Guild Wars 2

I and at least half the people I talked to did not see the Mad King in the cutscene. All we saw was a hole in the ground with some green smoke coming out.

So much for “be online, you’re not going to want to miss this one-time event”. It was more like a zero-time event.

Also, regardless of it not working properly, why force people to be online at a specific time to see this? You could simply play the cutscene the first time people zone into Lion’s Arch, or the first time they log in after the start of Act 3, so anyone who wasn’t on at the time would see it as the first thing when they came back.

I’m in Europe, so being online didn’t inconvenience me, but making people in other parts of the world wake up in the middle of the night to see a 10-second animation of a hole with green smoke… not exactly good PR.

Asum.4960:

Pretty easy. After a while you can complete it by pure muscle memory.

Then the challenge is obvious:

Do it blindfolded and post the video.

Finaldeath.1059:

But you people who live in asia europe or wherever are starting to piss me

Yeah, it’s like they’re being deliberately foreign!

I mean, it’s not like GW2 was financed by Koreans or the majority of its servers are in Europe, right?

P.S. – I doubt any Europeans are complaining, since they get the event at around dinner time, which, if anything, is better than the US timing.

According to a post by one of the developers, the Clock Tower and the Pumpkin Carving achievements are not counted, so it is possible to complete N achievements and have the counter show N-2 without it being a “bug” (although it still means the tooltip is misleading, since it says it counts “Halloween Achievements” in general, not just specific ones).

However, some people’s counter seems to be missing other achievements as well, so there’s clearly some bug here.

Hopefully we’ll get some sort of official reply before the event ends.

Jest.9276:

Reload until you get into a group that performs poorly. I know it sounds bad but the sooner they all die off, the sooner you can concentrate on what’s important rather than have the distraction of other players.

Except you can’t really tell how poor they are without going through it at least a couple of times – and staying alive long enough to see how they do (unless they all die so soon that you can see the bar speeding up). And if you can stay alive long enough to judge that, then you’re probably pretty close to finishing it yourself, which means the other players aren’t really getting in your way.

I agree the current design benefits players with bad “teammates”, and makes those groups desirable (which is a strangely anti-social thing, considering you’re not actually competing with them), but that’s not easy to judge simply by quickly going in and out of instances.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Pfft, the Norn and Charr aren’t such a big deal. I’ve completed this thing countless times now, by quickly leaving the Charr and Norn behind me. Just be in pole position, and you’ll see those big guys drop like flies.

So you’re saying that everyone who plays a norn or a charr is terrible and never manages to reach the end (or anywhere close to it)? I think I see where this is going, but go on…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I would hate it if this thing was instanced. It would completely destroy the fun that this challenge currently is due to playing it with other people. It is exciting to slowly see more people drop from the group as you make your way up.

Wait, weren’t you “quickly leaving them behind you” ? So how can you see them “dropping from the group” ? I guess you weren’t that far ahead of them.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Please stop suggesting it.

“Adopt my opinion or shut up!”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You are just terrible at this challenge.

Hm… Did it on my 8th attempt as human, 3rd as sylvari, 1st as norn. Yeah, I’m terrible at this challenge.

And after that, it took me over 20 tries to do it with an asura character. Of which about 16 failures were due to my view being blocked by some huge charr or norn.

But no, I’m sure it was just “how terrible I am” finally catching up with me.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The Charr and Norn aren’t the real factor that is causing you to fail, it’s inexperience.

Yes, I thought this would be one of those “I’m great, you suck” posts. You did not disappoint.

Reevac.1748:

You can’t please everyone. ANET is a US company not Asian or European. Get over it.

Funded by Korean money, with the majority of their servers in Europe, and employing developers from all over the world.

The 21st century is a wonderful place, as you’ll see when you finally get there.

It was actually there before the puzzle went online in GW2.

Ditton.3149:

The loot table was not the exploit, the metagaming of logging in and logging out to hit a new overflow to do it again and again was the exploit. They had to nerf it to stop THAT, so you want to get angry with people, then get angry with them doing that.

The people “doing THAT” had zero impact on my gameplay. I couldn’t care less what other people get, especially when the items are soulbound and useless for PvP.

I do care about the fact that a massive boss chest currently gives less rewards than killing 5 random mobs in the same labyrinth. It’s just silly.

And after the whole resource node fiasco, Arena Net still hasn’t learned to save the “visited” flags to each player’s (or each character’s) database record, instead of making it a property of the server? Someone needs to read the memo.

But hey, mesmers are all about clones that do slightly different things.

