SAB General Fedback

[Malus.2184]

In games succeeding levels are meant to be harder than the ones that came before it and in that regard W1 Z1, 2, and 3 are fine.

W2 Z1, 2, and 3 are bad in this regard. Their length and difficulty made sense when it was just W1 and 2 as it was intended to have you go out with a bang. With the introduction of W3 (which is an implicit signal that eventually W4 will also happen), the context has changed and W2 is just bad. W2 is overly complicated and contains a lot of padding to stretch out the run-time, which is going to work against it once W3 is fully implemented and naturally extends the run-time.

W2 has a lot of bloats because stuff is repeated to showcase the mechanic, instead of it repeating organically in later levels.

A good example of this is W2Z2 where there's the pillar puzzle house where you have to push things around as a repeat of having to do it in a smaller capacity early on. Or the house where you have to feed the squid fish as a reminder of stuff you had to do earlier on the platform. Both of these serve as a reminder that these mechanics are real instead of just throw-aways.

Other stuff serves no other purpose than to pad the run-time. Examples of these are the long bridge in W2Z1 that literally serves no purpose other than to make the play-time of the level longer. Having to fight the power glove assassin every time you pass through the first building with the push mechanic, the jumping bend right before the teleport platforms in W2Z2, the excessive amount of these platforms, and the pillars that you have to jump repeatedly over before you get to that section. In W2Z3 it's stuff like the yeti before the Storm Wizard that literally serves no purpose other than to stall for time as it's just frustrating having to defeat that every time you get there, and the thin bridge with the wind mechanic right before the checkpoint.

Those elements also give an off increase in difficulty. In W1, each Zone has a gradual difficulty increase of 1, so Z1 is 1, Z2 is 2, and Z3 is 3. Then in W2, this is completely out of sequence with Z1 feeling more like difficulty 5, Z2 feeling like difficulty 10, and Z3 feeling like difficulty 9. In contrast, and I know this is the test version, W3Z1 feels like difficulty 4 and is decidedly more chill than W2 which is extremely aggro.

The correct sequence of this should be that W1Zx was 1, 2, and, W2Zx was 4, 5, and 6, and W3Zx was 7, 8, and 9.

My suggestion would be to shorten the length and difficulty of W2 significantly as the increased run time is unnecessary and a detriment once W3 and 4 are implemented.

- General for W2, make the Racoon Kingpins a lot easier, they're exponentially more difficult than the Bee Dog Queens in W1. If W3 is going to have its own version it'll have to be Souls difficulty to be more difficult.

- Remove the bridge in W2Z1 or shorten it significantly, and make it so that the log jumps to get to the final boss are a lot simpler than the current where you have to double back to increase altitude while making precise jumps.

- Remove the repeat puzzles in W2Z2 so there's only one place where you need to do the pushes, feed the squid the fish, and ring the bell by pushing a log onto it. Shorten the bendy jump bridge before the teleport platforms, reduce the number of teleport platforms, and reduce the number of pillars you need to jump to get to the checkpoint to three or something like that.

- Remove the thin bridge with wind push in W3 and also remove the mini-boss Yeti before the Storm Wizard.

Then take the removed puzzles and put them into W3 and reskin them so they fit. W3 feels barren as there are few puzzles outside of the raising rocks and the secrets. By plying through W1 and W2 people should be familiar with these mechanics and it makes sense that they pop up again in a more difficult form instead of just being gone. Just like the disappearing clouds over nothing are just an upgraded version of the disappearing leaves from W3 over lakes of poison. If a natural difficulty curve is to be followed then W3 should start at difficulty 11 as it should be more difficult than W2, which with be ludicrous as W4 would have to make W1 Tribulation mode look easy to follow along naturally on the curve. And it has to be more difficult than W2 or else it'll just feel like a disappointment. The only way to achieve this organically is to make W2 a lot easier, which is possible since it's no longer the last World people get to play.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Malus.2184

[Ashantara.8731]

NO! Leave World 2 as it is, please. (Edit: And W3 and 4 are hopefully going to be even harder than that!)

What a silly idea to adjust the existing SAB levels.
 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[Malus.2184]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

NO! Leave World 2 as it is, please. (Edit: And W3 and 4 are hopefully going to be even harder than that!)

