Super Adventure Festival 2020

[Raxony.6495]

If any Anet employee reads this, i believe SAB could be a good marketing opportunity for both SAB and Guild Wars 2 itself. With that being said:

What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?W2Z3 by far. The thing i love about this level is the feel of being deep into the unknown, in this case going far into the snowy mountains. You start the level and look up at a gigantic mountain thinking to yourself that you are going to climb that monster and find out whats on top of it.

Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?I personally hate weekly/daily stuff. Whenever i miss out on it because I don't play some days i feel bad and it demotivates me to keep playing.

What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?Can't think of anything but a new world :tongue:

[arukAdo.2047]

@Laevateinn.6289 said:a different twist on the original set rather than the usual new color

Im probably not alone waiting on purple color since basicly.... the begin...So im pretty disapointed, regardless what will show up as alternative, will have to wait more years to get what I want (colors/new world)

[Nelict.7589]

Thanks for all the info you gave us. It's nice and comforting to hear that SAB is not completely abandoned!As for your questions

-> I enjoy SAB because it's simple and very relaxing. Thus, I enjoyed all levels from W1 and I hated the W2 levels (especially zone 2). They were way too long and -unnecessary- complicated tbh.

-> Since the demand of legendary items will skyrocket when the new Build Template System goes live, I would like to see more Legendary crafting materials to the vendor. Also, old outfits/skins, gliders or capes would be awesome addition.

-> ...I can't think of something rather than a new level. Maybe a SAB guild Hall? Upgradable SAB weapons (both for regular game and SAB mode)? Strike mission inside SAB?

[protean pest.6592]

Cheers for the info, nice to see/ read. SAB always been fun

As for a bonusmission (or standalone) : I'd opt for a beetle-racetrack, think of a certain Hedgehog collecting baubles

[Virdo.1540]

Im very happy about the SAB coming back^^ Its my (guilds) favorite event. Most enjoyable , and what i would wish for the next SABs, are more challenges.Hardest of hardmode, maybe something that takes up multiple hours and many nerves.

From all things in gw2 is the hardmode of SAB (mostly world 2) so far the most challenging, but also the most satisfying after finishing it :bleep_bloop:

[Tiavor.4016]

I love all of W2, in normal and in tribulation. especially Z2. They are very large, have so many hidden things to explore and multiple paths. And of course I love exploring for skips in tribulation mode.

[Setz.9675]

W1Z3, good options to either go top level to end or bottom level to end.W2Z1, nice adventure feel. Rivers, trees, the enemys not being obnoxious.

What I'd like to see from the weekly vendor is what we currently have + option to buy mystic clovers, guild hall's basic / grandmaster finishing kits and everything in between and a weekly/monthly tab with increasing cost of baubles to buy crimson assassin tokens to dump the excess of baubles on (similar to winter holiday gift for karma).

A bomberman kind of PvP minigame maybe.

[Holykitten.3064]

(What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?)

W2Z1 is a really solid level. The music is cool, the rapids ride was totally different to anything else done in the box, and the hidden passages and caves were a great touch.

(Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?)

Mystic Clovers, Motos infusions.

(What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future?)

Other than W3 and W4 plus Boss level, more secrets in the box, time trial runs, gambit runs.

I’ll also take this opportunity to say if nothing is changing this year (ie no new worlds and it’s ready to ship), ship it on the 31st. Most of the western world is in isolation looking for something to do right now.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

I really like W1Z2. The trees add a really nice vertical element and if you fall you don't immediately loose health, you just have to find your way back up. The enemies have clearly telegraphed attacks. I don't really like the disappearing leaves in W1Z3 since they make carefully exploring the map difficult. Also I don't like the owls in W2 because there is no way to shut them off. They just make it impossible to stand in an area and look around.

I don't have any particularly strong feelings about the weekly vendor. It always felt like a work-around for players having amassed too much currency, so you try creative measures to prevent them from flooding the market with the new goods.