OmniPotentes.4817:

The green goo rises at a set rate. However everything that happens in the puzzle is determined by the person in the lead. If that person reaches the leap of faith a few seconds ahead of others the rest is doomed to fail. That’s why the puzzle is not instanced.

The goo rises at a set rate, like you said before. The speed of the person in the lead has no effect over it. Even if no one jumps down from the beam to that platform, the goo still rises above it (and eventually rises all the way to the beam).

If someone is “a few seconds” behind they are doomed to fail simply because they are a few seconds too late in relation to the puzzle timer. It doesn’t matter if someone is ahead of them not not. Several times I was a bit too slow (ex., because I decided to open some chests along the way, or because my camera got stuck and I delayed a jump) and the platform was covered in green by the time I landed on it, although I was the only one alive at that point (and therefore the one “in the lead”).

The puzzle is a group instance probably because Arena Net thinks it’s more “exciting” to see other players fail around you. Which I suppose might be true, but doesn’t offset the issues with those players blocking the view.

That’s why I think a good solution would be to render all other players as small plastic spiders (or some other Halloween mob, but the small plastic spiders seem funniest).

Rodriguez.7682:

Can’t disagree more with advising against speed boosts. I’m not sure I’d have been able to do it at all without my 25% boost, I found that even if I fell behind to the last person in the zerg, I was able to easily catch up and avoid being goo’d due to the speed boost. Additionally, anyone who already constantly uses the boost will be used to making jumps with the boost.

A 25% speed boost will force you to cut two key jumps short (i.e., release the forward key in mid air at just the right time), whereas doing it without the speed boost makes your jumps exactly the right length to land on the next platform / beam.

There is enough time to finish the puzzle (and possibly even open all the 3 optional chests – I’ve never tried opening all of them in one run) without any speed boosts. In fact, considering that only some classes have speed boosting traits, I suspect those were also meant to be disabled, and are only active due to some bug.

Zaxares.5419:

Good tips, although something seems to be wrong with the very final jump. I’m jumping after the window breaks, but for some reason it never lets me get through the window and always makes me fall down into the green mist. Is there a particular spot you need to aim for or a precise time to make the jump?

It happens sometimes. It seems that jumping a little bit late is better than jumping early. Even if it seems that you’ve hit the wall on the left of the clock face, you tend to go in. However, if you have high latency, the opposite might be true (the server might see you jump too late, when the green goo has already reached you).

Sometimes the clock face animation seems bugged, which could mean it’s not actually breaking properly. Or it might also be related to the bug that teleports you back to the start when you’re in mid-air during the “leap of faith”, but I have no idea what might be causing that one, it seems completely random.

My advice your be to jump straight at the tower (meaning you’ll probably hit the left side of the clock face, since it continues to rotate), rather than trying to jump diagonally to compensate for the rotation.

The wait would be a lot more bearable if there was something to do. For example, if you could actually see the other players climbing the tower. Instead, while you’re waiting you’re staring at a completely empty tower, which is boring and kind of immersion-breaking. And you’re hoping that everyone else will fail quickly so that your wait is shorter, which is also not a very healthy “social” element.

Anyway, I agree that having a dozen fat charr / norn blocking your view of the puzzle and of your own character is horrible game design (and / or evidence of very poor testing).

Other players should either be invisible (i.e., same as a solo instance, but with almost no extra coding required, compared to the current version) or rendered as small plastic spiders, so they wouldn’t block your view (but would still add to the sense of urgency).

I always get the feeling that I’m fighting:

a) Visibility (other players blocking my view of the puzzle and of my own character)
b) Camera bugs (especially with asura, but there are some issues with all races)
c) The actual jumps and timer

For a jumping puzzle, it seems the design priorities were kind of reversed.

1 past midnight: When you have nowhere else to go, take a leap of faith (and hope the floating hands / air teleportation bug doesn’t get you). Get up quickly, though; green goo waits for no one. And remember tip 11 above.

2 past midnight: When faced with two ways to go, pick what would be the shortest route (inner side). After this point, don’t rush it; you’ll be mainly fighting the camera (but, if you play GW2, you should be used to that by now…).

3 past midnight: At the very end, don’t jump before an obvious time window presents itself.

That’s it. Following tips #1 and #2 will immediately improve your chances by 500%, the rest is mainly a matter of learning the puzzle layout and trying to avoid locations that make the camera go crazy.

