Speaking of grinding is there an etiquette for when you join an XP, HP or event chain/zerg? I mean I know for event tagging you don't slaughter everything before everyone can tag but what about tipping the person running it, is that done? I tend to run around alone but I've tagged along on a few event/hp trains in the new maps and kind of feel bad about just wandering off again afterwards. (I do thank them though). Hopefully I'm not missing something. I was going to ask what the heck the leader actually gets out of doing it but probably xp/loot.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 08:33 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 10:19 |
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The weird numbers involved in Scribing seem like they're rough estimates drawn up as placeholders. For an alpha version. But it went live in this state and has stayed untouched for several weeks now. Have they even said anything about Scribing since launch? I just want to make shrubberies and stuff to make the guild hall look pretty...
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 09:08 |
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Xun posted:Get gud casual - Anet Considering right now isn't even the least grindy WoW has ever been, this is quite an achievement.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 09:33 |
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All I know is that if I do anything anymore it's PvP. I haven't even touched Elites on anything but my Engie and Guard. The fun part about PvP is that the meta is still in flux relative to where it was pre-HoT and a lot of people don't know how to deal with a Scrapper Hammer/Gyro build.... but then you'll get stuck on a team that has no clue how to handle Reapers/Chronomancers/Dragonhunters and get buttfucked.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 09:40 |
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I'd be willing to believe the numbers and such associated with Scribing and decorations and all make more sense from the perspective of '200 idiots throw in a tiny bit of materials into the pot now and then', which is a view that you're probably not going to take as an individual player, especially with the apparent scarcity of Crystalline Ore and how it's useful for flashier personal things too. This is sort of how we got to bagception, assuming that running dungeons for straight up gold instead of farming tradable materials was really making GBS threads up the economy then whatever, I'll deal with the choppy TP UI now and then, but it was a lot nicer to just get a single wad of cash to spend, instead of a bunch of random poo poo dumped into your backpack and oh god i have to open and salvage all this and its not depositing anymore and the prices change and [complaints drowned out over ANet economy team high-fiving over t5 leather prices going up] Also having the decoration system's progress tied to 'a single character on a private account' seems problematic at best. There's a guild treasury and donation system for guild related upgrades, you'd think they'd just have it as another building instead of... feeling obligated to add a new tradeskill?
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 09:45 |
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Verdant seriously needs more waypoints, at least nearby WPs that aren't always contested, think I've only seen the meta event involving Chief Sky breaker and Larithirir done once because you have to escort them through some ruins to to reach the big vine thing and those ruins are jam packed with enemies and not dying is surprisingly difficult. I was doing it with a dentist and for some reason it just suddenly emptied out and it was just the 2 of, we died and the nearby WP was contested and nobody felt like finishing it. Oh and the elite moldrem dudes that jump around like thieves need to have their damaged toned down a bit, I got nailed for 14k on my ranger by one of them then instantly murdered when I went down.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 10:43 |
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Mizuti posted:The weird numbers involved in Scribing seem like they're rough estimates drawn up as placeholders. For an alpha version. But it went live in this state and has stayed untouched for several weeks now. Have they even said anything about Scribing since launch? oh my god plz no more shrubberies. they look like an invasive species, dividing the room for I don't know what reasons. stop the shrubbery madness
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 11:03 |
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Whats this grinding spiders thing?
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 11:06 |
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I've been so so on the expansion, I feel a lot of the monsters do far too much damage (and especially when they can focus downed players) with little Telegraphing I dread fighting multiple mordrem snipers as one will inevitably be outside my field of view and nail me when I'm not looking and oh look he drops a fire line that means I get hosed. Also the concept of having to get ascended to try out the raid is daunting for someone who started playing last week, like in FFXIV or wow I went and did dungeons to get gear but in this it's: Level Craft to 500 (burn money) then craft ascended gear (literally throw money into a tire fire) and it just feels so terrible. It's fine doing dragons stand over and over if it's just for XP or whatever or just because I want to but when I have to figure out how to make the most money it sucks the fun out of everything. Stormgale fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Nov 12, 2015 |
# ? Nov 12, 2015 11:13 |
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There is literally no way to balance the raid around the difference between pink and orange gear without having everything else matter more. Classes, builds, weapon types, everything.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 11:40 |
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Raids will have "new, improved" agony mechanics.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 11:55 |
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Well, I guess that explains why asscended gear will be required.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 11:59 |
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Kessel posted:There is literally no way to balance the raid around the difference between pink and orange gear without having everything else matter more. Classes, builds, weapon types, everything. so instead it'll be like tequatl, but with a weekly lockout?
