SAB race is the most unfun thing I've had the displeasure of experiencing in years.

[Malediktus.9250]

@Jojo.6140 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:It does not even award any AP, this should easily give 20 AP considering the difficulty

Im actually pretty glad that it doesnt give AP, means i dont have to bother with it. The time the achievement requires is far too short.

It is doable, I have it. But I am upset it gave no AP for the effort

[Ayakaru.6583]

I’ve only done it once, didnt really like it, didnt do it again.There’s no AP to be earned, either, so no motivation, either

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

I don't play SAB because I don't like it. Nothing against SAB specifically: I have never been a fan of that type of games. I found funny that Anet adds it to GW2, I found funny to visit the place once. And with that, I was done with it already.
I tend to agree with Illconceived Was Na.9781: I believe that either people are fans knowing the mechanics well and managing, or they don't play it at all. And the majority is probably with the last ones.

Since it is a yearly time limited event, it does not get the same attention than an activity being a continuous part of the game and played by all (or most), because it is not really worth it: It is "just" (nothing negative meant) a yearly event like all the others (Wintersday, Halloween, ...).

[Daroon.1736]

Tried it quite a few times (including as a Bee) prior to realizing it awarded zero AP, so gave up.

In any event, as usual, there is a lack of in game information - you don't have an individual timer and your finishing time is not shown, so you have no idea how close you are/were. Also, does the timer start from when you pass the first checkpoint?, When you accept the race?, when you cross the start line? or when the race starts?

[GrubySzymek.1362]

I decided to not touch any of SAB achievements this year, race included, as I realised that after feeding Drooburt 500 coins there is no AP to play for. It's nice as I can now ignore SAB together with other festivals :)

[MarshallLaw.9260]

@Scud.5067 said:Its not rocket surgery but its also not fun. Pretty poor effort, all said and done.

As a qualified rocket surgeon, I can confirm this event is not as difficult as your average ballistic missile procedure but definitely less exciting.

[Rauderi.8706]

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:In the end I think this wouldve functioned better as an adventure. So that if you fail you can start again quite easy. And youre not bound by some timer to try again.

The one time we would have wanted an Adventure, right? XD

[FrizzFreston.5290]

@Rauderi.8706 said:

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:In the end I think this wouldve functioned better as an adventure. So that if you fail you can start again quite easy. And youre not bound by some timer to try again.

The one time we would have wanted an Adventure, right? XD

Its rather subjective, but: Races just feel better when theres no or not much fail factor involved. Especially in a side activity.

[spoiler=Offtopic] I personally replay adventures (non HoT ones) way more often than any of the races to be fair. If a race is up its rarely more than 3 people unless its a festival one where people try to get achievements. The victory is shortlived and very unimportant feeling. (A king of the hill kind of element could make it interesting, like costume brawl has.)

As where an adventure is up permanently and you can easily fit an adventure in at any point of your available time. And your best time is forever tracked. So you in fact can track your progress fairly easily, (though a last time time stamp would help as currently its not easy to see how far over or under your personal record you are.)

It has become a favourite activity fairly quickly to see if I can beat all my friends. Just for the sake of it really.

 

[Underdark.3726]

I just got stuck in a cloud. I will never get this achiev ffs... :'(

[Rayti.6531]

I understand that for many this achievement is difficult or even undoable and also the frustration that comes with it... What I don't understand is, how this game is so different from others that players seem to think that achievements in this game should be:

• doable for all players regardless of "skill level" (or any other limitations that might prevent players from finishing an achievement)
• even better: doable in one or just a few tries, with as little effort as possible (i.e. be more like tasks than actual achievements)
• easy by design so that no improvements on the players' part are required to begin with (e.g. "why should I have to know what my skills are doing or even change my build to finish achievement xy?")

If those requirements were met by all/most achievements in this game, one could simply hand them out for free or just rename them to "tasks", since they would no longer satisfy the meaning of the word "achievement".

With that being said:I think the general difficulty of the race and the timer attached to it is fitting for an achievement. But I also agree that there are several design flaws - like having to start all over again after missing certain jumps. I think there should be a skill which enables you to restart at the last checkpoint on use, maybe with a small penalty attached to it (e.g. a small knock down of short duration on being ported back). This race needs something to help people get back on track without having to start all over -> that would also make it easier to practice certain jumps and actually improve (i.e. git gud).

And yeah, the beedog really feels ... clunky? No idea if that's intentional, since the SAB generally tries to emulate a retro experience - and there were many games back then with bad controls... ;-)

[Underdark.3726]

@Underdark.3726 said:I just got stuck in a cloud. I will never get this achiev kitten... :'(

I got stuck twice in a row in the same cloud after taking a speed buff...

