SAB Size Feedback

[Malus.2184]

World 2 is ridiculously stretched out since for many years the experience just ended there. With the addition of other zones every zone in this world needs to be made smaller or else it'll take way too much time to complete.

World 2 Zone 1:

- Cut the long bridge, it adds no purpose other than padding the runtime.

- Cut the raft section. It serves no purpose other than padding and can easily be removed. The concept of rushing rapids are better conveyed with the Frogger sections.

World 2 Zone

This zone is so huge and with such clear distinct areas that it could easily be cut into two zones and no one would notice. If I take the shortcut in World 1 Zone 2 I skip perhaps 25%, If I take the shortcut in World 2 Zone 2 feel I skip something like 75% of the map.

- The feed to enlarge mechanic to get access to a door exists nowhere else, both could easily be removed as they are just padding.

- The jumping section after what I think is supposed to be the ninja village can easily be cut, it serves no purpose other than padding.

World 2 Zone 3

- Remove both pressure puzzles. The second one with the jumping sheep is padding and without that one, the first one serves no purpose either.

- Remove the bridge before the Yeti sub-boss. The blowing mouths serve no purpose other than stalling for time. There's no skill in passing them. When the mouths are nearly done blowing wind just run and never stop.

Many sections in World 2 can be cut for time that the players will need for World 3 and eventually World 4. Go through each section between each checkpoint and look at it with a critical eye while asking yourself, "Does this add anything?" If the answer is "no" then remove it. While many areas convey the concept of the zone many areas are there for no apparent reason and thus seem like they're only there to stall for time.

 

[Ashantara.8731]

NO!  Do not cut anything -- don't reduce the size and thereby the fun for those who love SAB.

What a silly suggestion there,  @Malus.2184. 🤦‍♀️

[Jumpin Lumpix.6108]

I agree that world 2 was too big, I have PTSD now from getting the blue baubble infusion, I used to run all 3 zones in world 2 once a day, and between all 3 zones i would die maybe 0-3 times, and it would still take me 1 hr on average to finish tribulation mode, going full speed.  Dunno why they made the zones so big, but eh.  I wish they had finished SAB, pretty lame they never did that as jumping puzzles are the one thing in the game that require solo skill without the reliance of others.

Edited April 19 by Jumpin Lumpix.6108

[Malus.2184]

8 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

NO!  Do not cut anything -- don't reduce the size and thereby the fun for those who love SAB.

What a silly suggestion there,  @Malus.2184. 🤦‍♀️

So, you look forward to spending 2+ hours doing SAB daily once World 3 and 4 arrive in the future if you want to get all the Baubles that you can?

World 2 is padded for runtime since if it was the length of World 1 then the content would be too short to retain people's attention. This was okay when there only was two Worlds. Now with World 3 looking more and more plausible World 2 has to be cut down in size with each zone released.

I can do World 3 Zone 1 in 15 minutes comfortably. World 2 Zone 2 alone takes 30+ minutes unless I use the shortcut. I'm ignoring the achievements as well as they would simply be too much of a hassle to get. You have to take severe detours to get to anything. Just getting to the Racoon Boss in World 2 Zone 2 is an adventure that takes about the same time it takes to complete World 1 Zone 1. This is untenable if you also want to respect people's time.

[Sobx.1758]

Bad suggestion. The raft is a bit boring, but overally these zones don't need any cutting.

27 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

So, you look forward to spending 2+ hours doing SAB daily once World 3 and 4 arrive in the future if you want to get all the Baubles that you can?

Are you being somehow held hostage by someone or something so that you need to keep running every zone every day, including the hypothetical zones that don't even exist? If you don't have time, don't run them. You don't need to keep running them daily if you don't want to.

Edited April 19 by Sobx.1758

[Randulf.7614]

World 2 is r too long I agree, but they already adjusted it once and zone 2 has a massive shortcut for those of us who don’t want the pain of the Pain Cliffs.

Id rather see time now spent on works 3. Cutting down sections means time spent on that and redoing trib mode to make it work. I don’t think it’s worth it even if only z2 needs it. Whilst I'd like to see W2 overhauled, we are well past that point now

The chances of a world 4 are astronomically low at this point so u don’t think we need to look to saving time for it

Edited April 19 by Randulf.7614

[Lady Mimic.3247]

I wished they would cut down world 2 zone 2 and 3 in tribulation mode. I know its been cut down a little before, but compared to world 1 these levels still take a long time to complete and with a lot more frustrating jumps.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Bad suggestion. The raft is a bit boring, but overally these zones don't need any cutting.

