Guild Wars 2

Usually there is a place were you can wait for the goats to pass you buy, the checkpoint where you fork to go to the Moto’s finger is one exception, afk there and they repeatedly- kill you (if I am thinking about the right checkpoint, writing down from memory).

If you move to the next platform right after a goat passed you and then find a safe place to wait for the next “wave” before making the next jump… you will never get knocked off by them as long as you repeat this, because the time between goats is plentiful.

This is just my speculation but it is probably due to the fact that there are independent meta achievements for World 1 & 2, and the first set being a returning one, so they did not want to change requirements for completing it.

Or then they simply wanted to avoid having SAB related achievements as dailies since it is so different from normal gameplay. However, more likely they just couldn’t come up with enough variety for them. The things you can do in the box are pretty much covered by the achievements that are there already as part of living world categories already.

Goat’s are trivial and the “elite” skills are optional, I believe back in April they were saying that they would not be needed to progress through any future levels… but it has been several months.

Atrophied.8725:

The skin colours follow the standard rarity colours for items in the game.

Blue (Fine)
Green (Masterwork)
Yellow (Exotic)
Red (Pink) (Ascended)
Purple (Legendary)

In this case they correspond to the bauble scale in SAB, which just conveniently matches the rarity scale elsewhere.

raahk.2786:

Oh, also, world 2 zone 3 has a new thing now where everything is DARK
I can’t see anything anymore
I don’t know why it’s at night time now when it was semi-bright before
Not sure if this is a bug or it’s just more artificial difficulty that needed to be shoehorned in for god knows why

Those darkened areas are intended to be places to use the torch (the light sticks around, it is not just for burning things), candle provided far less light, so it makes sense that darker areas in World 1 would not be completely dark.

The blizzard on the other hand is very manageable without the torch, assuming you are not zoomed all the way out. The Moto’s Finger area is probably the hardest bit of the blizzard section and it is completely optional.

MagnusLL.8473:

But ask yourself this: do you really, honestly believe, that the guys who decided to introduce the infinite continue coin in the shop, never had a talk about it with the guys who code SAB?
Because if you do, I have a bridge to sell…

Obviously they had a talk about it, but before your theory holds any water we would need to know which came first the talk or the design.

Tribulation mode was supposed to be a thing in April already, as in they had it in game, but they had to disable it due to it tanking the servers or some such reason. So unless they did a total 180 on their original design for Tribulation mode after such talk or they pre-planned this in April before they had any idea how popular SAB would be or if it would even live to see another day. I can’t see them planning this far in advance to just net few extra microtransaction dollars. Especially when the coin can be bought about 30 in-game gold as well, which people always seem to conveniently forget when coming up with these theories.

Seeing as how large the zones in World 2 are, annoyingly so for the first run, I highly doubt they had the time or the man power to do such radical changes in what is three to four months development time (including QA presumably) with their current four team setup.

Assuming Josh isn’t lying through his teeth in this topic, World 2 suffered from feature creep… and some people working on it way more than anyone expected them to. I doubt they could have prepared two versions in advance even if they wanted to. Also the hotfix has some suggestions directly from this topic so it obviously wasn’t pre-planned.

Also, the over arching progression to SAB was roughly planned in April as is evidenced by the fact that upgrades beyond what was available in April or now were datamined way back then. The super explosive finisher for instance is apparently the same animation as the final upgrade to bombs inside SAB.

Yes, they did nerf bauble farming but they added continue coin drops inside SAB which wasn’t the case for the April iteration of it (they could only be bought from Moto, or farmed from jumping puzzles other than SAB itself, both of which can still be done).

Icealen.3802:

Yes, retro games had no rebalancing. What you got on the cartridge/disk is what you got. For example, if the game gave you 100 lives to start with, that’s what you got, no matter if you played the game in April or later on in September.

As for fixing or not fixing bugs, I have no opinion/comment on that either way and cannot help you on that. I encountered no bugs in SAB while playing. You’ll have to ask someone else about that.

Correct, SAB however, is not an old game. All I am saying is that the reason you gave for why they should not rebalance rewards is silly. As for bugs, I didn’t really pose a question at all, just pointed out that yes it is good to to get rid of some of the old tropes, while keeping others… bug fixes and by extension the inability to change game balance are not one to skip just because it is more in line with how games of that era used to be.

