Weekend MMOs
WoW on Saturday went even more "nowhere" than usual, it felt like. We had... what? Six people show up? Something like that, and not much motivation between us. I'm tempted "officially" take next weekend off and not worry about it, though I'm not sure I have anything better to do with Saturday evening.
It looks like 5.2 should probably be out on the 5th, barring catastrophe. I know that will give me more things to work on and reason to be more active - new valor gear, new LFR (well, starting a week later), new rep and zone, new Wrathion quests. But I don't know if others will be energized by it or not, so I can't say if it'll get more people showing up to "raid."
Sunday night in GW2 we were reasonable productive in pursuing yon guild leader's personal story, getting through a few missions. It just took a long time to get to it between waiting on people to get ready and then running across zones to get to where we needed to be - and the Orr zones are not travel-friendly, being dense with monsters heavy on movement debuffs. And then there's the side-tracking for the occasional thing along the way.
And it's mostly repetition for me, which makes it a bit less interesting. The game is about six months old, did I "rush ahead" in finishing the soloable story content in that time, or is it just because I pursued it myself without waiting on company? Ah well. Bottom line: the night was okay, but I get frustrated by waiting.
The other sub-group I play with at times is more... interested in progress, I guess. Certainly more active and further along than I. We've done some dungeon runs recently (more on that in a moment). And while I don't share their level of interest in WvW/PvP play, I'm not as scared of it as I was. With their influence, I started looking at attaining a legendary weapon as a goal. I'm not sure if that overarching one is viable, but I took on the sub-goal of map completion. And, save for 5 POIs and 5 vistas, all on the northern, hostile borderlands WvW map, I have finished all the zones. Now that I've done that, though, the rest is more daunting and I find myself asking if it's attainable - that's a lot of rare materials (that are hard to farm reliably in any way), PvP currency, and a rare base weapon that is prohibitively priced or obtainable through ridiculously long odds. Anything I can work toward and feel like I'm making progress is one thing, but the elements that are all based on poor chances... that makes me feel helpless and disheartened. Not sure at this point if I'll stick with it or not.
So... dungeons. I don't really like the levels of AOE in Twilight Arbor, but the place isn't bad overall. Sorrow's Embrace suuuuucks. It isn't too bad up until Kudu, but that boss fight needs further tuning. The second and third sub-boss golems that are summoned deal obnoxious amounts of damage. Best case, I find myself spending a lot of time reviving or being downed myself - which isn't fun. Worst case, the group attempts several times with a long, annoying run back, and finally gives up and disbands. I may simply refuse to run story mode of that dungeon ever again, which is almost sad because the final boss of the dungeon is actually one I like - it has a pattern that can be picked up relatively quickly and is different from the normal combat. I also got my first run of Citadel of Flame in, which wasn't bad overall. It has a mechanic-heavy end boss as well, without being quite so painful to get to that point. I sort of like the place, but you have to go through an event (possibly a chain) to get control of the entrance to even get into the dungeon, and by the time we finished we'd lost control. That seems poorly done.
Also, as a general issue, I find that no boss I can think of in the game thusfar is actually melee-friendly, with most making melee a bad idea. Whirlwind effects, zones of burning and poison, bouncing shock pulses... boss fights in and out of the dungeons seem to be designed to make the ability to fight well at range simply better than melee. That sucks for a dagger-thief. I do have pistols as backup, but that barely cuts it. One CoF boss was a prime example of this as it has a massive zone of burning around it - I could stand just outside the red circle and barely be in range with pistols, but still took fire damage. Ugh. I've also noticed that the loot rules end up favoring professions with stronger AOE abilities when it comes to heavy battles (like WvW skirmishes or event waves). Really hate that design seems to favor certain styles of play, but I guess it's inevitable.
It looks like 5.2 should probably be out on the 5th, barring catastrophe. I know that will give me more things to work on and reason to be more active - new valor gear, new LFR (well, starting a week later), new rep and zone, new Wrathion quests. But I don't know if others will be energized by it or not, so I can't say if it'll get more people showing up to "raid."
Sunday night in GW2 we were reasonable productive in pursuing yon guild leader's personal story, getting through a few missions. It just took a long time to get to it between waiting on people to get ready and then running across zones to get to where we needed to be - and the Orr zones are not travel-friendly, being dense with monsters heavy on movement debuffs. And then there's the side-tracking for the occasional thing along the way.
And it's mostly repetition for me, which makes it a bit less interesting. The game is about six months old, did I "rush ahead" in finishing the soloable story content in that time, or is it just because I pursued it myself without waiting on company? Ah well. Bottom line: the night was okay, but I get frustrated by waiting.
The other sub-group I play with at times is more... interested in progress, I guess. Certainly more active and further along than I. We've done some dungeon runs recently (more on that in a moment). And while I don't share their level of interest in WvW/PvP play, I'm not as scared of it as I was. With their influence, I started looking at attaining a legendary weapon as a goal. I'm not sure if that overarching one is viable, but I took on the sub-goal of map completion. And, save for 5 POIs and 5 vistas, all on the northern, hostile borderlands WvW map, I have finished all the zones. Now that I've done that, though, the rest is more daunting and I find myself asking if it's attainable - that's a lot of rare materials (that are hard to farm reliably in any way), PvP currency, and a rare base weapon that is prohibitively priced or obtainable through ridiculously long odds. Anything I can work toward and feel like I'm making progress is one thing, but the elements that are all based on poor chances... that makes me feel helpless and disheartened. Not sure at this point if I'll stick with it or not.
So... dungeons. I don't really like the levels of AOE in Twilight Arbor, but the place isn't bad overall. Sorrow's Embrace suuuuucks. It isn't too bad up until Kudu, but that boss fight needs further tuning. The second and third sub-boss golems that are summoned deal obnoxious amounts of damage. Best case, I find myself spending a lot of time reviving or being downed myself - which isn't fun. Worst case, the group attempts several times with a long, annoying run back, and finally gives up and disbands. I may simply refuse to run story mode of that dungeon ever again, which is almost sad because the final boss of the dungeon is actually one I like - it has a pattern that can be picked up relatively quickly and is different from the normal combat. I also got my first run of Citadel of Flame in, which wasn't bad overall. It has a mechanic-heavy end boss as well, without being quite so painful to get to that point. I sort of like the place, but you have to go through an event (possibly a chain) to get control of the entrance to even get into the dungeon, and by the time we finished we'd lost control. That seems poorly done.
Also, as a general issue, I find that no boss I can think of in the game thusfar is actually melee-friendly, with most making melee a bad idea. Whirlwind effects, zones of burning and poison, bouncing shock pulses... boss fights in and out of the dungeons seem to be designed to make the ability to fight well at range simply better than melee. That sucks for a dagger-thief. I do have pistols as backup, but that barely cuts it. One CoF boss was a prime example of this as it has a massive zone of burning around it - I could stand just outside the red circle and barely be in range with pistols, but still took fire damage. Ugh. I've also noticed that the loot rules end up favoring professions with stronger AOE abilities when it comes to heavy battles (like WvW skirmishes or event waves). Really hate that design seems to favor certain styles of play, but I guess it's inevitable.
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