Arcane Chest mini games

[firedragon.8953]

This may have been suggested before, but the mini game for arcane chests becomes quite monotonous. At first, it is a novel idea, but for long-term "fun" I find it pretty bad.
Can devs please consider a way to reduce the need for this kind of interaction (in SoTO) and future expansions as well?

At least make it where the Greater Arcane Treasures mastery removes the minigame from Lesser Arcane Chests. Preferably it'd just remove the minigame on all Arcane Chests. That way, new players experience the "novel" mechanic before leveling their mastery, but it doesn't just become an annoying time sink forever. Thanks!

[jason.1083]

Doing daily runs of Greater Arcane Chests and I am starting to get fed up with the mechanic too.

[Gop.8713]

I'd settle for them fixing it so I don't have to wait for the timer debuff to expire before I can remount, even if I've already solved the 'puzzle' . . .

[muffolog.9053]

The buff disappears if you switch weapons

[BlueJin.4127]

Game developers learned a decade ago that QTE's were bad design. Guess Anet didn't get the memo.

Edited March 5 by BlueJin.4127

[Kiki.9450]

Implement it as another tier to Heart of the Obscure Research mastery line to auto-solve chests?

[kharmin.7683]

Is it really so burdensome?

[DeanBB.4268]

2 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Is it really so burdensome?

I wouldn't call it burdensome. The OP called it monotonous, and I'd add annoying and unnecessary.

[Cuks.8241]

2 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Is it really so burdensome?

Wrong question. The question should be "Is it fun?".

For me the answer is no. And these mildly burdensome systems have been infesting the game for some time now.

Edited March 5 by Cuks.8241
Typo

[Ashen.2907]

I kind of like it, but dont spend a lot of time in SOTO so am not overexposed to the chests. I would enjoy it more if the Simon gameplay aspect kept going, getting faster and faster, until you failed. Then have the contents of the chest scale up based on how long you kept up.

[Surelia.2651]

2 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I kind of like it, but dont spend a lot of time in SOTO so am not overexposed to the chests. I would enjoy it more if the Simon gameplay aspect kept going, getting faster and faster, until you failed. Then have the contents of the chest scale up based on how long you kept up.

They already did that with Club Canach in Arborstone.  If you play the little "Canach Says" consoles.   The rewards were just more coins which can help you get some nice skins from vendors there, but that's about it.

Not sure that such a system would work in open world Soto chests since they do also sometimes bug out, especially when there are like 5 people on top of them at the same time, lol.  This happened to me at least a half a dozen times on the greater chests so not sure that having them revv-up the timers would be of help.

[Sobx.1758]

6 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Wrong question. The question should be "Is it fun?".

For me the answer is no. And these mildly burdensome systems have been infesting the game for some time now.

Chances are "just pressing f" on those chests wouldn't make it "fun" either, it would be just faster/easier to farm, so I think his question was more on point.

Edited March 5 by Sobx.1758

[DeanBB.4268]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Chances are "just pressing f" on those chests wouldn't make it "fun" either, it would be just faster/easier to farm, so I think his question was more on point.

Except "Press F" is the game's default, and adding the mini-game to it didn't make it more fun than just pressing F.

[ericpeggy.8206]

7 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Chances are "just pressing f" on those chests wouldn't make it "fun" either, it would be just faster/easier to farm, so I think his question was more on point.

I would rather farm keys to open it, not just press 1~5 and evading stupid kryptis missiles at the same time.

[kiroho.4738]

18 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Is it really so burdensome?

It requires a minimum of interaction other than pressing F. Braindead farmer and alt parkers don't like that.

Also it's literally a captcha check, so botters don't like that mechanic either.

Other than that, it's really a non-issue.

[Sobx.1758]

9 hours ago, ericpeggy.8206 said:

I would rather farm keys to open it, not just press 1~5 and evading stupid kryptis missiles at the same time.

Cool -and I would not. Not that I'm a fan of that minigame either, but at least I won't pretend this is anything to do with "fun of opening chest" rather than just an attempt to farm stuff faster and easier.

7 hours ago, kiroho.4738 said:

It requires a minimum of interaction other than pressing F. Braindead farmer and alt parkers don't like that.

Also it's literally a captcha check, so botters don't like that mechanic either.

Other than that, it's really a non-issue.

Yup, that's what it seems to be.

Edited March 6 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

On 3/5/2024 at 2:56 PM, kharmin.7683 said:

Is it really so burdensome?

Imagine having to do a "select all pictures with X" captcha test every time you do a google search. That's how it feels.

[Omega.6801]

It's, as are many things with SotO, padding to add engagement where there would otherwise be none.

Inb4 "Oh so you don't like playing the game, huh? Because every form of buttonpressing counts as playing the game." No, I like playing the game. What I don't like, is being bothered with filler for a blue unid, two silvers and a few pieces of a useless currency.

[kiroho.4738]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Imagine having to do a "select all pictures with X" captcha test every time you do a google search. That's how it feels.

But it's not a google search, it's a game.

You want reward, you have to do something for it. That's how games work.

Pressing 5/7 buttons in the right order to unlock a chest is really no effort. It's just like any other game where you have to use lockpicks to open a chest, just with a different minigame.