Also, as for the not living world argument, story wise SAB is an incomplete game in development by the Asura known as Moto, so the fact that it keeps changing is perfectly fine narratively and even to be expected.

TDWIG.9712:

It’s also required to grab some of the baubles like the one in the toad/dart room on 2-2 that you can only get with the whip.

I stand corrected then, never was a fan of those get all baubles in single run achievements…. definitely not doing it on world 2 zones.

However, I still feel like it was originally supposed to be more useful than it is now.

I guess I have to admit, it does have a few uses… so it is only almost useless or under used.

I guess my point is that whip is one of the first upgrades you are offered.. and the way it is used for so little doesn’t really benefit in making it clear that upgrades are important. When your first upgrade is so situational and not clearly absolutely needed anywhere. This, is when we get to a situation where people get annoyed that candle and torch are required to progress when they have the impression that upgrades are just fluff.

Icealen.3802:

Crise.9401:

Essentially what you imply is that they are not allowed to fix bugs or change content to adapt to the shortcomings of an engine that was not designed for platformers.

I said nothing about not fixing bugs, nothing about the game’s engine, or platformer games. Where you came up with those, I’m not sure. The entire paragraph you quoted was in reference to dig site farming.

Yes, and my point is why should they let you get infinite bauble’s for almost no effort and by extension bauble bubble’s. You very specifically said that because SAB is an omage to to old games that they should not rebalance rewards, and your argument was that the old games that it is influenced by couldn’t be updated like that either, more or less.

Just pointed out, that going by that logic, when in fact SAB doesn’t suffer from that restriction of old games is ridiculous because it would mean they should also leave all bugs intact, if you think about it a bit longer.

Miragee.3604:

The only thing that was bad was the hit boyes of some things like waterfalls. Hit boxes mauch bigger than the actual object. Something you can’t see in before. The fontains actually had 2 different rhythms. After a few trails you would have had the mechanic.

Well yes, I had the rhythm down, however, if you jumped off of geyser (or stood on it) exactly when it disappeared it applied a knockback to you (to prevent your character from standing in thin air) thus throwing you into the rapids without fail. Now this is fine, in a scenario where there is little to no latency or rendering lag on client side.

But when you add in those factors sometimes unless you jumped before the geysers actually appeared on your screen your window to jump onto the next one was extremely slim. How this could manifest on client side would be knockback being applied to your character when mid-air or while still standing on a geyser that was perfectly fine, depending on where the latency was originating.

Also, particularly for the first set of three geysers, after the checkpoint, they were the easy part except when jumping from the second to third my character would collide with the underside of the third geyser at random (also knocking me off obviously).

The point being, I shouldn’t have to attempt to factor in things like network latency or server/render lag… or think about how my characters hitbox is bigger/smaller than the model on screen. Why? Because the designer should be the one that worries about those things not the player. In other words there was unintended difficulty in it that some people were experiencing due to external factors.

Icealen.3802:

If the SAB is supposed to emulate old classic games, then it’s NOT a living world – preexisting content and rewards should not have been changed/altered in my opinion.

SAB doesn’t emulate or recreate those games, it is an omage to them, mainly this means it is not an old game, it is a new game that uses some dated design, gameplay and a particular aesthetic to invoke feeling of nostalgia… like Josh said in this topic it is about which old school desing decisions to keep for flavor and which to throw away. Also SAB is a game within a game its rewards influence GW2 as a whole both aesthetically and economically.

Essentially what you imply is that they are not allowed to fix bugs or change content to adapt to the shortcomings of an engine that was not designed for platformers.

Miragee.3604:

- Geysers were removed from Piranha Bend in World 2-1 and been replaced with more piranha for overall difficulty reduction.

Are people really to kitten down already to want a challenge that will cost them more than one try because you have to figure out the mechanics?

Make that 200 tries or more, I didn’t care to count after that (and that was just from death toll, not counting the times when I managed to salvage the situation without dying), at that point it is no longer about figuring out mechanics but being screwed over by factors not under your control.

Yes, I probably could have passed it eventually, but it would have not been because I got better (sure, yes I got better at factoring in jumping quirks and latency, but that is hardly the point of SAB) at it but getting a stroke of dumb luck.

The geyser + rapids combo was brutal not because of its mechanics but because of how the system surrounding it worked, or more accurately didn’t work.

