This weekend I got back on the main story quest for End of Dragons. I am not sure why I ultimately bail at times and have trouble following the main story thread, but it is definitely a thing. At least in the case of End of Dragons and Guild Wars 2, there are times when I know a major fight is about to happen which causes me to pause. I know from experience that no fight in Guild Wars 2 plays out quickly, and often times they last about two to three times longer than I feel like they should for a story mission. The end result is that I put off doing them, and return to my regularly scheduled nonsense. Then weeks if not months pass before returning to actually following that main story thread. I have this weird fear of being committed to doing something for an unknown period of time, that I cannot easily bail out of without forcing myself to do everything from the start. If you could restart story missions from the last checkpoint… this would probably alleviate my fears.
One cool thing that happened while questing my way across Echovald Wilds, is that I got to experience the zone meta event. Fighting this giant jade golem/mech thing was really fun and I liked the fact that the encounter moved to different locations. I greatly appreciate the new visualization mechanic of showing arrows in the direction that the entire party is supposed to go in. Older fights honestly could benefit from this, so it would be lovely if they shoehorned that into other encounters. I am specifically thinking of something like Tequatl with four points that need to be guarded, or Triple Trouble where there are three different worms in three different locations that need to be fought. Granted you can just do the tried and true “follow the mass of people” but I do appreciate having some indication of what to do.
As far as the final encounter of the expansion goes… it felt phenomenally epic but was also at times VERY busy. It was about as frenetic as I could possibly handle without just feeling overloaded by it. When it was over… I was thankful because honestly there was a little too much going on for me and I felt deeply overstimulated. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool as hell… but as someone who generally goes for maximalism, this was a bit much. It played out in a way that I more or less expected it to play out, which had a required amount of time associated with it and hoops to jump through… but it was a little overwhelming. I am honestly concerned about what this encounter looks like when you had in about sixty other players.
I guess I now need to join the vast numbers trying to get a turtle mount. I need to read up on the frequency of when the zone meta plays out and figure out a time that I can start doing it on a daily basis. I want my siege turtle because they are really cool looking, but also super handy for any sort of objective that requires breaking an obstacle. Then again I also need to buckle down and devote time and effort to finishing up my Skyscale and Griffon mounts as well, and sort out where to even begin my Rollerbeetle. I like that these long grinds exist, but I do find it hard to get excited over doing them. Now that I am done with the story and all caught up, however, I think it might actually give me the drive to start filling in the missing pieces.
As far as the story goes it was excellent. For me at least, each expansion has gotten better than the last… minus the bullshit with the dragon response missions. The problem with End of Dragons is that we are dumped off in a similar position to that of Final Fantasy XIV. In both cases, a decade-long journey has come to a close and for the most part, there is no obvious path forward. I will be interested to see where the Guild Wars 2 team goes from here now that the dragon magic crisis has been resolved. I have to admit there were moments in the epilogue that I teared up a little after reaching what was a pretty obvious point of conclusion for certain character arcs. I am very ready for the next expansion whenever it lands, and also deeply looking forward to the second part of Season 1 when it comes out in a few days.
Hey Friends! This morning is going to be a bit of a random mix of things because that is sort of where my brain is. There are times when I find myself juggling a number of threads and I appear to be going through one of those right now. Meet my big jade friend! I finished collecting the hero points needed to turn my fresh level 80 Engineer into a Mechanist. I’ve yet to do much of anything with it yet, but I am happy to have my robot friend. I’ve been utilizing a mechanic in World vs World to collect Hero Points for the classes that I am not actively playing.
As a result of my frequent participation, I get Skirmish Chests and one of the items that you can receive from them is Testimonies of Jade Heroics when then can be used to buy Notarized Scrolls of Maguuma Heroics allowing me to largely skip the hero points from Heart of Thorns which are all annoying. Granted I can do the same thing for Tyria, Path of Fire, and End of Dragons heroics, but I actually like doing those. This is how I have unlocked Bladesworn, Chronomancer, and now Mechanist so it is actually a fairly quick process if you are doing a good deal of WvW. The next target is probably unlocking DragonHunter on my Guardian.
