Mad King Clocktower waiting period

[OriOri.8724]

Everyone knows what I'm talking about, that useless waiting period after you fail the clocktower and have to wait before you can try it again. Is there any way to shorten this? Its by far the most painful part about clocktower, especially for someone who has to try JPs multiple times before I can get them down. It just wastes your time and makes it a rather unenjoyable experience.

[Pandora.5084]

That waiting period you're talking about it's defined by the people that are still inside the jumping puzzle. If everyone fails, the waiting period goes away. It's totally fine.

[SmirkDog.3160]

If it could just be done in a singleplayer instance the wait time would be instant. But of course, where's the fun in that.

[cafard.8953]

It is mighty annoying alright. I was delighted when they removed that from the xmas JP.

 

While it doesn't solve the wait, you might want to know that if you switch to desktop, the GW2 icon in the taskbar will pop red/orange when the timer is up. And since there's the mandatory cutscene, it doesn't matter if you don't switch back instantly. So feel free to browse while waiting, you'll get the notification.

[Dark Schneider.7841]

And the annoying cutscene everytime ^^

[Rauderi.8706]

> @"Dark Schneider.7841" said:

> And the annoying cutscene everytime ^^

 

Oh geez, ignoring the "fail faster" of game design *and* punishing players with an unskippable cutscene?

There's a very good reason I don't do this puzzle, apparently.

[OriOri.8724]

> @Pandora.5084 said:

> That waiting period you're talking about it's defined by the people that are still inside the jumping puzzle. If everyone fails, the waiting period goes away. It's totally fine.

 

Its not totally fine though. Why can't this be in a single person instance if you want it to? You still have the same difficulty in getting to the top. Its not like the other players help or hinder you on the way. The only thing this accomplishes is forcing us to wait unnecessarily long between attempts as we try to learn the JP, and all that does is waste our time. Its an outdated function of this JP, and I'd like to see it addressed

[Pandora.5084]

That's a question for Anet, since the only change they did in these 5 years of Clockwork Tower was changing players to ghost orbs because the loading screens were insane on the first year.

 

> @"Dark Schneider.7841" said:

> And the annoying cutscene everytime ^^

 

I'm pretty sure the cutscene exists for characters/enviroment being loaded purposes. Even on the first year that cutscene couldn't save my computer from loading into the map in time. But it's just a guess, I'm not a programmer, nor an Arenanet worker. *shrug*

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> > @Pandora.5084 said:

> > That waiting period you're talking about it's defined by the people that are still inside the jumping puzzle. If everyone fails, the waiting period goes away. It's totally fine.

>

> Its not totally fine though. Why can't this be in a single person instance if you want it to? You still have the same difficulty in getting to the top. Its not like the other players help or hinder you on the way. The only thing this accomplishes is forcing us to wait unnecessarily long between attempts as we try to learn the JP, and all that does is waste our time. Its an outdated function of this JP, and I'd like to see it addressed

 

Because the want it to be a group activity?

[SummerRayne.4672]

And this is sadly the mindset of many mmo players today. Extremely little patience, if any at all. Wanting everything done immediately and if they have to wait for maybe 10-20 seconds to do something on occasion it is just disastrous. And a cutscene that lasts what, 3-4 seconds maybe? Seriously all, this type of thing causes you this much distress?

 

I spent about an hour last night attempting this jumping puzzle and I had a good time even though I didn’t complete it. A big part of that fun was sharing that experience with the other people that was in the instance with me. We were all laughing and crying about our repeated attempts and when someone finally made it, people were excited for that person. Everything doesn’t have to be an “I want it my way and now” type of content in a game. The waiting isn’t near as bad as you are making it out to be, even when there are players who make it close to the end.

[SmirkDog.3160]

> @SummerRayne.4672 said:

> And this is sadly the mindset of many mmo players today. Extremely little patience, if any at all. Wanting everything done immediately and if they have to wait for maybe 10-20 seconds to do something on occasion it is just disastrous. And a cutscene that lasts what, 3-4 seconds maybe? Seriously all, this type of thing causes you this much distress?