What a silly idea to adjust the existing SAB levels.
 

Yes, W3 and should t ake longer and be harder because then few people will enjoy it -_-

[Ashantara.8731]

38 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Yes, W3 and should t ake longer and be harder because then few people will enjoy it -_-

It should at least have the difficulty of World 2, otherwise it would be retrogression.

Also, World 2 has many skips, even where there aren't shortcuts, so its levels are only as long as you make them yourself.

[Malus.2184]

25 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

It should at least have the difficulty of World 2, otherwise it would be retrogression.

Also, World 2 has many skips, even where there aren't shortcuts, so its levels are only as long as you make them yourself.

Yes, the issue with W2 is also the difficulty, you have loads of things that require extreme precision, and is something already requires 100% performance then it's pretty difficult to escalate it without adding more minutia.

If a jump already requires 100% focus then the only way you can make it harder is by adding another jump. e. i. making it take longer, and for the average person, I'll just create a schedule, they have a job and family.

6.30: Wakes up and gets ready to go to work. 

7.35: Leaves home, and has to drop off the kids at school.

8.00: Drives from dropping off the kid to work.

8.30 - 16.30: Work.

16.30: Drives home.

17.00 No need to do the shopping and is on food duty for the day.

17.30: Spends time with the family as they have dinner.

18.00: Private relaxation time.

20.00: Spends time with the spouse and kids.

21.00: Puts the kids to bed.

21.30: goes to bed themselves.

And that's on a day when they have a lot of free time. There are a load of variables like having to do the shopping and other family care that takes time out of the "personal relaxation time"

How willing do you think they are at spending their precious free time just doing one thing every day?

Edited April 1, 2023 by Malus.2184

[Solvar.7953]

The OPs post contains a lot of what I dislike about W2.  I don't necessary mind tough levels, but long and repetitive levels are not something that interests me.  As such, I tend to try and avoid W2.

Though in fairness, a lot of the PvE story steps are 'You just fought this mob, and you know what, you will fight this exact same mob 5 more times for this story instance', so this isn't only a SAB problem.  Or a boss mechanic that kicks in exactly the same way every 25%

The question is who is SAB designed for - the bulk of the players, or a small minority who really love SAB and really live hard JPs.  I personally think it isn't a great decision to design content for a small minority of players, but Anet seems to do that a lot (eg, raids)

 

[Luthan.5236]

The stuff in general should try to avoid making the player lose a lot of progress. Especially if it is combined with hard difficulty. Then it will need people to train a ton ... over and over. While always losing progress. With the main target audience being the more casual player ... I think the problem is already best described by the above post from Malus - with his daily schedule.

Tribulation mode like in zone 2 never should happen again. It is not even needed. When that zone and the hard content is already there. For people that like hard stuff. (They can get the skins to show off. Exclusive to the tribulation mode.) Zone 1 ... less annoying in tribulation. Still took some time when learning it first.

Also the "collect all blue baubles" stuff felt grindy.

They either need to make the box permanently available (giving people with a limited time to play better chances) ... or maybe focusing on the "adventure" type of stuff. The W3Z1 was a good attempt already. Felt like exploring (adventuring). Though I did not find the hidden chests myself I tried to jump around a lot on the wooden structures there. It also had only the achievements for the green baubles + the chest ones. That is totally enough. With the different checkpoints and mini jumping puzzles there can be brought difficulty in this ... without being too extreme. The fun is not from having hard frustrating stuff ... but more from exploring and completing stuff you actually can do. + ... a bit of harder stuff where training is not too annoying. (If the checkpoint is not foo far away from the hard area where you need to train + you don't lose much progress then.)

Edited April 2, 2023 by Luthan.5236

[Blade Syphon.4325]

I took my wife through her first SAB last night, with the warning that World 2 was a significant jump up in difficulty compared to World 1. It had been a few years since I did World 2 myself, but I did recall the difficulty spike that I warned her about.

What I had forgotten, though, was the overall tedium of Zone 2 and 3. Zone 1 is fine - it's a bit longer than World 1's zones, but not too much so, and has a nice little break up mid way with the raft before moving onto the final two little segments. It feels like a good, natural progression from World 1's zones.

