Why is everything in this game so overly cryptic

[Kandrax.1504]

Recently got back to this game after a long, long while (2010s) and bought some of the LW seasons, can't help but to notice that in the new maps basically everything revolves around 'finding your way to thing X', be it NPC, POI, vista, HP, whatever, in the most puzzling fashion imaginable. Look, I can appreciate witty placement of some vistas, but when the whole map is designed around obscure pixel-perfect jumps, near invisible holes or tiny cracks in a mountain range that lead to a passageway and the likes I can't help but to think of this as horrible game design.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Kandrax.1504

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

To give you a sense of adventure and discovery?

None of the objectives you need to reach in order to simply progress the story and "finish" the game are particularly hidden or obscure, the narrative holds your hand pretty well in that regard. The whole point of vistas and out of the way points of interest is to be discovered.

I've never had any issue with the locations of these things themselves, but sometimes the map can be tricky to read, this was particularly bad in Heart of Thorns. I'd much rather there be hidden paths and secrets to find than just have everything laid out on a flat map.

[Danikat.8537]

I can't remember any of the maps being that difficult to navigate, except maybe a few points in some of the jumping puzzles.

If you can give us some specific examples of which maps and objectives you're having trouble with we can give you some advice, it may be you're missing something in how you're trying to nagivate the maps.

[Gorani.7205]

As a rule of thumb
Basic game and LS until HoT - Everything can be reached an discovered by walking and normal jumping skills (although the Aetherblade JP in Gendaran Fields is the peak of JP difficulty in that stage, because it has no "safe points" to restart half way
Silverwastes & Dry Top  (LS) - Those have some coin etc. collections which are very hard to get by normal means (and can get kind of trivial with mounts)
Heart of Thornes - You will need the Masteries (especially maxed Gliding & Ley Line travel) to reach all spaces conveniently. There might be a handful if places you can only reach with those masteries. Flying mounts from later expansions bypass those.
Path of Fire - Some places can't be reached without the Mounts you unlock in that expansion (e.g. Portal puzzles requite the Jackal). Griffon can bypass some, Skyscale from later LS all of those.
Later LS - You need the Beetle to break some areas in LS maps; Skyscale is kind of required for some later metas e.g. the Fight against Kralkatorik to be able to keep up with the zerg.
Icebrood Saga - Some ravelling is locked behind the Raven Gate mastery, some rewards are locked behind the essence mastery (although the later one is a trap, because maxing out those can gate you in progression, because mastery points are quite scarce, if you don't do expensive collections)
End of Dragons - For exploring, Skimmer mounts can replace Skiffs; The Turtle only has its place for a bit in Altrum Ruin meta and Dragon's End meta. You Skyscale is a way to move around most of the time (or a combination of your PoF mounts)

[TheNurgle.4825]

Hmm. Do you have mounts? That simplify most of things anywhere.

[Randulf.7614]

Examples?

[kharmin.7683]

7 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Examples?

Apparently "everything" according to the thread title.

[Randulf.7614]

9 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Apparently "everything" according to the thread title.

I'm pretty sure it's a Tangled Depths complaint in disguise, but I thought I'd give them to chance to say it out loud

[Danikat.8537]

6 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I'm pretty sure it's a Tangled Depths complaint in disguise, but I thought I'd give them to chance to say it out loud

They said they'd just bought some LW seasons, so I'm guessing it's one of those maps but I can't think which one/s.

My best guess at the moment is trying to do map completion in Bjora Marches without using the Raven Gates or following the meta-events to get into Asgeir's Legacy or Whispering Depths (which I think is possible via some map breaking, which would explain the comment about pixel perfect jumps and near invisible holes), but I'm not sure.

[Shuzuru.3651]

2 hours ago, Kandrax.1504 said:

tiny cracks in a mountain range that lead to a passageway

I'm pretty sure this is mursaat token in ember bay.

They went a bit over the top with some collection in Ember bay, but that's pretty much it, usually, it's kinda okay if you look around a bit.