Anyway, here are some tips on how to finish the Clock Tower. Two easy (and important) steps… followed by thirteen harder (but less important) ones:

1 o’clock: Don’t be an asura. Sad but true. The asura camera has been bugged for a long time, zooming in and out whenever you get too close to an object or land on a thin platform. It also shows you less area ahead of you than other races’ camera, due to the camera height and target placement. So, don’t be an asura unless you can already do this consistently with other races (human is easiest in terms of camera behaviour, norn is easiest in terms of visibility).

2 o’clock: If the group you joined has any large-size norn or charr, leave the instance and enter again. The time you waste in loading screens is more than made up for in the number of failed attempts you avoid.

3 o’clock: Maximize your frame rate. Turn off shadows, turn off vertical sync, etc.. Do whatever you can to increase your frame rate. There will be lots of players on your screen (especially at the start), and a smooth frame rate is essential to let you judge your motion accurately.

4 o’clock: Don’t use speed boosts or speed increase traits. It might seem like a good idea, but it will make some of the final jumps much harder. Note that minor traits won’t actually work in the puzzle, so there’s no need to respec. Just make sure none of your major traits gives you speed boosts.

5 o’clock: After the initial wait for the platform to spawn (BTW, you can jump as soon as the wall explodes), there’s a 70% chance that your camera will go crazy when you land (99% if you’re an asura). Don’t wait for the camera to recover; you’ll lose precious time. Just turn very slightly to the left and jump a couple of times. In most situations you will end up in the “right” platform by the time the camera has recovered. You should not let go of the “run forward” key until you reach the pink area (see below).

6 o’clock: Don’t stop to open chests (unless you’ve done the puzzle dozens of times and know that you have time).

7 o’clock: Running closer to the inside (right side) of the track is faster, although it’s also more likely to cause camera problems. There is enough time to do it by following the left side, though. I just tend to pick the side with less people, to have a better reference for my own position. If you’re systematically getting caught by the green goo, try sticking to the right side.

8 o’clock: The most critical part of the tower, in terms of time, is what happens up to the “small square” jump. If you manage to jump onto the small square before the green stuff reaches it, you can make it to the end. If you land on it just as the green reaches it, it’s still doable, but you’ll be under a lot of pressure. If it’s under the green by the time you jump towards it, you’re screwed.

9 o’clock: When jumping from one platform to another, try to jump from the highest corner of one platform to the lowest corner of the other. This will minimize the number of times when you seem to bump into an invisible wall (your collision box doesn’t quite match your character). This usually means jumping diagonally (ex., from the right side of the cog to the left edge of the stairs, or from the left edge of the stairs to the right side of the platform, etc.). Note that some races (ex., sylvari) have a point of contact with the ground that is behind the character model. In other words, you can delay the jump until you’re half a step off the previous platform. If you’re not used to this, go practise on a non-timed jumping puzzle. As a general rule, jumping a little bit late is better than jumping early.

10 o’clock: Once you reach the “pink” area of the puzzle, time becomes less of an issue; the stairs and beams are now steep enough that you will be able to stay above the green stuff easily. You can let go of the “forward” key for a second or two to fine-tune your jumps. Don’t take too long, though; the goo is still rising, and you might need to go down at some point…

11 o’clock: Don’t try to walk on the edge of cogs, unless you’re sure you’ve landed on a flat part. Jump immediately after you land, to avoid getting stuck between the teeth, and to avoid camera bouncing. Remember you can curve in mid-air, so you can correct your direction while jumping as easily as you can while running.

12 o’clock: Play with sound turned on. The puzzle is always synced to the music, so you can use it as a reference for the timing of your jumps and for whether or not you have time to spare.

The next tips are specific to the puzzle’s layout; skip them if you don’t want spoilers, or go watch a video if they’re not clear enough.

Rant part:

IMO, the clock Tower should either be a solo instance (which basically means not rendering the other players’ models – very easy to code), a party instance (same as dungeons, where you can go in alone or with people you know – a bit harder to code), or other players should be rendered as ghosts / pumpkins / plastic spiders (so that they would not block visibility of the platforms or of your own character – also fairly easy to code).

However, Arena Net decided that it was “fun” to have up to 14 wardrobe-sized charr and norn blocking most of your screen, typing walls of text with /say, summoning oakheart spirits, and so on, so this is what we have to live with until they fix it (and given the time that things – other than exotic drop rates – take to get fixed, we probably won’t see this improved until 2016).

Rant part over.

If Arena Net thinks the presence of other players adds to the sense of urgency and excitement, simply replace them with small plastic spider models on our screen. We still get the sense of a mad rush up the tower, but we might actually be able to see our character and the way we’re going.

