[Feedback] Mad King's Raceway [merged]

[Zaraki.5784]

> @"lifeshoutslive.4163" said:

> I think Clock Tower is harder tbh. Never got to the top in all these years; but managed 01:07 on the Raceway yesterday, which isn't Gold, but it's only 2 seconds, so I figure I'll manage this while with Clock Tower, it's hopeless for me.

 

Different people, different skills, Clocktower is quite easy for me after all these years, on the other hand I can't do good times on this race, I'm so glad they increased the time limit ^^

[hugillater.2098]

frankly im disgusted in anet for chaging this to a time which just is far too achievable and defeats the using of the rollerbeetle (the first time i did this on a raptor i got 1m27). Stop cowtowing to the lowest common denominator, achievements are not supposed to be a given that you get it, you should actually have to work for them. I personally had no idea how to drift and spent 2 hours in the raceway learning how to drift and learning the circuit and its quirks and managed in the end some solid .56.700s runs. Just because its hard doesnt mean you can whine and cry and get your own way...oh wait apparently it does now. Anet stick with your guns the achievement was entirely obtainable its just not another easy mode pity achivement. STOP MAKING GW EASY MODE!

[Changer the Elder.2948]

> @"hugillater.2098" said:

> frankly im disgusted in anet for chaging this to a time which just is far too achievable and defeats the using of the rollerbeetle (the first time i did this on a raptor i got 1m27). Stop cowtowing to the lowest common denominator, achievements are not supposed to be a given that you get it, you should actually have to work for them. I personally had no idea how to drift and spent 2 hours in the raceway learning how to drift and learning the circuit and its quirks and managed in the end some solid .56.700s runs. Just because its hard doesnt mean you can whine and cry and get your own way...oh wait apparently it does now. Anet stick with your guns the achievement was entirely obtainable its just not another easy mode pity achivement. STOP MAKING GW EASY MODE!

 

There's difficulty tiers. Stuff like Voices in the Void, Barnstormers or the original (first year) Clocktower and such are meant to be tough and challenging, meant to be for the top of the top (buying aside, talking about "legit" earning). But annual meta being barred from most of the players? That's good design in exactly which book? Because it's a terrible book and you probably shouldn't read it.

 

Do realize that there's a lot of people who don't have Path of Fire / don't have the beetle / don't activelly use it, and barring something that is presumedly supposed to be achieved by large amount of players (since it generally contains chill easy grindy achievements one can do) by such activity is simply a bad idea.

 

You can chill your jets: your electronic sense of self-worth wasn't diminished, the leaderboards are still there, you can gloat to all your friends how you're the best and sub-minute on a ride most people activelly avoid due to its shoddy design. Congratulations, I guess.

 

Sidenote: Guild Wars 2 is (and always was) a very casual and accessible game. It never pretended to be anything else. It has its challenges, and you can make more by the virtue of challenging yourself (solo Vale Guardian if you really need that kind of excitement in your life). But if your sense of achievement is only filled by "I have it, now bar all the noobs from getting it!", a casual MMO is not the best place to get that itch scratched.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

They still havent been nerfed XD

[Phiobe.8475]

I'm really sad! It took me 4 Hours yesterday to make that race in less than 1 minutes, 00:56,96 exactly. I was desperate, cursed and sent the designer to hell, but I did it. And now all my hard work and patience with myself is for nothing!

[Kumouta.4985]

now i'll never learn how to drift :(

 

[Gop.8713]

> @"Kumouta.4985" said:

> now i'll never learn how to drift :(

>

 

That was the great thing about the cheeve to me. I didn't get it before the nerf, not by a long shot -- I was at 1:15ish -- but it was the first thing in the game that really tried to force me to learn how to use my beetle, and I appreciated it . . .

[hugillater.2098]

> @"Changer the Elder.2948" said:

> > @"hugillater.2098" said:

> > frankly im disgusted in anet for chaging this to a time which just is far too achievable and defeats the using of the rollerbeetle (the first time i did this on a raptor i got 1m27). Stop cowtowing to the lowest common denominator, achievements are not supposed to be a given that you get it, you should actually have to work for them. I personally had no idea how to drift and spent 2 hours in the raceway learning how to drift and learning the circuit and its quirks and managed in the end some solid .56.700s runs. Just because its hard doesnt mean you can whine and cry and get your own way...oh wait apparently it does now. Anet stick with your guns the achievement was entirely obtainable its just not another easy mode pity achivement. STOP MAKING GW EASY MODE!

