found the new puzzle really really fun =D

Daishi.6027:

…And fact remains that it’s a puzzle design issue if they don’t want it to be portal accessible they’d design it like other puzzles where you can’t…

\

^^^And This.

Someone else wrote that they saw an ANet member porting people to the end of a JP. It seems obvious that the creators of the game, and therefore the ones who set the rules, are okay with the way people are using of portals. If the people who make the rules say it is not cheating it is not cheating, end of story.

Let me guess, mesmer didn’t port you up and you’re sore about it? Portal is doing what it should. Not an exploit.

ok guys this is getting ridiculus! EVERYONE is allowed to play the game the way they want. so if u suck at jp’s, but need them for monthly and all that, why is it game breaking if someone jumps up there and portals u up?
i suck at jp’s it’s an ongoing joke in my guild even that i cannot jump very well if i don’t take my good time with it.

i think it’s a good thing that people can be portaled up if they cant jump up there. i like that people work together and help eachother out. the other day i finally managed to get up the eb jp and saw a guy seriously struggling with this 1 jump, so i went down again put a portal for him and he was super happy. so how is that a bad thing and destroying the game?

I’m surprised so many people around here are defending something like using portals to completely bypass content. I’d have to question if people are actually playing this as a game or instead as a social experience similar to facebook.

Since there is a general lack of understanding on game design around here, I suggest everyone that supports portal at the very least watch this video. Hopefully you’ll understand the issues with it afterwards.

Arena Net designed a game and placed Portal in it, end of story, it’s already been nerfed, take your whining elsewhere, some people enjoy a game with diversity and the tactics skills like Portal offer in organised WvW, and SPvP.

I play mesmer main, and you know how many times I get portaled for a JP compared to how many times I portal someone else?

i often stand and wait for someone that wants a portal up for several minutes. Don’t hate on the mesmer cause they being nice…

I’m curious on how you can believe people play an MMO and not think of it as a social thing.

The bottom line, ‘U-tube’ links or not, boils down to a few simple words: I don’t like it, so no else should have it.

Kanto.1659:

I’m curious on how you can believe people play an MMO and not think of it as a social thing.

The bottom line, ‘U-tube’ links or not, boils down to a few simple words: I don’t like it, so no else should have it.

“I don’t like it, so no one else should have it” is what you got out of the arguments against portal? Seriously?

And of course MMOs are social, I never denied that. What I was trying to express is some players may be taking the social aspect too far, to the point where they start seeing the game-play aspects as an inconvenience to their social gratification.

This is the main point I’m trying to make against portal:

“OMG this jump puzzle is hard” resulting in trying to get better or giving up on it is good from a game design standpoint. It adds value to the content and a strong feeling of satisfaction once it is finished.

“OMG this jump puzzle is hard, where is a portal” and “ooh a portal, I can just skip the entire thing and get the reward anyways” is bad from a game design standpoint. It allows players to completely bypass the obstacles and mechanics, devaluing the content. This offers less satisfaction for completing the content, both for those who use the portal and those who completed it without portals.

Furthermore, because portals devalue the content, the associated rewards the developers can add are also limited. They have to balance the rewards with the challenge, and because the challenge can be trivialized due to portals, they can’t give as strong rewards.

And just to be clear, I am of the view that it is the game designers responsibility to create content to direct the players and what players do in the game will be based around how general human psychology interacts with what is built.

Being a player, I follow the paths created by the developers. This means I’ll use things like the path of least resistance, just like the majority of the community, and jump in any portals I see to speed things along.

This is also why I find the suggestion of “stop using portals if you don’t like them”, and other suggestions following that line of reasoning, to be futile. Suggestions like these never solve the issue as its impossible to get everyone to follow it. To truly address issues like these you have to make a change to the cause of the problem itself, not how people react to the problem.

When I speak against portals I do so from the standpoint of a game developer who seeks to improve the paths put in front of the players. I seek to change the portal not because of childish reasons, but because I want to see the quality of the game improved.

Stop and listen to yourself, I and many other players like Portal, and enjoy the tactics it allows, but because this isn’t the autocracy you would seem to want we should all agree with you? I understand you don’t like them, but I fail to see why you posted they in the Mesmer forum and besides the few trolls who constantly view this sub forum constantly crying for nerfs to Mesmer, you won’t get much agreement from the majority if players who main Mesmer. You can sit all high and mighty on your “I’m a developer” chair all you want, I lessen myself by arguing about it, you have your opinion and obviously are not here to have your mind changed, just push your agenda. Good luck to you, I hope Portal doesn’t change, I guess we will see what the future brings.