For future levels I would really like it if you could consider adding mounts into the SAB. Kinda like Mario has Yoshi from time to time. And in tribulation mode the poor mount gets sacrificed so you can make that jump and reach the cliff.

[Renkku.7451]

Ok but what if there was a mount race that was like mario kart

[Lonami.2987]

@"Laevateinn.6289" said:Hey everyone, it's that time of year when spring is in the air and our minds turn to the timeless seasonal pursuit of collecting baubles. There are some timing changes to the Super Adventure Festival this year that we don't want to take you by surprise, so let's get to it.

The Super Adventure Festival will activate in mid-April this year, instead of overlapping with April 1st. The Super Adventure Box originally started as an April Fools' Day joke, but it's expanded into a real festival over time. Since we usually do a little something for April Fools' Day anyway, having that minor holiday overlapping Super Adventure Festival caused a yearly headache to ship both events simultaneously or temporarily turned off. This year we're going to give the Super Adventure Festival some space from the 1st to let it and April Fools' stand independently.

This doesn't mean a new World is happening this year. There will be new secrets to find in the Box, a new meta achievement reward and a new set of weapons to collect – a different twist on the original set rather than the usual new color – but the doors to Worlds 3 and 4 will remain shut. However, we haven't given up on a larger addition to the Super Adventure Box, and even if it isn't this year or the next, we'll be chipping away at it behind the scenes. You may even see some new assets in the Box this year from outside the Worlds you know…

Finally, if you have a few minutes I'd like to collect a little feedback about the Super Adventure Festival. Feel free to answer the following questions to help us make the game, and the game within the game, better than ever!

• What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?

• Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?

• What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?

I'm going to be dead serious here:

• The game is suffering from a festival overload. Every time there's a festival, the other game modes resent heavily, due to daily achievements and other temporary rewards. I firmly believe they aren't healthy for the game, not anymore.
• The best way to soften this problem is to integrate the daily activities into the core game modes. Instead of discouraging people from playing raids or PvP altogether, add festive rewards to those game modes, or merge the dailies once again, like in the old times. If the festival is a journey, let people progress outside the festival too. Don't force people to go to the festive area to reap festival rewards, specially the daily achievements. Festivals should promote people to log in and play the game, not just the festive content.
• We have 6 festivals right now. If I had to remove any, Super Adventure Festival and Festival of the Four Winds are the best candidates, because they can be turned into permanent content easily (or other seasonal models, like special week every month, weekend event, etc). That leaves us with 4 festivals, easily adaptable to one per quarter.
• The two areas of Festival of the Four Winds can be restored as permanent zones if you ever decide to restore Living World Season 1 as faithfully as it originally happened. Here's an adaptation idea I wrote a few years ago.. The Queen's Gauntlet would be a great place for single player content too.
• Even if they would be no longer festivals, you can still include them in special weekend events, where rewards are boosted, new bosses/worlds are introduced, or whatever.

As for Super Adventure Box, I think you should start treating it as its own separate DLC, much like Living World seasons, even going as far as to sell it separately. Maybe make SAB free during March-April, but require payment to play it the rest of the year. Or maybe make it free during a weekend every month. Whatever route you take, I don't think SAB should be a festival anymore.

Now, some more specific SAB feedback:

• I think SAB needs an intermediate level difficulty between normal and tribulation. Normal got heavily nerfed a while ago, specially W2 since it was too long and some people whined about it. Restore those changes and turn them into their own difficulty mode. The end result would be Baby, Normal, Hard, and Tribulation.
• Right now, you can only get the green and yellow weapons through tribulation. If you introduce a hard mode, you could let players get those weapons too, at 1/3 the progress speed (tribulation mode requires 1 world completion for a single weapon, make it so hard mode requires 3 world completions for a single weapon).
• I like the new hub, but I think it's wasting a lot of potential. You could make it even bigger, and make it reflect the ingame world. The new hub would be like a small version of the whole world, with small areas depicting each ingame zone, and include many of the functionalities you have inside those zones. The idea here is to give players their own open world SAB playground, and open those zone-based areas as they complete the zones of each world. Maybe even add a small PvP arena using SAB skills. Look at the Heart of the Mists, the Mistlock Sanctuary, and Armstice Bastion for inspiration.
• Change difficulty and level selection to an UI menu, instead of having to talk to NPCs in the house every time you start a world.