>

> There's difficulty tiers. Stuff like Voices in the Void, Barnstormers or the original (first year) Clocktower and such are meant to be tough and challenging, meant to be for the top of the top (buying aside, talking about "legit" earning). But annual meta being barred from most of the players? That's good design in exactly which book? Because it's a terrible book and you probably shouldn't read it.

>

> Do realize that there's a lot of people who don't have Path of Fire / don't have the beetle / don't activelly use it, and barring something that is presumedly supposed to be achieved by large amount of players (since it generally contains chill easy grindy achievements one can do) by such activity is simply a bad idea.

>

> You can chill your jets: your electronic sense of self-worth wasn't diminished, the leaderboards are still there, you can gloat to all your friends how you're the best and sub-minute on a ride most people activelly avoid due to its shoddy design. Congratulations, I guess.

>

> Sidenote: Guild Wars 2 is (and always was) a very casual and accessible game. It never pretended to be anything else. It has its challenges, and you can make more by the virtue of challenging yourself (solo Vale Guardian if you really need that kind of excitement in your life). But if your sense of achievement is only filled by "I have it, now bar all the noobs from getting it!", a casual MMO is not the best place to get that itch scratched.

 

firstly you dont need a rollerbeetle or pof since you can loan one, secondly it doesnt block anyone from the meta achievement because there are 10 achievements and you only need 9. And dont presume my sense of self worth, electronic or otherwise. I'm saying that sometimes you actually have to work at something to get it..you know the defimition of achievement. And how does me getting the original time and saying it should be kept to that block the noobs, it just means that like me, they need to actually spend 2 hours learning from sratch how to drift and atually learn how to do stuff rather than bitch and moan so stuff is made easier. And being hard doesnt make something less accessable, it just means you have to devote some time to it.

 

Incidently, its only because of this that a lot of people have learned how to use their rollerbeetle, myself included. But rather than complaining about the achievements saying they are too hard, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, learn how to play the content, it is by no means impossible, just requires dedication to learn how to do it, and if you cant be bothered to do that, then you dont deserve to get the meta or the ap

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

> @"Kumouta.4985" said:

> now i'll never learn how to drift :(

 

Go to DR and beetle around the "downstairs" ring, running past the crafting stations and the entrances to the "gods" ramp and so on, keeping your speed up with injudicious use of the boost button. Now you can practice drifting into the Dwayna ramp (south, under the plaza where the bank/TP are). Penalty points for piling into the wagon or the wall, and fewer penalty points for sideswiping them, and call it "perfect" if you make a clean entrance without touching anything but the floor.

 

But practice in the north-Kourna or north-central-Crystal-Oasis desert areas and/or Kessex Hills first.

[Danikat.8537]

As other people have said there's nothing stopping you setting yourself whatever time or other challenge you want, or simply trying to get the fastest time you can. No you won't get a pop-up on the screen to tell you that you've done it, but as long as you set something measurable you'll know anyway.

 

(For one crazy example during the Festival of the Four Winds I randomly got it into my head to attempt the race using a quaggan tonic and carrying a balloon. Absolutely no reason for that and I certainly wasn't going to set any records but it was fun to try. On repeat attempts I used the balloon as my 'lives' - I was only allowed to have it knocked out of my hands by enemies twice, on the third time I was 'dead' and had to start over.)

[Gop.8713]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> As other people have said there's nothing stopping you setting yourself whatever time or other challenge you want, or simply trying to get the fastest time you can. No you won't get a pop-up on the screen to tell you that you've done it, but as long as you set something measurable you'll know anyway.

>

> (For one crazy example during the Festival of the Four Winds I randomly got it into my head to attempt the race using a quaggan tonic and carrying a balloon. Absolutely no reason for that and I certainly wasn't going to set any records but it was fun to try. On repeat attempts I used the balloon as my 'lives' - I was only allowed to have it knocked out of my hands by enemies twice, on the third time I was 'dead' and had to start over.)

 

A perfectly valid perspective. If I want to accomplish the Halloween race cheeve using the quaggan tonic carrying a balloon, should anet adjust the minimum standard to accommodate my preference . . ?