Then we got to Zone 2 and 3, and I was quickly reminded why I hated doing these the first time, and never did them after. They're long, tedius, and just not fun to play through. Worst yet, the exploration of the zones is lackluster compared to the ones in World 1, given that the zone are much more linear than the original World's 3 Zones. The Smile paths do help a *little* in this regard (like being able to completely skip the stupid trap pagodas in Zone 2), but it doesn't help the other problems they have - mostly how awful the combat is in SAB and how it's the focus of Zone 2, and how both Zones vastly over stay their welcome., which is a shame because aesthetically they're really cool, and the bosses in Zone 3 are a lot of fun, but honestly by the time you get to the Yeti and Storm Wizard/Dragon, you're just kind of at the point of exhaustion where you're just throwing yourself at the boss until it dies.

The only real saving grace is that there's no reason to do World 2 a second time after you've completed it on your first play through, but that's not really a saving grace so much as just a desire to not want to return to them out of the tedium. It's not even a case of World 2 being too difficult - my wife used ten continue coins to get fifty lives, and went through maybe ten or fifteen of them to get through the entirety of World 2. Her biggest complaint, and mine as well, is just that Zone 2 and 3 are too long, plain and simple.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Blade Syphon.4325

[Biziut.3594]

If someone hates jp in general than he will hate SAB anyway. When it comes to SAB the longer it is the more content it have and thats why I love it. Opposite thing is with some metas that run you throu the same small map and keeps you in place sleeping while pressing 1. These could be shorter.

W2Z2 nm is shorter than some w1 zones due to eagle anyways.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 4/1/2023 at 5:52 PM, Malus.2184 said:

Yes, the issue with W2 is also the difficulty, you have loads of things that require extreme precision, and is something already requires 100% performance then it's pretty difficult to escalate it without adding more minutia.

If a jump already requires 100% focus [...]

Normal Mode SAB does not require 100% focus. 🙂 I can do it in my sleep by now, it is merely a matter of practice.

The focus and precision requirements you describe are only a thing in Tribulation Mode, where your freedom of movement is vastly limited due to traps and other mechanics.

[LSD.4673]

This thread is a goldmine.

[Gibson.4036]

Maybe someone can help me with W2Z1. My daughter and I had several moments last night where we could reach the next turtle from the prior rock in order to flip it and progress. In order to get within stock range we’d end up edging off the rock and get swept by water.

In the frogger section with the logs and gators, we’d hit the gator, it’d do its lay flat animation, but when we’d jump to it we’d take damage like it was still up and get knocked back into the water.

Is there something we’re missing in these situations?

 

EDIT: Got some tips on the turtles in another thread. Still don’t know what’s up with the gators as I see them lay flat before jumping.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Solvar.7953]

I'd disagree that longer jumping puzzles are better.

I like a lot (but not all) of the JPs in the game.  I will often do them when they show up for dailies.  But most of the ones from the original game were anywhere from very quick (<1 minute), with some being somewhat longer (maybe 5 minutes).  But most of those had fairly easy restarts.

But then at some point, the developers got the idea that longer puzzles were better.  Things like the long one in silverwastes, or many in LW3.  And for those, once I've done them once, I never plan to return to them.  Now some players do like them, but I'd argue that starts getting into the very small majority of hard core JPers.

Likewise, I find W1 amusing and about the right time/difficult, but W2, with levels just being that much longer, don't interest me.

So there probably is some sweet spot for length, depending on who these puzzles are aimed at.  If they are aimed at the small majority that wants long/hard puzzles, that is fine, but my general impressions is most content is designed for the masses and not a small majority.  And this is for obvious reasons - if content is only targeted for a very small audience, you will keep that audience happy, but not have many players.  Ideally, you want more players, as that is more money.

 

[Malus.2184]

On 4/4/2023 at 11:36 AM, Ashantara.8731 said:

Normal Mode SAB does not require 100% focus. 🙂 I can do it in my sleep by now, it is merely a matter of practice.

The focus and precision requirements you describe are only a thing in Tribulation Mode, where your freedom of movement is vastly limited due to traps and other mechanics.

