Adventures and balancing

[Turial.1293]

Any chance of these time trials being balanced at all? Some of them are super easy where you get gold first try and some require the luck of the devil to even get silver, let alone gold. I'm not going to get into a discussion of whether or not they are fun to do but rather I want to talk about their difficulty.

Let us look at the rollerbeetle Jormag's Fang - 'Roller Ace' for instance; Bronze: 1:00, Silver: 0:45s, Gold: 0.32sIt's almost impossible to not get a bronze for this but gold, oh Melandru! Why is this not 0.35s instead? That is still pretty difficult to do but with practice it is reasonable. I'm not even sure that people at 0:32s are even in the leaderboard of top 1000 scores for this adventure.

What's with Tendril Torchers for that matter? B: 50 kills, S: 75, G: 110?Why not 100? This is still an achievement that many people have not completed since HoT was released. Now it is possible to lower the kill count on this or extend the time limit for other adventures. Sanctum Scramble got it's time extended, The Floor is Lava, extended. Shooting Gallery has been extended twice due to the ridiculous time constraint it used to have. The rollerbeetle Halloween race is an absolute pain as well, and don't even get me started on the Gold Griffon courses.

To sum up; will you guys look into the possibility of balance or even just extensions for some of these adventures because honestly they are just a pain in the ass for most of us.

[Ayrilana.1396]

I agree. The super easy adventures should have their difficulties increased.

[Randulf.7614]

Tendril torches is pretty much perfect imo. Gold is very doable but also challenging. That and fly catching ones feel like the best balanced

Shooting I’ve never done gold. It’s very tough but I’m not giving up on it

[Taril.8619]

Tendril Torchers is made annoying by how hidden like half of the tendrils actually are... Once you know where they all are, it's all a matter of running the right route.

Shooting Gallery seems ridiculously easy these days. I got an easy gold on it with time to spare on my second attempt (My first attempt it took me a minute to realize that you can run about while shooting... Even THEN after a full minute of trying to hit 1 target, I nearly got gold too)

Though others can be annoying, like Scrap Rifle Field Test (Which is even worse because you get a benefit for having Condi gear). The Ley-Line Run is also pretty tight on the timer. A Fungus Among Us is also quite awkward but that's mostly because of how jank the Mushrum is to use.

[Andy.5981]

There was a post, quite a while back now, where another player raised the same issue. If I recall correctly they had even looked up on some achievement tracking site just how many people had managed to get some of the adventure achievements. In some cases the percentage of players was pitifully low. I also recall that a Developer did actually respond in that thread and said that they would take a look at some of them.

I think as a result they did add some time to some of the adventures and make them a little more forgiving.

There has to be a balance. They need to be rewarding after having a few goes at them. There is no sense in having stupidly easy achievements, just as much as having over the top ones.

[Turial.1293]

Tendril Torchers can be pretty iffy, gun does not always hit which is why 10 extra kills can be a bit of a pain, shooting gallery is on the easier side with 1st person mode I would say but everyone is better at some things than others. Still think there is room for a big improvement on a lot of them, could do with a revisit to them again.

@Andy.5981 said:There was a post, quite a while back now, where another player raised the same issue. If I recall correctly they had even looked up on some achievement tracking site just how many people had managed to get some of the adventure achievements. In some cases the percentage of players was pitifully low. I also recall that a Developer did actually respond in that thread and said that they would take a look at some of them.

I think as a result they did add some time to some of the adventures and make them a little more forgiving.

There has to be a balance. They need to be rewarding after having a few goes at them. There is no sense in having stupidly easy achievements, just as much as having over the top ones.

Yeah I mention in my OP that a few adventures were extended, that was back in 2016 & 2018 so now it's 2020 and they are due another look ;)Now I don't want to get gold on an adventure and still have 2 minutes left to go but for some of them, 10 seconds could make all the difference between a fair challenge and near impossible. Like I mention above with Jormag's Fang, a difference of 3 seconds would make the gold reward look a little less arbitrary compared to the silver and bronze rewards for it and whole lot less difficult while still keeping the challenge.We should be able to complete a race with 1 hiccup and still be able to make it to gold, perhaps 2 for those longer courses like in Mt.Maelstrom where your fingers can get locked due to the length of the race. If you have to incorporate shortcuts, perfect timing of speed boosts and other finicky tricks just to cut it close to the timer then it's fair to say that it is too difficult.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Turial.1293 said:Yeah I mention in my OP that a few adventures were extended, that was back in 2016 & 2018 so now it's 2020 and they are due another look ;)

Why? Seems when they did a pass the last time around, they amended the difficulty on some of the most difficult adventures. Why does this suddenly have to be looked at again?