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 12:25 |
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Hint - if you don't enjoy day to day fight'n and loot'n gameplay and just endure it to "work" on your completion numbers going up, you don't actually like GW2 Also as a difficulty loving mastery apologist (with a job) let me say: gently caress tangled depths regardless
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 13:36 |
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Tricks showed up and helped with the pumpkin juzzle. With his help, we made it... quite a bit higher. Despite being a cave, the gooncave has a very clear roof. Spawn is down there somewhere. I didn't take any screenshots of the rooms we found on the way up since I was climbing with graphics off, so instead enjoy these pictures of the main guild area from above. We were way higher up than this, but there's a thick blue fog in the guild hall that seems to be independent of graphic settings. If you wanna take a stab at it, it's reachable from the rubble plateau, which is reached by running across this root. Turn left on the plateau and glide around the corner to reach it; it may require Gliding 3. If you jump off the plateau on the opposide end, you can get to the actual guild hall jumping puzzle, which I have yet to conquer. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Nov 12, 2015 |
# ? Nov 12, 2015 13:48 |
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Strategic Tea posted:Hint - if you don't enjoy day to day fight'n and loot'n gameplay and just endure it to "work" on your completion numbers going up, you don't actually like GW2 I like it, I just wish fight and loot was how I got my gear and not fight and loot to melt for cash to then grind crafting for my gear.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 13:50 |
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kater posted:I like grinding spiders. More than most of the game. It provides a measurable reward, in discrete bursts, doesn't try to engage me on anything but a gameplay level, and is actually kind of challenging and fun when you are doing it on your own. I tried grinding spiders once, because nobody else was progressing the Itzel event chain. Granted, stealing wyvern eggs is a stupid bastard of an event, especially if you don't have shroom hopping unlocked, but I digress. In two minutes of sorting out tactics from scratch I was cursed at, called a retard, and reminded that it wasn't the content that made me quit prior MMOs, it was the angry children of all ages that infested them. I can understand the draw though, don't get me wrong. Even without boosters, those buggers are worth a fair hunk of XP and they respawn fast. I definitely get the appeal of fast XP and personal challenge, it's a lot better than event payouts, but it's mobbed with the kind of people who go into a WoW dungeon and spam 'gogogo' until they finish it or get booted. CODChimera posted:Whats this grinding spiders thing? There's a section of uninhabited Itzel village pathways in Verdant Brink, a bit west of their village proper. You can glide to it from there, and there's at least one bounce shroom that goes straight there. It is balls-out infested with big, veteran spiders that dole out a good chunk of XP each and respawn quickly, making it a much better deal for raw XP than doing event chains, even with a few groups running loops on the platforms. Stormgale posted:I've been so so on the expansion, I feel a lot of the monsters do far too much damage (and especially when they can focus downed players) with little Telegraphing I dread fighting multiple mordrem snipers as one will inevitably be outside my field of view and nail me when I'm not looking and oh look he drops a fire line that means I get hosed. I've spent more time grinding out central Tyria bosses and map completion for CT masteries than I have in the expansion regions, to be honest. It reminds me of my early forays into Orr, with everything just that much meaner or buggier, and mobs doing poo poo that I need to grind the reflexes to avoid. I play at weird hours, which doesn't really help. I'm slowly getting used to Verdant Brink, but it's taking more time and tolerance than I expected.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 14:02 |
