Yeah, it's the funny thing about this game. People who have been playing it all the time forever are obviously out of content and bemoan the fact. But if you're a casual player just coming to the game now (or have been playing off and on since release, like me) it can take *forever* to get through all of the story content in this game, there's so much of it. Especially if, like me, you regularly get sidetracked by events (esp. Tequatl), dailies, gathering, etc.
I'll be interested to see how everyone feels about it. For me, interesting map and intro missions, so so boss, and a really abrupt ending that felt like more of a cliffhanger into S5 than a true conclusion. I guess it was still fun, though.
Just my take, though. I look forward to failing some metas in *spoilers* in the coming weeks and seeing what everyone else thinks!
This is probably a weird opinion, but does anyone else wish that GW2 had a subscription option where they'd just autobill you every month and dump $15 a month worth of gems into your account? I've never had a problem paying for a sub mmo, but something about consciously deciding to buy gems in the moment always gives me pause :?
Rytlock and Logan finally getting full closure on the arc started back in Edge of Destiny
Jory and Kas were absent (Kas annoys me to no end).
Aurene finally getting a voice
Braham's "Praise Joko"
Ugh, one minor complaint that feels major to me: the Skyscale collection subverts spirit shards for those previously at maxed masteries, so now I get no more shards in PoF content until I do the collection, which is absurdly complex compared to any other mount so far. This is really disappointing for me, as I use shards pretty heavily to build out Ascended suits. Ah welll, not a dealbreaker - just crappy design to me. The new mount is not something I'm interested in based on its usefulness in the new zone.
This is probably a weird opinion, but does anyone else wish that GW2 had a subscription option where they'd just autobill you every month and dump $15 a month worth of gems into your account? I've never had a problem paying for a sub mmo, but something about consciously deciding to buy gems in the moment always gives me pause :?
You could buy yourself $15 worth of gems on the first of every month.
Call it a sub, they blow it all on black lion keys, and hate yourself when you get nothing good...
Ugh, one minor complaint that feels major to me: the Skyscale collection subverts spirit shards for those previously at maxed masteries, so now I get no more shards in PoF content until I do the collection, which is absurdly complex compared to any other mount so far. This is really disappointing for me, as I use shards pretty heavily to build out Ascended suits. Ah welll, not a dealbreaker - just crappy design to me. The new mount is not something I'm interested in based on its usefulness in the new zone.
Ugh, one minor complaint that feels major to me: the Skyscale collection subverts spirit shards for those previously at maxed masteries, so now I get no more shards in PoF content until I do the collection, which is absurdly complex compared to any other mount so far. This is really disappointing for me, as I use shards pretty heavily to build out Ascended suits. Ah welll, not a dealbreaker - just crappy design to me. The new mount is not something I'm interested in based on its usefulness in the new zone.
They're aware of this and are going to patch it.
Yes! This is already active I'm hearing. Excellent. It doesn't seem like much for people who've been around a long time, but for new players and even moderately new ones, this is HUGE. Shards are a gate for ascended suits and legos.
Ugh, one minor complaint that feels major to me: the Skyscale collection subverts spirit shards for those previously at maxed masteries, so now I get no more shards in PoF content until I do the collection, which is absurdly complex compared to any other mount so far. This is really disappointing for me, as I use shards pretty heavily to build out Ascended suits. Ah welll, not a dealbreaker - just crappy design to me. The new mount is not something I'm interested in based on its usefulness in the new zone.
They're aware of this and are going to patch it.
I was saying this the other day, but I really wish at 80 you could choose between your xp going towards spirit shards OR an available mastery. It’s a little shitty that you have to max everything out before it’s available to you. I’ve been getting zero useful xp in core tyria for like a year because I have better things to do with my time in game than chase down another 20 core tyria mastery points to finish fractal and legendary masteries I may never use.
Treating the new map as a big, always running Dragon's Stand is really fun. You can always find an event of some kind that you can participate in, you are always collecting keys for later use while using some of those keys for the event you just did. Staying for the whole meta from beginning to end is a little exhausting, but rewarding. Great design! The map's only weakness is that gathering isn't very much fun, but we've got all the other LS maps for that sort of thing (and motes come really easily if you run all the events - I've got 400 already, and I've barely harvested any nodes).