I don’t think there was a section more infuriating than the geysers in the entirety of W2, although the yeti fight gets close, mostly because it was easier and faster to just to suicide bomb him over fighting him legit.

Also I can’t help but to notice how you did not include the spinflower change in your list, I am guessing that’s something that frustrated you enough not to? Yes, some fixes were heavy handed, but at the end of the day it was a hotfix that went out fast, so they were limited in what they could do. The problem with temporary content, you have to wait for the next round of SAB to get the polished proper fixes for these mechanics and levels.

VitalSuit.1980:

Probably until we kill scarlet whenever that living story ever happens.

Also while invasions may be going away when Scarlet bites it, if that ever happens, I think the devs have stated that invasion type zone wide events are something that they want to do in the future.

So yes, they will stay… they may change in form at some indeterminate time in the future but their main mechanic will remain in game.

DevonCarver.5370:

No. That is not a possibility at this time. The point of the buff is to affect the WvW game mode as a whole disabling it on your character would lessen the value of the buff to a server and completely invalidate the whole point.

How about a WvW trap that strips the buff from anyone that triggers it, say for 30 minutes (preferably with more than a single trigger per trap, say 5 or 10, I have never used WvW traps so dunno how they actually work)-

Granted I can’t say I know much in terms of balance so this suggestion might create problems in other areas, however, I don’t see a problem in introducing a legit mechanic for the opposing side to combat the buff on a smaller scale (ie. rather than having to remove buff from all three maps by using the cap points allow neutralizing on case by case basis, for smaller group play, so to speak for a short time).

Player Character.9467:

Whip has significant range advantage over the melee weapons, it provides an ammoless method of getting across the turtles/crocs early in 2-1. It also allows you to stunlock bears.

Early in 2-1, all I used was the stick and then slingshot in the pre-patch piranha bend turtles. You don’t need the whip now period, in the April version of 2-1, we had I recall the whip being necessary for some crocs, but that is no longer the case whatsoever.

The hitboxes on the crocodiles are gigantic (about 3x the size of the crocodile, according to Josh I believe).

Yes, the whip has the ability to stun a few mobs, but it is slow to use (and hard to hit fast moving targets with as a consequence), easier just to slingshot or bomb from range.

Stunlocking imo, is borderline useless, maybe it is more useful now when it is actually worthwhile to kill the enemies since they drop more than one bauble at times, most of the time I just run past them though.. if they are not in the way of solving a puzzle.

Whip isn’t really needed for anything… its stun is mostly useless, except maybe for having easier time on the raft in 2-1 and it does 0 damage. It has little to no range andvantage… particularly this is true for the one thing whip feels like it was originally made for, hitting crocodiles, when their hitboxes are so freaking huge.

Please make the whip more useful as a mid range weapon or as an ability to trigger things from further away because right now it feels like that is what is was made for but it isn’t really needed. You can always either make do with the stick or have to use the slingshot or bombs at present.

There is difference between the visible model and collision hitboxes for characters (all races and body types have the same size hitbox, for balance reasons in normal gameplay). Also the platforms are physically a bit larger than their render, presumably to combat lag.

Jumping is also a little different, since you can change your momentum and direction mid jump, you are expected to figure this out, I guess. If you jump first and begin moving forward after the initial momentum is up not forward, and while you can change it mid jump the normal jump duration is often too short to make the longer jumps this way.

If you are an asura, yes that means you have to jump slightly later than what your eyes would tell you to, because the model is so much smaller than the character hitbox.

Player Character.9467:

They’re all saying they liked it more before and it’s too easy with the patched in nerfs.

I liked the things that they nerfed too, however, by the looks of it latency was more of a factor than anticipated and geysers/spinflowers had bugs, so they hotfixed them and hopefully will be able to fix them properly later (Josh, convince them to give you a programmer in your team for the next round).

You can get used to lag caused by things like low FPS, because it is more consistent but network latency can be all over the place compound that with slower processing on low end PC’s suddenly a 3 second window on server side can be reduced closer to 1 on client side.

The issue with World 2 in a nutshell is that while all the mechanics where more or less fun and interesting… the complete experience is too long, too much fun at once is bad for you.

The rapids and geyser’s would have probably been fine as they were probably, if there was no latency on internet. Although, I think that with finicky aiming (turtles) and so long as the geyser section was what was done to it was probably the right call.

