I’ve been alternating with my guardian between doing Orr zones and lower level zones. I find Orr very bug-ridden lately, and actually a number of the regular zones are developing bugs that are quite frustrating in nature too. I was in the human starter with my mesmer alt when I happened upon a skillpoint that was broken – but it was only broken in the overflow, not on my actual server (Sanctum of Rall) so I left the overflow and was able to complete it.
Normally I can ignore a number of issues before they start to get to me. I have pretty good patience and I can wait it out. There’s a few issues that are getting me quite frustrated these days. Last night the game randomly went down without any explanation (for everyone, not just me) and while there was thankfully no roll back this time, things didn’t work properly when I returned. It wasn’t recognizing that I was doing any events with a guild mate, and there for no influence was being earned. I couldn’t stand down or represent any new guilds. Mail wasn’t working. The trade post was lagging. Just little things that made game play difficult.
I’ve been trying to stay on a ‘main’ – mostly because one day, I want a legendary weapon, and if you look at the list of supplies required you’ll see that it really is best to stick with one character:
Each legendary weapon requires at least the following:
- Precursor weapon specific to the legendary
- 500 Dungeon Tokens specific to the legendary
- Two level 400 crafting professions specific to the legendary
- 200
Skill Points
- 525,000
Karma
- 120
Gold Coins
- 100% World Completion
- 500 Badges of Honor
- 250 Globs of Ectoplasm
- 250 Vicious Fangs
- 250 Vicious Claws
- 250 Vials of Powerful Blood
- 250 Elaborate Totems
- 250 Armored Scales
- 250 Ancient Bones
- 250 Piles of Crystalline Dust
- 250 Powerful Venom Sacs
In addition to the above, the player must also gamble the following materials to obtain Mystic Clovers. One success results in a single Mystic Clover and 77 clovers are needed. The chances of success are currently unknown, therefore depending on the final chances, the recipe could require anywhere from 77 to 1,000 attempts.
- 0.6
- 2100
- 1 Mystic Coin
That is the grocery list for ONE legendary item, and I would like at least two. A shield and a sword. I understand that this is the ‘end all be all’ of items in-game, and that it’s supposed to take a LONG time to achieve this, but still, eyeballing that list is daunting. Actually, only parts of it are.
Karma, over a million karma saved up. If karma was account bound instead of character unique, I wouldn’t have such a difficult time playing alts. In fact, why isn’t it account bound (dye too, for that matter). The 250 craft components doesn’t bother me that much, although the globs of ectoplasm will be difficult as those come from salvaging exotic pieces.
What does seem difficult (aside from the 120 gold) is the 500 WvWvW tokens. I’ve done world vs. world vs. world a handful of times now, putting in maybe 10 hours, and I’ve only earned FIVE of those tokens. 500 is an enormous amount if you’re on a server that perhaps doesn’t fair too well in PvP situations.
I’m also not a fan of the 77 random chance bits that players need to collect, listed at the end. I’ll do it, but it seems more of an annoyance than any skill required.
Discussing these things with my guild mates made me feel incredibly… lonely. I consider myself to be casual hardcore. A casual, with a lot of time to play. But I’m all for bettering my character. I enjoy being good at a game, knowing my class, and obtaining the gear and items that are required to do so. I don’t mind PUGs, and I alternate between exploration and discovery and simply getting things done. I take pride in having goals that include getting as much ‘done’ as I can. It felt like when I was discussing bettering my character and this type of ‘progress’ that I was completely alone, and I suppose in the end I’m more hardcore than casual. Keep in mind this is NOT bashing anyone in my amazing guild, I adore the Combat Wombats and everything they represent. I firmly believe that everyone has their own style and I embrace the fact that we’re all different. I wouldn’t pressure anyone to play “my way” if they didn’t want to. There’s been a bad connotation added over people who enjoy the “min/max” game, and I am one of those people who enjoy it, so I try to avoid speaking about it lest anyone suddenly decide that I too am some elite jerk unworthy of their time.
Anyhow, just a few of the thoughts bouncing around my head lately. I hope everyone had a great weekend, no matter where they found themselves! Happy gaming.
I cannot disagree with Scopique, but I’d add that you are very efficient in your gameplay. I have a friend like that too, and he gets 3 times the stuff done that I do, and he does it in half the time.
You obviously play and enjoy your game time. You have fun, loads of fun. If you like that, don’t ever stop, but don’t feel bad or worry about it. I’m actually glad you’re around, because it means another person that has an inside angle on how parts of the game are working. Hehehe.
I behave similar to a person with OCD, sometimes. I joke about it, but I actually do mimic it from time to time. Some nights, I’ll gather nodes for hours and nothing else, and just hardcore keep at it. Sometimes, doing any one activity for more than 5 minutes starts to irritate me.
I have another secret. In the right light, I love min/maxing. RoM almost had the perfect combo of systems, but gate-locked the bejeebers out of everything and everywhere. GW2 is going to be SO fun exploring and building different armor sets and builds for different purposes: more vitality, super AoE duration/poisoner, etc…
I have 3 legendary weapons I’d like to get: 2-H staff for my Elementalist and a scepter and pistol for my Mesmer.
I guess I don’t care about the amount of Karma. I mean, from a certain angle, I never cared about insane amounts of collecting in any MMO. It was how those collectables worked that frustrated me.
With GW2 being so non-gatey, yet having lots of options of what to do with that Karma, and a fairly and readily available supply, I see it as something I can do, similar to gathering from nodes.
For what it’s worth, I don’t consider the conversations elitist at all – in fact, just the opposite – I consider you the pioneer of the path we have to trod.. ;)
I know for myself personally, once I get ‘cynth to level 80, I’m almost positive I will start over immediately with an alt. In fact, I think I’d like to have 3 characters at 80 before I decide which one I want to pursue the end-game content with. I’m reminded that in GW1, I had easily a half dozen characters at max level, and I completed a lot of content with several of them, before I finally settled on the one that I really maxed out with content and elite armors – as well as elite’s for her heroes.
Agreed on all the little bugs starting to add up to a major annoyance. The rollback over the weekend was not pleasant. And busted skill points & broken dynamic events just serve to make you want to shake your monitor when you’re trying to make progress!
And yeah.. heheh.. those requirements are definitely a long term goal! :)
Wow that is quite the list for a legendary weapon. Good to know to keep in mind as I level. Thank you for sharing. :)
Don’t sweat it :D I’d say that, yeah, you seem a little more “hardcore” than the rest of us, but that’s not a negative. As you said, you had more time than most others to spend in the game, but I think there’s two things that really worked in your favor.
1. You have goals. That’s not the same as min/maxing, which to me is the notion of just “being the best at everything, and bad at nothing”. Reaching a certain point in crafting. Getting a legendary. Those are goals that can be worked towards. I think the rest of CWBT is more near-sighted: we just want to get things done in the next week, with MAYBE a sense of what we want to do eventually.
2. You’ve found a groove. Once you find a system that works well for you, you roll with it. Maybe that’s grinding, maybe that’s dropping things and hitting as many events as possible, or maybe it’s a willingness to spend money on crafting to suppliment harvesting, or forgoing spending that Karma (see #1). Once you get GOOD at doing something, it’s just “what you do”.