Yup, i’m back from my break, and played a bit of Zereth Mortis. It was okay.
But i’ve noticed that since Shadowlands began, they have been putting in these jump puzzles. From the treasures out in revendreth, to the bouncing flowers in Bastion in both WQ and treasure, to it’s latest inclusion that being the ZM’s jump puzzles to their treasures.
I don’t hate the idea of it, just the implementation of it, and i think it’s down to both the design and the controls that makes it… less then desirable for most. If you don’t wish to read all of it, just skip down to where i’ve given my improvements. It does help to understand where i’m coming from.
Before we start, let’s talk about the suggestion a lot of people bought up: covenant switching to venthyr. I did test this on PTR (because i don’t want to lose my progress), and thankfully you are still able to get your reowned back after you switch back even the conduits and such. But 15 minutes lost for 1 treasure is not something you want to be doing, so hence why i don’t consider this a real solution, especially with Rares involved.
I also don’t consider “It’s just optional” a good argument to dismiss this, because you can say that about anything really in the game really. Playing M+ is optional, playing Raids are optional, playing quests are optional, playing the game is optional, living in America is optional. 
Anyways i digress. Let’s proceed. 
Controls:
Now, who here plays Guild Wars 2? I ask you that because if you have, then i won’t need to explain how bad WoW’s jumping controls are in comparison.
If you don’t, Guild Wars 2 Jumping arcs are not committed, meaning you can change coarse while your in the air. And that’s because it was built with platforming in mind. On WoW, you’re committed to your arc and can’t do anything in the air. It’s nothing that adds genuine challenge, especially since Guild War 2 puzzles can be challenging from what i’ve seen. Even with changing jump arcs mid air. (And i don’t want to hear anything about “Realism” in a game with magic, dragons, jack black pandas and a world where death in the atferlife means nothing)
I understand why it’s the case with WoW, but if you’re going to have jump puzzles, you need to seriously improve the jumping in order to make them a fun addition, because just putting them in there wouldn’t work. It would be like if i tried to put a Spyro level in Quake. It would work, but it wouldn’t be fun.
Next one up is class abilities (as well the door of shadows), it needs to be fixed or at least telegraphed to the player that they work before committing to them. Because honestly, half of the times, they just don’t because they require pathing to be connected between where you are and where you want to go. I mean how many times we see a gap between the bridge and tried to skip over it with our class ability like heroic leap, warlock gate and so on, only to get an error? Heck, my grappling hook doesn’t work half the time if i’m standing and looking at the wrong angle.
Thankfully, DH has double jump and another tiny jump with their glide, but why people have to reroll to DH just to get that one treasure?.. 
Design:
…Why spheres?.. that is the worst thing you can use for jump puzzles since spheres don’t exactly have much room for flat surfaces… i mean this engine has a slope limit for the love of crocodile jesus, why use something you’re going to slip and fall when you need to jump on it? I’m trying to get the treasure, not playing a really bad NES platformer.
That and the puzzles don’t seem to be designed with that aforementioned jump arc in mind. That being they don’t give a lot of space for you to clear that landing as well to jump off.
And the class abilities used for them. Now let me emphasize to say, i’m not saying remove them for these jump puzzles… that would make the jump puzzles worse because the challenge now comes of how too basic the controls are to make any real progress without relying on luck. (Not that waiting on a CD for these class abilites and luck were any better tbh) The class abilities as well Door of Shadows and flying isn’t really a fix for these puzzles because A. We know their going to keep making these regardless if we have flying now or not, and B, their aren’t designed with those in mind either… If they are designed with those in mind, in that case, they should’ve been telegraphed more clearly.
Rewards:
This is going to be short because i don’t have much to say, but i mean you think it should be either hard but very rewarding, or easy and not very rewarding. But no, instead we got hard and not very rewarding.
Oh, more of this cosmic cotton candy that i still don’t know about, as well some other currency, a bit of rep and anima? You’re too kind, thank goodness i didn’t get something worthwhile for my trouble, that would be silly… 
/s
Improvements i’ve suggest:
- Better Puzzle design (No more spheres or anything that has a slope limit so darn close to where you need to land that it’s pretty much a pixel)
- Better jumping controls (No more commiting to an arc, control your character mid air ala Guild Wars 2)
- Better Class abilities pathing and design (Fix the general pathing issues and players will be more confident to use them and telegraph to them when to use the said abilities.)
- Better Rewards (Gear for the “easy” ones, Cosmetics and Toys for the “medium” ones, Mounts and Heirlooms for the exceptionally harder ones)