The salt in the meta is already a little embarrassing, though. Be prepared for the worst behavior of players like in Auric Basin and other failable metas, especially during the tri-boss phase. It should even out as the map goes from being overfilled with players learning the meta to more coordinated squads and commanders advising a dedicated zerg. The only way I could see this map tanking utterly is if enough people lose interest to cause the timerless meta to never have enough people to hit it in a coordinated fashion, but I don't see that happening for a while (and its gonna be a loooooong time until new content, so we might as well learn to love it!).
Treating the new map as a big, always running Dragon's Stand is really fun. You can always find an event of some kind that you can participate in, you are always collecting keys for later use while using some of those keys for the event you just did. Staying for the whole meta from beginning to end is a little exhausting, but rewarding. Great design! The map's only weakness is that gathering isn't very much fun, but we've got all the other LS maps for that sort of thing (and motes come really easily if you run all the events - I've got 400 already, and I've barely harvested any nodes).
The salt in the meta is already a little embarrassing, though. Be prepared for the worst behavior of players like in Auric Basin and other failable metas, especially during the tri-boss phase. It should even out as the map goes from being overfilled with players learning the meta to more coordinated squads and commanders advising a dedicated zerg. The only way I could see this map tanking utterly is if enough people lose interest to cause the timerless meta to never have enough people to hit it in a coordinated fashion, but I don't see that happening for a while (and its gonna be a loooooong time until new content, so we might as well learn to love it!).
In many ways, this meta is what everyone's been asking for since... god, ever, basically. It has the complexity and area control based objectives that the HoT maps do, *but* isn't on a locked timer like those, instead being on a rolling timer that people can take at their own pace like Silverwastes. It also has fewer failure modes than any of the HoT maps -- I think the only hard failure state is failing to kill the three bosses within a few seconds of each other (which is what causes salt). If you don't give a shit about following the meta strictly there's plenty to muck around with in terms of just exploring and whatnot. It's also *remarkably* easy to navigate compared to similarly complex maps like Tangled Depths, mostly because ALL THE MASTERIES and ALL THE MOUNTS. It's honestly one of the nicest maps Anet has ever done.
Never had much luck finding the zerg in WvW - maybe try the squad finder at reset time?
Along the same vein, for anyone who's been sitting out on the skyscale, I'd rec getting the first 3 collections done then at least unlocking the elemental parts of the next - because the group fight to open those is gonna be a huge pain in the butt once people already have done it. The rest is fully soloable.
Got up to feeding the Skyscale and looking at a guide someone put together for the whole collection, I think I'm out for now. It's just not that good of a mount for the effort for my everyday use. Other people may find it awesome. In a few months, I may have accidentally collected enough to finish it, which I think was the original intent, and that's plenty for me.
according to Jessica Price, the Aurene made of light in the sky we see in that final cinematic is because the art team went "fuck fuck fuck! we just modeled an ENTIRE ELDER DRAGON! half our team is off on some other fucking project and we don't have time to make another entire elder dragon model! what do we do!? ... ... LENS FLARE!!!!! LENS. FLARE. SO MUCH LENS FLARE. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE TOTAL LACK OF MODEL AND THE FACT THAT ITS JUST A VECTOR GRAPHIC LENNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSS FLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE"
I keep saying I'm going to ignore the Skyscale because it's not worth it and it's not fun, then I keep working on it, and it honestly really is kind of fun. Revisited all those jumping puzzles (except Goemm's - that stinker gets the sausage skip) and up to the saddle now - I still need about 100 currency from Isles, Kourna, and Keep, but I don't think that'll take too long, really. It's nice to see heavy activity in each of those zones. Then it's a tour o' Tyria but otherwise essentially done. Still a pretty rough collection for something I think should be mainline, but it really grew on me (animal raising pun notwithstanding).
And to the comments above
re: our friend's final form design - I think it utterly kicks ass. It is sleek and alien and exudes some serious Big Dragon Energy. To me, that's what I see when I envision "crystal dragon," not just some purple guy with crystal spikes. If it was a last ditch save, they nailed it.
New Leggy trinket (using Skyscale), and buffs to PoF metas!