That's all, thanks for the communication! =D

[Alex.4167]

I want a new World, only spend time on that!

[gimliguy.5930]

Favorite level tribulation W1Z1 because it feels the fairest out of all the tribulation zones while still being hard enough.

I didn't really use the weekly vendor and dont really like the idea of it as I'd rather get festival stuff when spending time in the festival. If I want mystic coins or something I'll do something else unless it becomes way more efficient to do it through SAB which would be bad in its own way.

Feature request, please add baubles to the wallet or collection. The space it takes just feels unnecessary and annoying atm. Especially when you have some leftover in your bank through the rest of the year.Also adding the infinite coin as a possible reward would seem fun to me although people who bought it through the gem store would probably hate that change. Just figure as something you can buy for a ridiculously high number like 1000 bauble bubbles.Would also like the races to be in tribulation mode as well with its own leaderboard, fun and very challenging content to compete with the guildies.Besides that another world is definitely the most exciting thing I can see coming in the future.

[Skie.8904]

This would be my first SAB. My only worry is being able to catch up on previous years :)

[Mrs Lana.2506]

@"Laevateinn.6289" said:

• What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?

Let's talk the other end of the spectrum. The single part of the entire SAB that I hate is the part in w2z2 with the trampolines. It's entirely ping-dependant and is CRIPPLING to those of us with high ping. I barely manage to scrape through that part in trib with an average of ~340 ping. PLEASE don't make anything like this again, I am begging you.

• Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?

Considering there's a bauble node available for home instances, and thus a way to gather baubles year-round (albeit limited), I would like to see the weekly vendor for every festival be available all year round.

For items, how about;Black Lion KeyGuaranteed Wardrobe UnlockCrimson Assassin Tokens (as it is now, this weapon set will take a literal 5 years to complete assuming the festival lasts for 3 weeks)Mystic Clover/s

• What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?

I'd love to see new worlds with new weapon sets like the storm wizard/king frog which requires tribulation mode. Basically I need a reason to farm trib mode. It's something I love doing, but after getting all the skins and other unlocks available, there's no incentive to keep doing it. Maybe introducing a fourth "craftable" set of weapons that require tribulation tokens from 1/2/3, as well as a weapon template that Moto provides. Just spitballing.

[ZDWario.3829]

We need worlds 3 & 4.

We need the other 2 SAB harvesting tools for a full set!

I liked 2-1. Not too long and a good balance of platforming and fighting with decent challenge enemies.

Don't really care about the weekly vendor..

[Urud.4925]

I like SAB but I don't care particularly for additional worlds or even more weapon skins to farm (on the contrary).I'm happy that you decided to postpone it a bit this year (we still have recent content to play/farm... sadly).Just one beg, in case you will start to work for additional stages: don't use too dark colors, like in W2Z3. We can always change the gamma settings in Windows, so it's not even more difficult, just annoying to revert them when we finish to play.

[Nevra.5489]

First what i would like to see is that the upgrades are accountbound and not character because my main changed over the last 7 years so that would be great! And could you make the furniture coins sellable so there is no more lfg selling stuff annoyance.

• What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?

W1 Z1+2 they are short and funny the z3 is borderline for me and to dark. and w2Z2+3 is way to long and that's what i really hate. for me superbox is a short distraction of the real game so the levels should't take 5 hours to do them all(NM+TM).

• Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?

In general i would like to buy way more than possible. if you play actively you can buy all and still have to waist inventory space to keep the bauble baubles, also would make a great currency the bauble baubles ;).

• Chak egg sac/ Chak Infusion for like 1000 bauble baubles (one can dream :D)
• Normal Black lion Keys
• Golden Black lion Keys
• Black Lion Weapon Ticket
• Wardrobe Unlock
• Weapon unlock
• Armor unlock
• Supreme runes of holding

• Recovered Black Lion Goods

  • What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?