Cares Less.9631:

Stop and listen to yourself, I and many other players like Portal, and enjoy the tactics it allows, but because this isn’t the autocracy you would seem to want we should all agree with you? I understand you don’t like them, but I fail to see why you posted they in the Mesmer forum and besides the few trolls who constantly view this sub forum constantly crying for nerfs to Mesmer, you won’t get much agreement from the majority if players who main Mesmer. You can sit all high and mighty on your “I’m a developer” chair all you want, I lessen myself by arguing about it, you have your opinion and obviously are not here to have your mind changed, just push your agenda. Good luck to you, I hope Portal doesn’t change, I guess we will see what the future brings.

I agree with many of its tactical functions, just not bypassing content to the degree we are seeing.

And yes, I think my mind is made up at this point. I just can’t see portals being used in this way as a positive thing.

However, I’m open to ways to address this while still maintaining a useful role in the game, and I think that is worth discussion. Portal right now doesn’t have a very strong in-combat function, which is something they could definitely work on. It could work as a great movement-control based skill, allowing you to jump between points to escape or stay at a distance from the enemy.

Bri.8354:

“OMG this jump puzzle is hard, where is a portal” and “ooh a portal, I can just skip the entire thing and get the reward anyways” is bad from a game design standpoint. It allows players to completely bypass the obstacles and mechanics, devaluing the content. This offers less satisfaction for completing the content, both for those who use the portal and those who completed it without portals.

But then, may I ask the slippery slope question?

1. Portal is making jumping puzzles too easy, it needs to be removed or disallowed.
2. Swiftness and other speed gains make the tight jumps too difficult, needs to be removed or disallowed.
3. Personal movement skills like Engineer Rifle #5 or Ranger #3 (I think) on Greatsword allow too fast movement through timed elements, they need to be moved.
4. Stability allows to move through timed pushoff or knockback elements, it needs to be removed.

Where do we stop? All of these elements make jumping puzzles substantially easier, yet not all classes have access to them, while others run perma-swiftness or 10s lasting Stability.

If the goal is to make Jumping Puzzles difficult if theoretically designed to be so, then these all need to be disallowed.
As a Mesmer who does not run the typical Centaur + Focus + Mirror setup to gain Swiftness, I find Swiftness to be a much bigger issue than Portal.
I know that’s personal PoV, but how do you think I got up there to portal you? With Swiftness from someone else, because it makes it so much easier.

Yet no one ever mentions that. No one mentions how an Engineer will never get blown off at the start of the Metrica Province JP because they can skip that part? Or how people can Stability past the knockbacks in the Obsidian Sanctum.

And really, while of a different scope, I’d hate if my way to make JPs easier is removed, and everyone else gets to keep theirs. Fair’s fair, drop it and lose your swiftness / movement skills / stability. I’ll lose mine + Portal.

Carighan.6758:

But then, may I ask the slippery slope question?

1. Portal is making jumping puzzles too easy, it needs to be removed or disallowed.
2. Swiftness and other speed gains make the tight jumps too difficult, needs to be removed or disallowed.
3. Personal movement skills like Engineer Rifle #5 or Ranger #3 (I think) on Greatsword allow too fast movement through timed elements, they need to be moved.
4. Stability allows to move through timed pushoff or knockback elements, it needs to be removed.

Where do we stop? All of these elements make jumping puzzles substantially easier, yet not all classes have access to them, while others run perma-swiftness or 10s lasting Stability.

If the goal is to make Jumping Puzzles difficult if theoretically designed to be so, then these all need to be disallowed.
As a Mesmer who does not run the typical Centaur + Focus + Mirror setup to gain Swiftness, I find Swiftness to be a much bigger issue than Portal.
I know that’s personal PoV, but how do you think I got up there to portal you? With Swiftness from someone else, because it makes it so much easier.

Yet no one ever mentions that. No one mentions how an Engineer will never get blown off at the start of the Metrica Province JP because they can skip that part? Or how people can Stability past the knockbacks in the Obsidian Sanctum.

And really, while of a different scope, I’d hate if my way to make JPs easier is removed, and everyone else gets to keep theirs. Fair’s fair, drop it and lose your swiftness / movement skills / stability. I’ll lose mine + Portal.

I think what matters is the degree that it impacts the content. I find portals to be a large issue because it allows someone to bypass most, if not all, of the puzzle.