>

> I spent about an hour last night attempting this jumping puzzle and I had a good time even though I didn’t complete it. A big part of that fun was sharing that experience with the other people that was in the instance with me. We were all laughing and crying about our repeated attempts and when someone finally made it, people were excited for that person. Everything doesn’t have to be an “I want it my way and now” type of content in a game. The waiting isn’t near as bad as you are making it out to be, even when there are players who make it close to the end.

 

You must be really fun to hang out with, always criticizing people's understandable frustration with the current state of things.

 

People want it because in normal gameplay (and like someone else mentioned, the Wintersday JP), you fall and just get back up and do it again. But getting to attempt once every 30+ seconds and just having to stand around until you can go again is a waste of time. There's literally nothing to gain making people wait for someone else to fail or finish in order to go again. You can ~*~laugh, cry, and cheer~*~ without the unnecessary waiting period.

[Ubi.4136]

The change to making other players "orbs" was because people were trolling the JP on the biggest Norn they could make wearing the largest armor pieces they could get. It made it so that no one could see ANY of the jumps in the puzzle.

 

The wait time is tied to people completing the current run. If you fall in the first 5 seconds, you have to wait almost 2 minutes if someone makes it to the chest. It really isn't that long of a wait. The person that makes it has to sit out the entire next run because you will have started while they are at the chest. It really isn't an issue.

[Shard.4791]

> @SummerRayne.4672 said:

> And this is sadly the mindset of many mmo players today. Extremely little patience, if any at all. Wanting everything done immediately and if they have to wait for maybe 10-20 seconds to do something on occasion it is just disastrous. And a cutscene that lasts what, 3-4 seconds maybe? Seriously all, this type of thing causes you this much distress?

>

 

The later part of the run alone is 30 seconds of waiting for the people in the lobby. In earlier years you could get idle kicked because of the wait time. I've done 100+ completions of the jp this year and I spend one third of the time waiting. You can finish 5 runs in 15 minutes that means 3 minutes per run. And one jp finish takes about 1:30 mins + chest room. So one minute of every 3 minutes is waiting.

 

When the timer goes to 1:30 you need to wait that time and some more for the round to end and the next one to start. No new runs start while the timer is below that time. It's a waiting simulator basically. Then you have 3 timegates in the actual jumping puzzle too. It's brilliant!

 

[OriOri.8724]

> @SummerRayne.4672 said:

> And this is sadly the mindset of many mmo players today. Extremely little patience, if any at all. Wanting everything done immediately and if they have to wait for maybe 10-20 seconds to do something on occasion it is just disastrous. And a cutscene that lasts what, 3-4 seconds maybe? Seriously all, this type of thing causes you this much distress?

 

Considering every other JP in this game, literally every other one, you can immediately start over if you fail it, this is the odd one out. A forced waiting period between being able to practice that 1 jump you're struggling on does nothing but make it harder to master that jump and move on.

 

[Hitman.5829]

I have 5 years playing this game, and every time Halloween comes, I skip this annoying jumping puzzle. Do you know how many times I have done this JP during all these 5 years? ZERO TIMES!, I rather spend my time doing fun things instead of waiting minutes watching a cut scene over and over again and waiting until people fall from the JP. Whoever designed this JP should be tried for crimes against humanity!

[Zaltys.7649]

Why does it need to keep score anyway? As far as I can tell, the highest scoring player doesn't actually get any extra rewards...? So what's the point of having 15-min time limit?

[Shaaba.5672]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> Considering every other JP in this game, literally every other one, you can immediately start over if you fail it, this is the odd one out. A forced waiting period between being able to practice that 1 jump you're struggling on does nothing but make it harder to master that jump and move on.

>

 

Yeah, but this JP is designed differently. You don't get to chose when you start like the Christmas one - it's designed to be on a forced timer. Kind of hard to get around that. Well, the single player instance would, but honestly, if they tried to change it it would probably break their coding and we wouldn't see it for another 5 years.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> Everyone knows what I'm talking about, that useless waiting period after you fail the clocktower

 

It's not useless, it is to avoid having too many people cramped in the same spots while climbing up the tower.