We'll go on a vision quest together after missions this week! The events which need to be done while using a Memory Essence Encapsulator - so get one crafted!
Skyscale get. I've been spending so much of my gametime doing that the last few weeks that I'm not really sure what my next goal is. It might be time to finally do map completion or give in and begin camping the Rata events in TD for the Astralaria collection. That'll take something like 2 weeks anyway.
Yeah, got the Skyscale. Almost completely unimpressed. It's slow, it's hard to descend, it's ugly, just about the only use it has is getting places which require more precision than the Springer or Griffon. And hovering around being annoying to other players by blocking the sky.
New raid is fun! Definitely the wing 4 of the expansion, each of the fights are easy but mechanically interesting with a lot of the more complicated new engine tricks in Path of Fire on full display - the air djinn pushes you around with lots of jumps via tornados, the earth djinn has lots of platform creation and destruction meaning the shape of the arena is constantly shifting, and Extreme Qadim is basically a giant puzzle fight with the twist that the fight actually gets easier as you go along, so if you can master the first 40% without dying you've basically won.
They've also been fairly lenient on allowing most class breaking mechanics to slip through, allowing just about everyone to feel unique and fun throughout the raid - stacking scourges in particular just destroys the wing outright. They also built a lot of fights to counter a lot of the conventional raid mechanics, tilting the balance in favor of firebrigade comps. That said power chronos and mirages are probably the highest damage dealers in the raid right now, save for Adina where they actually went back and eliminated confusion from doing any damage on that fight.
Overall I'd add this wing to the "raids you wanna check out if you wanna try raiding for the first time" list. It is punishing if you make a mistake, but they're quick resets and a heck of a lot of fun.
Dragon Bash introduced a new guild decoration! It costs 100 jorbreakers, 30 xunlai electrum ingots and 30 deldrimor ingots, making it likely the most expensive guild decoration they've ever released. One of my guilds has it, and the projector is huge - it's basically the holographic projector that they have in the center of Hoelbrak right now. But I don't get it, I see the projector but where's the draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Yeah he basically takes up the entire skybox of the Lost Precipice.
I am way out of the loop with this game. My experience amounts to leveling a Mesmer to 40ish after the initial release. I really enjoyed the game at the time, I just... stopped playing for some reason.
After thinking about renewing my WoW sub, I spun up an Elementalist last night and was surprised at how much I was enjoying myself. I'm a big fan of the combat and open questing systems and it was very easy to slip straight into the world. The thing I'm wondering is... how 'alive' is the early game these days? I don't have a ton of time to put in to the game but I would love to be able to group up with randoms and fight some bosses here and there. Are there going to be people around doing that sort of thing? I'm unlikely to make it to level cap any time soon. I'd love if I could drop in for an hour or two and have some sort of engagement with the world.
Thanks, I probably will give it a go until 20ish at least (at 10 at the moment). Any reason that zones get quieter after 15? I'd be keen to do dungeon-type stuff - is that going to be difficult pre-level-cap?
Posts
Just been trying to rip through LS3 when I’m on.
Yeah, it's the funny thing about this game. People who have been playing it all the time forever are obviously out of content and bemoan the fact. But if you're a casual player just coming to the game now (or have been playing off and on since release, like me) it can take *forever* to get through all of the story content in this game, there's so much of it. Especially if, like me, you regularly get sidetracked by events (esp. Tequatl), dailies, gathering, etc.
I think I’m down to 6 mastery points needed to finish raid masteries, and almost done with LS4.
That said, I’ve made very little progress on my Vipers set for warrior :,(
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Just my take, though. I look forward to failing some metas in *spoilers* in the coming weeks and seeing what everyone else thinks!
MAP'S ACTUALLY REALLY COOL
ENDING IS ACTUALLY REALLY COOL
Not sure where we're going but I'm cautiously back on board, even if I'm still mad at some of Anet's business practices.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
However, I have to stop playing sPvP to progress and that has not been happening often.
I've been going through LWS3 as well. Taimi is the best, something about the way the voice actor delivers her lines is just perfect.
Less "big" story things I liked:
Jory and Kas were absent (Kas annoys me to no end).
Aurene finally getting a voice
Braham's "Praise Joko"
You could buy yourself $15 worth of gems on the first of every month.