[WeedyZeGreedy.8635]

I kinda liked i had to play the race 3 times before i got it. SAB is all about jumping skills, if you can do trib you can also do the race. Rest is a question og Git gud

[Ze Dos Cavalos.6132]

Well I'm happy it doesn't give ap, the devs know the forums would have lots of posts complaining how hard it is to do the race if it gave ap, so they avoided the drama :#

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

@Ze Dos Cavalos.6132 said:Well I'm happy it doesn't give ap, the devs know the forums would have lots of posts complaining how hard it is to do the race if it gave ap, so they avoided the drama :#

Very true.

[Gop.8713]

Got it in just a few tries, def think you're supposed to start as a bee. I actually missed it by a few seconds based on the timer, so I think it maybe starts when you go through the first checkpoint, not when the race starts. And I agree with those above that said it's sab, it's supposed to be hard as well as with those that said there's no real reward other than personal satisfaction, so if you don't want to do it don't bother . . .

[Scud.5067]

@MarshallLaw.9260 said:

@Scud.5067 said:Its not rocket surgery but its also not fun. Pretty poor effort, all said and done.

As a qualified rocket surgeon, I can confirm this event is not as difficult as your average ballistic missile procedure but definitely less exciting.

A doctor AND a ninja, so I hear.

[Endless Soul.5178]

@Scud.5067 said:

@MarshallLaw.9260 said:

@Scud.5067 said:Its not rocket surgery but its also not fun. Pretty poor effort, all said and done.

As a qualified rocket surgeon, I can confirm this event is not as difficult as your average ballistic missile procedure but definitely less exciting.

A doctor AND a ninja, so I hear.

He's no Buckaroo Banzai though.

I did finally manage to complete this achievement...barely...and I will not touch this race again until it comes back next year.

[MedievalThings.5417]

I tried it once on the first day, it was completely buggy. Try to fly up, it would go down half the time, etc. Totally killed the interest I had in even going into SAB this year.Good news is my alts are getting season 3 and PoF map completion done.

[Obtena.7952]

I can assure you all that these problems don't exist if you don't do content you don't like.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@"Obtena.7952" said:I can assure you all that these problems don't exist if you don't do content you don't like.

I guess the issue is that it's content I want to like. Festivals are my jam in games. so it makes me mildly unhappy when there is festival content that is buggy or not well thought out. Now, I'm not gonna grab a pitchfork and be all "make it so easy a baby can do it!" but for me festivals are relaxing casual content that comes and goes, not hardcore no-second chances content. Trib is still there for the people who want the challenge. The race could have been made a little easier or more forgiving of mistakes.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Hmm this sounds interesting, I didn't realise there were more cool things added to SAB this year. Is it relatively easy like tribulation mode, or is it moderately difficult?

[Ayrilana.1396]

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:Hmm this sounds interesting, I didn't realise there were more cool things added to SAB this year. Is it relatively easy like tribulation mode, or is it moderately difficult?

Depends on how consistent you are at making jumps the first time as well as not stopping. The timer is about as unforgiving as the previous two Festival races.

[Deathtrix.5921]

I play at 220-350 ping connecting from Australia to NA and I have to say the Bee dog section is horrible. The skills constantly overshoot and undershoot depending on what is going on, and the swiftness upgrades cause rubber banding.

I have no idea why these were not made client side..

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

Yes, the first half isn't the issue if you're somewhat good at jumping puzzles. The problem is the second half where you're the bee dog. The controls are clunky. The response feels delayed. And the power boosts are positioned oddly where you can fly through them, but somehow miss them too.

Finally, the change from two arches to one with the clouds can cause a lot of frustration in the bee dog form.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

@Ardenwolfe.8590 said:Yes, the first half isn't the issue if you're somewhat good at jumping puzzles. The problem is the second half where you're the bee dog. The controls are clunky. The response feels delayed. And the power boosts are positioned oddly where you can fly through them, but somehow miss them too.

Finally, the change from two arches to one with the clouds can cause a lot of frustration in the bee dog form.

When I was doing trib mode in SAB one thing I noticed was how framerate dependent the game is. I routinely missed jumps and fell off ledges until I turned off every graphical effect and got a smooth 60fps. At the time, I was running on a toaster instead of an actual GPU, but if your graphics hardware is a little long in the tooth, you might be surprised at how much of a difference the fps boost makes to your timing.