In other news, I am closing in on having a full stable of professions at level 80 in Guild Wars 2. Here is a mildly modified image showing that I have everything but the Thief up to level 80. Granted I have cheesed some of these and abused the birthday rewards to push them up to level 60 before going the rest of the way. The longer-term battle however is unlocking heroic points on each of them and figuring out a viable build to go for, and then gearing them all. Right now Warrior, Ranger, and Necromancer are pretty solid, and Engineer is slowly getting there. Everyone else… I am all over the place but I am starting to click the pieces into place on the Mesmer now that I have Chronomancer unlocked.
In Other Other News… The Housing Lottery system in Final Fantasy XIV should be rolling once again based on this post from 5/13. Granted I still cannot do anything related to it, because I have to wait around until May 26th at 8 am PDT in order for this first round to be finalized. I’ve had my character parked at the plot that I am interested in over in The Mists since this all started, and at that point, I am going to be putting my bid in place and trying for the one I like the best. I am trying not to get my hopes up because housing, in general, has been a giant clusterfuck, to be honest. The lottery will be a better clusterfuck, but it is still going to be one nonetheless. The biggest problem with housing is that I am also going to be chaining myself to logging regularly so I make sure that I keep it. I do need to figure out a reasonable way to weave this game back into my rotation, however.
In my recent dabbling around in New World again, I decided to give Outpost Rush a try. I figured that maybe something flipped in my brain to make me like PVP given that I am doing quite a bit of it in Guild Wars 2. Nope… whatever indoctrination that has taken place does not appear to universally apply to all games and Outpost Rush still feels awful. In spite of all of the improvements made to New World, I have to say that the core problem with the game now resides in the generally awful PVP-focused community. I think it is probably too little too late to ever turn this game around, given that they ran off most of their PVE-focused players last year. Chat on Valhalla is better than it was on Minda, but it is still filled with the same jackasses… just in smaller numbers. It is especially shocking coming from Guild Wars 2 which is pretty great so long as you avoid the Goons.
Another thing that I have noticed in coming back is that many of the rarer resources have plummeted in value. I am not sure if I talked about this the other day but Void Ore used to be the single most valuable chase item and would go for upwards of 10k gold each. Now you can pick them up for 150 gold without much issue, and after opening a few professional aptitude caches I understand why. Essentially every third of a level after maxing a profession, you get awarded a cache of materials… and these are chock full of those orange rarity items. I took a screenshot of an example where I got 3 vials of azoth (used to go for 200g each, now 5g each), 8 of legendary cloth Blisterweave, and 6 of the other legendary cloth Scalecloth. I believe each of those used to go for around 2k gold on my original server, and now I am sure they are peanuts given how much the game is throwing at you.
Like I said before right now it is shaping up that the community is the worst part of the game. While chat is calm most of the time, you are constantly seeing nonsense like this scroll past. The Edgelord energy is strong in this community. It is fine, but it is essentially the sort of thing that I would make sure anyone asking me about the game receives a hefty disclaimer. I have a few things that I want to do… just not sure if I will actually do them. I always wanted a set of Voidbent Armor and I might finish leveling my Armoring up to make that. I also always wanted to make one of the legendary hatchets, and I might spend the time to finish leveling up engineering to make one of those as well. Past that, I am not sure how long I will be back. Harvesting is still fun and moment-to-moment open world gameplay is still fun… but it also largely feels pointless given that you can’t really use it to acquire gear score improvements other than the daily gypsum orbs. I saw someone talking about the Priest farm in Myrkgard last night, so I might need to wade in deep enough to see if those are still viable.
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One of the challenges of being an adult and playing an MMORPG is that from time to time I have to step away from the screen, and because of the online nature there is no “pause” feature. I cannot count the number of times I have needed to step away to deal with some crisis, only to return dead and need to resurrect and find my way back to whatever it was that I was doing. “Hang on, I need to get to a save space” is probably something that my wife is exceptionally tired of hearing. Guild Wars 2 however has a feature that I wish EVERY MMORPG had, and that is a way to teleport quickly to someplace safe… and then return to exactly where you were in the normal game so you can return to whatever it was that you were doing.