The spinflowers being on autopilot is welcome (since they were somewhat random) but sad because it makes the bear cave not much of a secret and limits their potential. Hopefully they can implement/fix them properly for the next round of SAB (same goes for geyser’s as a mechanic but shorter bursts with “half way points” feels more appropriate for normal mode imo).

W2, Z2-3, both too long but mechanically solid, liked all the puzzles, and the “shortcuts” in zone 3, after “solving” a section, were nice…. hope they keep that up.

If they could change dart traps to knockback and damage over instakill I bet many would find zone 2 to be way less annoying I think. If not then make arrow traps bit more prominent at long range looking for them is bit tedious (ie. if the trap that kills you is off screen, or the camera is zoomed too far out).

The goat & lights puzzle (zone 3) was bit weird, since it can essentially solve itself if you get lucky after a while.

Yeti, was frustrating, spam jumping with no breaks is no fun only to be knocked back to repeat the same slow climb again, if there was more to the climbing than kitten the spacebar then maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad. But as it is now, the yeti should be burned alive and forgotten.

Storm wizard was fun, but ironically easier than the yeti (which was “harder” for all the wrong reasons).

Nilkemia.8507:

Even now, I am still stuck there, waiting, cooling off, because I basically had no idea what to do and just kept dying to all the lightning… if this is an example of what future levels will be like, than I don’t want it anymore. Just wanted to finish the levels and get what little story there is for this, and I can’t even do that with out more misery. On Infantile Mode, of all things.. sigh.

Storm Wizard is arguably easier than the frog, charge is annoying yes… but the two dodges are enough, since he only changes direction once, and dodge nulls all damage, if you manage to have enough distance from when he starts you might not even need more than one dodge. The key to his first form is distance.

The dragon phase is little finicky at times but it has a clear pattern, destroy “dragon balls” (by killing the things that kill you) when that is done stay on the outer ring of platforms (since he nukes center) and keep on the move to give yourself more time to react to his dives. Afterwards he lands on the center platform, which is your window to do damage, three rounds and he is dead.

Storm Wizard is definitely easier/more interesting and fun than the yeti, who can burn in hell and never be seen or heard from again as far as I am concerned (spam jumping is not fun, there are not even half way points like on the slope earlier).

Acidicore.3264:

In the first release none of it was voiced to appear as though it was a retro styled game. Haven’t heard any thus far so I have no idea.

I am talking about the thing you do for the “Special Instruction” achievement (outside the box).

I went through this just now, talk about complicated way to deliver story… anyways only 2 or 3 lines in the instance/cutscene were voiced for me, similarly the ambient audio for the people in the lab outside was not playing (assuming there is audio to play).

Is this a bug, or is there just no recorded audio for these lines?

lollasaurus.1457:

DevonCarver.5370:

I have said it before and it clearly bears repeating, our focus is on making improvements to WvW as a game type. When we implement changes it is with that goal in mind. We are aware of the GvG scene and we think it is really impressive, but the effects of any of our changes on GvG as it currently exists are not a priority for us. As such, when changes do come in, like the new map, some of them will be a positive for the GvG crowd and some will not. However, none of the changes we make are intended to stamp out GvG nor are they intended to make GvG more popular. When/if we focus our attention on GvG we will do our utmost to make it a game type that fits the needs of as many people as possible. That time is not now.

We are focused on WvW right now and improving it. Please try not to conflate our decisions in regards to WvW as some sort of judgement or endorsement of GvG in any form.

Dear Devon,

I actually do like the changes to the borderlands in regards ro removing the lake and adding more points of contention to fight over. It looks fun. But if we could get a toggle feature on the orb buffs that allows us to choose whether we want to have the buff up or not, it would resolve these issues and allow people to seek out duels and other organized fights still.

What that would do is create inconsistency between players If I see an invader from the server that holds a buff I am going to assume he has the buff when in fact he might not. Yes, I can see the buff presumably by directly targeting but that will involve me having to get close enough to do so.

Here is a suggestion that they might be bit more receptive to a WvW trap that strips the buff from anyone that triggers it, say for 30 minutes (preferably with more than a single trigger per trap, say 5 or 10, I have never used WvW traps so dunno how they actually work)-

Yes it is high maintenance by comparison, but it is also little less GvG specific (hence them being more receptive at this point in time), and it would still give you 30 minutes of level playing field assuming everyone plays nice. You might need to introduce some sort of half time system if they decide to go this route, but hey being able to organize GvG in (mechanically) hostile enviroment I am sure you could pull this off too.

