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How to make better jumping puzzles - [Merged]


Fipmip.7219

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And here all of my friends basically continue to play GW2 because of the JP's being difficult, and super fun.

We spent literal hours doing the Halloween Clocktower JP when it first released. Took forever to finally succeed, but we loved every moment of it.

So you may not like them, but we most definitely do, It's our favorite part of GW2.

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Look, to everyone that likes jumping puzzles because their clunky core mechanics makes them difficult: I respect your opinion, but I honestly don't care. They're still fundamentally bad, and I can back that up multiple years of examples across multiple games. The reason you like it is because someone always does. the people that don't just don't engage with the content. Whenever you make a game, the people that like it gravitate towards it like a magnet, and those that dislike it fall away and leave. So, what you're left with is the core audience that you've attracted, and an essentially biased view point. It can be hard to change games because when you do, the game and the audience you've attracted will be offset to eachother.

Except in this case, I really don't think many people will complain about the change. To them it'll always be the same old jumping puzzles that Anet have been doing all this time, except the keener eyed might notice the jumps are less awkward, the directions are clearer and experience just feels tighter. You people seem to think I'm asking for easier jumping puzzles, well I'm not. I'm asking for a tighter experience, because the current one, endearing as it is, feels sloppy and amateurish. Jumping puzzles can still be challenging, but this is the wrong way to go about it.

By the way, I'm using weyandt's revenge as an example. There are plenty of puzzles in the game that share the characteristics of this one. I actually do like jumping puzzles in this game, they serve as a great way of equalizing players that would otherwise be far apart in terms of character skill and power.

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To make better jumping puzzles Anet need only turn to Super Mario Maker. All jumping puzzles should have the following:

Invisible blocks to send you falling to your death when attempting a jump.Portals that drop you into a lava pit.Other portals that send you right back to the beginning of the jumping puzzle (with an included laugh track).A maze full of so many spikes that you die if you're even a pixel off-center.A pit where your only escape is to map out to the nearest waypoint.A boss fight that includes a Centaur stacked on top of a Dredge stacked on top of an Ettin stacked on top of a Grawl stacked on top of a Quaggan stacked on top of a Skritt.

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The only thing I would ask, is to get rid of wonky slopes and ledges everywhere. These are the platforms that fling you off if you move on them, but you can still somehow stand on them (Silverwastes' golden badge #24 rope climb :s ). If you don't jump to them exactly correctly, you simply bounce or slide off, even if it is the correct platform for the jumping puzzle path. These are the ledges that I spam jump on because once out of ten, I will not slide off of them, but instead can jump off of them to get the required upper ledges.

And the best part about all of these crazy ledges, the ramp up to Wyvern Cliffs in the Verdant Brink allow you to move straight up a practically vertical ground :scream: . If it was a jumping puzzle, you would definitely slide right off something that steep.

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  • 5 months later...

@"Alatar.7364" said:Can't remember since when did the definition of word Puzzle became equal to Obvious.

It is supposed to be that way and I have fun doing them.

Funny, I can't remember when the definition of the word "puzzle" became equal to "visually obfuscated guessing game".

Puzzles are something that can be logically resolved, not blind chance.

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I think it's fine if some JP's are hard and not obvious but some things are still important to me:

  1. Don't make the JP's so long that you forget why you even bothered starting to do them halfway through (Ember Bay and Draconis Mons JP's for example were waaaaaaaay too long)
  2. And if you DO make longer (or way harder) JP's give us a checkpoint or two

I'm decently good at JP's as long as I keep calm because I tend to ragequit quite fast when I don't enjoy what I'm doing and I don't really enjoy overly punishing gameplay, so when I miss a jump by like 2 pixels and have to do the entire thing all over again you probably won't see me doing that JP again in the next few months.

Last Year I did SAB for the first time and rolled through the hard mode of World 1 like it was nothing but not before I ragequit the game for 2 days. Unfortunatly I didn't have time to do World 2 on hard but I'm looking forward to it this year. I already now the path so maybe I'll get through it without ragequitting. The saving grace for SAB are the Checkpoints. (And the fact that SAB music and style is awesome).

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@MattDu.7123 said:However the biggest problem is Charr. Big fluffy teddys that get in your way. They should all be Neutered ;P

Just for that, I'm bringing my max-sized Charr, biggening potion, AND raven glider to all the jumping puzzles. :P

But really though, ANet, give another pass to these jumping puzzles and collision detection in general. Bad enough jumping on faulty textures is misleading, it's even worse on a Springer...

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Ain’t seen nothing until you meet a Charr in Medium armour who’s inevitable trench coat will parachute out at the end of his jump and literally obscure everything.