[Gendalfs.7521]

GW2 game design is based on jumping puzzles everywhere.

I got ''Been there done that'' thanks to youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/@AyinMaiden

https://www.youtube.com/@TiffyMissWiffy

Finding everything yourself would probably take years because theres not a single marker on the map. When doing daily JP I dont even know where the kitten thing starts 🙂

[Krzysztof.5973]

Are you a game journalist by any chance? 

[Linken.6345]

So OP how was it playing the game in beta 2 years before release since game released aug 2012?

[Cuks.8241]

2 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

GW2 game design is based on jumping puzzles everywhere.

I got ''Been there done that'' thanks to youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/@AyinMaiden

https://www.youtube.com/@TiffyMissWiffy

Finding everything yourself would probably take years because theres not a single marker on the map. When doing daily JP I dont even know where the kitten thing starts 🙂

Hmmm I dont know. Ive done most vanilla JPs without any guides mostly finding them along the way while leveling up or doing my first and only map completion. A few have hidden entrances but due to luck I guess Ive stumbled on most of those early (actually usually there are hints).

But based on authors description he is in Ember Bay. And whoever designed that map and especially token collector probably had some masochistic notions at the time. Im actually completely fine with Chalice of tears. Its a crazy JP but it can also be a fun group endeavour. But token collector on that map is insanity. But beyond those and maybe Draconis mons I cant remember a JP that really require guides.

[Solvar.7953]

Draconis mons can be a little confusing the first time there, until you realize it is just a giant spiral.  It can be a little confusing figuring out what WP corresponds to the correct level/puts you close to the event or other POI you are trying to get to.  But once you get familiar with it, it isn't hard - but from the point you have to get familiar with it, it is much more complex that the core maps where basically everything is flat.

And the JP there is one of the more difficult ones.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

So OP how was it playing the game in beta 2 years before release since game released aug 2012?

Or how was it when playing 2 years ago.  (Sorry, checked your post history.)

[Linken.6345]

4 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Or how was it when playing 2 years ago.  (Sorry, checked your post history.)

It was fine for me playing 2 years ago mate kinda dont understand why the question was asked to be honest.

I mean I am still playing after all just not as much after soto released

[Donari.5237]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

So OP how was it playing the game in beta 2 years before release since game released aug 2012?

I think you missed the s in their years.  They said they played in the 2010s which means anywhere from 2010 to 2019, though in colloquial usage likely connotes the earlier part of the decade.  Which 2012 was.  I hope that clears up the confused back and forth coming from different assumptions.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

8 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

It was fine for me playing 2 years ago mate kinda dont understand why the question was asked to be honest.

I mean I am still playing after all just not as much after soto released

I was adding on to your post about when the OP last played.  🤦‍♂️

[Linken.6345]

28 minutes ago, Donari.5237 said:

I think you missed the s in their years.  They said they played in the 2010s which means anywhere from 2010 to 2019, though in colloquial usage likely connotes the earlier part of the decade.  Which 2012 was.  I hope that clears up the confused back and forth coming from different assumptions.

would it not have been better to say sometime bettwen game release and end of 2019 then if they could not remember the year?

26 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

I was adding on to your post about when the OP last played.  🤦‍♂️

Oh I see you confused me by quoting me instead of the OP 😛

Edited December 21, 2023 by Linken.6345

[Tiviana.2650]

Im going to have to agree with some points the op has. The game to someone that is new or might as well be new is a cypher inside a chinese puzzle box hidden in a maze the location of is on a map on 3 different continents . We take it for granted because we have been there done that. But for someone not familiar with gw2 world and systems it can be a hair pulling experience. I almost quit the game back when i started because everything is obscured until you find it. I believe in adventure and exploration but mapping is a small part of a new players problem, everything is hidden to them and unless they have knowledge of the wiki and have it open on a second monitor it gets rough trying to figure things out. I have had many players ask me how do you find/get/do x. Once people get used to how its done with gw2 then its easy, but till that point when someone ask in chat hey where is/how do/ x just telling them wiki it may not be the answer. Not until they learn what that means anyway.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Tiktok Generation.  😑