Call it a sub, they blow it all on black lion keys, and hate yourself when you get nothing good...
They're aware of this and are going to patch it.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Yes! This is already active I'm hearing. Excellent. It doesn't seem like much for people who've been around a long time, but for new players and even moderately new ones, this is HUGE. Shards are a gate for ascended suits and legos.
I was saying this the other day, but I really wish at 80 you could choose between your xp going towards spirit shards OR an available mastery. It’s a little shitty that you have to max everything out before it’s available to you. I’ve been getting zero useful xp in core tyria for like a year because I have better things to do with my time in game than chase down another 20 core tyria mastery points to finish fractal and legendary masteries I may never use.
No, not that one. This one.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
The salt in the meta is already a little embarrassing, though. Be prepared for the worst behavior of players like in Auric Basin and other failable metas, especially during the tri-boss phase. It should even out as the map goes from being overfilled with players learning the meta to more coordinated squads and commanders advising a dedicated zerg. The only way I could see this map tanking utterly is if enough people lose interest to cause the timerless meta to never have enough people to hit it in a coordinated fashion, but I don't see that happening for a while (and its gonna be a loooooong time until new content, so we might as well learn to love it!).
In many ways, this meta is what everyone's been asking for since... god, ever, basically. It has the complexity and area control based objectives that the HoT maps do, *but* isn't on a locked timer like those, instead being on a rolling timer that people can take at their own pace like Silverwastes. It also has fewer failure modes than any of the HoT maps -- I think the only hard failure state is failing to kill the three bosses within a few seconds of each other (which is what causes salt). If you don't give a shit about following the meta strictly there's plenty to muck around with in terms of just exploring and whatnot. It's also *remarkably* easy to navigate compared to similarly complex maps like Tangled Depths, mostly because ALL THE MASTERIES and ALL THE MOUNTS. It's honestly one of the nicest maps Anet has ever done.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Into Path of Fire!
Apparently she showed up for a bit during episode 2-3 of season 4 in Queensdale to fight the awakened portals
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Along the same vein, for anyone who's been sitting out on the skyscale, I'd rec getting the first 3 collections done then at least unlocking the elemental parts of the next - because the group fight to open those is gonna be a huge pain in the butt once people already have done it. The rest is fully soloable.
but it works! so yay!
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
And to the comments above
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/77925/game-update-notes-may-28-2019#latest
New Leggy trinket (using Skyscale), and buffs to PoF metas!
We'll go on a vision quest together after missions this week! The events which need to be done while using a Memory Essence Encapsulator - so get one crafted!
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Working on new trinket now - Kralkite/Rose dust is insane
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I finally finished LS3 and need a bit mor XP for the last raid mastery to also be done with HoT masteries.
The game is more fun for me to just focus on the lore content and some achievements.
I’ll probably also farm some exotic vipers armor now that we can get it on the bladed and leystone (leyline?) armor sets.
They've also been fairly lenient on allowing most class breaking mechanics to slip through, allowing just about everyone to feel unique and fun throughout the raid - stacking scourges in particular just destroys the wing outright. They also built a lot of fights to counter a lot of the conventional raid mechanics, tilting the balance in favor of firebrigade comps. That said power chronos and mirages are probably the highest damage dealers in the raid right now, save for Adina where they actually went back and eliminated confusion from doing any damage on that fight.
Overall I'd add this wing to the "raids you wanna check out if you wanna try raiding for the first time" list. It is punishing if you make a mistake, but they're quick resets and a heck of a lot of fun.
Yeah he basically takes up the entire skybox of the Lost Precipice.
After thinking about renewing my WoW sub, I spun up an Elementalist last night and was surprised at how much I was enjoying myself. I'm a big fan of the combat and open questing systems and it was very easy to slip straight into the world. The thing I'm wondering is... how 'alive' is the early game these days? I don't have a ton of time to put in to the game but I would love to be able to group up with randoms and fight some bosses here and there. Are there going to be people around doing that sort of thing? I'm unlikely to make it to level cap any time soon. I'd love if I could drop in for an hour or two and have some sort of engagement with the world.
World bosses and meta events happen regularly and most of the will have groups working on them.
I would say give it a shot and see if it stays fun.