Granted I can’t say I am an expert on balance so this suggestion might create problems in other areas, however, the point I am making is I guess rather than introduce very focus group type option and create strange inconsistencies introduce a legit mechanic for the opposing side to combat the buff on a smaller scale (ie. rather than having to remove buff from all three maps by using the cap point allow neutralizing on case by case basis so to speak for a short time).

Thanks for the update. it’s a bit sad that some of those epic challenges had to go, but pattern based geysers + rapids was just brutal, solitary pattern recognition would have been fine (think W1 secret room behind waterfall, just bit more complicated).

In the name of making the content more fun for a lot more people I think right calls were made, some changes are bit heavy handed but that is probably because of the hotfix nature of this patch (if you can actually get spin flowers to work reliably they open so many possibilities for secrets).

Although, there is this one crocodile that was a little too friendly (also apparently I can now levitate, twice in a row so unlikely to be connection related).

You have to keep in mind that these are hotfixes… there is limits to what they can do and put out quickly, like Josh said the real polished balance pass for world 2 would come with next round of SAB.

I want to ask though, what does “Geysers will always remain up and will never go back down.” this actually mean?

In my opinion Geyser’s and Rapids is the brutal combination here for normal mode, but solitary Geyser’s like the once in the first hidden room in World 1 are fine, and retain the pattern recognition mechanic.

500 baubles is not that much, granted some people don’t like the backtracking aspect of it but considering how “Zen” world 1 is compared to world 2 right now, getting 500 baubles is not that big of an undertaking… since while dig spots are daily, key chests and hidden rooms are not.

As for the whole doing harm aspect of passwords, I think SAB is in a unique place because it can be hard content yet in no way should it be super serious content… it is enough of its own thing in my opinion to be hard yet lighthearted (for the lack of a better word) at the same time.

My suggestion is more for fun than actual utility, though granted it would allow some players to skip a level, if they need it, thankfully most item upgrades are in more than one shop, yes world one items are only in world one… but several times in the different levels.

If you really wanted to you could tie the ability to use a password (or even an upgrade, I guess) for a level on account level through achievements (ie. if your account has achievement from finding the password you can use it on any character from there on out).

matthewr.3980:

“I ran out of extra life coins while trying to get past the rapids. This is so hard, I am done.”

I am actually curious about this… I would guess continue coins are lower value proposition to stockpiling one-up’s from shops inside SAB. So rather than buying endless stream of continue coins, buy the actual life items from in SAB.

I haven’t done the math on this, but that would make sense to me… you should avoid the continue room by using one-up’s not forget that they exist and rely on exclusively on continue coins. If it is not possible to reliably get one-up’s then I think there should be some way of doing that.

SAB is an interesting thing on its own and now you say it has a story besides saving the aptly named 8-bit princess (am I the only one who thinks that she looks ever so sightly disturbing btw, I know why that is but still…).

Now what will I do? When will we get the next bits… unlike regular living story or other recurring events SAB has no tie in to a particular time of year so it is impossible to predict. I hate and love loose ends, on one hand I like open ended stories, but on the other hand I really hate to be left wanting for more.

But I guess that is part of the charm of it… in a way. Though it is nice to see SAB getting more context and substance as a part of GW2, being a game within a game is neat and all but little more context and intrigue never hurts.

The passwords you brought up gave me an idea… allow us to find a password in each level that can be used to unlock access up to that level for other characters… mostly for the sake of the reference but would also be nice for alts.

Never thought I would be making a topic titled like this, however, the slingshot is just a bit too finicky in the 3d space.

I don’t mean ground targeting just a corsshair in the middle of the screen when rotating camera with these bundle’s active, to have a point of reference so you can actually aim and not rely on enlarged hitboxes to hopefully hit things.

Vince Ste Marie.2081:

Baby’s First and Second Super Adventure achievements don’t count towards the meta.

I noticed that we essentially have to do every achievement (original set) to do said meta, I guess that is fine… but why couldn’t you have SAB dailies like: “Complete World X Zone Y without dying” or other similar things.

Just saying because, Tribulation Mode and Bauble skins are already a thing, yet right now the restricted weapon skins are the easiest reward. I’m playing a thief so I am fine, but I am guessing some other profession players who weren’t around in April might not be feeling the same way. (Personally I have been waiting for daggers and pistols since April)

Jordo.5913:

There has been zero confirmation that this coin will continue to work…why do you think that is?

