Guild Wars 2

Ironwill.5389:

Dear Professor Butterlegs,

You have 55 seconds (56 ticks @ -288 health/tick) to complete the first leg of the journey or you’re dead

Looking at last years jumping puzzle videos from Dulfy’s site, how many jumps and how long she took to complete them:

Puzzle Path | | #of Jumps : #Time to complete

Gingerbread| | 51 (path seems easier, less repositioning): 51 seconds
Quaggan __ | | 53 (two new riskier jumps to save 2 hops): 58 seconds
Snowman | | 51 (more straight, but more positioning): 55 seconds

This assumes Dulfy’s skill is average between all paths (I think they’re spread across multiple years.. so it might not be true.. but it basically breaks down to about a jump a second..)

If she performed exactly the same this year, she would fail 2 of the 3 paths. (!)

All paths are not equal..
probably the best chance of getting the puzzle is to go gingerbread.

Judging from the amount of people running the paths last night I think a lot of people have come to the same conclusion, while I’ve been stubbornly running on quaggan.. I run it relatively alone with a sea of red all over the gingerbread path…

I’ve love to see any videos of you completing each path this year!
Any chance you put your skills on-line for all to admire ….

I’ll give the action camera a shot, but I find the mouse rotation makes or breaks some of the jumps..

I usually find myself with about 10 ticks left when I get to the checkpoint platform.

As for Dulfy, I’ve used her videos a couple times when I get stuck on a jp. To be completely honest though, I wouldn’t say she is an excellent jumper. But thankfully you don’t need to be for most(if not all) jump puzzles.

I do have windows 10 and the xbox game dvr that comes with it, but I haven’t tried recording gw2. It can make some games really framey while its running. I guess I could try if people really wanted me to, but I’m sure there are plenty already out there (including the Dulfy one which you cited)

smiling.9028:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I would do a dissertation on growing old and having neither the reflexes nor speed anymore to do jumping puzzles. However, I would probably end it by telling other players to get off my kitten lawn while forgetting what I was talking about in the first place!.

Literally lmao.

Sadly I could easily collaborate on your aging dissertation, it seems nowdays that there’s no senior handicap in gaming so we’re prone to accidental dodges and trying to find that kitten tiny mouse cursor somewhere on the screen.

I’ve seen a couple posts like this, people saying how they are physically unable to complete the jumping puzzle because of disabilities. I can empathize with you, but realistically there isn’t really anything that can be done. You just have to live with the fact that, just like in real life, there are some things you are going to be unable to do because of your handicap.

If you really, really just need that shoulder skin, you could always get a friend, family member, or coworker to do it for you. Hey, I even bet that edgy teen from down the block wouldn’t mind getting a few bucks to play a video game.

As for the accidental dodges, I suspect you have the double-tap forward to dodge option on. So you should turn that off while doing things like this, or even take it off entirely. And I definitely agree with you about the mouse cursor , it can get lost really easily if there is a fair bit of visual noise going on.

Redenaz.8631:

What are people using for the snowball transformation? I’ve seen people using it, but haven’t figured out if there’s a new tonic or what.

Pretty neat!

enchanted snowball box, its a drop from wintersday gifts or ~20g on tp

Anet, I love you so much right now, you don’t even know.

(sidenote- I do wish you would bring back the refractor shading working all on transformations)

Qelris.6901:

Sometimes one of the higher gifts will explode early so you will have to make one diagonal jump,

When the second last gift in the middle lane explode early, you can still jump as if it was there because there’s a little invisible platform under it so you can still jump on it. I’m not sure how big it is, but I know for a fact I’ve been jumping it even if the gift is missing.

I believe you can also max distance jump to the ice.

yea, forgot to add that, sometimes the one below that blows too

Greeting class, my name is Professor Butterlegs, Ph.D (Doctor of Practical Hopping), and today I am going to guide you through the Winter Wonderland jumping puzzle.