But ofcourse just pressing F is more braindead and some people always want more reward for less effort.

 

36 minutes ago, Omega.6801 said:

and a few pieces of a useless currency.

These "few pieces of a useless currency" is the main reason people farm arcane chests. 😉 

 

Edited March 6 by kiroho.4738

[Cuks.8241]

39 minutes ago, kiroho.4738 said:

You want reward, you have to do something for it. That's how games work.

Pressing 5/7 buttons in the right order to unlock a chest is really no effort. It's just like any other game where you have to use lockpicks to open a chest, just with a different minigame.

But ofcourse just pressing F is more braindead and some people always want more reward for less effort.

Thats how bad games work. Good games dont need to pad gametime with such filler content.

Also its not effort at least not such effort I would consider meaningfull for a game. Lock loot behind hard bosses, thats a meaningfull effort. But I guess gw2 exchanged that for minigames my 3yo could solve.

[firedragon.8953]

On 3/5/2024 at 10:56 PM, kharmin.7683 said:

Is it really so burdensome?

Hahaha. Really? Is this the state of modern gaming? Is the modern metric, is it burdensome or not?
This mindset is just silly. The question should be "Is it fun?" It is not. Neither is "pressing f," but that is probably why the autoloot mastery is a big hit too.

Pressing f on a chest is also much less intrusive to gameplay as it doesn't hold you captive to do something (loot a chest) that 95% of the rest of the game doesn't do. If there was a point to the system (completing the puzzle faster provides bonus loot, etc.), I could see it as a game design choice. But this "design choice" is also used with Dagda yoga, with the poses in the same button order every time without the need to defend or anything. What is the point of these mechanics, other than to waste time? It's boring, and certainly not "engaging."
 

[Omega.6801]

4 minutes ago, firedragon.8953 said:

Hahaha. Really? Is this the state of modern gaming? Is the modern metric, is it burdensome or not?
This mindset is just silly. The question should be "Is it fun?" It is not. Neither is "pressing f," but that is probably why the autoloot mastery is a big hit too.

Pressing f on a chest is also much less intrusive to gameplay as it doesn't hold you captive to do something (loot a chest) that 95% of the rest of the game doesn't do. If there was a point to the system (completing the puzzle faster provides bonus loot, etc.), I could see it as a game design choice. But this "design choice" is also used with Dagda yoga, with the poses in the same button order every time without the need to defend or anything. What is the point of these mechanics, other than to waste time? It's boring, and certainly not "engaging."
 

Very well put and very well pointed out what the difference between a game mechanic and filler is. Mechanics matter, fillers waste time. Mechanics engage, you want to do them, they are fun. Fillers bother you, you would rather avoid them, they add nothing to the experience.

[Kiki.9450]

18 minutes ago, firedragon.8953 said:

Hahaha. Really? Is this the state of modern gaming? Is the modern metric, is it burdensome or not?
This mindset is just silly. The question should be "Is it fun?" It is not. Neither is "pressing f," but that is probably why the autoloot mastery is a big hit too.

Pressing f on a chest is also much less intrusive to gameplay as it doesn't hold you captive to do something (loot a chest) that 95% of the rest of the game doesn't do. If there was a point to the system (completing the puzzle faster provides bonus loot, etc.), I could see it as a game design choice. But this "design choice" is also used with Dagda yoga, with the poses in the same button order every time without the need to defend or anything. What is the point of these mechanics, other than to waste time? It's boring, and certainly not "engaging."
 

I agree with you generally, but Dagda's bit actually has a purpose -- to give players doing tentacles time to get back up to the top of the spire. Sure, it's just so that they can help kill the eyes, but it still allows them to properly see the end of the fight. It's a courtesy I find.

Having a puzzle attached to the chests is fine if there can be some sort of bonus for completing the puzzle, or doing it "better." That's fun I think.

[Sobx.1758]

57 minutes ago, Omega.6801 said:

Very well put and very well pointed out what the difference between a game mechanic and filler is. Mechanics matter, fillers waste time. Mechanics engage, you want to do them, they are fun. Fillers bother you, you would rather avoid them, they add nothing to the experience.

By that distinction and the complaints we could see on the forum, nothing outside of facetanking and pressing 1 (not even meme) is a mechanic, because everything is being complained about, including complaints about "bbars/cc/slotting stunbreaks being bad" and "why is someone using skills in a specific order dealing more dmg than me who is just pressing some keys whenever I feel?" (a.k.a "rotations shouldn't exist!"). People can be bothered by literally anything -if we're using that "definition", there's barely anything left to put into the game outside of the bare unfailable storytelling. Oh wait, I'm bothered by that one, so we can't have it either.

Edited March 6 by Sobx.1758

[kiroho.4738]

6 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Thats how bad games work. Good games dont need to pad gametime with such filler content.

Yeah... no. Don't be so overdramatic.

 

6 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Also its not effort at least not such effort I would consider meaningfull for a game. Lock loot behind hard bosses, thats a meaningfull effort. But I guess gw2 exchanged that for minigames my 3yo could solve.

If it's no effort nobody should complain about it. 😉 

And yes, if you want every small chest locked behind hard bosses, you are at the wrong game.
It was never like that, neither in GW2 nor in GW1.

Edited March 7 by kiroho.4738