Probably because the commerce team doesn’t read these forums as much, you might want to try the section labeled Black Lion Trading Company.

Also, it is not like Josh or the other people working on SAB can give definitive answer on something that is ultimately not up to them. But you must be pretty cynical to think that they (the commerce team) wouldn’t realize doing a cash grab on world exclusive ICC’s would have more backlash than profit for them.

Thaeyn.8694:

Hello,

Just recently started playing again and was wondering one thing concerning Moto, the inventor of Super Adventure Box. I get that you have to grind etc for the weapon skins but what are the mystic forge designs he sells for? As you just seem to need gold for those?

Thanks

They are for the Tribulation Mode skins, the number of lives going through those is going to take no wonder you need only gold for those.

Absolutionis.9427:

The rest of the levels, including the Tribulation Mode and the bauble/life limits were designed with the Infinite Continue Coin in mind.

That’s one seriously one sided statement. Not even relevant to the question in any way. From what has been posted on these forums before, the people responsible for monetization are not the same people that design the content updates. Besides intentionally agressive montization of a niche content update like SAB makes no sense, if they wanted to design gem store biased content, to make quick cash, they would certainly do it for a primary content type of the game (not to mention that the first step they would take would be getting rid of currency exchange feature).

As for the question… the team that did this round of SAB wasn’t exactly the same that did the first one, but obviously it has some of the same people (I think Josh said it was smaller team this time around in total).

Shpongle.6025:

Go back to the old ways of pre-Gauntlet. Where achievements were fun and relaxing and easy and interesting.

Ok, for one, Josh is not the collective of ArenaNet, and for seconds… I wouldn’t call hunting down 100’s of pumpkins/pinata’s/snowmen fun, relaxing or interesting, easy definitely though.

On the other hand Sky Crystals were definitely interesting and fun, easy and relaxing not so much (assuming you did not cheat). You can have either or, not all at once. Yes this means that GW2 will likely not be a game you can 100% when it comes to achievements (or maybe you could given infinite time and patience), or why do you think they started doing the whole daily achievements that count towards meta’s.

I can’t really tell if you are being sarcastic or just trolling, but in any case it is not like SAB is all there is, next patch (Sept 17th) will by the looks of it have something for those that don’t care for SAB, yet another nod towards the fact that yes it is okay to skip some living story content (since unlike previous living story stuff doesn’t look like both of this months patches are exclusively SAB, besides ascended crafting).

I have more or less been hitting my head against different walls in SAB since the day it came out, yet I am not going around saying that SAB has no place in GW2 or that it is unfair that I can not complete all the achievements for it (Most likely I can’t even complete the meta achievements, just because I don’t care to collect every single bauble in every single level in a single run).

To steer this back on topic, I would like to say though that now having watched a Tribulation run of W2 Z1, I would say that if there are several longish sections that you felt needed little to no change from normal mode then, maybe just maybe that should have been a hint that this topic was coming.

Josh Foreman.8250:

One thing you have to learn about how our jumping/collision works is that you can’t jump up against things and slide up and over the lip like any normal platformer. You need to start your jump further back.

One all too visible quirk of the jumping mechanics is that you can make considerably longer jump while in motion. However, in some cases where such longer jump is needed you are not in a place where continuous motion is natural or even easy to achieve consistently by “tiptoeing” on the platform (ie. go one step back then immediately switch to forward momentum). I suppose if you consider this initial forward momentum to be part of a jump then it adds up with above, however, normally you wouldn’t.

You can completely change direction mid jump, which is key in some places… but what you can not usually change enough is your initial momentum, up vs forward, jump mushrooms being the only exception due to the considerably longer jump duration.

Maybe I have assessed the behavior incorrectly, but really assuming I did not make any mistakes with that then there are plenty of jumps where being aware of the quirks doesn’t seem to help, especially if after reading above… I start jumps any earlier then I will never reach my destination. Because even now I have to jump slightly later than my eyes tell me to… due to difference in model size and hitbox size.

There is a solution to the difference between model and hitbox though. Give us an option to use an in-game (as in inside super adventure box) transform that normalizes / minimizes this difference for any puzzles that require high precision jumping… the key word being an option of course. You could even make different “avatar” transforms unlockable inside the box, many older platformers allowed you to play as more than one character. I bet you could sneak in more than a couple of references this way too.

