Guild Wars 2

Guilds, Legendary Weapons, and other Goodies #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace September 23, 2012 5 Comments

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 Skill Points
• 2100 Karma
• 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.

Ascalionian Catacombs, Caudecus’ Manor, Twilight Arbor, and Combat Wombats #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace September 16, 2012 No Comments

Saturday night was ‘dungeon night’ for the mighty Combat Wombats, and we had THREE full groups of people, even with a few of our members being unable to join. That’s amazing! What started out as a very small casual ‘lets start a guild!’ idea in G+ has grown to friends and family and friends of friends. We’re still keeping it informal, but it’s been quite a nice experience having so many people around.

Two groups of guild mates headed off to the Ascalonian Catacombs, which you may recall me doing not that long ago with our first guild dungeon run. For those who find this dungeon leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, I beg of you, at least try the second dungeon before giving up completely. I’m not exactly sure what ArenaNet was thinking by placing such a difficult dungeon as a persons introduction but out of all the dungeons I’ve done so far, that one was by far the hardest (keep in mind I have only done story mode so far). While those two groups headed to the catacombs (man, I wish I could have heard them on vent, but I was in my own group and needed to pay attention after all) our group headed to Caudecus’ Manor. I had been there before with a PUG, and already knew what to expect. The dungeon is a fairly simple tank-and-spank type dungeon, where you need to do simple things like ducking behind fountains and putting up projectile resistant wards in order to ensure you lived. There’s fewer names, and less loot as a result. It’s also quite quick, so once we were finished with that dungeon we replaced the one person who had to leave and decided to take on Twilight Arbor.

I had never been to Caledon Forest before, so I had to walk to the dungeon. What a pain that was. Not because getting there is difficult, but because I knew I was holding my group up and wish I had of unlocked the waypoint at the doors earlier.

I didn’t get to see all of the dungeon because my power went out and I had to call it an early night, but I did enjoy the parts we managed. A huge spider, some exploding flowers, and many conditions that needed to be cured. This dungeon seemed easier than Catacombs, but harder than Manor, so it was a good fit between what we had already done.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, even those who were in the dreaded Catacombs. There were reports of it taking 2.5 hours, and 3.5 hours for each group respectively, but they didn’t give up. That’s my Wombats! Have to admit, I’m pretty proud to be sporting this guild tag.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

TGIF

stargrace September 14, 2012 1 Comment

It’s been a long stressful week, and that’s not about to diminish until after Tuesday of next week, so I leave you all with this awesome image of my Asura hacking away at a Risen. I absolutely love her little motivational speeches that she gives about herself constantly. Makes me smile.

Have a great weekend!

Alts? We Don’t Need No Stinking Alts! #GuildWars2 #GW2

stargrace September 12, 2012 2 Comments

Unable to bring myself to playing an alt when there’s still so much to do on my ‘main’, I’ve been completing the lower level zones and collecting craft goods for those unplayed characters so that they may at least level up crafting (and gain regular experience from that). So far it’s gone quite well. Yesterday I completed the Charr starter zone, which I found incredibly pretty, decked out in fall colours. My human mesmer picked up armoring and tailoring, which is of course a huge pain in the behind because both skills use the same materials to level up. I’ll get through it, I’ve really got nothing but time on my hands now that my guardian is 80 so collecting lower level supplies is not too rough.

I’ve only completed two of the starter zones now, the Asura and Charr. Today I’ll probably do the human zones, and then the Sylvari tomorrow. We’ll see. That should get me enough craft materials to at least level either one or the other to 75, and prepare me for the next round of zones. I’m slowly saving up skill points towards the 200 required for the legendary weapon, and while I’m certainly not saving up any money (yet) I know it will come with time (or at least that’s what I hope).

I’m pleased that I’ve almost completed the monthly achievements for September. All I need is to salvage 500 items, I believe at this moment I’m at around 375, and running through the lower level zones has certainly been helpful, as I’m just salvaging everything I loot. I’ve made sure to keep the magic find food active on my character too, after all every little bit helps.

I hope everyone else is having a pleasant week so far, no matter what game you find yourself in. Happy gaming!

Dipping My Feet Into Some PvP #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace September 9, 2012 2 Comments

Thanks to some great blog posts by Rowan over at ‘I Have Touched The Sky‘ I decided to get my feet wet in some PvP in Guild Wars 2. One thing to keep in mind is that PvP is NOT WvWvW (world vs. world vs. world). You access it from your hero pane, and you port over to a completely different zone. You’re given a template character, with template gear, and you can sign up for what they call ‘structured’ pvp. There’s a few ways to do this. Number one, you can enter tournaments with a set team of players – or – you can join one of the 8 vs 8 teams already in progress. You’ll be randomly placed with a team of players, and you’ll be red or blue. You’ll be placed on one of a handful of maps, and the objectives are pretty much (from what I saw) all the same. First team to 500 points wins, and you are trying to take over as many areas of the map as possible (and of course kill your enemy along the way).

I really enjoyed this pvp, even more so than the wvwvw that I had been participating in. It felt a lot more ‘relaxed’ to me, although it also moves a lot faster. It takes no time at all to reach 500 points, especially if you’re on a good team. Instead of dropping and having to sign up again what happens when you’ve won (or lost) is that you’ll move on to another map, in another random match up of players, and start over again. If the matches go by really quick this means you could be moving maps every 5-10 minutes, which can be a bit confusing (at least it was for me). I just stuck with someone from my team, because obviously there is power in numbers. I’m almost finished the first ‘tier’ of PvP which is the hare, or bunny, or rabbit tier, whatever it’s called. You earn glory (I think that’s the name for it) that you can use to buy gear as you move up through the ranks. There are a lot of them, too. Merchants open up for level 50 60 and 70 that I found.

The introduction to PvP is quite well done, too. You’ll start out on the training grounds before moving to the actual sign up zone. You’ll have to complete three ‘hearts’ that are on these grounds, teaching you the basics of reviving an ally, and taking over an area of the map. After you’ve completed these three things you move to a larger map where you can work on getting familiar with whatever template you happen to be using, pick different weapons or gear if you’d rather not start out with whatever you have, and generally chatter with others in the zone about joining a tournament.

Then it’s just a matter of talking to another NPC to get into an actual battle, and you’re off. Best of all, I had no queues, unlike WvWvW.

Anyone else tried out PvP? What did you think of it? As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!