Good Puzzle. Horrendous implementation. There are too many things clashing together to make this puzzle make me want to break something.
I’m not complaining that the puzzle is hard, like is the vocal majority on this post. I am saying that there are too many things about the puzzle that when they get stuck together it works out badly.
1. Group play – Problem being that you can’t see your footing and its very distracting.
2. Rushed play – The ground coming up at you so if you’re not the quickest at turning or jumping you get eaten from behind.
3. Sporatic play – You have to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, until the last person is done from the group.
4. Limited play – It won’t be here tomorrow, but there is an Achievement for doing it (I collect Achievements as much as I can).
When all four of these things are added together, it is VERY STRESSFUL for a large populous. That’s just the reading from the people inside the groups I was in and assuming based off the posts here.
Take any 1 of those 4 points away, and in all likelihood the puzzle would keep its challenge but not be as stressful.
A challenging puzzle like this would be amazing, even with the groups/rush/waits, if it wasn’t limited to a holiday. Who knows if it will be around next time Halloween comes around, I know many games like to mix things up with their celebrations. So now I am stuck with an unfulfilled achievement, that may or may not ever get to be done again, all because of having to have a life outside of gw2 (work, sleep, etc). That bothers me a lot.
Otherwise, I’m pretty sure there would be a lot less complaining if the puzzle was solo (less ability to blame on others, but they are freaking distracting). Or if we didn’t have to constantly wait between falls (ruins whatever rhythm may have been going, and just wasted time since nothing else is going on); if you’re worried about farmers or bots, just put a timer on it, or make the dungeon loot code effect it. Getting rid of the rush would definitely make the puzzle easier, something that could be done in the span of the events without taking over all the time you have to do all the events.
That being said, I had fun for a bit, then had to quit before I broke something. I hope there is a chance to try again.
P.S.
To the people comparing this to old platformers, this puzzle would be like a 3-5day rental of super mario brothers that forced you to restart the entire world when you died, and made you sit and wait after you died until the average time it took the beta testers to finish each world. Sure, some of you would be good enough to beat that without dying so you wouldn’t realize the pain that others would go through, but for the rest of us, it would be a trying experience that might end in a broken controller.