Jump to content
  • Sign Up

ANet, please make SAB upgrades account-wide!


Recommended Posts

Hi ANet, just wanted to voice my opinion that I think SAB upgrades (shovel, nun-chucks, etc) should be made account-wide.

I was a noob to SAB (hadn't played it before this year) and wandered in on my bulky Charr warrior. I'm now reluctant to play this jump puzzle-heavy mode on anything but my Charr simply because he's the first character I happened to buy the upgrades for.

Please consider making these upgrades character-independent! Thank you. <3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:I kinda like that you could potentially have a fresh playthrough. It's not like the amount of baubles required is anything to write home about tbh.

In fact, i personally prefer that more things would be character bound than fire once forget forever.

I agree. Given that the race or profession you do SAB on is immaterial, this way people who want to keep the upgrades forever can use the same character and those of us that like a fresh run every now and then can have that too. The way it is now, everybody wins =)

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Amarantha Onyx.8962 said:

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:I kinda like that you could potentially have a fresh playthrough. It's not like the amount of baubles required is anything to write home about tbh.

In fact, i personally prefer that more things would be character bound than fire once forget forever.

I agree. Given that the race or profession you do SAB on is immaterial, this way people who want to keep the upgrades forever can use the same character and those of us that like a fresh run every now and then can have that too. The way it is now, everybody wins =)

I would just add that, at least for me, personally, any kind of platforming in the game feels most comfortable on my Asuras. But at the very least, I never do jps on a Charr. I'm sure that many of us feel similarly about their preferred character.

Character based progression might be related to the fact that SAB was originally meant to be a one-off event back when achievements and related account progression stuff weren't a thing. I don't know, it's just a thought. I wouldn't change it, though, for the reasons given already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The original design (lo these many April Fools ago) was to create an 8-bit platform emulator. In those, everything was character bound. Now that it's a festival, ... well I'm torn.

On the one hand, it would be a lot more convenient. I feel tied to a specific character. On the other hand, I like the idea that I can start from scratch, after having learned a lot more about jumping. (I'm bad now and was so so so much worse back when SAB first appeared.) Of course, I won't ever actually get around to collecting everything on another toon, so maybe there aren't that many people who care.

As always, though, the bigger issue for ANet is: what would it take to make all the unlocks account bound? Some stuff in the game is programmed with a simple 'flag' that they could turn on (or off) and a lot of mechanics depend on the unlocks happening in a particular way. This action triggers these changes, one of which is the unlock; it's not enough to 'unlock', those other changes still have to be triggered.

If it's the former, relatively easy. Otherwise, it's parallel to the situation with changing character race, which ANet tells us is too expensive to be worth doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think SAB was built in the spirit of 90's or early 2000's gaming. One of the great joys back in those days was to delete your last save file and start fresh with a new playthrough. In this regard, all you need currently is a new character... compared to your idea, which would require a new account.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Westenev.5289" said:I think SAB was built in the spirit of 90's or early 2000's gaming. One of the great joys back in those days was to delete your last save file and start fresh with a new playthrough. In this regard, all you need currently is a new character... compared to your idea, which would require a new account.

I'm assuming you're also against SAB's multiple difficulties? And generous checkpoint system? And the 5 player co-op? And too-easy bosses? And the shortcuts? And the huge amount of "ammo" you get for bombs and slingshots? And the large number of continue coins/the infinite continue coin?

SAB is indeed an homage, but in actual practice, it is a very far cry from 8- and 16-bit gaming. In the end, we're talking about a spectrum here -- how much of the classic gaming feel do we want, and how many modern conveniences do we want? Personally the desire to "start from scratch" in this side-activity festival within a larger MMO is not really my thing.

Perhaps a compromise could involve the ability for characters to gift their upgrades to another of your characters, in some way? Or perhaps we could just get a shortcut system for re-acquiring the more difficult upgrades (moto's finger)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@gateless gate.8406 said:

@"Westenev.5289" said:I think SAB was built in the spirit of 90's or early 2000's gaming. One of the great joys back in those days was to delete your last save file and start fresh with a new playthrough. In this regard, all you need currently is a new character... compared to your idea, which would require a new account.

I'm assuming you're also against SAB's multiple difficulties? And generous checkpoint system? And the 5 player co-op? And too-easy bosses? And the shortcuts? And the huge amount of "ammo" you get for bombs and slingshots? And the large number of continue coins/the infinite continue coin?

SAB is indeed an homage, but in actual practice, it is a very far cry from 8- and 16-bit gaming. In the end, we're talking about a spectrum here -- how much of the classic gaming feel do we want, and how many modern conveniences do we want? Personally the desire to "start from scratch" in this side-activity festival within a larger MMO is not really my thing.