I can get to the end 9 out of 10 times with my human in a group without charr or norn. I die 9 out of 10 times if I’m on my asura in a group with charr or norn.

This is just bad game design (and very poor testing before release), turning what could and should be a fun and exciting jumping puzzle into a frustrating mess. It’s bad enough that the camera bounces all over the place when you land on platforms (especially with asura, where the camera target position is bugged).

On asura females with heavy armour, the Mad King’s Slippers are showing the underlying leggings (in this case, Heavy Penitent Leggings).

This might be a bug with the leggings, but doesn’t seem to happen with other shoes.

See attached screenshot.

People at Arena Net love to give completely different items identical names. Maybe they’re trying to improve the compression of text files or something. One of the reasons why GW2 database sites are such a mess is precisely that – two, three, sometimes up to five items with the same name but completely different properties.

Of course, the main reason is that GW2 doesn’t support plug-ins and 3rd party sites have no way to access the item database, but the name repetition isn’t helping, either, and it confuses players as well as database sites.

Apparently it was too complex to give people who hadn’t opened any chests yet a single exotic (or rare, for that matter).

I got one green on my level 15 character, nothing but whites on any of my level 80s.

You can get it straight from the composer’s page:

http://soundcloud.com/maclaine/mad-king-clocktower

brickforlife.1364:

SKuDDer.1860:

easy peasy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akpORGEvrgQ

You were probably the cause of other people failing it. You are the cause of the rage.

Do it on a minimum height asura with at least 5 charr/norn on max width and height settings and I will believe you.

This.

Give me a party with no norn or charr and I can reach the clock 7 out of 10 times with my asura, 9 out of 10 with any other race (the asura camera has more tendency to go nuts).

Stick a couple of huge slabs of meat (i.e., max-size norn or charr) and my success rate drops to 1 or 2 out of 10 (in fact, it took me close to 30 attempts to do it with my asura for the first time – and this was after doing it with 2 other races).

Lots of people seem to be rolling maximum height norns just to stand out and be able to see their character better, making the game worse for everyone else.

I actually have a big male norn character, which I won’t even bring into the Clock Tower simply out of respect for other players. I did it on my (minimum-height) norn female on the first attempt (luckily there were no wardrobe males in that group) and didn’t take her back since, either.

Forget 30 wins; doing it once with an asura is harder than doing it 100 times on a human or norn.

I do agree the game could use more titles (ex., for individual crafts, jumping puzzles, doing all paths in specific dungeons, etc.).

I suspect we’ll just see (slightly different) incarnations of them as part of other holiday events. In terms of world lore, it would probably be easier for them to have a permanent (or semi-permanent, ex., every weekend) version of the Hunger Royale game we saw during beta.

Of course, replace pumpkins with power cores, replace skeletons with robots, and an asura-themed version of Reaper’s Rumble could fit into the normal (non-Halloween) world.

I get teleported back to the waiting room about 20% of the times when jumping down from the “end of the line” beam to the platform with the chest. The hands (that are supposed to come out of the green goo) flash for a second in mid air, and I’m teleported back to the room, without even landing on the plaform (which is, itself, well above the level of the green goo at that point).

The jumping puzzle itself is fine. Having your view blocked by 14 charr when you’re an asura (and already have to deal with the mad asuran bouncing camera – still not fixed) is not fine.

I did the jumping puzzle on the 7th or 8th attempt on my human, on the 1st attempt on my norn, and it took me about 30 attempts with my asura (although I had done it with the other ones first). What finally allowed me to make it? Improved skill? Speed buffs? No. A group without any charr or norn. That simple.

By compounding the camera issues with the inability to see your own character or the places you’re supposed to be jumping to (because they’re hidden behind six tons of norn and charr meat), Arena Net is only hurting itself (well, not only itself, it’s also hurting its clients).

Simply telling the game client to not render the other players (or to render them as small plastic spiders, for example) would immediately eliminate the main source of frustration, and let people concentrate on the actual jumping puzzle (i.e., aiming and timing your jumps, and beating the clock) as opposed to the lack of visibility. This is absolutely trivial to code. We’re talking minutes.

Alternatively (more complex to code, but certainly within the abilities of Arena Net’s programmers), make it a party-based instance, same as dungeons. You can go in alone or with 4 friends. Not with 14 strangers who just block your view, summon pets, cast speed buffs and make you miss jumps, etc..