The amount of time and the amount of effort someone has to put into something are two different things.

No matter how much effort I put into W2 I can only shave so much time off my total time used. I would say that save for the long bridge and the logs where you have to go forth, back, and then forth again the time you have to spend at the minimum in W2Z1 feels right. W2Z2 is extremely time-consuming, even if you use the shortcut, since there's a list of things you have to do else you'll be hard-locked. You have to kill the Power Glove Assassin every time you do the zone, you have to feed the squid twice in order to advance, you have to do the puzzle house to advance, you have to do the jumping puzzle to push the log twice to advance, and you have a bridge that does nothing other than add more time spent getting from A to B. Once you're past the bend the bridge functionally serves no purpose.

[Ashantara.8731]

7 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

W2Z2 is extremely time-consuming, even if you use the shortcut, since there's a list of things you have to do else you'll be hard-locked. You have to kill the Power Glove Assassin every time you do the zone, you have to feed the squid twice in order to advance, you have to do the puzzle house to advance, you have to do the jumping puzzle to push the log twice to advance, and you have a bridge that does nothing other than add more time spent getting from A to B. Once you're past the bend the bridge functionally serves no purpose.

Errr... no? If you use the shortcut eagle, you don't have to do any of those things, except feeding the first squid.

And even when you do all of them, the zone doesn't take as long as you make it sound once you know your way around, because you do everything a lot faster. You can always decide not to do a lot of the things that will give you extra loot.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Errr... no? If you use the shortcut eagle, you don't have to do any of those things, except feeding the first squid.

And even when you do all of them, the zone doesn't take as long as you make it sound once you know your way around, because you do everything a lot faster. You can always decide not to do a lot of the things that will give you extra loot.

Then it would be better to just remove the skip and everything it makes you bypass and then some. A skip is supposed to offer convenience, if it's necessary to have an enjoyable run without getting tied down in minutia then it's no longer a skip it's mandatory.

[Noah Salazar.5430]

why you just not use easy mode

leave normal and hard mode as it is

Edited April 5, 2023 by Noah Salazar.5430

[Solvar.7953]

I suppose some question is why even do the puzzles.  If you are doing it for rewards, normal mode doesn't work very well - you get fewer baubles, and it also doesn't count for the achievement completing level X for the day.

So for me, once I get the achievements done for the 50 yearly AP, I'm mostly done - maybe I'll do the ones for the 3 daily achieves to promote that, if there is a set in W1 I can do or an easy one in W2 to pick up (like smashing furniture).

But SAB is one of the few festivals which I don't fully partake in.  Which is fine, I'm sure there are folks that don't find some of the other festivals interesting.

I guess the main complaint some folks have is that if the W2 zones were about half the length, those people (myself included) would find them fun and do them, and I suspect that those that want longer puzzles would still do them also.  So for those of us, this just feels somewhat disappointing that Anet made such a choice for something we would have found interesting and now don't.

 

[LSD.4673]

All these complaints about W2s length, but honestly, once you've done it once or twice, you should be able to get through each level in about 5-10 minutes - which is identical to W1. 

 

On top of that, W2 has enormous bauble rewards from digging spots. A big proportion of them are purple 50 bauble spots. Grab a few on the way through and you've got a bonus bauble bubble.

[Solvar.7953]

Maybe it also depends on skill level, but I've played W2 many times, and except for maybe Zone 1, I'm not going to get through most of those in 5-10 minutes.  I think in some places, the distance between checkpoints in longer, so if you mess up, you are losing 1-2 minutes to go to the previous checkpoint.  And especially in Z3, in some cases if you mess up (fall down to a lower level on the outside), jumping off the edge and going to your last checkpoint is still faster then trying to get to where you were before.

And as someone else mentioned, W2 has a lot of fights you just have to do in order to progress, where as in W1, you can pretty much run past all the enemies (I think the only one you are required to kill is the final boss/cage)

 

[Bias.4306]

I find the frog king to be the most difficult thing in the entire game - everything else seems to be easier compared to that.

[Randulf.7614]

World 3 is a return to form. If retrogression is what is required to keep it fun to play for more people, then I am fully on board with that. As more are added, making it harder just makes it more tedious to play through start to finish.