Baubles collect time trial or speedrun the worlds. with a daily and monthly(weekly) leaderboard with rewards like in gw1 for the challenger missions. this could be added to all the challenges and races in the hole gw2 universe.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

@"Laevateinn.6289" said:This doesn't mean a new World is happening this year.Thank you for this rather precise answer. Can we get the same info about other projects? Just a simple yes or no for 2020. For example Alliances.

• What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?W2Z2. My first video-game ever was Super Mario Land on GB (the black and green one). World 4 kept me busy for a long time, due to the intense difficulty spike and the stage-design. When I first set foot into W2 I just got the flashbacks. W2Z2 is quite complex and utilizes a lot of the old Jump & Run features I grew up with.

• Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?

• Supreme Runes of Holding

• Draconic Amalgamated Gemstone (I guess there will be more content requiring those items)

• Heroic Boosters

• What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?As the SAB already covers a lot of old memories, I would like to see something like the

  as some sort of a bonus stage.

[wickwire.1493]

What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?

All of World 1's zones are just great, both in Tribulation and normal mode. World 2 in comparison feels too long and cumbersome.

[Louis.9572]

First off, I have to tell you that I really love all the changes that are happening lately, I play the game for almost 6 years now and I never saw you do so unbelievably many things for the players. About a year ago, like many others, I had to take a break from the game because it felt like nothing happens at all, but now I can enjoy it again and I can't express how happy I am when I see your transparency while talking about content like SAB or 2v2 PvP. I hope everyone will notice this effort and more people who quit return to the game.

• What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?All of them are great except for the raft-part in W2Z1 since it kind of forces you to wait.
• Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?Unlike others I think the weekly vendor is a good idea because you have the urge to at least log in once every week. The only thing I would add is mystic clovers, as this would be another way of bypassing having to buy mystic coins from TP Barons and would support the people who build legendaries after the legendary armory update.
• What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?I would really appreciate a way to get crimson assassin weapons without having a timegate. I really dislike the thought of having to do daily achievements for years or else you have to wait a year or even several years more than others who can play daily, just because you were ill or on holiday. My suggestion is that you could implement a (tradeable) Crimson Assassin Weapon Box (random loot at the end of a level) as there are already boxes for the normal super weapons and the kaiser snake weapons. This way, people who cannot afford to play often or can't stand waiting won't be at disadvantage. Also it would be even more worth to complete every zone each day for the people who can play everyday as they have more chances to get skins which they could sell for money so everyone would profit from that. Another reason is that people who start playing now or experience SAB for the first time won't be able to complete the collection until 2025 I believe, which would be kind of sad in my opinion.Thank you very much for reading my thoughts and keep up the good work!

[Leablo.2651]

Favorite level: 1-2. To me, it is the level that is most like the platformers of old. It has a good balance of exploration and secret areas, and isn't oppressive with its environmental hazards. It is about the right size and length for one level.

For SAB minigames I'd like to see something with a fixed camera angle to simulate an arcade style game. Something like Gauntlet Legends.

If I can make one unsolicited suggestion for future expansion of SAB, it would be to start by refactoring W2 and chopping up the levels which are way too big and take too much time to get through. There is an inherent recognition of this fact too, given that each of those levels has a big skip built into it. I would suggest that you remove the skips, and space out the level breaks accordingly. W2Z3 for example could easily have been two complete zones.

[Zaxares.5419]

What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?

I would say it would have to be W1Z1. Sunny Glade will always hold a special place in my heart; the combination of the music, the bright visuals, and the way the level was designed (it's extremely fast if you're just running straight to the end, but there's plenty of side-areas to explore and secrets to uncover if you prefer that) all combined to create the perfect introduction to SAB.