Perhaps a compromise could involve the ability for characters to gift their upgrades to another of your characters, in some way? Or perhaps we could just get a shortcut system for re-acquiring the more difficult upgrades (moto's finger)?

So let’s just take it a step further from those types of games? How about another step? And another? And another? And another?

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@"Westenev.5289" said:I think SAB was built in the spirit of 90's or early 2000's gaming. One of the great joys back in those days was to delete your last save file and start fresh with a new playthrough. In this regard, all you need currently is a new character... compared to your idea, which would require a new account.

I'm assuming you're also against SAB's multiple difficulties? And generous checkpoint system? And the 5 player co-op? And too-easy bosses? And the shortcuts? And the huge amount of "ammo" you get for bombs and slingshots? And the large number of continue coins/the infinite continue coin?

SAB is indeed an homage, but in actual practice, it is a very far cry from 8- and 16-bit gaming. In the end, we're talking about a spectrum here -- how much of the classic gaming feel do we want, and how many modern conveniences do we want? Personally the desire to "start from scratch" in this side-activity festival within a larger MMO is not really my thing.

Perhaps a compromise could involve the ability for characters to gift their upgrades to another of your characters, in some way? Or perhaps we could just get a shortcut system for re-acquiring the more difficult upgrades (moto's finger)?

So let’s just take it a step further from those types of games? How about another step? And another? And another? And another?

Correct, one step further.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:I think SAB was built in the spirit of 90's or early 2000's gaming-

Errr, no. Thanks for making me feel ancient now ;) , but games in the 90s and specifically the early 2000s looked a lot better than 8-bit platform games. We are talking early 1980s here, pal.

I dunno, when I think about 80's games I think about sidescrollers. 90's games tended to have a lot of new and blocky 3d mechanics and fields full of nothing - which I attibute more to SAB.

But we're all entitled to our opinion. B)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Westenev.5289 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:I think SAB was built in the spirit of 90's or early 2000's gaming-

Errr, no. Thanks for making me feel ancient now ;) , but games in the 90s and specifically the early 2000s looked a lot better than 8-bit platform games. We are talking early 1980s here, pal.

I dunno, when I think about 80's games I think about sidescrollers.

Yes, the SAB graphics are exactly a reference to that. ANet cannot make SAB 2D as the game engine is 3D.

90's games tended to have a lot of new and blocky 3d mechanics and fields full of nothing - which I attibute more to SAB.But we're all entitled to our opinion. B)

It's not a matter of opinion but facts. You can read it up everywhere, Wiki, old interviews - SAB is a hommage to 8-bit platformers, and 8-bit platformers were totally outdated by the 1990s (as 8-bit computer graphics were outdated by then; you could already display a lot more than 256 colors by then; not to confuse with the fact that many 3D games in the late 1990s still had cubic graphics, because anything more detailed could not be handled by household processors at the time; especially the first online games had to be held as simple as possible, also for the lack of bandwidth at the time). Of course you have other references in SAB that do refer to later titles, but the graphics are supposed to represent the 8-bit atmosphere of the old days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@gateless gate.8406 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:So let’s just take it a step further from those types of games? How about another step? And another? And another? And another?Correct, one step further.

That begs two questions:

  • At what point should ANet draw the line between true homage using a modern Y2K game engine and a looks-like-1986/plays-like-2015 game?
  • Of all the things ANet could do to improve SAB, is this among the most critical?

As I implied above, I'm ambivalent to the first. For the second, I suspect that it's near the bottom of the list for most of the people I know who love SAB (I have no idea if they are representative of the festival's biggest fans or not).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I am typically in favor of account-based things over character-based, in this case I would prefer SAB to remain as it is. This is because there is no way to remove upgrades once you have acquired them. Sometimes I don't want upgrades for extra challenge or just for fun. Sometimes I want to play with friends (esp. when they are just starting SAB for the first time) in the same situation as they are. It allows me to see which upgrades are available in each shop and how many Baubles they cost without having to rely on the wiki. I'd be all for an option to reset a character to 'starter status' and update to 'account upgrade status' at will, but I'd prefer not to be locked into every character always upgraded all the time.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When SAB first came out you could harvest baubles every single time you went through. Every run had a chest, every run you could dig up the baubles, so it was infinitely easier to collect them and as such get all your characters through with gear. Also the baubles weren't really useful for anything except ingame stuff, so it didn't matter. Now, though, since they made everything else account bound, they should carry it through. Even more so if you can only complete the Adventure Quests on one character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...