I personally like the idea of certain skills giving an advantage in certain puzzles. Its satisfying using your skills in a creative way to gain an advantage. However, this needs to be carefully done as to not trivialize the entire puzzle.

The only thing that strikes me as problematic other than portal may be the engineer rifle #5 skill, and perhaps stability which can be used to bypass most of the challenge in a puzzle which is based around knockback, but if anything has the capability of bypassing large sections of a puzzle I’d also support changes to address it.

Bri.8354:

I personally I’d l like the idea of certain skills giving an advantage at certain puzzles. Its satisfying using your skills in a creative way to gain an advantage. However, this needs to be carefully done as to not trivialize the entire puzzle.

Well, yes.
I use my Portal to set myself a “checkpoint” before a difficult jump (because no easy access to perma-swiftness, so stuff is more difficult for me), so that I can get back up in case I fall down.

Which was nicely nerfed to 90s CD from 60s, because clearly PvP players love standing around waiting for CDs to cycle for over a minute.

Anyhow the point is, that’s how I use Portal. The only way I see to change portal would be to make it self-only. Since I frequently run JPs together with my GF, and it’d be phenomenally bad if I could no longer get her back up from a fall (because I’m already the one falling off most of the time, Swiftness :P ), yeah, no, thanks.

If it’s such a huge issue, then limit it to 1 non-caster person per Portal use in PvE. That works for me with 0 issues, especially if partymembers get priority. Or 3 uses total, also counting the mesmer and double-uses.

Would that be horrible? Yes.
But at least I’m not personally affected then. :P

most puzzles has almost no reward :|
what the issue with having mesmer help friends?

Is this really a crusade against casuals?

Its not enough you have everything, other should n t also have nothing!

that is how it sounds.
Portal has no impact on economy if mistakes are not made…..
Portal is really important as it is for guild puzzles.
Portal is good for playing JP with friends

Stop taking away freedom from players please.

Bri.8354:

“OMG this jump puzzle is hard, where is a portal” and “ooh a portal, I can just skip the entire thing and get the reward anyways” is bad from a game design standpoint. It allows players to completely bypass the obstacles and mechanics, devaluing the content. This offers less satisfaction for completing the content, both for those who use the portal and those who completed it without portals.

Crap. I don’t feel less satisfied when I complete a jumping puzzle while others bypass it, because having completed the puzzle is the reward that makes me feel good, not some achievement or chest at the top. If they don’t want to do the jumps, I don’t force them to. If they ask me kindly, I’ll offer them the service of porting them up, and everybody’s happy. Except you, because others don’t do what you’d like them to do. And that’s unsocial.

Iruwen.3164:

Crap. I don’t feel less satisfied when I complete a jumping puzzle while others bypass it, because having completed the puzzle is the reward that makes me feel good, not some achievement or chest at the top. If they don’t want to do the jumps, I don’t force them to. If they ask me kindly, I’ll offer them the service of porting them up, and everybody’s happy. Except you, because others don’t do what you’d like them to do. And that’s unsocial.

Personal achievement only goes so far. Part of human nature is wanting what they achieve to be acknowledged and appreciated by others, and allowing people to piggyback on others and still get the full reward that claims they defeated the challenge, greatly devalues that element.

It seems obvious that ANet wants the portals to be used this way…and since they are the creators of this universe they get to decide what is right and what is wrong.

If you don’t like portals that’s fine, but don’t try and convince people that they are somehow doing something wrong by helping other people skip some content to get the reward. They are, in fact, playing the game how it was designed to be played. ANet says it’s okay, so it’s okay. End of story.

Bri.8354:

Iruwen.3164:

Crap. I don’t feel less satisfied when I complete a jumping puzzle while others bypass it, because having completed the puzzle is the reward that makes me feel good, not some achievement or chest at the top. If they don’t want to do the jumps, I don’t force them to. If they ask me kindly, I’ll offer them the service of porting them up, and everybody’s happy. Except you, because others don’t do what you’d like them to do. And that’s unsocial.

Personal achievement only goes so far. Part of human nature is wanting what they achieve to be acknowledged and appreciated by others, and allowing people to piggyback on others and still get the full reward that claims they defeated the challenge, greatly devalues that element.

it doesn’t devalue it. u did that jp by yourself and didn’t get portaled up so u accomplished that puzzle, not the person using a portal.what if i suck at jp’s? it’s not my strength so i will never be able to get achievements or world completion, because u wanna remove the portal. u don’t like that someone can get something easy?your reward is that u did it the hard way. so let it go dude. it is selfish to expect everyone to play the game u want it to!