@Entrea Sumatae: Candle is not required for World 1, it will make things easier (and was/is required for some achievements) but it was not required to go through the levels. The first time item was truly required to progress was with W2 Z1, when you have to burn the trees.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Haha, thanks. It’s looking like W3 will be…. shorter. If anything I’ll do shorter primary paths and a lot more secret and alternate paths.

I hope world 3 will still have adequate number of references despite being shorter.

It’s slightly sad that your passion for this project seems to have backfired somewhat. Though I won’t defend feature creep, next time try to come up all the amazing ideas beforehand, and if you have new ones while making them happen, put the extras in a hat somewhere to use on the world after that.

Edit: and maybe, just maybe at the end if the hats not empty yet you’ll have enough left over ideas for extra world 5.

matthewr.3980:

Mr. Foreman, the actual truth is that this 16 page thread wouldn’t exist if we all weren’t so in love with the Super Adventure Box. If we didn’t love World 1 so incredibly much, we wouldn’t be complaining about World 2. We’d forget about it and go do something else.

So very true, I have ascended weapons to get yet I spend hours inside the box instead, and I get it the jump in difficulty is intended… but it is just a little too extreme. It’s like world one being an experiment they were little reserved with it, then here they went at it not holding back in the slightest.

I love the concept of longer zones and actual puzzles too, but please make it so I can save the checkpoint I have reached in a certain zone persistently, so I can take breaks (rapids I am looking at you, and I have seen way too much).

If remembering the checkpoint itself automagically is not possible, why not employ similar thing that is done with zone selection, ie. after you reach a checkpoint allow you to talk to an in-level npc that would for a price send you to that checkpoint (provided you have reached it at least once with that character, resetting it when cage boss is beaten).

Alternatively you could use a long duration booster type “buff” where the timer is only active when logged on (since there are no regular character buffs in sab) which you are given for each checkpoint, then the buff is removed at the end of the level.

That last one is bit gimmicky and will naturally expire if user leaves the sab hub world, but it would allow you to log out in the hub area and take a break.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Crise.9401:

Here is a suggestion, please create third mode… like infantile, but with the principle of “help on demand” rather than having it shoved in my face. Being someone who had 0 need for infantile mode before the notorious water sprouts in W2 Z1 I would really appreciate the ability to get helping hand when I hit a brick wall not have to choose to either go through the level on rails, or keep slamming my head against that wall.

Funny, I brought this idea up a couple weeks ago. I think I was told we couldn’t do it for some technical reason. I’ll ask again.

Nice to know someone thought about this

If you can’t spawn in rainbow bridges on demmand there are alternatives though. The Tribulation mode does unlockable checkpoints, and I see a teleporter is possible also.

Combining those two ideas you get unlockable shortcut portals that are static in the level. If you have enough disincentive in getting the keys for these (call then infantile tokens or whatever) then people will be unable to use them to speed run the level since getting multiple keys would eat away all profit (so for example if you have to buy such key for say 1 bauble bubble or more, it would already cut down the daily bauble bubble reward for that level in half, just for using one shortcut).

Also if you make sure each section with such shortcut has either an achievement tied to it for doing it the hard way, without the shortcut, and some baubles along the way as well (making getting the get all baubles achievement by using these shortcuts not possible), then in my opinion you have reached a middle ground in making these in world shortcuts a last resort and certainly something someone trying to get all the achievements wouldn’t want to use.

Also this might be assuming too much, but I don’t think every puzzle would need this kind of shortcut either, mostly those that require tricky precision and timing where latency can be a big factor. In the end if you have all the time to set up a jump then I don’t think you would need one of these.

Also to someone who said whether this was only tested with an Asura, I give you this: https://hostr.co/bvIdYMyMO3Wm

The point being that the size difference between model and hitbox makes it so that in order to make some jumps you have to stand on what looks like thin air as an asura (of course not the case for that screenshot, but if you want to reach the croc with the whip f.ex. then you have to stand past the edge). There are better examples for actual jumps unfortunately I don’t have screenshots of those. The point, however, is that the difference between visual feedback and what is actually terrain with collision is extremely jarring with the smallest asura.

Player Character.9467:

You CAN choose, hop off the rails.