@Turial.1293 said:Now I don't want to get gold on an adventure and still have 2 minutes left to go but for some of them, 10 seconds could make all the difference between a fair challenge and near impossible. Like I mention above with Jormag's Fang, a difference of 3 seconds would make the gold reward look a little less arbitrary compared to the silver and bronze rewards for it and whole lot less difficult while still keeping the challenge.

Adventures are not meant to be equally easy or hard. Some as you might have noticed, suite some players more, others other players. There is no need to make all adventures equally difficult, which would be impossible by the mere nature of difficulty being rather subjective.

Unless you argument is that each and all adventures should be made easy, so players have easy access to the achievement and mastery points.

@Turial.1293 said:We should be able to complete a race with 1 hiccup and still be able to make it to gold, perhaps 2 for those longer courses like in Mt.Maelstrom where your fingers can get locked due to the length of the race. If you have to incorporate shortcuts, perfect timing of speed boosts and other finicky tricks just to cut it close to the timer then it's fair to say that it is too difficult.

Why? If you can't get good enough at a race to make gold, either improve or live with the fact that the race was to hard. Why does everything have to be made "easy" and all equal?

PS. and yes, I am lacking 4 or so gold ranks on some HoT adventures myself. Never bothered to go back to do those, and that is perfectly fine. Players who made gold there, have the AP and spare mastery points. More power to them.

[Andy.5981]

@Turial.1293 said:Tendril Torchers can be pretty iffy, gun does not always hit which is why 10 extra kills can be a bit of a pain, shooting gallery is on the easier side with 1st person mode I would say but everyone is better at some things than others. Still think there is room for a big improvement on a lot of them, could do with a revisit to them again.

@Andy.5981 said:There was a post, quite a while back now, where another player raised the same issue. If I recall correctly they had even looked up on some achievement tracking site just how many people had managed to get some of the adventure achievements. In some cases the percentage of players was pitifully low. I also recall that a Developer did actually respond in that thread and said that they would take a look at some of them.

I think as a result they did add some time to some of the adventures and make them a little more forgiving.

There has to be a balance. They need to be rewarding after having a few goes at them. There is no sense in having stupidly easy achievements, just as much as having over the top ones.

Yeah I mention in my OP that a few adventures were extended, that was back in 2016 & 2018 so now it's 2020 and they are due another look ;)Now I don't want to get gold on an adventure and still have 2 minutes left to go but for some of them, 10 seconds could make all the difference between a fair challenge and near impossible. Like I mention above with Jormag's Fang, a difference of 3 seconds would make the gold reward look a little less arbitrary compared to the silver and bronze rewards for it and whole lot less difficult while still keeping the challenge.We should be able to complete a race with 1 hiccup and still be able to make it to gold, perhaps 2 for those longer courses like in Mt.Maelstrom where your fingers can get locked due to the length of the race. If you have to incorporate shortcuts, perfect timing of speed boosts and other finicky tricks just to cut it close to the timer then it's fair to say that it is too difficult.

Was it four years already! Wow that's like nearly Alliance timescales :)

Agree with everything you said, some are far too easy to obtain whilst some are really tight on time. One recent adventure that is a bit like that, unless they've changed it, is the skimmer race in Grothmar Valley in the Crystal area.

[Tyncale.1629]

I used to think Gold for the griffon Courses was impossible, then I learned that Griffons had a Dive and Pull Up skill(I know, I am stupid) and now I have Gold in every Adventure. This from a guy who actually sucks at anything timed, like certain JP's. The great thing about those griffon runs is, that you can immediately restart so building that muscle memory is fairly easy with those adventures. For the rest I agree with OP, some of the adventures he mentioned are still not mastered by me too(the one where you have to jump across a course as a mushroom, ouch).

[Turial.1293]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Why does this suddenly have to be looked at again?