[McJAC.4739]

Those activities are actually fun while you have a reason to try to get better, not for everybody, but there seems to be a good percentage of people who like to get better even doing unimportant things like adventures. I'm not against increasing the time limit, but throw us a bone and make it worth learning to be better at adventures. Why is zerging and running around with 25 ppl more rewarding than mastering the clocktower or the race?

 

Instead we have to do stupid dailies every holiday content. You just have to show up, don't need to improve really, and because of that you hate it. It's like going to work every day, even if you are able to all your weekly work in 3 days. It defies logic, but hey that is how they did it in the past so we just copy that without questioning if it really achieves what we want.

 

Wasn't there something in GW1 that you would do daily and top 5 or 3 or 10 (I dunno) ppl that day would get a reward ? That would be a reason to do adventures again and get better at them. 2 greens and 1 blue wont cut it though.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

> @"McJAC.4739" said:

> Those activities are actually fun while you have a reason to try to get better, not for everybody, but there seems to be a good percentage of people who like to get better even doing unimportant things like adventures. I'm not against increasing the time limit, but throw us a bone and make it worth learning to be better at adventures. Why is zerging and running around with 25 ppl more rewarding than mastering the clocktower or the race?

>

> Instead we have to do stupid dailies every holiday content. You just have to show up, don't need to improve really, and because of that you hate it. It's like going to work every day, even if you are able to all your weekly work in 3 days. It defies logic, but hey that is how they did it in the past so we just copy that without questioning if it really achieves what we want.

>

> Wasn't there something in GW1 that you would do daily and top 5 or 3 or 10 (I dunno) ppl that day would get a reward ? That would be a reason to do adventures again and get better at them. 2 greens and 1 blue wont cut it though.

 

My favorite adventures are the Griffon ones, because you can always try different things and get better, and once you get the right timing of things, they flow perfectly and feel smooth.

 

But the griffon is much less affected by small random obstacles. Obstacles in griffon races are much more clearly defined. Dive a little longer here, pull up a little sooner there.

 

This race has too many little obstacles that obfuscate the path when they overlap in the distance.

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Getting gold in the adventure still takes beating 1 min 5 seconds, so things aren't as nerfed as the OP states. The only thing easier is getting the umbrella achievement for 2018 Halloween.

>

> The other implication in the OP's request is that ANet is always, 100% correct about identifying the correct level of difficulty they want for each & every achievement. Do we really think they've never overtuned before release? Do we really think that if they notice it that they shouldn't ever adjust it? I think it's far better that they launch with things being too hard and "nerf" things to a more manageable level for the target audience. The alternative is worse: starting off too easy and making things more challenging, which mostly screws over those people who aren't able to play the first day.

 

Well said.

 

I think the concern (not suggesting this is the OPs concern) is making ***all*** of the achievements achievable by all. There should be some that cannot be achieved. Making them all achievable by all levels of skill diminishes the 'value' of some of the titles and some of the achievements.

 

I do not pretend to believe that there are some that people can't do currently, but keeping some of them at a 25-50% achievable level would be a welcome change.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 min 30 secs is indeed a bit too much of a nerf. I would have been fine with 1:10, or 1:15 the most. My personal best time so far has been 1:05 (I spent a total of about one and a half hours trying, and there are still several weeks of this event ahead of us). 1:30 does not require you to use the beetle at all, AFAIK, so I am not sure how this makes any sense.

 

Still, had a laugh when I read the update note. =) Couldn't believe my eyes at first.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Getting gold in the adventure still takes beating 1 min 5 seconds, so things aren't as nerfed as the OP states. The only thing easier is getting the umbrella achievement for 2018 Halloween.

 

Okay, from this point of view, you are obviously right. Even if I had managed to beat the 1:00 mark eventually, I doubt I would have been able to repeat this twice to make the annual.

[Tiscan.8345]

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> I think the concern (not suggesting this is the OPs concern) is making ***all*** of the achievements achievable by all. There should be some that cannot be achieved. Making them all achievable by all levels of skill diminishes the 'value' of some of the titles and some of the achievements.

>

> I do not pretend to believe that there are some that people can't do currently, but keeping some of them at a 25-50% achievable level would be a welcome change.

 

Fun-Fact:

 

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

>

> I think the concern (not suggesting this is the OPs concern) is making ***all*** of the achievements achievable by all. There should be some that cannot be achieved. Making them all achievable by all levels of skill diminishes the 'value' of some of the titles and some of the achievements.