In some cases yes, but not always… besides I wouldn’t be so sure that all the puzzle’s remain completeable when a rainbow bridge is activated even if you can jump off. As in the rainbow would collide with your character.

And besides there is no reason to, what I was suggesting was a middle ground, going out of your way to make things more difficult for yourself for absolutely no gain is hardly the same thing.

RyuDragnier.9476:

World 2 is too brutal. I spent 5 continue coins on Zone 1 alone, and they were all spent due to the rapids alone. Those geysers didn’t help too much either. -_-

I visited Moto at least 10 times because of those geysers, with the infinite coin towards the end mind you, which is at least 100 tries. Then I gave up decided to try infantile only to find that it completely trivialize all of the content and won’t even let me try W2 Z2, in normal mode afterwards.

I guess I will give it yet another shot tomorrow, but right now I am completely burned out because of those rushing rapids.

Here is a suggestion, please create third mode… like infantile, but with the principle of “help on demand” rather than having it shoved in my face. Being someone who had 0 need for infantile mode before the notorious water sprouts in W2 Z1 I would really appreciate the ability to get helping hand when I hit a brick wall not have to choose to either go through the level on rails, or keep slamming my head against that wall.

LinkR.6190:

Try it with a four legged Charr lol. It’s doable, but certainly takes getting used to. The camera shooting up my ars every half a second doesn’t help either.

Doable yes, fun hardly… every time I run world one or even the first part of Rapids I have a blast, but when I get to those cursed water sprouts I slowly start to feel like tearing my hair our.

Doesn’t help that infantile mode is a) a joke and b) shoves unneeded help in your face, why can’t I have help when I want it and do the bits I can without cheery clouds getting in the way (doesn’t help that the game is constantly mocking me). Also would be nice if we could unlock worlds in infantile then do them on normal. Infantile is fine for those who are totally not able to do any jumping or creative thinking (no offense intended), but for someone who might just need an occasional helping hand all it does is trivialize the content.

If it would at least persist our last activated checkpoint then at least I could take breaks, but as it is now… I have to do or die essentially and then repeat the beginning next time (I am getting pretty fast at it though, so something good at least).

I can’t help but to feel cheated by the fact that in order to make jumps a human can do “normally” as a small asura I have to edge myself over the actual visible edge of the terrain or object and then make the jump.

Same also works in reverse though, sometimes my eyes tell me I should have fallen just now but the game decides I did not. This is of course caused by the difference in model and hitbox the latter being bigger. The only problem being that the latter also happens to be invisible resulting in the fact that the visual feedback is anything but accurate.

Now this is still fine when I have no rush and I can carefully nudge the character into position (read world 1), however, when you are supposed to do timed precise jumps I feel like I am rolling the dice every time I jump.

If I see one one jet of 8bit water I feel like I will go insane….

After a nights sleep I now think I know why the rapids are so frustrating, it is not that you fail but how you fail… what I mean is that when you do, you know you are dead but sometimes still have to wait up to a minute to to actually die. This makes failing more frustrating than it needs to be in my opinion.

I have to agree World 2, Zone 1 is really doing a number on me, then funny thing is… the problems start only after the raft segment, before that it is fine (seeing as I had to run it several times now to that point).

As the smallest asura I have to literally stand on thin air to have the reach needed, only in some places I get knocked off if I try to position myself as such (ie. standing on the log way past the end of it is fine, but doing the same on the crocodile after burning the trees is not, yet without doing that there is not enough reach).

Other similar segments of the level (ie. before the raft section) do not have this issue.

Ivonbeton.6814:

So how do I afford things like the candle (which appearantly you need to progress)? I’m using a lot of my bubbles on coins. What’s the best way to get some extra?

Candle is actually free item, in World 1-2, I think third shop (that should be all they have… so)

I recall from April that certain enemies are kind of intended for certain weapons, ie. if I recall correctly crocodiles in particular are meant for the whip, not the stick… so if the hitboxes seems too small that may be why.

Similarly the camping frogs are obviously intended to be bombed (and yes I get the feeling you are supposed to either guess or learn the likely locations).

Banatine.3691:

Fighting the frog cost me 5 continue coins, and my party lost pretty much the same before we figured out the pattern…

The bosses are pattern based for a reason, that is exactly what you are meant to do. It is an old school boss, as in the only way to beat it is to memorize and follow the pattern it has.

Edit: What did you expect from an omage to old school games?