Are you being somehow held hostage by someone or something so that you need to keep running every zone every day, including the hypothetical zones that don't even exist? If you don't have time, don't run them. You don't need to keep running them daily if you don't want to.

People do this for something to do. World 2 should never take longer than the entire World 1 and World 3 Zone 1 combined that's just madness and there are entire sections that can be removed without affecting the feel of the zone.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Randulf.7614 said:

World 2 is r too long I agree, but they already adjusted it once and zone 2 has a massive shortcut for those of us who don’t want the pain of the Pain Cliffs.

Id rather see time now spent on works 3. Cutting down sections means time spent on that and redoing trib mode to make it work. I don’t think it’s worth it even if only z2 needs it. Whilst I'd like to see W2 overhauled, we are well past that point now

The chances of a world 4 are astronomically low at this point so u don’t think we need to look to saving time for it

You would only need to redo trib mode if you removed bits here and there. I'm talking about removing entire sections between checkpoints.

For example, in World 2 Zone 1, you could remove most of the sections between checkpoints 2 and 4 since the bridge and the raft is practically on rails on rails where it's impossible to diverge from the path anyway.

[Sobx.1758]

8 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

People do this for something to do.

So you do it "for something to do" and then you complain that "you must do it daily and it takes too long"? I don't get the reasoning here.

8 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

World 2 should never take longer than the entire World 1 and World 3 Zone 1 combined that's just madness and there are entire sections that can be removed without affecting the feel of the zone.

Sounds like "a rule" you just made up on a spot. 101 (heh, get it?) is basically nothing more than "look what this mode is about" zone anyways. W2 has skips, if you want something to do but it's too long for you then learn those skips.

Edited April 19 by Sobx.1758

[Malus.2184]

20 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

So you do it "for something to do" and then you complain that "you must do it daily and it takes too long"? I don't get the reasoning here.

Sounds like "a rule" you just made up on a spot. 101 (heh, get it?) is basically nothing more than "look what this mode is about" zone anyways. W2 has skips, if you want something to do but it's too long for you then learn those skips.

That's how people and FOMO work. If you set something with a duration people will engage in it for as long as the duration is as they feel they have to enjoy the content while it lasts. It has little to do with the rewards, those are just collateral so people get a feeling of reward for their time investment, which makes it even more likely they'll continue engaging with the time-limited content. Since there are SAB-themed items on the TP this makes it more likely that people will invest there as well.

What is your point? Difficulty has to be linear for it to make sense. World 2 should have a higher difficulty than World 1 and World 3 should have a higher Difficulty than World 2. The reality is that World 3 is shaping up to be a lot easier than World 2 and if World 3 followed a linear difficulty then it would be an absolutely psychotic difficulty. Then what would remain for the difficulty to be higher in World 4? Making Tribulation mode mandatory? The best way to deal with this is to reduce the difficulty of World 2 and the easiest way to do that is to remove entire sections.

This is how developmental psychology as explained in the Zone of Proximal Development works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development).

Edited April 19 by Malus.2184

[Sobx.1758]

13 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

That's how people and FOMO work. If you set something with a duration people will engage in it for as long as the duration is as they feel they have to enjoy the content while it lasts. It has little to do with the rewards, those are just collateral so people get a feeling of reward for their time investment, which makes it even more likely they'll continue engaging with the time-limited content. Since there are SAB-themed items on the TP this makes it more likely that people will invest there as well.

What is your point? Difficulty has to be linear for it to make sense. World 2 should have a higher difficulty than World 1 and World 3 should have a higher Difficulty than World 2. The reality is that World 3 is shaping up to be a lot easier than World 2 and if World 3 followed a linear difficulty then it would be an absolutely psychotic difficulty. Then what would remain for the difficulty to be higher in World 4? Making Tribulation mode mandatory? The best way to deal with this is to reduce the difficulty of World 2 and the easiest way to do that is to remove entire sections.

This is how developmental psychology as explained in the Zone of Proximal Development works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development).

So it's not "just for something to do", it's about you wanting more rewards faster. There's no need for that, the length of those levels is reasonable. If you can't do it all now, do it the next time it comes up. Stop trying to gut gaming experience because you're fixated on rewards no matter what, this is getting(?) ridiculous.
Mentioning "FOMO" and then instantly reverting into "this has little to do with rewards" is a good one.