Keeping it as it is is just fine. It’s not ghouls n ghosts and doesn’t need to be either

[AliamRationem.5172]

I thought it was pretty cool how much they packed into world 2 while making the main path fairly quick and easy with plenty of skips built into it.  Most of the time-consuming and/or difficult stuff is in completely optional achievements.  Collecting every single bauble or doing tribulation mode is supposed to be a challenge, but there's no reason you have to do these activities if you don't enjoy them.  You can still get most of the rewards just playing through the quick and easy way.

[Luthan.5236]

There is a reason though - to do stuff you don't enjoy: For completion. If you want to complete as many achievements as possible. That is the same problem that applies with most other content though.

I wonder if people that like long zones + tribulation (and the skin set collection from tribulation) are all so perfect to just be able to ignore other content where it is too hard/long and they don't like to do it. Pretty sure there are also "a few" that then would (instead of just not doing it) trying to advocate in the forums for making easier options/routes.

This goes as far as even having complaints for easy Winterday stuff cause there are people with physical handicas that can have problems with things that most other people find easy.

And they do not just dedice to ignore it and ArenaNet has to find a good balance here. For Halloween the clocktower for example they added another way - for the new achievement with I think a mini as reward - where you do not have to do the clocktower. While there are still existing older achievements that require you to do it. Then we have the racing achievement with the special scarf skin - where the skin is also at the vendor (costs money) while the achievement (a bit hard and needs a lot of training) rewards it for free. Achievement afaik with title and AP additionally though.

Main problem with the SAB - compared to other festivals: The tribulation (especially zone 2) and the bauble stuff can be a lot of work. Other festivals do not have that time-consuming achievements. (Could be helped a bit if the SAB festival was much longer every year. And not only the 3 weeks. Or with making SAB permanent and certain achievements and drops only during festivals - like the annuals and the free bauble bubbles at the daily zone completion.)

The other problem is that you can lose a lot of progress with a disconnect. I know the user Ashantara for example liked the longer zones. But she also seems to have posted in the about this problem. So ... maybe we can get people to agree somewhat here. A solution could be to first try to implement some checkpoint stuff where after a disconnect you won't lose progress. And then maybe new harder/longer stuff ... would get slightly less complaints?

Just saying "you can ignore stuff" ... is not the way to to though. Also not the way ArenaNet seems to aim for when looking how they handled past content (where tweaks got made).

Edit: For the tribulation skin stuff I'd totally find it acceptable if the skin set required you only do to the zone once. To unlock them at a vendor. Instead of having to run it 16 times. Still requires you to prove your skill. More reasonable for people that have work, kids ... and other stuff - when you consider that the normal player (that is willing to put lot of effort in it ant not tooo bad) is still far away from using extreme shortcuts there. Might still need 30 mintes for a W2Z2 or W2Z3 in tribulation.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Luthan.5236

[nosleepdemon.1368]

W2Z2 length is fine; it does not take significantly longer than the other zones. This is similarly the case with W2Z3, you just need to learn the shortcuts. Tribulation mode is another matter, but cloud skip potentially solves that issue for W2Z2. What I find concerning so far this year is that there appears to be a significant variability in the player's rate of movement. I have found pixel perfect jumps to randomly fail quite often. I have tried with frame limiter set to 60fps, and set to unlimited, and 60fps helps a little. The most egregious occurance of this for me was jumping the big flowers in W1Z1 trib, after landing on one I would inexplicably gain what appeared to be super speed and my follow up jump would launch me for miles... and into the grass. Which as you all know, is lava. I also found wall jumping to be almost impossible, it took me 10 minutes to get my one and only success, and of course dodge jump failed afterward. Actually dodge jumping has a pretty high failure rate now too. It seems like the dx11 upgrade did something to the rate that the game updates the player's position maybe? In any case, it's actually quite infuriating to play trib mode right now because of this.

Also please rename exploration mode back to infantile, we all know that anyone playing that mode isn't seriously interested in SAB and just wants the rewards. Better to call a spade a spade than somehow validate it. It's even more on the nose because the cloud walkways get in the way of any serious exploration anyway.

Edited April 13, 2023 by nosleepdemon.1368