- Dig locations in World 1 seem to have been nerfed, yielding only chests containing 5 or 20 baubles where they used to produce 30 or 40. The ending chest of World 1-1 and 1-2 yielded only a continue coin instead of a Bauble Bubble in normal mode.
- I used up the 5 free continue coins I got in the mail, trying to get through Infantile Mode in World 2.
- Even in that mode, I got a little taste of arbitrary death, what with the accidental slips into rushing rapids (“Help, I’ve fallen and can’t get up!”) and sampling a dart trap sequence on purpose (since presumably some day I might try normal mode.)
- At 0 coins and 0 lives left, near the start of World 2-3, my rainbow ended at a frozen ice wall with an NPC telling me my candle was too weak. A shopkeeper nearby sold a torch for 400 baubles.
I logged out in disgust.
I just couldn’t face the grind tonight.
Grind baubles, grind continue coins, grind for this and that to buy such-and-such and unlock whatever. *sigh*
I lost about 100% magic find from the patch too. So that’s a lot of blues and greens to grind and salvage.
Don’t even talk to me about crafting to 500.
This whole update feels like someone just shifted the goal posts and chucked them a lot further away.
Why I Game 
I’m usually a staunch defender of GW2’s game design. People whine about grind this grind that, I readily point out how in the end none of that gates anything at all in this game. If you don’t enjoy the grind, do you enjoy the game? If you enjoy the game, then the grind won’t stop you from enjoying it!
This is the first real departure from this. You literally have to grind to advance in SAB. It wasn’t completely unexpected, since the developer Josh Foreman pretty much stated that he wanted to bring back the spirit of farming 1-Ups in old-school games. Still, this alienates players who aren’t all gung-ho about this old-school masochistic mindset. I suppose that’s why infantile mode is there, though I won’t comment on that mode until I experience it myself (I’ve been hearing people say it’s hard. HOW?). I also won’t judge the grind too much until I personally experience just how difficult/easy it is, but from the stuff I’ve been reading, it makes me really wary.
Who am I kidding though, I’m going to have a ton of fun spending time farming continue coins while raging in Tribulation mode with my buddies.
-Ursan
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Oh yea, and the fact that they monetized the infinite continue coin is a great annoyance. Not P2W, but it’s still greatly annoying.
-Ursan
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Yeah. I’m really torn about that. I actually want it to save myself a massive grinding headache, but if I buy it, I am supporting a scheme that I personally feel is somewhat P2W-y.
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I actually rescind most of my worries. It’s not that bad at all. I did a speedrun of World 1 in order to stock up baubles/coins. Got around 200 baubles and 9 continue coins. Proceeded to burn through 6 coins in World 2 zones 1-2. Will continue to zone 3 when I get enough baubles tomorrow. At first I was worried about grind-gating, but this is such a benign grind my worries have pretty much melted away.
I’m growing to appreciate it. Lives are actually precious. I still hugely dislike the infinite continue coin. But I’ll probably end up purchasing it to support the SAB.
-Ursan
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Hrm it certainly sounds like they ramped up the unfair level. The continue coins are most worrying too. While I did beat IWBTG (normal mode only) I could freely make use of the save points to retry without having to grind out some lives. I’ll give it a looksee later. Rapids lag is something I ran into before, not looking forward to meeting it again. ;p
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Oh, forgot to ask – do we get to keep all the stuff we bought / found from the first time like bombs and Moto’s Breath?
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Yes, you keep all the stuff. I pity the person who missed SAB the first time, I cannot imagine how much grind they face.
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I was looking forward to jumping into this tonight – now I don’t 😦
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Maybe you’ll have better luck. I’m not a very good jumper and take quite a while to learn patterns.
It’s probably a matter of perspective. I -think- it’ll be here for a month (assuming the related gem store items are timed with the SAB) so nothing has to be completed in a day…
…but it just feels like the zones are too large and long, too filled with brutal life-eating nonsense (probably to get us to pick up the infinite continue coin) and overall time-consuming.
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I wasn’t particularly feeling like playing the SAB (a bit burnt out on gw2 in general but especially the achievement grind) but after reading that long thread on the forums and some blog posts… I’m seriously questioning going in at all. That’s a bit sad given I did enjoy the first incarnation of SAB.
I think the biggest problem with difficulty and all this living story content is the lack of time. We can’t approach these whenever we want, take a few weeks off then tackle it again. We must get things done now or never. I think that’s what’s adding a lot of the stress.
And that continue coin is blatant p2w. Really disappointed about that.
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Oh yeah and I’m totally skipping the crafting to 500 and ascended weapons for now. Prices are far too high for it. So I’m gonna profit off of those who are rushing for it (happily discovered 199 ancient sapling logs in my bank.. sold them for 15.58s each. Kaching! Then went into Orr on two more toons and gathered. :P)
Oh and they’ve somewhat ruined my legendary scepter (hoping they are bugs.. and hoping those won’t take months to fix) so I’m in a bit of a foul mood about this patch. 😛
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