[Ashen.2907]

13 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

 

Nevermind. Already addressed.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[ShadowCatz.8437]

16 hours ago, Kandrax.1504 said:

Recently got back to this game after a long, long while (2010s) and bought some of the LW seasons, can't help but to notice that in the new maps basically everything revolves around 'finding your way to thing X', be it NPC, POI, vista, HP, whatever, in the most puzzling fashion imaginable. Look, I can appreciate witty placement of some vistas, but when the whole map is designed around obscure pixel-perfect jumps, near invisible holes or tiny cracks in a mountain range that lead to a passageway and the likes I can't help but to think of this as horrible game design.

There isn't much information here about what you mean by "pixel-perfect jumps" etc.

If you have been playing this game in the time we only had only core Tyria or before Heart of Thorns which is the first expansion, then you would now that a lot this game was based on platforming that was popular game design at that time which includes a lot of jumps to get around in game world.

At that time it was also common to stand in air in some places as physics in this game had that limitation for where solid objects would be rendered in game world. So you didn't have to do pixel perfect jumps, but know where you could stand or not and we did also have fall damage at that time as we didn't have Gliding (which came with HoT).

Depending on what expansion you have and how you start to unlock Mastery you will also have a different experience then other players that did finish up each expansion and Living world season as was made public.

Before mounts it wasn't uncommon to have Elementalist  providing Swiftness for a party or a larger group to help other players to get faster from place to place on maps. This have been replaced very much with mounts that now make it possible for player travel as fast or faster then using Swiftness or Superspeed while  moving on ground to get faster movement.

As your problem seem to be where to go in game, you should by this time also know that there is pretty good third party overlay that you can use to find out what steps you need for completing achievements or getting to a place. BlishHUD is doing this and it offers also a lot of other tools through different modules.

In BlishHUD  you can enable a module called Pathing which let you place map markers above game surface (as it is an overlay). Pathing have different map marker packages that you can download (look at video for Pathing) and control what you want to see or hide. 

There is also a lot of good video on Youtube as someone already have mentioned from content creators and there is a GW2 wiki which also explains step by how to get to places  or what you need to do to unlock (for Living World or Expansion you usually need to start story in journal [from Hero Panel] to get access to new parts of in game world).

If you need more help then provide a more clear description on where on map you have issue or what kind of help you need.

Don't forget to look at Player helping Player section here on this forum in case somebody already have had the same type issue and it might have been answered there.

[Shuzuru.3651]

4 hours ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

Im going to have to agree with some points the op has. The game to someone that is new or might as well be new is a cypher inside a chinese puzzle box hidden in a maze the location of is on a map on 3 different continents . We take it for granted because we have been there done that. But for someone not familiar with gw2 world and systems it can be a hair pulling experience. I almost quit the game back when i started because everything is obscured until you find it. I believe in adventure and exploration but mapping is a small part of a new players problem, everything is hidden to them and unless they have knowledge of the wiki and have it open on a second monitor it gets rough trying to figure things out. I have had many players ask me how do you find/get/do x. Once people get used to how its done with gw2 then its easy, but till that point when someone ask in chat hey where is/how do/ x just telling them wiki it may not be the answer. Not until they learn what that means anyway.

When i read this type of post, i feel like some assumed veteran where always veteran. 25 August 2012? Just a bunch of gw2 veteran playing the game. Of course, they didn't have trouble cause they were veteran even back in the days...

Plot twist : there weren't and yet it didn't cause problem

So no, most thing aren't cryptic in this game, most of the time, the only effort to do is paying attention to your surounding, read item description or NPC talking. I know this is something MMO playerbase tend to struggle with, but the gaming playerbase in general tend to succeed at those check...