I know that there are people who feel otherwise, but I think that the big mistake World 2 made (and the mistake that wound up driving a lot of people away from SAB) was that it tried to go "bigger, longer, harder!", and wound up losing sight of that key design principle. The levels should be fast to complete if you're just sticking to the essentials, but have a lot of room for exploration. Instead, all of the W2 levels feel unnecessarily long. W2Z1 could really have been split into two levels; the Rapids up to the Ninja Bridge, and then the rest of the level. Likewise, the other levels feel like they drag on for far too long. There really wasn't a need to put TWO octopus puzzles into the Pain Cliffs, and the trampoline pillars, while an interesting concept, are also VERY painful for anybody who's playing on high ping (and by that, I mean anybody with 200+ ping). That's the #1 reason why I always take the shortcuts for World 2, and why I never touched Trib Mode again after I finished the achieves; it's just not FUN to have to try and account for lag when so many of the jumps in TM (and W2Z2 and W2Z3, to a lesser extent) require pinpoint accuracy and non-stop movement.

For any future Worlds 3 and 4, I hope that the design adheres more closely to how World 1 worked. The levels should be shorter, but broader. Part of the great appeal of SAB during the first year was that it was content that you could just jump into with random strangers, and be done within 30 mins, as sort of a fun side-activity in between other in-game events. If there were players who weren't so good with jumps or mechanics, all you needed was one player to get to the next checkpoint, or to open up shortcuts. There's already plenty to do in Guild Wars; we really don't need yet another activity that takes up a good 1 or 2 hours per day. There's a reason why the short, repeatable strikes are more popular than raids, or even the longer (yet easier!) Forging Steel strike.

Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?

I think that in addition to Mystic Coins and Legendary Shard chests, Amalgamated Gemstones, Mystic Clovers or Magic-Warped Bundles (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic-Warped_Bundle) could be added to the list.

What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?

More weapon upgrades are always welcome! :) Also, somebody else mentioned adding the Baubles to the Currency Wallet; that would definitely be a big QoL improvement, although I understand it may cause issues with the way baubles are kept track of inside SAB itself. The idea of a SAB Arena where you face off against ever-increasingly difficult foes (either solo or as a party) is quite intriguing, and I think it deserves consideration.

I'd also like to see the SAB "elite skills" be made more powerful/useful. As it is now, they're almost not even worth using considering that spamming your regular attack does similar damage in roughly the same amount of time. Perhaps Moto's Breath/Finger could be used to insta-kill any non-boss foe (even Tribulation Clouds, making acquiring the elite skills a very valuable tool for Trib Mode.

[kalzana.3192]

What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?1-2. There's more to explore if you'd like, and shortcut worm if you don't feel like it today. Trib wasn't too insane or long, and I enjoyed finding all the baubles there (and ditto for all of W1).Least favourite: 2-3. It's too long without the shortcuts (ditto 2-2), and trib is near impossible without abusing invulnerability frames.

Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?

• I loved the tyrian exchange vouchers, and buying them at the festival last year was the reason I was recently able to make Twilight!
• I'd love a way to accelerate gift of battles for (the non WvW centric) legendaries for those of us not WvW inclined, but no idea how that would work.
• Amalgamated Gemstones and Draconic Amalgamated Gemstone would be great too.

What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?

• I'd love a checkpoint mechanics for the larger worlds where you can come back the following day. It took me 2 days of trying to do 2-3 Trib, the second day being incredibly frustrating having to redo the first day's progress.
• It would also be good to have some way of seeing where your party members are more readily - in normal mode I almost always go in with guildies, some of which I'll need to guide in.
• A "race" mode or leaderboard for groups would be good, just a count of who makes it to the checkpoint first etc. I currently do this manually for guild events and would be super helpful to have it calculated properly!

[Vancho.8750]

I was thinking about something like a Strike mission or the Dragon bash arena but in SAB stile where you start with a stick and after every boss you get to chose some ability or item or a buff out of 3, so you make a build that is more supportive or more damage dealing or can crowd control better, and that build helps your team to reach to higher tiers of the SAB arena. Something like the Dungeon run in Hearthstone.