This thread is a joke. Portal cant help you achieve anything significant in PVE it can only save you time, and only if a mesmer has already done it.

Being mad at exploiters is one thing but dont blame helpful mesmers who cant sit there and watch as someone incapable of the skill required to do the JP falls to their death for the 18th time and expect them to do nothing. There is nothing wrong with being helpful or nice as long as it doesnt hurt anyone.

Exploiters abuse any system, in anyway. Dont pin that crap on me. I ran the jumping puzzle 2 or 3 times, I badged up at the end and portalled people to the chest (not airship, not goggles. If they want the achie and chest but cant/wont do it, and I have a portal I will help. I then switched to Vabbi and Fissure of Woe, low pop servers and I helped them out as well.

I did nothing wrong, I helped grateful people, and I forged healthy community bonds.
I was aware of the Exotic sell price and i did not sell mine. I did not grab other characters, I did not roll new ones, I did not go to the overflow.

As for WVW, portal is a valiud tactic and those unable to see that are those that cant do a SIMPLE MESMER SWEEP i.e. LAZY and isnt this thread about skipping things. Skipping a mesmer sweep is foolish. Skipping a JP hurts noone.

PvP its a useful way to get around the map. Another valid tactics, expecially since memsers have little access to swiftness without gimping their runes or taking a weapon that many do not want

Dungeons etc it has minimal use. It can make very few areas any easier.

Bri.8354:

Iruwen.3164:

Crap. I don’t feel less satisfied when I complete a jumping puzzle while others bypass it, because having completed the puzzle is the reward that makes me feel good, not some achievement or chest at the top. If they don’t want to do the jumps, I don’t force them to. If they ask me kindly, I’ll offer them the service of porting them up, and everybody’s happy. Except you, because others don’t do what you’d like them to do. And that’s unsocial.

Personal achievement only goes so far. Part of human nature is wanting what they achieve to be acknowledged and appreciated by others, and allowing people to piggyback on others and still get the full reward that claims they defeated the challenge, greatly devalues that element.

Haha. You must be pretty insecure if you need the acknowledgement and appreciation of randoms in a video game.

Not sure that everyone else feels the need to be acknowledged because they’ve reached the end of a JP.

“/m OMG I AM THE HOTTEST kittenE RIGHT NOW, BOW TO ME I GOT THE CHEST OMG PAT ME ON THE BACK QUICK QUICK SOMEONE HIGH FIVE ME!!!!!!!!!”

Probably not a good idea to talk about human nature like you are some sort of expert…. which you’re clearly not.

I’m not really supportive of content skipping… But curious on thoughts regarding things like D&D when you could bluff/intimidate your way out of things, including combat encounters.
Not to mention lots of other games with I guess a “by pass encounter” mechanic still give a full reward for it. Is portal any diffrent?

Ok, please restrict portal to the mesmer’s group or even only the mesmer itself and reduce it’s cd to 30s. A lot of roamers, me included, would love this change :>

Today I portaled a guild mate to the end of pig iron jp, why? Because after doing the entire puzzle he got knocked off by the veteran mob, twice. If portals are banned or limited to myself, I will no longer be able to help those that fail. True, it can be used to skip most puzzles but that is not really important enough to prevent me from helping others.

Bri.8354:

Iruwen.3164:

Crap. I don’t feel less satisfied when I complete a jumping puzzle while others bypass it, because having completed the puzzle is the reward that makes me feel good, not some achievement or chest at the top. If they don’t want to do the jumps, I don’t force them to. If they ask me kindly, I’ll offer them the service of porting them up, and everybody’s happy. Except you, because others don’t do what you’d like them to do. And that’s unsocial.

Personal achievement only goes so far. Part of human nature is wanting what they achieve to be acknowledged and appreciated by others, and allowing people to piggyback on others and still get the full reward that claims they defeated the challenge, greatly devalues that element.

You’re playing the wrong game then. Like I said before, this isn’t the MMO where you reach the magical pinnacle of xyz and get to brag about it. That mindset usually breeds elitism and tiers players into can do’s and can’t do’s. It’s archaic in my opinion, and only lessens the amount of choice players have. We get it. You and a select few others want everyone to do something the same way, or not at all. Sorry to say but it’ll never happen. Portal has been nerfed probably more then any other skill, and this game is more about helping people & being social then gloating & being a kitten.