 

I do, however, understand that it feels majorly frustrating to wait, especially when you haven't mastered the JP yet and are just in the right place mentally, then forced to wait almost a minute or so until you can try again.

 

> @Hitman.5829 said:

> I have 5 years playing this game, and every time Halloween comes, I skip this annoying jumping puzzle. Do you know how many times I have done this JP during all these 5 years? ZERO TIMES!, I rather spend my time doing fun things instead of waiting minutes watching a cut scene over and over again and waiting until people fall from the JP. Whoever designed this JP should be tried for crimes against humanity!

 

Well, it has been improved this year in terms of no longer being able to see the other contestants, which makes it easiert to focus. Maybe you should give it another try? :)

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

> @Zaltys.7649 said:

> Why does it need to keep score anyway? As far as I can tell, the highest scoring player doesn't actually get any extra rewards...? So what's the point of having 15-min time limit?

It's using PVP architecture (as does the Wintersday JP, and all activities. They even used to force you into your PVP armor, back when that was a thing).

 

And yes, they need to make a single-person version so you can restart immediately if you fail. Failing and then having to sit there twiddling your thumbs for minutes at a time is unbelievably frustrating.

[Solvar.7953]

Every once in a while, you get luck and do get an instance of the clocktower to yourself. Last year, that happened to me, and being able to repeatedly restart runs finally let me learn & complete the puzzle. It would be nice if you could always just get your own instance.

 

[OriOri.8724]

> @Ashantara.8731 said:

> > @OriOri.8724 said:

> > Everyone knows what I'm talking about, that useless waiting period after you fail the clocktower

>

> It's not useless, it is to avoid having too many people cramped in the same spots while climbing up the tower.

>

> I do, however, understand that it feels majorly frustrating to wait, especially when you haven't mastered the JP yet and are just in the right place mentally, then forced to wait almost a minute or so until you can try again.

 

That is something I hadn't considered. While I can't speak for others, I know that the forced waiting period is my biggest annoyance on this JP. I know that I can do it, but practicing it, especially when you are stuck practicing the earlier parts of it, is just downright painful, since most of your time can be spent waiting on others who are better than you and can finish it (or get close).

 

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

Without knowing the coding requirements or difficulty of making changes, these are some changes I'd like to see considered:

 

Change the timer to 30 minutes for a match, like in Wintersday. Have players who fail go to the starting platform and have a button to enter when ready, and pulse starts and the rising instant-death murk in layers so that players can leave every fifteen seconds or so.

 

OR

 

Instanced content by player or groups of up to five, so you can play solo or with your guildmates. I want to play these things with my friends. Give some worthwhile rewards for winning the match if it's competitive.

[DebraKadabra.5278]

> @Solvar.7953 said:

> Every once in a while, you get luck and do get an instance of the clocktower to yourself. Last year, that happened to me, and being able to repeatedly restart runs finally let me learn & complete the puzzle. It would be nice if you could always just get your own instance.

 

Something similar to that was what helped me to complete the Wintersday JP. Now, I realize that that JP is set up differently, but when the instance for it would bug and not switch back to the 30 minute timer, it was excellent practice and greatly helped my confidence with the JP.. which is something I don't yet have with the Clock Tower.

[DeadlySynz.3471]

The wait time is unnecessary, and that is the crux of the problem. Either make it a single player instance, or add in the option for it. Let players pick whether they want to play with others or without.

 

For people that complain about other players wanting everything right now.. suppose someone has oh say, an hour a night to play, and they'd like to do this JP, out of that hour, they spend more than half of it standing around picking their noses waiting for it to restart.

 

There is absolutely 0 excuse to have this as a group puzzle with a wait time when an option for a single player instance with 0 wait time is easily implemented.

[Sartharina.3542]

The waiting tied to this jumping puzzle is complete bullshit. Even without the 'wait for others to finish' - There is absolutely no reason for this to be a timed instance.