Diablo

A Fog is Lifting

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Apologies for the quiet around here in recent weeks. I was in the grip of a very strong introvert phase where I just wanted to hide from the world, and just as that started to abate I had to travel for work and was without any (non-mobile) video games for a while. Woe. My isolationist fog has mostly lifted now, though, and I’ve been bouncing around between multiple games to try to carve out a new direction for myself.

Taking a break from a MMO usually means spending way too much time figuring out wtf happened to your inventory and quest log when you return and this time was no different. I wrestled with my very large number of alts in WoW for a few days and mostly got everyone back into usable shape. I’m just not sure what exactly they will be usable for. I’ve made some plans to level on a new server to join a casual raid group with friends, but my main activity in WoW right now seems to be logging on to 1000 alts and making gold from their garrisons. I have a horrible compulsion to do this even though I am actively thinking “this is boring and awful and I want to be doing literally anything else right now” the whole time. The problem is that I know this cash cow is almost certainly going away soon, so I feel like I need to take advantage of it while I can. At this stage I’m sitting on 5 or 6 months worth of WoW token game time, far more than I had planned for. Somehow I need to let go of the notion that I have to maximize profits every day and just play for fun or I’m going to need to step away from WoW for a few months to recharge. As maddening as it will be to lose this revenue stream, I will honestly be thankful when these missions finally get nerfed and I don’t feel like I have to compulsively deal with 12 garrisons twice a day every day.

While my WoW interest is fading, my WildStar fervor has been renewed. My bag space was far worse after my short hiatus, but easier to fix since I only have 3 max level toons. I’ve decided to take advantage of the new PvP changes and flag myself while doing my dailies and it has been pretty rewarding. The few times I’ve run across a flagged Dommie we peacefully went our own ways without getting into any trouble. I’m sure once the PvP servers merge with us there will be more peril but for now it has been really great. I never imagined that I’d play a MMO and happily flag myself for PvP out in the world. Major kudos to Carbine for giving useful rewards and making the threat of imminent doom worth it! Now I just need to decide if I’m going to try to chase a few pieces of the PvP seasonal cosmetic gear, or if I’m going to focus on PvE goals for a while instead.

Finally I stopped briefly back into D3 for a few hours. Again, my inventory is a giant mess. I think at some point I was running with friends and just throwing every legendary into a stash tab to sort out later…but then never sorted it or got rid of anything. At some point I need to go through everything and try to return it to some semblance of order, but for now I just want to get back into the swing of things. I’ve officially completed all of my goals for the season! My add-on goal is to try to unlock the extra stash tab, but that requires a lot of extra effort and will definitely need some help from friends. I did manage to complete solo GR61 which is a personal best, so this season is a success whether I get that extra bank space or not. Maybe it is better if I don’t get it, that just means even more junk to sort through the next time I take a break…


A Fog is Lifting

D3: The Benefits of Friends

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Time for an update on my D3 Season 5 progress. I feel like I’ve been flying though things this season.
1.    Hit level 70 on Friday night. Done!
2.    Complete the Seasonal Journey for the pet by the end of the weekend. Done!
3.    Reach solo greater rift 50. (My best last season was 45). At 46 now.
4.    Reach paragon level 400. (Last season I hit around 350). Done!
5.    Complete greater rift 30 with 2, 3, and 4 players. Done!
6.    Bonus goals: Reach level 70 on a hardcore wizard or complete at least one set dungeon on a witchdoctor. Still waiting on this one. I should really level a gem of ease I guess.

As you can see, I’m quite close to being finished with my goals, and we’re only a couple weeks into the season. How did this happen? I have been playing about the same amount I did last season. The big difference this time around is that I’ve spent a lot more time grouped up with friends. Even though grouping up can be a bit more stressful for me, the benefits are pretty obvious. The drops are better, everything goes much faster, and I can tackle higher difficulties than I could on my own.

This isn’t really new information. I’ve always known that grouping up in this game is way more lucrative. This is the first time I’ve had enough experience with it to really appreciate it though. As someone who still prefers playing solo it is a little overwhelming. And now we get to my next issue: the seasonal journey. Last season I got through the Champion rank, and last night I achieved this again for season 5. There are some parts that expressly have to be done solo, but I found that many of the goals were met easily during passive group play. I’m not sure whether to feel happy that I didn’t have to worry about them, or to feel robbed of any feeling of accomplishment. For now I think I’ll err on the side of being happy, because some of the upcoming goals are still going to be a real struggle for me.

You see I’ve decided to try to go for the extra stash tab you can unlock this season. It is locked up near the end of the season’s journey, behind things like “complete 2 conquests” and “solo greater rift level 60”, the kind of stuff I never even wanted to attempt in previous seasons. To be honest, I don’t really want to attempt it now. Trying to meet these goals feels way beyond my normal relaxed playstyle for D3. I’m afraid I might never be able to complete this, certainly not without help. I am nervous that I might not have a chance to knock out some goals that would be easier in a group before my friends lose interest in the game and move on. Mostly I feel resentful that something as desirable and useful as an extra stash tab is locked so high up the seasonal ladder.