The thing is… this isn’t just a paid feature available only from premium VIP passes, but something you can do with the base features easily. This morning I am going to talk a bit about each of the ways that you can teleport out of the action to hit a bank or vendor, and then rapidly teleport back to where you were in the world.
PVP Lobby – Heart of the Mists
Heart of the Mists is a zone that you can enter while waiting on a PVP Match to start, and also allows you access to your PVP-only gear profiles and build information. It can also be used as a rapid method of getting to a bank, vendor, trading post, or even getting a free teleport to Lion’s Arch. The coolest part about this is that I believe it is available at level one, and exiting this area through the PVP menu will teleport you right back to where you left the world so long as it is someplace still accessible. If you teleport while in the middle of a story instance, it will teleport you back to wherever you started that story instance.
WvW Lobby – Edge of the Mists
Calling Edge of the Mists this a lobby is a bit of a lie, but when you first teleport into it you are placed in a safe space where no players can harm you. This is nowhere near as feature-rich as Heart of the Mists as there is no bank access, but you can still teleport to Lion’s Arch and still have the functionality to return to the last location in Tyria.
Guild Hall – Location and Amenities Vary
There are currently four different guild halls that are available to players, with two located in Maguma, one in the Crystal Desert, and then one in Cantha. The Cantha guild hall called the Isle of Reflection is the one pictured above. They all function effectively the same and if you exit the guild hall via the guild interface, it will take you right back to where you were last located in Tyria. What you have access to in a given guild hall is wildly dependent upon how much of the restoration process your guild has completed. At the bare minimum however you should have access to vendors and can access your bank through the scribe station crafting machine. Using this as your fast escape to safety has the side benefit of maybe letting you bump into other members of your guild.
VIP Lounge Passes
There are a number of VIP lounge areas that are scattered around the world which require some sort of access pass in order to enter them. The passes come in two variants: a two-week pass and a permanent access pass. You can get some of the two-week passes by playing the game, but the permanent ones are generally only available on the Black Lion Store and cost 1000 gems each. While there are currently ten available in the game, there are only three that can function as a way to return to the spot you were last at in Tyria, and as such there are only three that really matter.
I personally spend most of my time in Mistlock Sanctuary which is pictured above, and generally speaking, is almost always full of players doing whatever business they need. Essentially it is a complete replacement for all of the amenities that you might need from Lion’s Arch. If I need to use the Mystic Forge or do some Crafting… I teleport to Mistlock and then can immediately return to whatever I was doing previously. Since so many people in our guild have Mistlock it also doubles as a sort of unofficial guild hall. I have this pass sitting in my shared account inventory which gives me easy access to it from any character.
If you do not have the gems to spend on a Mistlock pass, or it is currently not available on the market (which happens regularly as they rotate them out), then probably my favorite of the other options is the PVP lobby. Once you unlock the portals you can teleport quickly to the market area and do whatever business you might need to do before returning to the world. Sadly none of the free options have crafting machines, but it at least will give you a way to “pause” the game and go someplace safe whenever you need to unexpectedly afk. I wish EVERY game had something like this. Most games have the ability to teleport somehow, but it also means that when you come back to the screen… you will have to go through some level of nonsense to get back to where you were. This is quick and convenient and I love it so much.
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Good Morning Friends! I’ve not put a ton of effort into it but as I get time I have been collecting cats for my home instance, and I noticed in Rata Sum one of them has started hanging out with this random Asura on the roof. I think this is pretty freaking cute and that you all needed this in your lives. There are times when I question who the hell I am anymore. Firstly for so many years I was diametrically opposed to Guild Wars 2, or at the very least I did not understand what people saw in the game. For even longer I have been one of the most anti-PVP people I know in my circle… and what am I doing now? I am dabbling in PVP in Guild Wars 2, and enjoying myself. I legitimately am wondering if I need to find an exorcist.