Wendigo.7931:

That’s also fake difficulty, because you’re using the limitations of the interface as an obstacle

Repeated for truth and shame.

Makovorn.1706

In the end, I rolled a norn, made it big, and dyed my armor pieces ridiculous colors to make it stand out more amongst the crowd.

Exactly. I’ve never seen as many level 5 max-size norns as today in the Clock tower.

When players feel the need to roll characters that they know will cause maximum inconvenience to other players just to be able to avoid the design flaws in the game, it should be pretty obvious to the designers that they messed up.

The tower layout is fine, the speed is fine. The camera isn’t fine (far from it) but we can live with it. Making players unable to see their own character or the way in front of them is not fine, and this should have been obvious if the puzzle was tested at all before release.

Drekor.5217:

Just wait an second before going and let everyone else run first, once they take off go right behind them, you’ll have full view of your character and still plenty of time as long as you don’t mess up.

And you think that, out of the 15 people in the instance, you’re the only one who will have that idea? Or that none of the others will be slow and end up on top of you anyway?

All you achieve by starting late is give yourself no way to recover from a mistake or a momentary lag spike.

There’s absolutely no reason for this to be a forced group instance, especially with so many players in such a small space, and where certain races (norn, charr) have big advantages at the cost of everyone else.

Being a huge norn in pink armour doesn’t just give you a much better notion of your own location, it also causes people around (inside you, hidden by you) you to mess up sooner, which leaves you alone and undisturbed for the rest of the race.

And that’s without taking into account people casting speed buffs and messing up your jumps, people bringing minions, people posting huge walls of text with /say to deliberately block other players’ view, etc..

A timed jumping puzzle is supposed to be about fighting against the clock and the course. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with GW2’s horrible camera that bounces in and out for no reason; we should not also have to deal with other players blocking our view (be it involuntarily or, in many cases, deliberately).

buzzkapow.8465:

there are still 2 more acts to go

Are you replying to some other thread? What does that have to do with the fact that 1+1+1+1 = 3 ?

Greyfeld.7104:

Since your character is always in the same place on your screen (assuming your camera doesn’t start having a seizure)

That last part is a very big assumption, considering this is GW2, which somehow manages to lack the basic camera stability present in every game since Tomb Raider…

Greyfeld.7104:

Account.9832:

If you’re a human in a group of asuras, you’ll probably complete it >50% of the times. If you’re an asura in a group of norn and / or charr, you’ll probably complete it <5% of the times.

That is evidence of bad design and poor testing.

I ran through this on my female norn, who uses the smallest body size.

The “smallest body size” for a norn is still about 3x the biggest body size for an Asura. And the camera target placement is different (norns don’t get the “bounce” when landing on platforms).

I play norn too (two, in fact, one male and one female). There’s absolutely no comparison. You, on the other hand, clearly haven’t even tried to do it on an asura.

Greyfeld.7104:

I had zero problem keeping track of my character.

…with the biggest race in the game. Well, congratulations on proving my point.

Go on, roll an asura, join a group with 3 norn and 3 charr, and post the video. We’ll be waiting.

Okamy.8235:

it’s a fake problem because in most case, there’s almost no one with you when you past trough the very start of the puzzle.

This makes me wonder if you’ve even gone in.

Not only is everyone with you when you start, but there’s a 6-second pause waiting for a platform to spawn soon after the start, which ensures that all players will be on top of each other (making most characters completely invisible if there are any charr or norn) when the real jumping begins.

And, obviously, because it’s a timed puzzle, if you wait for them to move so you can see your own character, you’ll never make it.

Result:

Asura in the middle of charr or norn = Jumping blind (plus camera bouncing due to the asura target position bug).

Charr or norn in the middle of asura = Perfect view of your own character and platforms.

Does that look like good design (or evidence of good testing) to you…?

TerryLong.9561:

You are annoyed now. But once you complete it. It will be rewarding.

No, once you complete it you will feel relieved. There’s a difference.

Completing the Clock Tower, at this point, is more a matter of luck in terms of group composition and race selection than a demonstration of skill.

If you’re a human in a group of asuras, you’ll probably complete it >50% of the times. If you’re an asura in a group of norn and / or charr, you’ll probably complete it <5% of the times.

That is evidence of bad design and poor testing.

And it would be easily solved by making it a solo / party instance. People should be “fighting” the jumps and the timer, not fighting the blocked view and buggy camera.

Not only that, but on Asura the camera often decides to zoom in (and then slowly out) for no apparent reason whenever you land on a new platform.

