41 replies to this topic

[Spearcrusher]

Darkobra, on 15 January 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

Ok. Let's play your game. I've done every jump puzzle. Where's my high reward?

Badges...

[Doctor Overlord]

I do agree that I usually dislike jumping puzzles where you have to fight mobs.   If I wanted to combat mobs I'd be out the zone killing them there, not jumping around things.  

That's not to say the increased challenge of mobs in jumping puzzles cannot work in an instance or open-world mini dungeon where one expects a greater challenge.   But players expect those cases to be challenging.  There are many jumping puzzles that are more straightforward and then there are ones like this.   The degree of challenge varies too widely if some puzzles have mobs and other don't.  

To be perfectly honest, I'll admit I had some fun doing the Shaman's Rookery but that was solely because I was only doing it for the challenge NOT for the goal at the end (which is just a chest and achievement).   The rewards for jumping puzzles are as inconsistent as their challenge level.

Specifically, I'm thinking of that wretched Wall Breach Blitz which is a puzzle also filled with mobs only they spawn at an even worse rate than the Rookery and that jumping puzzle prevents you from getting a vista, a skill point AND map completion.   When so many goals are mashed together the challenge of a jumping puzzle stops being fun and turns into a needless irritation.  

You know you will eventually finish the puzzle, it's just a matter of time so why throw in mobs to force players to waste even more time getting that wide variety of goals?   Particularly when the other vistas and skill points in Diessa Plateau are not nearly as horrendously tedious to complete.   If there was a skill point, or worse a vista being blocked by the Shaman's Rookery puzzle I would probably be agreeing with Protoss 100%

Consistency of the jumping puzzles is a real problem.   As another example, people were expecting a really hard one for Wintersday like the Mad King's Clock Tower and instead they were given one that was much less challenging.   We have no idea what we're getting with GW2's jumping puzzles, but in terms of challenge level and rewards, and in general people don't like being surprised in that way.  If you go to a movie theater, you don't want a bunch of live actors to step out and do a play.  It might be a good play, but that's not what you expected or wanted.

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 15 January 2013 - 05:31 PM.

[Juanele]

Hmpf, I quite enjoyed this jumping "puzzle". It was one of the easiest ones actually. I've done it both ways where you can fight the priests as you progress and I've used a speed boost skill to run past them all to the end. Out of all to complain about you choose this one eh?

Edited by Juanele, 15 January 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[dawdler]

Pff, how is that puzzle even annoying?

The puzzle in the treefolk area where you have to:

1) Go through puzzle A to reach puzzle B (risking death)
2) Drop down in a chasm halfway through puzzle B filled with mobs
3) Open the secret door out of puzzle B (not required to finish the puzzle)
4) Finish puzzle B by going UP the chasm again
5) Make one of the most awkward puzzle jumps I have seen thus far in the game, with a high chance of dying
6) IF you die, pray to Dwayna that the door in 3) hasnt closed yet as its on a short timer
7) Repeat from 1) if the door is closed.

Now THAT is effing annoying design.

Sidenote: If anyone think the Raven puzzle is dark, they probably need to calibrate their monitor. Its not dark for me and I use a minimum light IPS panel that is much darker overall than the shitty TN lets-shift-contrast-all-over-the-place-as-you-move panel next to it.

[Rain King]

Give him some slack guys -I think he's playing a Norn.

Norn can't jump.

Seriously though -they really need to take a look at camera issues when it comes to jumping puzzles and large characters like Charr & Norn. I actually did the one in the OP drunk as hell on New Year's Eve on the first try but I play human & asura.

My buddy that plays a Norn often has to go a lot slower because the camera will do weird things -sometimes going inside his head and sometimes not even showing his character at all so he has to be super careful not to fall off. Not being able to see your character and having to fight is probably a real pain. This really needs to be a constructive post in the official suggestion box about camera issues on larger characters and jumping puzzles.

[RandolfRa]

Jumping puzzles would be more interesting if there was more than one way up. They should also have less "magically" slippery stones. I still like them most of the time though, just the rewards are way too small.

Edited by RandolfRa, 15 January 2013 - 06:42 PM.

[jthamind]

i love the idea of jumping "puzzles" and occasionally have fun with them, but overall i do agree their implementation could be a lot better. and this is coming from somebody who loves platformers and has played and beaten tons of 2D and 3D platforming games.

here are my biggest problems with the jump puzzles:

1. the camera sometimes hinders you. if you get into a tight space, or a place where you can't put it at a reasonable angle, you get this cramped, awkward camera that doesn't do what you want it to, and often leads to you dying and/or failing because it flat out went full retard on you. if you look at good platforming games, the camera works with the player and is smooth and natural.

2. the controls. first off let me state that i rarely play console games nowadays and am planted firmly in front of my PC 90% of the time i'm playing a video game. with that said, i think almost everybody would agree that certain games control MUCH better with a controller. platformers and action games are two of them, and in this game, there are countless times where there are....really weird jumps you have to make that don't really mesh well with wasd. there have been countless times in this game where i've said, "i KNOW i could have made that jump with a controller." and no, this is not a l2p issue. it's just an awkward situation forced on you since this is a m&k game. platforming is NOT intuitive with a m&k, which is why 99% of the best platformers in history have been console games. and yeah, i know you can use a controller through certain software. overall, though, i think that if you're going to design an aspect of a game where 99% of the people are going to be controlling it a certain way, then you should make it so that the game is smoother for that setup.