What my point is? Exactly what you just quoted and didn't address: W2 has skips, if you want something to do but it's too long for you then learn those skips. It doesn't need to suddenly be cut into pieces just because you want to keep rushing it daily for rewards while claiming it's "just to have something to do". You don't need to do them daily, you don't even need to do a full set of either w1 or w2. If it's "just so you have something to do" then it sounds like you have something to do, actually apparently even more than you have time to do?

Edited April 19 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

NO!  Do not cut anything -- don't reduce the size and thereby the fun for those who love SAB.

You do realize that it was exactly the length of World 2 that resulted in world being released piecemeal only recently and world 4 still not existing to this day? From what w've heard, it resulted in reducing the SAB popularity by half compared to W1. So, if you think that w2 size adds to fun, think again.

[Shuzuru.3651]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You do realize that it was exactly the length of World 2 that resulted in world being released piecemeal only recently and world 4 still not existing to this day? From what w've heard, it resulted in reducing the SAB popularity by half compared to W1. So, if you think that w2 size adds to fun, think again.

Actually, it's a bit reductive to consider the lenght as the only factor for the reduced popularity, there were multiples, actually.

First : lenght, nothing to say here, a full w2 level was longer then a w1 level

Second : difficulty, there were a lot more instant death, like falling or ninja dart trap, add to that the rapid yeeting you at lightning speed (so fall, so death), the geyser that were timed platform. And the level in general required way more skills than w1 (see the infamous gong tower for reference)

Third : nerf, they actually nerfed buried chest to be once per day, before, you could farm bauble infinitly by doing like w1z1 on repeat and getting all the buried chest.

So yeah, people wanted braindead farming level, they got actual decent level requiring skill, so they were mad...

[nosleepdemon.1368]

6 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

You would only need to redo trib mode if you removed bits here and there. I'm talking about removing entire sections between checkpoints.

For example, in World 2 Zone 1, you could remove most of the sections between checkpoints 2 and 4 since the bridge and the raft is practically on rails on rails where it's impossible to diverge from the path anyway.

In your rather cold and clinical analysis you accidentally proposed to cut two of the most memorable sections from w2z1. The long bridge and raft might be on rails, but they are an interesting set piece. The raft in particular is very cleverly done.

You can’t just chop the zones up willy-nilly, and only w2z2 has an inappropriate length as it is both massively longer than the first zone, and somewhat longer than the second.

You shouldn’t focus on physical length (ha ha) either, but on time. There are relatively small portions of w2z2 (like the dart maze) that take a great deal of trial and error to complete. It’s these sections that need to be addressed.

[Gop.8713]

This is nonsensical. Nothing requires anyone to do everything daily, the actual dailies are typically very brief. Anything you're doing outside of that you're doing for fun. Fun is fun. Why make less fun . . ?

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

So what your asking is the removal of (time-consuming/annoying) content in favor of getting the infusion/loot faster.

I think that has little chance of happening. When the worlds released; it included all that content already and alot of thinking went into design/layout.

removing that removes its reason for designing the whole thing in the 1st place.

Alot of people just sucked it up/grinded teeth to get that stuff and accepted it for what it is. You only need to complete it once on 1 account.

There is still plenty of days to get them before the festival ends and even then you can always continue next year.

I suppose its an archaic way of getting those rewards but thats the point of SAB;

a throwback on  retro-gaming with all its quirks, and a nice surprise for gamers that have never experienced Retro-gaming before.

Thats how i look at it anyway o7

[Biziut.3594]

Ridiculous request...

... will just leave my "No" here.

[Luthan.5236]

There surely are annoying parts in these zones. But once you are finished with tribulation (skin sets and achievements finished) it is easily playable in normal mode with a lot of shortcuts. I usually do only a normal run for all zones - each day. (For the bubbles.) Enough to buy a lot of stuff from the weekly vendor + even have additional currency to buy other stuff. (Not too many new stuff that gets added and for the retroforged one I aleady got a free chest from the daily boxes.)

For the tribulation it really would be unfair to people that did the grind. On the other hand: I'm usually in favor of making it easier to catch up for newer players. I would have preferred if completing the tribulatoin achievements unlocked just the option to buy the skins. (Not having to do it 16 times.) But the full zone as it is at the moment - should be required at least once.

(For further zones I hope they do not add tribulation. Nice few ideas and changes with the checkpoints that you can enable freely in the test zone + mini JPs like at that one chest where the coin adventure got added. That feels much better. And the overall zone not too lengthy. They should add difficulty that way: By adding small and harder mini JPs like that. And players liking competition can use the adventure to improve and compare their speed.)