It boggles my mind why someone elses actions that:

A. Doesn’t involve you, at all.
B. Doesn’t affect your gameplay or end result at all.

Cause some hilariously bad campaign to get everyone to do something the same way, or not at all. How many times does it have to be explained that not everyone is as good as that one person who does the JP without using portal? There’s a myriad of reasons on why someone can’t do a JP. So they use a portal. Big deal. That’s not your achievements, or accomplishments, so it’s none of your business, and thus should be none of your concern. You honestly have no right to dictate how other people go about this, if it doesn’t affect your gameplay. If it dents some inner ego or something like that, you may want to consider a different game, because like I said, this game allows for very little gloating in that sense & I’m glad.

If ANet shared your viewpoint, they would have changed JP’s by now. Seeing as they don’t, it looks like player choice wins over old content barriers.

As long as puzzles like Griffonrook run, Scavenger’s Chasm, hexfoundry unhinged, winter wonderland, Mad King’s clock tower, and my personal Favourite Spekks’s lab, exist and have existed. I feel the arguments against portal are invalid.

I only hope that real rewards are added to the puzzles and then maybe add a tier system

Lower end easy puzzles giving greens and useless medallions = no mechanic just jump and portal accessible.

Medium giving greens and a few useful upgrade components or a few tier 6 crafting materials = some unique mechanics and although portal accessible a challenge for any one person to get through.

Hard giving greens and rares with a chance at exotics. = portal won’t solve the puzzle for you and still giving a decent challenge once per day.

RunningmanS.4368:

Not sure that everyone else feels the need to be acknowledged because they’ve reached the end of a JP.

“/m OMG I AM THE HOTTEST kittenE RIGHT NOW, BOW TO ME I GOT THE CHEST OMG PAT ME ON THE BACK QUICK QUICK SOMEONE HIGH FIVE ME!!!!!!!!!”

Probably not a good idea to talk about human nature like you are some sort of expert…. which you’re clearly not.

Not to be overly white knight, but do you really think that’s a fair reply you’re giving to him/her? Especially with the last line?
You may disagree (as do I, further up), but you can do that in better ways than personal attacks and backhanded insults.

Iavra.8510:

Ok, please restrict portal to the mesmer’s group or even only the mesmer itself and reduce it’s cd to 30s. A lot of roamers, me included, would love this change :>

+1
I’d love that change, that’d make Portal PvE-usable.

GW2 actually didn’t feel that social outside of WvW for quite a while. People porting people here and there, from the grund to the chest and from the chest to the goggles, also giving additional advice on how to jump without asking for anything, at least on our server. Some people spend half the evening there. I guess their income from donations isn’t that bad. Especially for the goggles, there isn’t even a separate achievement and you can die easily on your way up as well as down so the service is very welcome.

havoc.6814:

The new jumping puzzle has just been released, and once again we see that there is no content that this skill can’t break. A few greedy people decided to create toons for the sole purpose of porting to the chest and caching in on a fast 60 silver. Since this could be repeated fairly quickly, a tidy profit could be made. Anet was quick to respond by nerfing the value of the exotic shoulder item, to the detriment of all the honest players. They didn’t nerf it enough though, as players can still collect the exotic shoulders and throw them in the mystic forge to get a random exotic armour piece.

I don’t get it. Find a way to kill a dungeon boss by bypassing his attacks and you risk being banned for exploiting. How is the rabid abuse of the portal different?

Just a note, the exploiting offense here is that people are deleting/remaking characters and going to the JP. The portal may make this a bit easier, but isn’t the root core of the problem. People could just make a new char and run the Jumping Puzzle and get the 60s, delete and do again.

I really enjoy jumping puzzles and the challenges they offer, but I’m more than happy to use my portals to help those who are struggling or those who simply can’t be kittened to do the puzzle in the first place. It’s not my place to judge and I’m not not prepared to dictate to others how they should or should not be playing with the aim of validating my own personal jumping mastery accomplishments. Knowing that others have bypassed the content to get to end of a jumping puzzle that I spent time doing, does not in anyway diminish my enjoyment or sense of achievement for completing it fully.

It’s a nice community feature. Leave it how it is.

I really shouldn’t add to this discussion but I’m bored and there is a lot of ignorance about portal that needs to be cleared. There are a LOT of restrictions on this skill, which is why I find it ludicrous to ask for more.

1. Portal’s entrance and exit can only be placed at the feet of the Mesmer. This means the mesmer has to go through whatever situation they want to allow their allies to skip. This includes jumping puzzles, dungeon traps, walls to WvW camps… You name it.