I. Before you get started

• I recommend using action camera for this jump puzzle, it makes life much easier.
• The cold damage will do the same percentage regardless of health or armor, you will die on the 56th tick. So don’t worry about having to use a tankier class or anything like that.
• Your traits are disabled.
• Knowing the route can be very helpful. Either watch a video on the jump puzzle first to get a feel for it or try to find someone who is doing well on it and follow what they do.

II. Choosing a path
The jump puzzle is possible from all 3 paths, so you should take whichever you are best at and stick with it, so the more you do it the better you will get. That said, I personally giving the middle path (snowmen) a shot as it seems to be the fastest(about tied with gingerbread men) and I feel it has the least amount of difficult jumps.

III. The Snowflakes
As long as you have fundamental jump understanding this part should not be too difficult. There are not any especially tricky jumps. When you jump onto a snowflake and are moving in the direction of the next one also move either side based on the angle of the snowflake. Jumps are easiest if you are jumping from the highest point of one snowflake to the lowest point of another (don’t do this if it will make your jump longer).

The candy cane bars in the snowflake section can be slightly tricky because of how thin they are and how small the hops are (Super short hops with a unforgiving landing zone are a bane of mine). To counteract this, on the left and right paths (gingerbread men and Quaggan respectively) you can jump at an angle to gives yourself a more forgiving landing zone. On the middle path these candy canes are very short so this isn’t really possible, however if you jump from the snowflake straight to the second candy cane it is a much more comfortable jump distance.

There are a few shortcuts on each path. I’m not that familiar with the left and right paths, but for the center path a couple of notable skip-able platforms are: the first candy cane pole, the second to last snowflake, and the 4th round peppermint.

On the gift section:

When the second last gift in the middle lane explode early, you can still jump as if it was there because there’s a little invisible platform under it so you can still jump on it.

(tip provided by Qelris)

IV. The Gifts
This is where I see a lot of people having trouble, and it is definitely a spot I had trouble with early on. First of all, do not jump to the blue rectangular gifts that sometimes spawn. While the easy jump to them looks inviting, it will cause more of the white box gifts to be popping when you get to them, making it harder. You can still make it up while the blue boxes are there however. Just make a long jump over the blue gifts to the first white gift on the complete columns to the left or right.

Once you get to the checkpoint, wait for the gifts to start resetting and jump when the white gift in the middle column that is closest to you spawns jump to it. This is pretty much a max ranged jump, so you really need to jump at the very edge of the checkpoint platform. It may take you a few times to get the hang of it, but don’t get discouraged. After you have landed on that first gift, spam jump your way straight ahead. Sometimes the third box will explode early so you will have to make one diagonal jump, but usually you can go all the way up the middle.

Try to make shorter hops on this section (don’t hold space or forward) so you can go faster.

Something to note about the gifts is the popping chain will trigger as soon as someone makes the jump, so if someone jumps early and you aren’t quite ready, wait for another reset.

V. The home stretch
Congratulations, once you pass the gifts you have made it to the final, and arguably easiest part of the jump puzzle. There is a small noob trap on the initial large platform after the gifts, a snowman that will blow wind that can knock you off. It does a short burst then pauses (don’t get tricked) before blowing a long gust. You can evade through the wind so do so each time you are passing it, even if it isn’t currently blowing.

Once you are on the ramp it is pretty simple, avoid the red circles and use the platforms off the sides to avoid the rolling snowballs. You run faster than the snowballs, so don’t be afraid to turn around if it doesn’t look like you will make it to the safe platform in time. You can also evade through the snowballs, but the timing on this is very iffy and I don’t recommend it.

Try to keep as close to the center of the ramp as possible, as it is easy to slide off. (If you are doing this drunk make sure you can walk a straight line across your room first :P). Then there are just a few easy jumps on gifts to get into the portal to the chest.

VI. Minding your mindset
Let me start this section with a little story. I started playing gw2 around the beginning of last October. And let me tell you, I was preeety terrible at jump puzzles and would avoid all but the easiest ones. Despite this, when the Halloween event rolled around I thought that I would give the clocktower a shot. I played it for about 15 minutes, couldn’t even get to the first chest, and promptly gave up. One night, about a week later, I decided I was going to assert my dominance over that stupid jumping puzzle. Somewhere in the 3-4 hour range later, I achieved this goal. And those hours helped build my jumping skills so I could go back out into the open world and complete some of those jump puzzles I had previously felt were too daunting.