[Malus.2184]

13 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

So it's not "just for something to do", it's about you wanting more rewards faster. There's no need for that, the length of those levels is reasonable. If you can't do it all now, do it the next time it comes up. Stop trying to gut gaming experience because you're fixated on rewards no matter what, this is getting(?) ridiculous.
Mentioning "FOMO" and then instantly reverting into "this has little to do with rewards" is a good one.

What my point is? Exactly what you just quoted and didn't address: W2 has skips, if you want something to do but it's too long for you then learn those skips. It doesn't need to suddenly be cut into pieces just because you want to keep rushing it daily for rewards while claiming it's "just to have something to do". You don't need to do them daily, you don't even need to do a full set of either w1 or w2. If it's "just so you have something to do" then it sounds like you have something to do, actually apparently even more than you have time to do?

If you do the skip then you're unable to get to the achievements unless you backtrack as thejumping off the bird will drop you off at the checkpoint right before the jumping pillars section. Everything you need to do for a Daily is behind that checkpoint and requires you to backtrack heavily.

10 hours ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

Actually, it's a bit reductive to consider the lenght as the only factor for the reduced popularity, there were multiples, actually.

First : lenght, nothing to say here, a full w2 level was longer then a w1 level

Second : difficulty, there were a lot more instant death, like falling or ninja dart trap, add to that the rapid yeeting you at lightning speed (so fall, so death), the geyser that were timed platform. And the level in general required way more skills than w1 (see the infamous gong tower for reference)

Third : nerf, they actually nerfed buried chest to be once per day, before, you could farm bauble infinitly by doing like w1z1 on repeat and getting all the buried chest.

So yeah, people wanted braindead farming level, they got actual decent level requiring skill, so they were mad...

It has nothing to do with skill, it has to do with the challenge being appropriate to the skills they've learned in the first zone. There's a term for just doing things and it's called "being in the zone." it happens when you're exposed to something that challenges you to evolve your skill without being so frustrating that you have to break your workflow to think about what you're doing. If things are too easy then you'll be unable to enter the zone as well since you never really have to invest in what you do. World 3 Zone is a perfect tool to put you "in the zone" while World 2 breaks the "in the zone" since it's so long.

7 hours ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

In your rather cold and clinical analysis you accidentally proposed to cut two of the most memorable sections from w2z1. The long bridge and raft might be on rails, but they are an interesting set piece. The raft in particular is very cleverly done.

You can’t just chop the zones up willy-nilly, and only w2z2 has an inappropriate length as it is both massively longer than the first zone, and somewhat longer than the second.

You shouldn’t focus on physical length (ha ha) either, but on time. There are relatively small portions of w2z2 (like the dart maze) that take a great deal of trial and error to complete. It’s these sections that need to be addressed.

What's memorable about the bridge and the raft in Zone 2? For me, the only thing memorable about those two sections is how utterly pointless they feel.

1 hour ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

So what your asking is the removal of (time-consuming/annoying) content in favor of getting the infusion/loot faster.

I think that has little chance of happening. When the worlds released; it included all that content already and alot of thinking went into design/layout.

removing that removes its reason for designing the whole thing in the 1st place.

Alot of people just sucked it up/grinded teeth to get that stuff and accepted it for what it is. You only need to complete it once on 1 account.

There is still plenty of days to get them before the festival ends and even then you can always continue next year.

I suppose its an archaic way of getting those rewards but thats the point of SAB;

a throwback on  retro-gaming with all its quirks, and a nice surprise for gamers that have never experienced Retro-gaming before.

Thats how i look at it anyway o7

A great start that your argument begins with thought-terminating cliche /s. Shows your honesty in this.

The average time people spend on games is about eight hours a week. Us in the forums and us who can devote more time to play are the vast minority, we're outliers in the average. I'm only here since I due to the effects of a disability am unable to work. If I could work I would be out there working and spending way less time playing.

This also expresses, "I had to suffer so you have to suffer as well." There's nothing noble in suffering. This is a game, people play to relax and enjoy their time. World 2, and especially Zone 2, feels like a chore, which is what people play games to get away from. If this is a consistent belief then you have similar thoughts about Serpent's Ire, if you think differently about Serpent's Ire then you also have to think differently about this, or else your beliefs are inconsistently applied.