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Stormgale posted:I like it, I just wish fight and loot was how I got my gear and not fight and loot to melt for cash to then grind crafting for my gear. You do know ascended gear is pretty meaningless if you don't intend on doing fractals, right? The difference between exotic and ascended is minimal, and there's no way raids will be balanced around it, as long as they stick with the stated idea of not adding an agony-style mechanic to raids. Bieeardo posted:I can understand the draw though, don't get me wrong. Even without boosters, those buggers are worth a fair hunk of XP and they respawn fast. I definitely get the appeal of fast XP and personal challenge, it's a lot better than event payouts, but it's mobbed with the kind of people who go into a WoW dungeon and spam 'gogogo' until they finish it or get booted. The trick is to follow their group and just ignore chat. Or don't give a gently caress, which I personally recommend. Liberatore fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Nov 12, 2015 |
# ? Nov 12, 2015 14:17 |
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I've found the best way to play the expansion is to just not worry about masteries. After you get updraft and bouncy mushrooms, you have enough to do the majority of the content. Exalted 1 and then the frog tunnels also help a decent amount. My mastery level is in the 60's, and I haven't focused on grinding at all. I've just gone around and done events, which is pretty much what I've always done in the game. No grind for me so far.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 14:36 |
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While "just take a few hours and get these masteries" is of course is a valid response, it really misses the point. You shouldn't have to grind anything (or do any other content) to enjoy what aspects of the game you like. It's not how the base game was designed. You could hop right into PVP or WvW. You had several maps at all levels to work on map completion. There were always event chains, and if you didn't want to do that, then go do some hearts. Levels always felt out of place to me, but it did block the story, and that was really the only hangup. If someone wants to play HoT, they have very little choice starting off. First you have to do some story missions. Then you have to grind exp (which, if you just wanted to chain events anyways, then you're in luck!). Adventures like to get blocked, map travel in VB can be frustrating involving lots of treks with risks on the way to get to any events not in gliding distance due to waypoints being contested, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and find this spider grinding spot next play session to at least finish out Updraft. Maybe a few miserable hours there and I can start enjoying the expansion, which at least definitely has really pretty environments.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 15:18 |
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Totbot posted:I've found the best way to play the expansion is to just not worry about masteries. After you get updraft and bouncy mushrooms, you have enough to do the majority of the content. Exalted 1 and then the frog tunnels also help a decent amount. Same. The only grindy/unfun thing for me other than crashing was having to specifically get more Ley Line Crystals in TD, but that just consisted of me doing 2 events and then afking for tier rewards. For what it's worth, a lot of the people complaining here about the 'grind' have also been saying 'gently caress DS', 'I hate events', etc. There's absolutely 0 point for 95% of the masteries if you don't like the new zones or fractals so there's really no point in complaining for 3 weeks straight because someone can harvest a Sawgill mushroom and you can't. Alteisen posted:I'm glad we can always count on ItBurns to come up with the STUPIDEST most inane retarded strawmen imaginable. My new posting gimmick is being nice and reasonable so I'm sorry, but I'm not going to engage you in this because you're an emotionally broken manbaby gently caress I already messed up. Damnit. ItBurns fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Nov 12, 2015 |
# ? Nov 12, 2015 15:27 |
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sanctum sprint is hard but there are many tricks and it fucks you over a lot but after a couple hours i did it in 2:18!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that's <2:30 which is gold, then i did the sky thing and it turns out there are updrafts to take you up to it (they were never visible to me so I could never find it) and did gold on that first try it's extremely easy might try fallen masks next or floor is lava, whichever one i found i dont know i didnt read it and i can't navigate for poo poo, i also found a mastery point with some quetzal dudes guarding it but can't find the way up. there's a random champ guarding it too - no idea what that areas deal is. so much to explore and find!!!!!!!!!