3. character models. my main is an Asura, and i made him as small as i possibly could, but i also have a Charr who's as tall as he can be, and quite muscular. so i know how different, how "off" it can feel when trying to jump on tiny platforms, or platforms jutting out at weird angles. the character models make it seem like you can't make the jump half the time. it's just not natural and intuitive.

4. this one is more of a minor complaint and not as important as the other three, but i hate that when you're in combat, even if you're technically not even fighting an enemy, you run slower, and thus can't jump as far. i find that annoying, but i know that was a game design choice for whatever reason.

now, somebody might say, "but you shouldn't complain about these jump puzzles, you don't HAVE to do them and they're something fun for people who do!" i don't buy that, though, because i've always been of the mindset that if you're going to do something in a video game, then do it right. don't do a mediocre job of it and then expect people to be happy just because you gave them something new or unexpected.

yes, i know jumping puzzles can still be fun, but they're far from perfect.

**edit** and to be a bit more on topic, i actually thought OP's jump puzzle example was one of the easier ones in the game. lol.

Edited by jthamind, 15 January 2013 - 07:10 PM.

[shiggidyshwa]

OP, I agree about camera shittiness in some parts of the game. Most glaring example is LA sewer JP where it can be difficult to initially cross the planks.

Regarding the rest, non-issues. Darkness is darkness. Another challenge to overcome. Up the gamma, use skills to reveal terrain outlines, etc.

The mob Feared you? That's awesome. Maybe cheap, but easy to avoid the second time around by bringing condition removal and attacking from range. These ARE jump puzzles, but by no means do they restrict activity to jumping.

[MisterB]

A properly calibrated display shouldn't have a problem in that particular puzzle in the first post. None of us can see what your monitor looks like displaying that image, and everyone's vision is unique (In particular, we all have varying degrees of night vision.), so it may be an unfortunate display issue on your end. That puzzle is dark, but I can still see the path from the dim torchlight with my display. I have a CRT though, and LCDs have problems displaying shadow detail and darkness.

If you'd like to discuss cheap and absolute darkness, the pirate ghost puzzle in LA is a better candidate. The dark room is just bad. I refuse to tolerate that nonsense, and just bump up the gamma slider. I really don't care about the other alternatives to allow me to see where I am in that room.

Edited by MisterB, 15 January 2013 - 09:27 PM.

[Krazzar]

Protoss, on 15 January 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Spoiler

Why would this be considered good design? An area where you can barely see anything, with narrow ledges that you need to traverse using the game's poor control system, while fighting foes that fear you and being surrounded by more foes that are incredibly easy to target due to the insanely poor targeting system, which then puts you into combat mode, decreasing your ability to jump, ...
Now, clearly, there are even worse offenders than this, but that just makes it worse - this isn't the worst piece of shit-ass design one will encounter in this game.

Why must the difficulty in this game be achieved through moronic/poorly executed ideas instead of the game actually being difficult? Why must the players find themselves fighting the controls or the poor camera instead of their opponents?


EDIT 1:
The reason why I singled out THIS JP was because I was doing it and was reminded of THE STUPID DESIGN THAT I EXPERIENCED IN OTHER PARTS OF THE GAME. It served as a reminder so I plastered a shot of it, plus it helps explain the problem more visually.
So advice on how to finish THIS JP, while interesting, isn't the point of this. ^^

EDIT 2:
Read EDIT 1. Seriously.

Nothing wrong with the controls on my end. Could be user error or hardware failure. On both my monitors I can easily see the edges of the platforms (as I could every time I did this jumping puzzle), the only dark space is the bottomless pit areas. Fear is a mechanism to control where your postion to a point, which has been touted as good design by yourself in other games. If you hold the right mouse button down with your cursor in the center you target whatever you're pointing at with the invisible cursor.  I've been doing that since I found out about it in beta and have zero problems targetting anything within the targetting range, if you can see it you can target it. Pehaps you shouldn't try to speedclear everything? Not that it takes much time to defeat two opponents at a time.

Why must you continually make claims without backing them up and why must they be paradoxical? How would "the game actually be difficult"? These are all examples of novel, non-statistical ways to add challenge, because we all know you hate numbers.  So what would be "actual challenge" if you can't make combat aspects harder and you can't make non-combat aspects harder?  Sounds more like you're just upset it's too difficult for you than any design issue.

Camera issues, especially with larger characters, are another topic, but in that jumping puzzle there are no camera issues, it's all wide open. The only poor execution seems to be from yourself.

[Expherious]

Anet makes jumping puzzles for people to flame.
OP flamed
Anet: 1 OP :0

I literally laughed out loud when I read this.

[Mastruq]

That little cave the OP showcased is one of the best areas of the game, I hope A.net designs more stuff like that. I really enjoyed it because its a jumping puzzle thats not insanely hard, features moving pieces in the animals you cant fight but also some combat bits, isnt deadly on a miss-jump, fits very nicely into the zone it is featured in and into the background of the game.