[Malus.2184]

22 minutes ago, Luthan.5236 said:

There surely are annoying parts in these zones. But once you are finished with tribulation (skin sets and achievements finished) it is easily playable in normal mode with a lot of shortcuts. I usually do only a normal run for all zones - each day. (For the bubbles.) Enough to buy a lot of stuff from the weekly vendor + even have additional currency to buy other stuff. (Not too many new stuff that gets added and for the retroforged one I aleady got a free chest from the daily boxes.)

For the tribulation it really would be unfair to people that did the grind. On the other hand: I'm usually in favor of making it easier to catch up for newer players. I would have preferred if completing the tribulatoin achievements unlocked just the option to buy the skins. (Not having to do it 16 times.) But the full zone as it is at the moment - should be required at least once.

(For further zones I hope they do not add tribulation. Nice few ideas and changes with the checkpoints that you can enable freely in the test zone + mini JPs like at that one chest where the coin adventure got added. That feels much better. And the overall zone not too lengthy. They should add difficulty that way: By adding small and harder mini JPs like that. And players liking competition can use the adventure to improve and compare their speed.)

I know you mean well and there's no skill issue in this. For this to be valid you'd have to have a similar belief about Serpernt's Ire as there are shortcuts to making it take less time, the willingness to set up proper groups for it. Should it be needed? It's open-world content that gives a similar level of reward to Forged in Fire so no. Similarly, the massive length of World 2 should never be something that was required even though there are shortcuts.

[Sobx.1758]

31 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

If you do the skip then you're unable to get to the achievements unless you backtrack as thejumping off the bird will drop you off at the checkpoint right before the jumping pillars section. Everything you need to do for a Daily is behind that checkpoint and requires you to backtrack heavily.

What achievements? Why do you need to do everything in one run and why do you need to do every daily (I assume that's what you mean by "achievements" here) all of the sudden? I thought it's about "something to do" and not about the rewards? There's no need to cut any content, just because you want to squeeze out every possible bubble out of it as fast as it would maybe be possible.

31 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

This also expresses, "I had to suffer so you have to suffer as well."

If this festival is such "suffering" for you then maybe just find something else "to do" in the game instead.

Edited April 20 by Sobx.1758

[nosleepdemon.1368]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What achievements? Why do you need to do everything in one run and why do you need to do every daily (I assume that's what you mean by "achievements" here) all of the sudden? I thought it's about "something to do" and not about the rewards? There's no need to cut any content, just because you want to squeeze out every possible bubble out of it as fast as it would maybe be possible.

If this festival is such "suffering" for you then maybe just find something else "to do" in the game instead.

OP’s idea of fun is more important, thus everything must change to suit them.

[Ashantara.8731]

21 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You do realize that it was exactly the length of World 2 that resulted in world being released piecemeal only recently and world 4 still not existing to this day? From what w've heard, it resulted in reducing the SAB popularity by half compared to W1. So, if you think that w2 size adds to fun, think again.

Logic? 🤔

Because, what would be the point of trimming already existent SAB levels? It would only take away resources that are better put to use in creating the missing levels of W3 and W4, no?

Edited April 20 by Ashantara.8731

[Malus.2184]

On 4/20/2024 at 12:53 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

What achievements? Why do you need to do everything in one run and why do you need to do every daily (I assume that's what you mean by "achievements" here) all of the sudden? I thought it's about "something to do" and not about the rewards? There's no need to cut any content, just because you want to squeeze out every possible bubble out of it as fast as it would maybe be possible.

If this festival is such "suffering" for you then maybe just find something else "to do" in the game instead.

There are two choices, either you've never done the achievements or the answer is a "WhAt AcHiEvEmEnTs?"

Bauble Collector requires you to track the entirety of the zone. Lockpicking Daily requires you to traverse the zone. The race requires you to traverse the zone.

Between the last checkpoint before the pillars and the boss there's one achievement since the glitch is there.

Even for a single achievement, save the glitch, you need to set off a good amount of time, and the realistic analysis is that for the vast majority of people this bites heavily into the allotted time for the game.

A later poster makes fun of me by using the thought-terminating cliche that I just want to make the fun follow my idea of fun.

You have to understand, that anyone who posts on the forums of any game is often the vast and incredibly vocal minority.

Here's the deal, remove the sections of World 2 that are just filler. Then add a classic mode for those who want to do the classic way. Increase the rewards too as they spend more time there, if they use the shortcut in W2Z2 then default the rewards to normal. Everyone should be happy with that as those with little time have the option and those with a lot of time have the option as well.