>

 

A valid point, but the meta-achievement should be manageable for a large section of the playerbase, and give that there's likely a large overlap between the players that can't manage a perfect race run and those that can't finish the JP reliably (either due to reflexes or high ping), and you need att least one of them...

[Danikat.8537]

> @"Tiscan.8345" said:

> > @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > I think the concern (not suggesting this is the OPs concern) is making ***all*** of the achievements achievable by all. There should be some that cannot be achieved. Making them all achievable by all levels of skill diminishes the 'value' of some of the titles and some of the achievements.

> >

> > I do not pretend to believe that there are some that people can't do currently, but keeping some of them at a 25-50% achievable level would be a welcome change.

>

> Fun-Fact:

>

>

 

That's interesting.

 

I'd be interested to know how Anet reached this decision. They can see a lot more information than we can, and maybe they had some kind of internal 'target' like by the end of Halloween 50% of people who attempted the race should have gotten the achievement (random number, not a comment on how easy/hard I think it should be) and could tell we'd never get close to that with the old time.

 

Or maybe it was a more in-depth analysis. I once read that the developers of an FPS game noticed that the vast majority of people who did not get a kill in their first ever PvP match never tried PvP ever again - so they gave people entering their first match an invisible buff which made it easier to get a kill, which shut off as soon as you got one. Apparently no one noticed the first kill was always easier and it lead to many more people being willing to keep playing PvP. I could imagine something similar here - large number of people practised until they got under 1:30 but then got discouraged that they couldn't hit 1:05 and gave up.

 

Or maybe it was a random number picked largely on impulse, or the people who made it wanted it to be hard and someone more senior said "come on guys, it's a festival, it's supposed to be a bit of fun!" and over-ruled them.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

> @"Dante.1763" said:

> > @"theory.3580" said:

> > I understand that many people were having trouble with the new achievement, and this patch was meant to address their concerns. However, for many people, a lot of the enjoyment of playing games comes from the sense of mastery and accomplishment from overcoming something difficult. I practiced for hours and finally got 3 runs under 60 seconds for the Annual Mad Drifter achievement this morning, and it made my day.

> >

> > Instead of removing difficult achievements in the future, can they please just be made non-required for their respective meta-achievements? That way everyone wins and no one suffers. People who are having trouble and want a relaxed fun experience can just skip the achievements that are too hard for them, and people who enjoy a challenge have an optional and enjoyable extra achievement to work towards.

> >

> > Please don't ignore the enjoyment of players that enjoy a challenge to defuse players who want relaxed fun. Both groups of us are people who just want to enjoy this amazing game. Thank you for your time.

>

> Unfortunately for this achievement in particular(and not that this is the primary reason for the change, probably only a small part), but the Beetle mount is bugged for a number of players preventing any kind of drifting, and using other mounts in the race to get less than a minute is physically not possible. On top of that the race track as was noted repeatedly in the official feedback thread was awful when it came to interacting with the beetles hitbox adding an artificial and not needed challenge. While it comes to actually challenging content like the queens gauntlet i do not believe races, activities, or adventures should be nearly impossible for a large portion of the games population.

>

> While it would be nice if they did detach achievements like this from the meta, ive noticed they want players to do all the achievements for the holiday metas.

 

I haven't heard anyone having bugs that prevent the use of the beetle's abilities, but I've seen a lot of people suffering from inconsistent behaviors that keep them from using them like the other players.

 

The mount is supposed to drift if you have the appropriate speed. Speed can be seen thanks to the trail the mount leaves behind.

Blue is too slow. Purple and red are fast enough to drift. And drifting doesn't work either right after a boost when the trail is thicker.

While holding the drift button, you reorient the mount, then release the button, and the movement direction quickly changes to the new one in about 1s, while you maintain most the sped while changing the direction. The speed lost is converted into endurance after a recent change.

Pressing backwards (W) is also supposed to slow down the mount.

 

But for some people things are just not happening the way they re supposed to.

After testing in several maps, the issues are made much more clear. Some people can't get it to drift like the rest even if they try to compensate (eg.: press the button, turn and release earlier). For some people the mount doesn't seem to react as it should to the drift. The beam trail is fading purple so it isn't too fast, the drift key is pressed, the mount is correctly facing the new direction, they release the key, and it keeps sliding in the same direction instead reorienting itself. This doesn't seem to be caused by latency issues as it's happening to people under 50ms.