Unless you argument is that each and all adventures should be made easy

Why? If you can't get good enough at a race to make gold, either improve or live with the fact that the race was to hard.

Well first off, looking at something 2+ years down the line is anything but "sudden" and that is not my argument at all so you have completely missed the point of the post and finally if the adventures are too hard then yes, they should be revisited.From the way you speak I gather that you don't care about adventures so if they do revisit them again then it should be of no interest to you. Your comment just reads like "git gud nub" so it brings nothing to the discussion sadly.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Turial.1293 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Why does this suddenly have to be looked at again?

Unless you argument is that each and all adventures should be made easy

Why? If you can't get good enough at a race to make gold, either improve or live with the fact that the race was to hard.

Well first off, looking at something 2+ years down the line is anything but "sudden" and that is not my argument at all so you have completely missed the point of the post and finally if the adventures are too hard then yes, they should be revisited.

You have not yet shown that adventures are disproportionately hard. GW2efficiency shows rather similar completion rates even with some lower for few and higher for the easier ones. No where near where one would assume that they are undoable.

What exactly has changed in these 2 years that warrants a revisit of this content? Adventures are neither group or player dependent, nor where any other aspects changed. Your only argument is that after 2 years, you think the time might be right to make this content easier, I disagree.

@Turial.1293 said:From the way you speak I gather that you don't care about adventures so if they do revisit them again then it should be of no interest to you. Your comment just reads like "git gud nub" so it brings nothing to the discussion sadly.

Actually I run some of them regularly. Do I care? Enough to call it when someone simply wants to make content farm status, and yes, if you are not good enough to make gold, you have to get better. Feel free to disagree with this approach, I mentioned that I personally disagree that things need to be made easy across the board. If you want to read this as:"get gud", then yes, get good.

[Cerioth.7062]

Only adventure I havent managed to beat thus far has been gold for Scrap Rifle Field Test. Anyone have any advice for that? Youtube videos dont seem to help.

[Ayrilana.1396]

It comes down to your pathing and ability to group them

[casualkenny.9817]

Imo, In most areas of this game, Anet has made a range of easy<med<hard, so it's OK to have things not everyone can get perfect score on ... As long as it isn't essential, of course. Elite spec collections only need bronze anyway, not sure abt other achvs

[KiteoHatto.7018]

floor is lava, delayed gliding and pointy mushrooms that you need to land pixel perfect on, if you fail at any part you cant restart until you die, wasting even more time.sanctum sprint and how the "super glide" behaves....

I havent even tried the other ones for mastery points, but if they are all this cancerous then screw them.

These adventures are gonna make me quit this game and just go play something else.

[Khisanth.2948]

I find Tendril Torchers to be a bit weird. On some runs it's "wow this is easy" but on others it's "I don't have nearly enough time for this"

@"Taril.8619" said:The Ley-Line Run is also pretty tight on the timer.

?Ley-line Run is trivial gold. Gold is 0:45 but even under 0:40 is easy. Just need to use your 1 and 3 skill and have Exalted Markings.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Guide-Adventures-Silver-Gold-and-beyond/first is a great guide for the HoT adventures including how to get gold in all of them with the old time requirements

I know the author also reposted the guide on the current version of the forums but someone decided to delete that very useful post for some reason ... the archive link works well enough I guess

@"KiteoHatto.7018" said:floor is lava, delayed gliding and pointy mushrooms that you need to land pixel perfect on, if you fail at any part you cant restart until you die, wasting even more time.sanctum sprint and how the "super glide" behaves....

I havent even tried the other ones for mastery points, but if they are all this cancerous then screw them.

These adventures are gonna make me quit this game and just go play something else.

drone race is just "know how to walk" ... provided you have Itzel Poison mastery. You could go faster by actually using the skills but I am pretty sure you can make it to gold or close to it with just walking.

@"casualkenny.9817" said:Imo, In most areas of this game, Anet has made a range of easy<med<hard, so it's OK to have things not everyone can get perfect score on ... As long as it isn't essential, of course. Elite spec collections only need bronze anyway, not sure abt other achvs

legendary collections that require those still require silver https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Proximity_Test:_Fungus_Among_Us_Adventure

Several of these can also be made easier using TaCO to mark the locations for different actions. Probably one already done in Tekkit's bundle.