By going through this ordeal I came to understand a few things which I want to impart onto you.
1. First of all, you’ll never achieve something if you give up. If I hadn’t gone back to it, I would have been in the “grumble grumble stupid impossible jump puzzle, wtf anet grumble grumble” mindset. This won’t get you very many places in life.
2. Take it one jump at a time. The less focus you put on these jumps the more likely it is that you will fail. Don’t think about the way you fell last time around, don’t think about the “hard” jump that is coming up, don’t think about your health ticking away, don’t even think about bacon(I know, impossible goal right?). Pretend that the jump ahead of you is the only thing that matters, and once you make it, the next jump is the new center of your universe, and so on.
3. Be encouraged by your successes, don’t be discouraged by your failures. There are a million things that can cause you to miss a jump, no matter how good you are (let me fill you in on a secret, nobody is perfect). But there is only one thing that can cause you to get further along in the puzzle, even if that is only one more platform before you die: you improved. And if you got better once, you can do it again. A harder to notice but equally important improvement is when you die less at parts of the puzzle you have already reached and passed, You are getting more comfortable with them and you will get eventually get more comfortable with this next jump that seems impossible right now. Take note of these small but important achievements, allow them to fuel you. If you just let the times you fail get to you, you will go on tilt, and then you will fail more, and you will tilt harder. Each time you fall, take note of what caused it, learn from it, and then move on (see #2).

VII. Known bugs

• Sometimes the first snowball will bug and turn invisible, always check to see if it is coming down the hill or not before stepping onto the ramp. You will know when it passes because two red warning circles will appear as it gets close, you can continue once they fade.
• Sometimes if you are standing on a gift when it explodes you will not fall but instead float in midair. Don’t move. Once the gifts respawn you can continue on your merry way.

VIII. Bonus goodies

• At the back of the chest platform there is a little mini jump puzzle to get onto a platform above (just for lols).
• You can get to the top of the snowball ramp, I may have missed 10 or so chests trying to achieve this, but science demands sacrifice!

Nightshade.5924:

Okay. MY issue is that completing the Jumping Puzzle is a FORCED requirement For the Winter’s Presence Collection. Jumping puzzles like that are ALL about skill. IF there WAS say a NON timed, NON melting version of this puzzle, then I would have no complaint. But…..

I’m With the guy that started this thread. Making a Jumping Puzzle, ESPECIALLY THE THIRD hardest in the game, a gate for ANYTHING is beyond crazy.

To the guy “who sucks at jumping puzzles”? Dude. I have 4 guys I play with regularly. Two of them ROCK at jumping puzzles. Most often when we do one to get the achievement or “for fun” one of these guys pretty much holds my hand leading me through said puzzle. They can finish a puzzle, then come back to find me trying to get past the 20th jump or where ever it is that I’ve come back to for the fourth or fifth time.

The point being… both of my Bad * jumpers AGREE that Wintersday Gauntlet is right up there w/ the Mad King’s Clock Tower and the South Sun JP. NEITHER OF THESE GUYS HAS COMPLETED ANY OF THOSE THREE.

So. This problem needs an immediate fix. The DEVs NEED to either PULL the JP requirement from Winter’s Presence, or they need to field a version of the JP that will give a credit for completion, and NOTHING else. No chest, etc. Said version should NOT have any timers, and DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT HAVE MELTING BLOODY SNOWFLAKES.

For the record, the farthest I have EVER gotten is the EIGHTH SNOWFLAKE. From the start. Frustration doesn’t even cover TEN tries and not even being able to get near the First safe point. Is there one? I wouldn’t KNOW.

Really? The third hardest JP? It took me 2+ hours to get mad kings clock tower. It took me less than 15 minutes to get this one. They are not even in the same league. This jump puzzle (imo) is one of the easiest in the game, there are a few noob traps, but really it is all about jumping fundamentals.