I understand that a lot of people who play this game are more hardcore than me, but I always liked that in previous seasons the rewards for completing the higher levels of the journey were all cosmetic. You could push yourself as far as you wanted to but also feel comfortable stopping when you’ve had enough without feeling like you were missing out on something important. I’ve been playing Diablo 3 semi-regularly since it launched and have never even come close to achieving most of the things that are required to unlock the stash tab this season. Maybe that means I’m a terrible player and I’m ok with that because I’ve enjoyed the hell out of all the time I’ve spent with this game. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that pushing myself past my comfort zone to try to get some more room to throw my excess legendaries doesn’t end up souring this season for me. Hopefully I’ll still have good friends around for a while to help me along the way.


D3: The Benefits of Friends

That Feeling of Missing Out

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When you play with a group of friends sometimes the stars align and you all get excited about one game that everyone enjoys. Most of the time, though, everyone is checking out multiple different games, and occasionally tries to gather everyone to try something they thought was fun.

That Feeling of Missing OutI’m in this situation now where most of my friends are playing Warframe together. They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves, and what little of the game I’ve poked at looked ok to me. Meanwhile I’m still excited about Diablo 3 season 5. This puts me in a tricky position. Do I drop D3 for a while and play with them? Or do I keep playing the game I’m excited about, but miss out on fun times with my friends? I’ve seen this pattern happen often enough to know that it probably won’t be too long before some or all of them get distracted by other games and drift off to do their own thing for a while, so it makes sense to try to hop on the bandwagon and play together when everyone is in the same place. From what  I’ve played last weekend I enjoyed Warframe fine, but it didn’t exactly grab me and pull me in. The allure is more about playing with friends than playing that particular game.

It doesn’t help that my introverted nature makes group play a weird thing for me. I crave it, I really do want to hang out with friends and spend time together. However, it also tires me out much more quickly than playing alone, and I often get that urge to “hide” in solo games for a while if I overdo it. In a weird way MMOs are actually good for me because there’s often solo tasks like farming supplies that need to be done, and group activities like raiding are usually scheduled just a couple times a week. Games, even ones like D3, that are “better” or more rewarding if you are always grouped are the ones that tend to burn me out more quickly unless I am good about enforcing some “me time”.

Anyway I’m still torn between playing with my friends and playing the game I want to play. The biggest time this happened to me was with WildStar, when I watched people go back to WoW or other MMOs and I stayed behind with the game I loved. I don’t regret that at all, but it is still sad to see your friends having fun times without you and hard to seek out new social circles. Maybe this weekend I’ll give Warframe another shot and try out its group play. But I still want to make D3 my focus until I meet more of my goals for the season.


That Feeling of Missing Out

Season 5: Record Burnout?

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Maybe the title is a little hyperbolic, but I guess time will tell. I had a blast on Friday night. I logged into Diablo 3 and voice chat a little before the season start time and got a group of 4 friends together. We had a few minutes of annoyance when the season began, creating or rebirth-ing characters was very slow and booted us from the game. Fortunately this only cost us about 5 minutes or so. After that we were up and running.

We decided to do bounties together to level. The first few levels where we didn’t have full skills and such were a little slow, but after that we were flying. Over the course of the evening we had a couple people tag in and out of our party, and after about 5 hours it was down to just me and one other friend. I absolutely wanted to get to 70 on the first night, and I’m happy to say that I made it easily. Then, because we had momentum going, we worked on a few of the seasonal achievements to unlock our free class sets. It took me 2 tries to get the level 20 greater rift done because my gear was so bad, but eventually I got it and headed to bed with my 6-piece set bonus in place.

I think that amount of focused play combined with actually playing with other people the whole time did burn me out a bit. For the rest of the weekend I found myself avoiding D3 or setting my status to “busy” so I could unwind alone for a bit. It isn’t that I’m burned out on the game, more that my introverted nature means I need solo time to recharge. I did make some good progress though. I’m now sitting around paragon level 180, and have completed the seasonal journey and received my cute new pet. I’m going to keep putting some time in and hunt for the items I still need to complete my build. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to really push greater rifts.

The leveling this season felt a little faster than normal for me, probably because I spent the whole time grouped up. Even more than that though, the gearing has felt super fast since you get handed a full set almost immediately. Looking through my bags, I still don’t have a full 6 piece of any other set yet, so in a previous season I’d still be hunting for that and probably struggling a bit. Instead I’m comfortably running on T7 and can pay more attention to things like leveling up my legendary gems instead of stressing about getting a set finished. I’m missing 3-4 items still for my build, but they are more helpful than critical so I don’t feel broken without them. I expect to get a huge boost to survivability once I finally get everything in place.

So how am I doing on my goals for this season so far?

  1. Hit level 70 on Friday night. Done!
  2. Complete the Seasonal Journey for the pet by the end of the weekend. Done!
  3. Reach solo greater rift 50. (My best last season was 45). At 34 so far and there’s plenty of time!
  4. Reach paragon level 400. (Last season I hit around 350). 180 and counting
  5. Complete greater rift 30 with 2, 3, and 4 players. I want to do this soon while people are still active.
  6. Bonus goals: Reach level 70 on a hardcore wizard or complete at least one set dungeon on a witchdoctor. I made a witchdoctor but I don’t want to level her until I’ve completed most of my other goals.

I think I’ve learned that I need to pace myself on group play. A few hours a week is fun but too much makes me want to delete my battlenet friends list and hide. I am making great progress toward my seasonal goals though, and had a lot of fun playing with folks this weekend. Next time around I just need to avoid 10 straight hours of group play…


Season 5: Record Burnout?