For others drifting slows down the mount too much, often up to a halt, and that should not happen if the turning was for less than 180 degress and the drift key was quickly released right before facing the new direction. This is intermittent and happens a lot for some people, sporadically to others, or never at all if one's lucky.

For others W won't slow down the mount properly, making it wobble about or just outright stop way too fast, even when lightly tapping the key.

 

In the training beetle race these problems are inconsequential because the path has so much leeway that the beetle doesn't really have to drift or slowdown. There's no extremely sharp U turns that need to be done other than the 90 degree turn at the start, and even if there was, the path leaves a wide berth to compensate. People can do them and get extremely short times, or not and still get gold.

 

But in the Mad King's race, the path has very narrow bottleneck spots that exacerbate the issues. For someone having these issues, what would be a barely noticeable loss of 1-2s in the Kournan race becomes a loss of 5-7 trying to get back to the race or waiting for endurance to recover after a dismount.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"smiling.9028" said:

> I challenge ANY dev including the one who established the 1 minute time to do this race in 1 minute on a DSL connection. Not all of us play on a 1gbs+ connection and without it there's no chance.

 

No need to exaggerate the type of connection needed. It could have been done on 25mbps. It could be done on less most likely but I don’t know anyone that has a connection like that.

 

What would matter more is the quality of connection between you and the server. Having a higher number isn’t always better and could instead be a waste.

 

Edit: Just did a quick search online and saw multiple sources state you only need around 3-6mbps for gaming.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is whether your router and/or WiFi can even handle the higher speeds too.

 

So if you were having issues with this race/trial, I suggest look at something other than connection speed.

[DragoonPrincess.3620]

This is such a weird thing to get riled up about on the forums.

 

The jumping puzzle is a pain but manageable with practice, (There is a video of a literal 5 year old doing it) but the mad drifter is a true pain. I spent hours trying to figure out why my drifting is so inconsistent. It was simply a bad design.

I'm tired of this notion Anet not given you a little pop up saying 'Good Job!' somehow diminishes your sense of achievement. There are leaderboards regardless so if you manage to get a crazy good time.

 

I'll just quote above:

> @"DiabolicalHamSandwich.8756" said:

> Then go for the mastery and accomplishment time? Last I checked, you're not magically unable to try for it. Sounds less about your achievement, and more about you wanting to feel special.

 

 

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @"Tiscan.8345" said:

> > @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > I think the concern (not suggesting this is the OPs concern) is making ***all*** of the achievements achievable by all. There should be some that cannot be achieved. Making them all achievable by all levels of skill diminishes the 'value' of some of the titles and some of the achievements.

> >

> > I do not pretend to believe that there are some that people can't do currently, but keeping some of them at a 25-50% achievable level would be a welcome change.

>

> Fun-Fact:

>

>

 

And the course was out for how many days? And how many of those accounts tried it?

 

At this point, it's moot. The course difficulty has been dropped.

 

I also wasn't saying this particular achievement shouldn't have its difficulty reduced. More that not every achievement should be achievable by everyone.

[Zeefa.3915]

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> I also wasn't saying this particular achievement shouldn't have its difficulty reduced. More that not every achievement should be achievable by everyone.

 

I can very much assure you that not every achievement is achieveable by all. There is many achievements out there I can't ever get and some that would cause me much frustration to reach... and I don't really like to get too frustrated when playing a game... at least not for too long.

 

 

[Urud.4925]

> @"Myrdreth.6829" said:

> > @"DanAlcedo.3281" said:

> > You dont even need to do the „Under 60 seconds“ AP !!!! For the big 50 AP. You only need 9/10. Why are people complaining about something they dont even need to do???

>

> Because some people are already struggling with the JP!

 

THIIIIIS ^ :)

I'm wasting so many hours on this ~~crazy~~ mad JP. Yesterday, before the patch, I completed the raceway with 1:00.120 seconds and it was credited for the achievement (maybe because I actually started the race a bit earlier than when I pressed "Play"). Now it's a walk in the park, especially if compared to that JP :/

The jumps are not difficult, but it would be cool to slow down a bit that green miasma of a couple of seconds. Anyway, I don't want to reduce the efforts of the people who already made it to the top.

[Cyfur.3281]

I was able to get the achievement with the jackal and the adrenaline mastery. Was actually pretty easy with that for me at least. Havent tried the beetle at all. Anyways hope that helps.