fdsaion
5501
Again, bounties and treks Friday 9EST
Also, in other news, the current Super Adventure Box “jumping puzzle” is set to go away at the end of this month, so get your jumping done. This probably will happen with the next patch, which will have yet another temporary dungeon, along with presumably new items and stuff that will likely not be attainable afterwards.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/april-30-2013/
I got my sole character to level 80 this morning. Unfortunately, in the process, I’ve managed to burn out on the combat. :|
I think I’m just going to finish my last monthly achievement (jumping puzzles) and Super Adventure Box (jumping puzzle), then take a long break.
Hehe, I just hit 80 on my main and had the opposite reaction, I’ve been practicing my moves furiously, gearing up on Exotics, etc.
I’m starting to really love the way I can just travel around the world at random and have a reasonable challenge even in “easy” areas (reasonable given that I am somewhat more powerful than when I was at level). And the “living world” content promises to be something really new and special in the world of MMOs, but something that was there at the inception of the concept (Everquest was supposed to have something like “living world” content, hence an endless quest, not a bunch of “static” quests, as they were initially called. Vanguard was also planned with aspirations to this idea too. But Anet look like they might be able to actually pull it off.)
Feeling quite rich in MMO terms coming up, looking forward to Neverwinter and TESO, but GW2 is still a powerful good game.
Yeah, I think it’s really just that I need to stop doing twelve-hour-long play sessions. I’ve still been playing a bunch, but I’ve also been doing shorter sessions, and I’ve been working on map exploration at lower levels instead of advancing my personal story.
It also helps that I’m getting fat loot from everything I fight now, so the whole “jeez, waypoints are expensive” thing isn’t an issue.
My problem is armor costs. I’m a squishy class anyway (Mesmer) but on top of that I like taking risks and stretching my limits, which means I die a fair bit. Over the years I’ve been getting more into PvP and I’m really enjoying the PvP in this game, and bizarrely (for me) actually want to get better at it.
I remember one of the criticisms when GW2 came out is that it was button-mashy and not complex enough build-wise or playstyle wise. But I’m finding depths to the system - once you actually start to get to know stuff in detail, particularly boons and conditions and combos, you can pull off some flashy things, and there are often cool new fx hidden away for combos too. Also, with a CC heavy class, it’s interesting how when I first started playing, I couldn’t understand how the timings were so short - how could they be useful? Now that I’ve sort of mastered my character a bit, I see that all the timings are functional, because the gameplay is essentially very fast-paced.
I’ve also realized that Traiting your main weapon at least (preferably secondaries too) plus shortening some other key abilities, is sort of the key to the build system, because the timings of things start to line up more with the slot skills and you can really get into a rhythm. But the traited weapons are at X at the latest, so that semi-dictates how far you’ll go with your 20 or 30 point investments.
Tom mentioned this on the front page, but GW2 is getting “the largest balance update ever” today.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-skill-and-trait-changes/
First off, we’ve got a ton of trait changes coming up. Many traits that were less than desirable have been brought up in effectiveness, while others have been shuffled around and merged together to make room for new traits to be introduced. In doing this, we’ve created several new grandmaster traits for quite a few trait lines. For example: elementalists have a new grandmaster Air trait that allows them to recharge their air attunement, necromancers now have access to the burning condition, and warriors will have an option to remove conditions when using burst abilities.
With these changes in mind, we are going to be making a few builds a little harder to achieve due to their extreme effectiveness. Some traits will go up in tier while increasing in potency to promote build variation.
Also, Sky Pirates events start today.
Wolff
5507
Where did they eventually land on the vertical progression stuff with ascended gear?
Fired this up last night for the first time in ages. These MMOs really need to do a better job bringing you back into the world after a long absence. My initial reaction as always with any MMO is to spend the first 30 seconds goggling at all the icons, then figuring out the basic controls once more, then wondering what the hell I was doing 6 months ago and how I should start off again, getting nowhere fast, and reluctantly quitting. It would be great if the game identified that it’d been X months since you logged in, and triggered a NPC to approach you along the lines of “Hi <insert character name>, it’s been a while. Here’s what you missed, and can I help you get back into the swing of things?”
And the sad thing is, GW2 is probably one of the easier ones to get back into due to only having a handful of active skills at a time. Anytime I go back to Rift or LotRO, I’m always completely overwhelmed when I log in my high level characters.
There are Heralds near each entrance to the major cities (at least Lion’s Arch) that will tell you about the current events, and you should have received an in-game mail with more information about any event or dungeon that you’re eligible for. It’s not a full hand hold, but it definitely helps, and most of the events you missed in the interim are no longer available.
Yeah, going back to Guild Wars 2 can be daunting, but it’s waaaaay less daunting than any other MMO. The trick is to just pick your five skills, don’t get bogged down worrying about all that junk in your inventory, and do some heart quests a notch or two under your level. Once I focused on just figuring out five skills, getting back into Guild Wars 2 was as easy as falling off a log.
-Tom, sprawled on the ground next to a log
Ok, I saw the gigantic mail animation when I logged in, scared the crap out of me. I guess I should stop being a ninny, man up and go do some heart quests.
Erm, what’s a heart quest again? And what button do I press to bring up the quest screen? Hold on, there isn’t one is there? I remember now. I think. At least I remember the fire storm spell! I’ll go spam that for a bit until I remember how annoying people find it. :)
Cobra
5513
The official wiki has an page that shows you what content has been added in your absence: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_release
Getting back into GW2 was ridiculously easy for me. I play sporadically anyway, so I’ve never gone in big for the long game. I just wander around and do whatever catches my eye. I’m a sightseer, really.
The heart quests just pop up as I fumble through areas. The daily achievements (at least two or three of them) come naturally. The dynamic events happen around me. It’s all so much more simple than other MMOs I’ve tried.
Yeah, I don’t want to single out GW2. My comment reflects a frustration I feel, where coming back to a saved game / MMO after a long absence can be frustrating because I’ve forgotten the basics. Maybe this affects me particularly because I’m always going away for several weeks and leaving games mid-tilt. If I fire up a game again after an absence, I’m more likely to stick with it and get back into it if this process is streamlined, rather than having to fumble around, go read FAQs, watch Let’s Plays etc. I’d rather be playing than re-reading the manual, in other words. MMOs in particular should benefit from helping people get the needle back in.
Same here Krok. WoW was the worst with all the mods. It is a bit better now, but I am just tired of it.
Which really isn’t that much - the vast majority of content has been temporary. The only two “real” permanent content additions has been the fractals of the mist dungeons back in November, and the Guild Missions in February. Though their temporary content is getting better and arriving quicker too. Much improved over the month of hammering signposts that came in January.
Yeah, that’s how I feel too. It’s worse for me now since they redid talents with the Panda expansion. I haven’t relearned it.
And now GW2 has changed things apparently. It just makes it less desirable to come back to these games when I anticipate a barrier to entry. I might as well download something like Fallen Earth, which I never played, since I feel like I need to learn to play these games again. Might as well go for the new experience.
Why would that matter if you’re going to have to relearn it anyway? :)
-Tom
What’s to relearn? Some of you guys must do some number crunching and min-maxing. I just go with whatever seems cool and interesting.
