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Difficulty choices for clocktower JP


Lini.2698

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I doubt if I'll ever manage this one. I lack the patience to keep trying when the wait time for retrying is so long.

However, I'm okay if ANet never, ever changes it. I think it's good for the game to have some content that is too hard for me; it reminds me that this is a huge game and I don't need to participate in everything, get every AP, claim every skin. It's also is more fun for me if there are some goals for which I have to stretch hard to reach.

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@Randulf.7614 said:This has come up every year for 6 years and the JP has so far and prob always will be, untouched.The same was with Wintersday JP, until it eventually got changed last time. For pretty much the same reasons people are now asking to change Clocktower.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason why it didn't get the same treatment yet is because the wintersday one was simply easier to adjust.

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First of all, you don't have to do the jumping puzzle for either the annual meta achievement to complete nor for the (were it Lunatic boots) that come with it. You can get the boots via a recipe as well via vendor with candy cobs.

I will be honest here and tell that I tried this jumping puzzle now for the second year. Up till today I never finished it. But with 1 year practising jumping puzzles (all Tyria ones), retrying the Hallloween puzzle this year, and adjusting some settings (and someone looking along via discord screenshare, tips and stuffs) I managed to almost finish it. I just made some errors of jumping on perhaps the last 5 jumps. In 2 hour trying today I failed about 90% to not even get at half the puzzle.

Regardless of this, I am of opinion the jumping puzzle does not have to change. Yes there may be some players with high ping but they won't be able to pass any jumping puzzle, timed content in game, etc. However this will not get them locked out of the rewards as mentioned in my first sentence.

Some tips:

  1. Practice jumping in general. If you didn't do any puzzle before, start on non time gated ones (don't cheese in with mesmer portals, optionally ask a friend along so you can jump together).
  2. Relax... The puzzle can be quite stressy. Sit comfortably, take a break if needed. Its not bad if you fail, you may get there at some point. Trial and repeat, and just go with the flow. And don't let other players pressure you, just think you are there alone.
  3. Camera settings. The puzzle asks you to turn your camera endlessly to the right. It can help if your camera turns faster (you can change this is game settings). Make sure you also have enough view depth as you need to jump down once.
  4. Mouse. As mentioned in point 3, lots of camera turning. If you use a standard mouse, you may want to raise its speed in your mouse settings (pc configuration screen in windows). A mouse with dpi setting also works if you have that luxury. Faster mouse means less arm stretching to keep make right turns (you can turn in a smaller spot so you can keep your arm still, or at least be less of an octopuss).
  5. During the puzzle, try not to take pauses (apart from 1st tiny cogwheel in start and the jump before entering the tower), too slow means out of time. Better gamble on a jump than wait and figure out you are out of time (especially before the big jump down).
  6. Don't you manage this year? There will be next year again. Practice makes perfect :)

Good luck!

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@Danikat.8537 said:

@Gop.8713 said:Different difficulties work for the wintersday jp bc it is farmable in a way that the clocktower is not. You really only need to do it once a year . . .

I think the main thing which made adding difficulties to Wintersday jumping puzzle logical is that it already had 3 different paths through the timed section. All they had to do was adjust the timing on the snowflake platforms so one set take longer to disappear and one set take less time. Whereas the clocktower only has one path, so it would be a lot more work to change it.

Personally I like @killermanjaro.5670's idea of a practice mode with no time limit and where you can restart immediately, so you can practice and learn the path and then get used to the timing separately.

Although I'd suggest keeping the final jump from the stairs into the clock timed, because that is the only thing which makes that jump challenging but it takes practice to get it right and I imagine it would be even harder to learn if you'd gotten used to just running up the stairs and jumping immediately and suddenly you're faced with having to wait and catch just the right moment to get in.

Practice mode would be a good idea, idk how hard it would be to implement. One thing I've noticed about ppl in game who complain that the jp is impossible and they just can't do it is that once they get it, they can do repeat completions with relative ease. So if a practice mode could give more ppl more confidence to keep trying, that would be a positive outcome . . .

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I think the biggest problem (and reflected in practice mode) is that if you have a limited amount of time to play each day, sitting around in the clocktower waiting for a reset is dead time. If you are still learning, in a 15 minute cycle, you might not even get 5 minutes of actual play time in if you are still learning.So anything to improve that is welcome. The first year I basically didn't do it much, just on the basis I want to actual play the game in my limited available time, not sit around and wait.

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Personally, what I dislike at this JP is the waiting time. I always do several tries before to do it completely. And when we need several repeats like me, this waiting time between each go is really long. Often, it makes me give up. I have some friends who also give up due to the waiting time.

On the other hand, what I find so great in this JP is that other players are not disturbing the view. I dream that they make something similar with the Wintersday one.

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@Pirindolo.9427 said:The waiting time is what is keeping so many people away even from just trying it. It should be changed to a 1-player-instance with instant restart after you die.

This, this, this. Clocktower violates the principle of Fail Faster. I don't mind difficult. I do mind having to wait a ridiculous amount of time in the event of a minor failure.

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What I hate is when the map expires just as you join (meaning you have to wait a full minute before you jump, or exit and reload again). To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about making the JP easier or a solo instance though - when interesting people gather at a piece of hard content, it can lead to some very fun conversations at the startline xD

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@Daddicus.6128 said:Why do people who can do it, or otherwise don't want it changed, object to multiple difficulties (and rewards)? It costs them absolutely nothing to let other players be able to finish it. Absolutely nothing.