That particular bug has been around for over a month, but on a timed puzzle you can’t even wait for the camera to zoom back out, you have to guess where the next jump is without seeing it, because the camera is too busy showing you your own backside or a rock under your feet…

DmnHunter.7620:

I AM A NORN AND HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM. […] Its hard for tall races and hard for small races. too many people and you cant see yourself period.

Not even comparable.

Be a norn in a group of asuras: See your character perfectly, see the platforms perfectly.

Be an asura in a group of norns: Don’t see your character at all, have most platforms in front of you hidden behind norn meat. Unless you’re lucky and they all fall off, you’ll basically be doing the puzzle blind from start to finish.

Another interesting statistic would be how often people complete it when they happen to be a charr or norn in a group of asuras and how often they complete it when they happen to be an asura in a group of charr and norn…

When using Magnetic Aura on my elementalist, instead of reflecting the arrows from the skeletons in the Labyrinth, being hit by an arrow causes my character to stop, get frozen in place, and play the “shooting an arrow” animation (using an invisible bow).

Given that Magnetic Aura is the main way elementalists have of blocking / reflecting projectiles, given that reflecting projectiles is the obvious thing to do when faced with archers, and given the fact that the Labyrinth is full of archers, I have to ask how did no one at Arena Net notice this during testing…? It’s not exactly a subtle bug.

I would replace that with “this puzzle will make you hate all norn and charr – as well as the person who had the brilliant idea of making a timed puzzle where characters 4x the size of your own can completely block your view”.

How to murder one’s own content: Test with a solo human, release with 15 charr completely covering the middle of players’ screens.

The issue isn’t the reasoning or how easy each achievement is (personally I found Trick or Treat and Halloween Huntin’ a lot easier than Pumpkin Carving, for example).

The issue is why on Earth does Arena Net clearly state that the meta achievement counts “Halloween Achievements” and then count some but not others. Do they expect people to guess…??

Latorn.4209:

What if I want to do it with friends? I thought this was an MMO …

If you’re in a party, your party goes in, simple. Same as dungeons.

Tenebram.8975:

Meh.. love getting punished because of a few people.. dont get why it wasnt patched to have diminishing returns rather than reducing drops for everyone even those who havent even gotten a chance to do it yet

Because that would make too much sense and not drive enough people away from the game.

I never got anything better green gear from the chests (and that was with my level 15 character; with the level 80s I only get crafting materials). After the last mini-patch, I haven’t got anything better than a white, and that’s when the chests actually open.

I’m impressed.

Main Tip: Play a human or sylvari and be in a group with no norn or charr.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Rumble should be fixed in a few minutes.

So, what was this patch for?

Katreyn.4218:

Persistence helps.

Being in a group without any charr or norn helps infinitely more.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s true, pumpkin carving and clock tower don’t count.

Then maybe edit the description of the counter to say which achievements do count…?

That wiki page says nothing about which achievements are counted towards the meta achievement.

And wiki pages are often incomplete / outdated anyway.

I clearly have 4 Halloween achievements completed and the counter is showing 4. Either the description of the counter needs to be updated (to list exactly which achievements are counted), or the counter itself needs to count correctly.

Join a group of asuras, finish it >50% of the times. Join a group with a couple of charr or norn, die again and again and again becuase you can’t even see your own character (let alone the place you’re supposed to jump to).

Looks like Arena Net tested this solo (probably with a human or sylvari – the asura camera bounces all over the place) and then decided to throw a bunch of wardrobe-sized charr and norn in front of you (not to mention pop-ups asking you if you want to travel out of overflow in the middle of the puzzle). Because more crap covering the middle of your screen makes things more fun, right?

Right…?

What’s your (official) source for that? It says it’s counting Halloween achievements, and those are listed in the Halloween achievement section.

Either the counter is bugged or its description is bugged.

The problem isn’t the reflexes. The problem the camera (that gets stuck in geometry and zooms all the way in for no apparent reason – especially if your character is an asura) and the fact that your view is constantly blocked by charr and norn characters. And that’s when some idiot doesn’t decide to use banners, summon oakhearts, etc.. It’s a griefer’s paradise.

Arena Net clearly tested this only with small groups of (or a single) human / sylvari.

Either that or they want everyone to start hating norn and charr players.

The puzzle itself is fine (*). Fix the camera and make it a solo instance. Until then, not bothering with the game.

(*) Or was fine. Now sometimes after the last jump (into the clock face) you get teleported to the start instead of being teleported to the final room. That’s really the cherry on top of the cake.