The Halloween clock tower transforming “enemy” players into wisps makes it one of the best in the game.

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@Fipmip.7219 said:A moderately well known fact about Nintendo is when Shigeru was making Super Mario 64 for the nintendo 64, he discovered making pinpoint accurate jumps within a 3D space is just something that does not work. At all. Making a jumping game in 3D requires a pretty high degree of forgiveness to make it fun, a certain understanding of the player to make "good enough" judgement for a jump. However, the fine fellows at Anet don't seem to have gotten the memo, and as such we have minuscule stalagmite platforms, catchy headbanging geometry in awkward places, and unclear directional cues.

When I meet a new player who is interested in a JP or I find one in one of my tours, I try to help them with the controls and mechanics. Using portals is the last resort, I rather stick to comforting them and encouraging them to try it on their own. There are tons of tricks to make the JPs a lot easier. My absolute favorite, which I tell every time is this:

"We are by definition a 3D game, we can move forward, backward, up and down. There are objects with different height which we can or cannot jump on. Jumping puzzles are designed in a very special, player-friendly way. Every intended jump in this game can be done with normal speed. There is never a need for a dodge-jump, swiftness, superspeed or any sort of leap-mechanic. If someone wants to tell you that you need any of these, it is not the proper way. If you try to make a jump and fail to reach the platform even with something like that, you can be certain it is the wrong way.

In addition, most intended jumps do not require any certain height. That means you can basically ignore the vertical axis at all. In order to do that, move your camera into bird's view mode, so your character is visible as a dot. You see the platforms infront of you. You see that you need to jump to get there. You simply move the dot to the edge of your current platform, jump and release the arrow-key once your dot reaches the other platform. It really is that simple."

Try it out yourselves at Coddler's Cove ^^.

@Fipmip.7219 said:The pirate cave in Lions Arch immediately starts off with a *Guess the pixel perfect position you have to drop down into to even start the god kitten puzzle." There's no time to avoid obstacles if you get it wrong, and you can barely move in midair to begin with. You are then lead through a pitch black maze in which if you miss the rather unclear cue to walk through a wall and turn left at the end, guess what you'll be wandering through pitch blackness for as long as it takes you to realize you can use your minimap to navigate through without the help of the spirit in the first place. When you do finally get out of the maze, it is again, extremely unclear where to go, the answer is to spam jump your way up some rather badly textured geometry to a tunnel above and to your right.

The leap of death teaches you a basic rule in this game: blindly and forcefully jumping into the abyss leads to certain death. Jumping puzzles are a lot about figuring out things and what can be used as ladders or stairways to reach a certain point. If you believe that the best solution for a problem is to face-tank it, you will not enjoy this game at all. There are tons of deathtraps for the 101 brainless blood-berserker.

We all started at that point once. Some were smart and used a youtube guide, others were motivated and tried on their own. I died at least 15 times before I first reached the water-pool. Tried leaping in the middle, tried leaping right & left. Later I tried to drop down slowly and see on what side I may survive the first impact with an object. Then you continue like that, use that method and try again for the next few meters.

About the dark maze: This puzzle is seen as one of the first Jumping Puzzles in the game. Aside from the rough start it is very player-friendly designed. It even has a tutorial function implemented, if you are playing the game with opened eyes, sound active and no full base dubstep turned on. Once you get out of the water and head towards the first dark maze, you come across a ghost who may lead you through the maze. Of course he gets lost for once as well, because he does not remember the way properly. But if you are patient enough, he gets you through each section of the JP. His hints are very entertaining, especially in the spike cavern :P.

From all possible examples you can pick, why did you have to pick Weyandt's Revenge? There are countless of examples for bad design. Did you ever do the original Troll's End? That thing was a pain, but had one of the best entrances in the entire game ^^.

@Fipmip.7219 said:There's problems with pretty much every puzzle I've tried so far with absolutely no signs of learning from Anet throughout the years of releasing expansions. I would like to at very least like to see some clear directional cues with the puzzles released in PoF, with the path clearly laid out in what you're supposed to do. I get that from time to time you may want players to navigate some form of maze, but the fact the maze is there and the different possible paths the maze has needs to be clearly shown. Don't make people randomly jump off unrecoverable cliffs just because they think you might have hidden the correct path down there. If you want to make a jumping puzzle difficult, you'll want to outfox your players using clever tricks, not make them struggle to overcome core gameplay elements.

There are jumping puzzles which suit to that discription. The chalice is a perfect example for that. Also because it ignores various rules all other JPs obey. I do not count it to the official guildwars 2 jumping puzzles. The above mentioned Troll's End was horribly designed as well, with the camera as your enemy. Not so secret, mentioned by other players, is difficult but quite linear. Many puzzles are good to figure out where to go, once you made it to the entrance.