It all started simple enough with Thalen repeatedly making the comment that we need to find someone into PVP so we can get the reward potions for the guild hall upgrades. At that point, I had been enjoying World vs World in the game for a while, and it planted a thought in my brain. If I can enjoy this game mode where I spend most of my time dead and running back… maybe I can actually enjoy the structured PVP in Guild Wars 2. One of the things that I enjoyed about the siege combat of the battlegrounds is that there really is no negative to it. The deaths don’t incur a cost, and almost any amount of time spent there is rewarding so it is pretty much a win/win situation. Lately, I have been using the rewards tracks to farm up Mystic Clovers, and my extreme need for them also planted the idea of maybe doing the Drizzlewood track in PVP as well.
So for the last several days, I have been on this weird mission to farm as many PVP potions as I could. This has more or less meant doing three of the four PVP dailies each day, with the fourth being inaccessible because I have no interest in joining a tournament and waiting around for it to start. Through sheer happenstance, I have landed on my Ranger as my WvW character and my fledgling Engineer as my PVP character. So each day at reset I do Tequatl, then pop over to Belglory my Engineer and knock out my PVP dailies, then finally land on my Ranger for some WvW dailies. The end result is that on an average day I am knocking out all but two of my dailies in total. Depending on how fast I get through all of this I often end up working on leveling the Engineer that is now I believe 73.
So far in my travels, I have encountered two different modes of play for PVP, the first of which being Stronghold. As far as I can tell there is only one map here called Battle of Champion’s Dusk, with the layout shown above. This is essentially a highly condensed version of Summoner’s Rift from League of Legends, with your objective being to break into the enemy fort at the end of your lane and kill the “Lord”. This is done by summoning “creeps” to borrow the LoL parlance, which travel down the lane and bombs the fortified door. These are summoned through collecting supplies that spawn in the center of the map and are a contested resource. Additionally, there are trebuchets on both sides that are constantly attacking the door, and players can disable these to slow down the progress of the enemy team. It is a perfectly cromulent game mode, but it is far from my favorite.
The mode I would far rather play is Conquest, which is essentially this game’s version of capture the flag or as I am most used to it Control from Destiny 2. There are three objectives that can be held by moving your team members into the circle and waiting for it to capture. Each objective you hold contributes points to your score and the first team to 500 points wins. Each map in the rotation also has some sort of a secondary objective that might be taking down NPCs that spawn at regular intervals for bonus points, or pushing through to an objective and channeling an orb to capture it for your team. I am not sure what it is about this mode but it feels much more simple and as a result more enjoyable. It seems to be way more flexible for random players, whereas Stronghold feels like it needs a fixed strategy and core teamwork. I may also be biased because my dumb turrets build seems to work swimmingly in Conquest and mostly fails in Stronghold.
Friends… I still have no clue who the hell I am anymore. I am championing a game that I resigned from the alpha testing for because I thought it felt awful. Now I am playing a game mode that I have traditionally railed against for breeding toxic players. I mean sure I have run into a few knobs so far in PVP and WvW but for the most part, everyone has been damned chill. I am certain that the toxicity exists, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to just follow along and do some content. I did run into a commander the other night that was kicking anyone who would not join his Discord, so there was that. However, that has seemingly been the massive exception as opposed to being the norm. With my Necro, I mostly enjoyed taking camps, but with the Ranger, I find I am actually enjoying objective defense.
We need literally multiple hundred PVP potions for upgrades, so I am trying to ignore this and keep plugging away at it. We knocked out several of the other objectives in a similar faction by just contributing a little bit each day, so I figure slow and steady here will also win the race. I think more than anything that is the thing I am enjoying about Guild Wars 2. Progress is measured in weeks and months rather than days… which makes it feel not so crushing when you can’t do a certain thing on a specific day. All of the gearing objectives are working towards a long-tailed objective that isn’t also moving further away from me. Eventually, I will have Legendary items in the game, but I am also in no real rush to get there either, and not having them is not adversely impacting my enjoyment. So far at least it feels like pretty much everything is doable in a good set of starter exotics.
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