It cost dev time that they think can be used on something else they may enjoy instead of nefing what they can already do for others.

Human nature really I can do it so everyone else should be able to.

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@Linken.6345 said:

@Daddicus.6128 said:Why do people who can do it, or otherwise don't want it changed, object to multiple difficulties (and rewards)? It costs them absolutely nothing to let other players be able to finish it. Absolutely nothing.

It cost dev time that they think can be used on something else they may enjoy instead of nefing what they can already do for others.

Human nature really I can do it so everyone else should be able to.

Except this would be trivial to implement. Just have some of the instances run at different rates.

In fact, not only is it trivial, they probably have already done it! They had to originally find the right tuning to make it the difficulty it is now. It's a near certainty that they didn't guess at the right speed the first time they tried; thus, that must have already created instances with different timings.

But, my question you answered in the second half. I would phrase it differently, but that wording might get me infracted. So, let's just say that I don't think of them very highly.

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@killermanjaro.5670 said:I'd very much welcome the option of a solo 'practice' instance of it, where you could enter and attempt it without waiting for bits to appear, and without any timers/bits falling away, and most importantly where If you fail then you could restart and attempt it again straight away, without that stupid waiting timer, as that's the main reason I don't bother with it. Even if this 'practice' mode didn't give rewards I'd be fine with that, it'd just be nice to have an instance to enjoy it and try to improve for the actual challenge.

you already have the easy mode option available.When the jp where first introduced you could see all the other players. because of all the players you would have a hard time to see where to jump next, and easily fail. now you just see a little fog and a red name over their head. watch a guide and try harder. its not that hard.

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@"Black Wolf.7348" said:

@"killermanjaro.5670" said:I'd very much welcome the option of a solo 'practice' instance of it, where you could enter and attempt it without waiting for bits to appear, and without any timers/bits falling away, and most importantly where If you fail then you could restart and attempt it again straight away, without that stupid waiting timer, as that's the main reason I don't bother with it. Even if this 'practice' mode didn't give rewards I'd be fine with that, it'd just be nice to have an instance to enjoy it and try to improve for the actual challenge.

you already have the easy mode option available.When the jp where first introduced you could see all the other players. because of all the players you would have a hard time to see where to jump next, and easily fail. now you just see a little fog and a red name over their head. watch a guide and try harder. its not that hard.

I didn't even mention an 'easy mode' option, only that it would be nice to have an instance to practise in, one where players can get used to the layout, and most importantly not have to wait around after each fail. Watching a guide is fine, but having to wait an eternity after each failed attempt is something that really causes an issue with trying to practise it, hence why I (and I'm sure many others) decide to just ignore this JP, even though I enjoy JPs.

Also glad you find it "not that hard", but that doesn't mean others don't find it hard, and that's fine, as you say it's a case of "try harder", which is exactly why a 'practice instance' would be nice to have, so people who don't find it easy can try to improve at it, without having to spend half of their gaming time waiting in a lobby.

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It doesn't need difficulty settings, it needs to be separately instanced. The problem isn't the difficulty, it's the waiting time in between. I outlined this last year, on average, people spend around 15-25s of jumping while waiting something like 1:05 up to 1:15 or 1:20 before they can start again. This is piss poor design. Most aren't going to get better at jumping waiting that long in between; they'll get frustrated and irritated instead.

What they need to do (and do it now) is make this jumping puzzle purchasable and instanced in people's home instance. Not purchasable by gems or gold, but by halloween currency like candy corn (or the cobs). Not some asinine amount, but like 1000 candy corn or 1 cob. Then people go in their home instance by themselves and do the jumping puzzle at their pace. Allow them to skip the cut scenes, and have wait times no longer than 5s in between tries. Make it so you can only collect 1 set of bags off it per day, but leave it in people's home instance permanently with the ability to finish the annual achievement at any given time of year.

The amount of people that piped up about this last year make it a complete shock that they didn't do anything about the waiting time with it this year. Imagine what the wintersday JP would be like if it functioned the same was as the clock tower jp...

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I would rather them try and fix the desyncing and stuttering that regularly occurs in there. Maybe it's my ping, but because of that, this is the only JP where someone who has completed it multiple times is still able to run into issues on a return visit. I finished the repeatable by lingering in 1 instance, but when I returned to do the daily the next day I crashed into the wall at the end or fell around where the moving parts loaded when my FPS stuttered.

While somewhat annoying, the wait time isn't that bad. The only part that required extensive practice was the very first bit where the platforms had to spawn. Once you get past the jump onto the right small block -> gear -> first set of stairs, you can actually slow down a little. If you fail, you generally need more practice with this area over anywhere else and it doesn't take that long for the puzzle to restart (The only time I've had to wait 1+ min is if I fell at the very end of the JP). This makes it not much different from Skipping Stones in Southsun Cove. Myself and many others have done it on 250+ ping, you can too.

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@Rauderi.8706 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:The waiting time is what is keeping so many people away even from just trying it. It should be changed to a 1-player-instance with instant restart after you die.

This, this, this. Clocktower violates the principle of Fail Faster. I don't mind difficult. I
do
mind having to wait a ridiculous amount of time in the event of a minor failure.

Perfectly said.

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