I personally dislike JP's with forced timers. And the ones which are only difficult to be difficult. This content should not be forced or required for any collections or quests. I really liked the attempt of last year's Halloween. For those who have missed/forgotten it: This was the first time you were able to decide if you want to do the JP to get the item for the collection or craft it. That is right, you were able to get the item without doing the JP at all. I would love to see this method used at other JPs in the game as well. Those who enjoy the content, can do it. And those who don't, get an alternative which only requires money.

Jumping Puzzle's are a bit like raids. A niche for a small group of dedicated players. I do not see a reason to force the rest of the community into that content, although I really enjoy it myself.

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i personally think that all the puzzles should have no enemies, i don't see the fun in doing a puzzle while fighting an enemy every 2 jumps.i can understand traps, they are fun since they punish you from not being careful, enemies just don't belong in any puzzle.

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There are only a handful of bad Jumping Puzzles and LA is not even grazing the top of that list. As was mentioned, it's called a Puzzle. First off, if you're dying at the beginning, you're doing it wrong. There are a series of platforms down the shoot that can be used to "jump" down and there is plenty of wiggle room to catch them. The entire point of the maze is to clue you in with the different colors while the ghost tries to trick you into wandering around aimlessly. It is a puzzle, and if you can't figure it out, well there are guides that could help.

There are very few instances in any JP that actually requires pin point anything. If you're especially bad you might be able to improve, if you can't improve, well sorry, but maybe not every piece of content is for everyone.

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Things that really helped me with jumping:

  1. Don't use your thumb on the spacebar. It's a long, floppy, inaccurate key. Bind something else for your jumps and make sharp accurate taps with your index finger.
  2. Keep your feet flat on the floor. Your real feet, not your characters. This will lower your stress level and keep you focused.
  3. Remember to breathe, especially on timed puzzles like Wintersday. Same reason as #2, it will lower your stress level and keep you focused.
  4. Change how you walk. A lot of people use 'W', it's easier control your forward motion by holding down both mouse buttons to move, letting up one of them to stop.

Your mileage may vary.

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@"Rauderi.8706" said:

if you think it's hard, please please don't try Chalice of
Tears
Deliberately Ignoring Good Design Decisions.

I think I'm less upset about Chalice of Tears being kinda poorly done for the sake of "difficulty" and more irritated with the attitude that came with it. A deliberate trollolo on behalf of the creator just feels like abuse rather than energizing the players with something cool like Abaddon's Ascent.Especially when they put collectibles from an otherwise-unrelated achievement in there for some godforsaken reason.

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OK, I despise Jumping Puzzles, but I don't think the call for them being removed from the game is realistic, necessary or desirable. These puzzles are sought out and enjoyed by many players -I can appreciate that fact.

HOWEVER, I'd like to see ANet stop insinuating jumping puzzle type mechanics into the rest of the game.

I stopped doing dungeons long ago because (they weren't fun) and they also had not so very enjoyable trap/puzzle mechanics. Now, I have to face these same type things in my character's Personal Stories and LS Chapters. HOT ExPac is pretty much one huge JP...

Not fun for me, I muddle through, but intensely dislike it, I want to play an RPG not an arcade game.

Also, there's the Malchor's Leap Insight: Scavenger's Chasm that I have yet to get...

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I have to disagree with OP to a certain degree. There are 2 types of Jumping Puzzles.

  1. Obvious route, difficult jumps
  2. Hidden route, easy jumps

The pirate JP in LA belongs to the second type. While the second type is only enjoyable the first time you do them, I still find the pirate JP to be one of the best in the game. Ok, the entry is clunky, but the labyrinth part is genious. You can follow the ghost around and go the longest possible path, or you can notice the arrows on the ground and go the shortest path. Watching a guide for these kinds of puzzles is like reading spoilers to a story.

A good example for the first type is Skipping Stones or the festival JPs. The path is obvious and you just have to make the jumps.

There are of course a few bad JPs in the game. The worst offender imo was the old troll's revenge in LA that got removed with LA's rework. The space was too narrow and you were constantly bumping your head. Some jumps depended on you standing at the right spot to not bump into the ceiling.

No matter if the JP belongs to the first or second type, a good JP of a certain length needs to have checkpoints. Even pinpoint needle jumps are fine IF there is a checkpoint right before them.

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When I started the game, I hated puzzles. Some of them I still dislike. But the reason is different then what you describe. Without technical knowledge you can do them. But it is like learning to walk again. Once you do, it is easy. The only puzzles I got issue with are the timed ones (e.g. Skipping Stones) or those that are not forgiving enough (not so secret). So either ignore them or learn to do them.

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