2. The entrance portal has a 60 second time limit. If the exit isn’t created within that time limit, the entrance will disappear and the skill will go on cooldown. This means that the mesmer is under pressure in certain situations. This is also why most start at the end point and rush to get to their allies, even if said allies are only a few jumps away.

3. There is a limit as to how far apart portals can be. If the mesmer goes beyond this limit and opens the exit portal, they won’t link together. As a side note, there is no indicator for how far this limit is so it can be easily overshot. Every memser has to ballpark it and hope for the best.

4. When portals are connected and active, they require confirmation of use, even for the mesmer that made them. If you don’t want to use a portal, you don’t have to.

5. Portals are only active for 10 seconds. I can’t think of anything more frustrating than opening a portal specifically for people, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, and they kitten for over 10 seconds.

6. Portals can only tranport 20 people. Granted, I’m a pve person so I’ve never hit this limit. I don’t know exactly what happens after it’s met but I do know the counter is there and what it is intended to do. It’s kind of annoying that this was added but not a way to measure the distance. But I digress.

7. Portal has a ridiculous 90 second cooldown (72 when traited) that makes is very unwieldly for personal use. This cooldown starts after the portals fade too. This makes sense in WvW and PVP but in PVE, there’s nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs and wait. This too causes many problems as the urge for a person to lose all common sense skyrockets during these 90 seconds.

On a personal note, I can’t understand why anyone whom wants to do jumping puzzles the legit way would ever complain about those that don’t. Remember the Clocktower jumping puzzle? My experience with it is having to deal with a huge norn and char, both of the warrior class. The Char was just your normal, everyday player trying to enjoy content but the norn… Ugh, the norn… This guy wore biggest pale pink shoulder pads available and always, and I do mean ALWAYS ran right in front of me. It’s bad enough that I’m not the best puzzle jumper and the tower didn’t give me much time to prep every jump. Then I run into this guy that makes me mad enough to punch a baby. Oh, it gets worse. He was doing it on purpose. He admitted he wore the most obtrusive armor he could find just to make things harder for those around him and there was nothing I could do about it because he wasn’t breaking any rules. Sadly, being a jerk isn’t against the law or the game’s terms of service. And it still gets worse. He was ALWAYS on! At 3 am, he and his gender-questionable shoulder pads were still there, mocking me! To this day, I was never able to get to the top of that tower.

Why did I bring that up? Simple. People that portal to the end of jumping puzzles get what they want and move on. This leaves those that wish to do it legitimately. Wouldn’t you prefer to have less char and norn getting in your way when you have to do those stupidly hard precision jumps? I certain hope you’re not fond of annoying players with nothing better to do than troll for hours on end.

Haha, really good response Crossplay, Iaughed hard at your encounter with the gender confused Norn in the JP, you have a gift with words my friend :-)

just to remind about the post i made earlier again,

i think if all arguments are pushed aside,

you have to consider the players, ALL players.

there are some who are just extremely jumping challenged. they can try it for three hour and get nowhere, and get stuck in the same spot over and over or have to start again. especially on release when there were big and small characters crowded together

some people just can’t “physically” make it to the end of a jp even if they tried. some might have eye sight issues, sensitive to light, i also know some colorblind (even to certain colors only) that would hinder them. maybe someone who has a disability in their hand? who knows

people have different gaming ability. And even someone who is amazing at pvp and wvw, and fighting, but they might not be accurate with jumps.

at the end of the day, these people would be treated unfairly if there were no mesmers helping people with portals.

the portals are a must. Choose what way you want to get to the end as simple as that

Crossplay.2067:

I really shouldn’t add to this discussion but I’m bored and there is a lot of ignorance about portal that needs to be cleared. There are a LOT of restrictions on this skill, which is why I find it ludicrous to ask for more.

-snip-

Crossplay, may I add to your lists 2 more restrictions that I learned about the hard way.

8. Portals cannot be used underwater.
There was this time I activated the entrance portal just to look down and see there wasn’t a tiny bit of land that my friends to swim to so i could jump down and create the exit to port them up

9. The first (entrance) portal expires (and the skill goes on CD) if the mesmer dies before they make the second (exit) one.
There were occasions as I rushed to my friends’ position, misjudged the height and jumped to my death, even if I got ressed in 1 second after, there’s no use creating the exit portal end.

Seriously, people who are against portals, try playing a mesmer than you’ll see that sometimes, figuring out where to put portals could be a bit of puzzle itself.