A few tips:
-use action camera
-I find the middle path (snowmen i think) to be the fastest, however the candy cane poles are harder because they are much shorter
-on the snowflakes try to jump from the highest edge to the lowest edge as long as this doesnt increase jump distance too much.
-on the candy canes jump at an angle instead of perpendicular to them
-the jump right after the first checkpoint is probably one of the hardest because it is a max range jump, you pretty much jump right as you are about to fall off the checkpoint platform and aim for the middle red/white square gift (not the blue rectangle ones, you will take too long), then spam jump straight forward, only going at an angle if one of them blows up.
-at the following platform there is a snowman that blows wind that can knock you off, it does a short burst then a long one, so either wait for both of them or you can evade through it safely.
-the rest of the jp is pretty self explanatory, dont step in the red attack circles and use the peppermints off the sides to avoid the snowballs.

Instead anet drops the ball once again, creating an activity that, instead of making me want to come back again and again for more, has me wishing it could go faster so I could get the achievement already.

The core problem is how ridiculously easy it is. There is no point to do anything other than mindless catapult/snowman spam for the entirety of the game.

Here’s what I would do to make it a much more rewarding experience:

1. Starting difficulty
Increase the base strength of the mobs so there would need to be some teamwork where a couple people kill them with the rifle while the others start setting up fortifications

2. Enemy strengths/weaknesses
Give each different mob a specific strength or weakness, i.e. taking more/less damage from specific siege and player weapons, doing more damage to walls, etc.

3. Actual fortification strategy
-Increase enemy scaling, but also increase health to walls and scaling on fortifications upgrading so there is a bigger decision between coverage or power.
-Make the wall placement more intuitive (make the blue placement marker show exactly where the wall is going to be/face and only that), so that it is easier to use them to create linked walls or choke-points.

4. Make the repair pistol actually do something

5. Skritt mercenaries and mortars
Make these strong counters against the boss so they actually have a use.

6. At the very least, increase gift rewards
Between the fact that it is a boring ez-mode tower defense and the poor rewards, there is no reason to play this over the jump puzzle or bell choir for entertainment or farming purposes.

Needless to say, since I’ve finished the 30 rounds achievement, I will not be returning to this activity unless it is a daily. I really hope Anet puts a little more thought into this next time around.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on both my suggestions and the activity itself. Leave em below.
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it took me over 2 hours to get the mad kings clock tower, took me like 20 minutes to first complete this one. The snowflakes part is easy, the part after the presents is easy, and the presents part is a bit harder but it’s just a matter of getting it down. Tip: go in as straight of a path up it as possible

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Restrictions of a f2p account: Except for mutual friends, can only whisper in the same map, one new person every 30 seconds

Having experience as a f2p player I can tell you that even this isnt as limited as it is, the game will often not allow you to whisper to people at all even if you havent whispered anyone in over 30 seconds

… to be able to cook Ascended Bacon. Anetplz.

>:(

I just bought HoT two days ago after being f2p for almost 2 months. Early on I had bought some gems and upgraded the bag slots of my first character. I just noticed that base bag slot capacity on my new characters is 5 and my other old character has been upgraded to 5 bag slots from the 3 you get as f2p.

The bug is that the first character, on which I had purchased bag slot upgrades, did not receive two extra bag slots as it should have.

and if you want to also be getting the wings youre really screwed

I was rolling with some guildies in ranked. One of us dc’d at the beginning of the match so it’s looking pretty grim but at about 100 to 200 they get back and we turn it around. We end up winning the game a disgustingly handsome 500 to 249. Get back to the lobby and we all find that we lost a pip, and in the match history it says “Desertion” instead of “Victory”.

Now I don’t know if this was directly caused by our buddies temporary dc or is a completely unrelated bug. But either way, it’s a whole lot of bs.

Ranked was already bad enough with all the unbalanced aids builds going around, but it is just the icing on the cake that even the pip system is broken. Please fix this asap Anet.

>:(

(also too bad the match history doesn’t actually signify which team you were on in a case like this, you’ll just have to take my word for it)