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 15:36 |
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Liberatore posted:The trick is to follow their group and just ignore chat. Or don't give a gently caress, which I personally recommend. Yeah, it occurred to me to turn everything but goonchat off, afterwards. Feels weird, though. I've been playing almost a year now, and until recently the worst I've seen is someone trying to rile LA. Doesn't help that I'm still the high-strung kid who takes everything personally. :P Totbot posted:I've found the best way to play the expansion is to just not worry about masteries. After you get updraft and bouncy mushrooms, you have enough to do the majority of the content. Exalted 1 and then the frog tunnels also help a decent amount. It's probably some weird placebo effect, but I feel a lot more confident traveling around Verdant Brink with shroom bouncing than without. Having to grind the XP on quiet maps was a cock, but I don't know if making it part of the zone mechanics rather than an XP-based unlock would have been a better approach or not.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 15:40 |
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ItBurns posted:For what it's worth, a lot of the people complaining here about the 'grind' have also been saying 'gently caress DS', 'I hate events', etc. There's absolutely 0 point for 95% of the masteries if you don't like the new zones or fractals so there's really no point in complaining for 3 weeks straight because someone can harvest a Sawgill mushroom and you can't. I find masteries ok, I think they are kind of clunky and it really soured me on actually experiencing new things as trying to figure out how to follow a zerg using those things was kinda dumb but so long as Anet are talking out of their rear end r.e. needing ascended gear for Raiding It'll be all fine.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 15:51 |
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xZAOx posted:While "just take a few hours and get these masteries" is of course is a valid response, it really misses the point. You shouldn't have to grind anything (or do any other content) to enjoy what aspects of the game you like. All you are being asked to do is play the game, at no point do you have to grind for anything. If you consider simply playing the game grinding then getting all the masteries is not going to change that one tiny bit, what you do on those first couple hours is going to be no different than what you do 998 hours later with 200 mastery points.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 16:47 |
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I'm curious as someone who doesn't have the expansion: what does "playing the game" actually entail? How do you get the EXP you need to gain Mastery points? For all the design that went into GW2's gameplay, a surprisingly large amount of it boiled down to bumrushing some guy in a cave with 39 other people. When that happens, most of the nuance of the combat system goes out the window, since you can barely even see what you're supposed to dodge/block/etc. This may be what people are complaining about : that the gameplay is not actually entertaining enough, either because the single-player encounters aren't challenging/feel unfair, or because the best way to gain EXP is via the aforementioned bumrushing.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 16:55 |
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malhavok posted:All you are being asked to do is play the game, at no point do you have to grind for anything. If you consider simply playing the game grinding then getting all the masteries is not going to change that one tiny bit, what you do on those first couple hours is going to be no different than what you do 998 hours later with 200 mastery points. Grinding is doing something you don't enjoy (usually at length) in order to get to do the thing you do enjoy. Trying to redefine it doesn't make it any more enjoyable for someone who doesn't want to play the game in the specific way they're being forced to do in order to get to the things they like.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 16:56 |
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ItBurns posted:Same. The only grindy/unfun thing for me other than crashing was having to specifically get more Ley Line Crystals in TD, but that just consisted of me doing 2 events and then afking for tier rewards. FYI there's a vendor in the guild hall marketplace after an upgrade or two that sells bags of 10 ley line crystals for a whopping one guild commendation each.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 16:56 |
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Vermain posted:I'm curious as someone who doesn't have the expansion: what does "playing the game" actually entail? How do you get the EXP you need to gain Mastery points? For all the design that went into GW2's gameplay, a surprisingly large amount of it boiled down to bumrushing some guy in a cave with 39 other people. When that happens, most of the nuance of the combat system goes out the window, since you can barely even see what you're supposed to dodge/block/etc. This may be what people are complaining about : that the gameplay is not actually entertaining enough, either because the single-player encounters aren't challenging/feel unfair, or because the best way to gain EXP is via the aforementioned bumrushing. Luckily (most) of the event chains in Hot Are enjoyable enough, none of them are shatterer levels of simple.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 16:57 |
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malhavok posted:All you are being asked to do is play the game, at no point do you have to grind for anything. If you consider simply playing the game grinding then getting all the masteries is not going to change that one tiny bit, what you do on those first couple hours is going to be no different than what you do 998 hours later with 200 mastery points. BobTheJanitor posted:Grinding is doing something you don't enjoy (usually at length) in order to get to do the thing you do enjoy. Trying to redefine it doesn't make it any more enjoyable for someone who doesn't want to play the game in the specific way they're being forced to do in order to get to the things they like. At least someone gets what my point is, heh. There's more to the game than "run events". Events are fun at times, but not really my bread and butter of GW2. Adventures are there too, but we've discussed at length some of the issues with them (mainly them being locked or travel to get to). But those are the main two ways (besides spider grinding) that I can get to what I do enjoy. To get to some of "the other side's" points - yes, this is how HoT is designed, and if I don't enjoy it, then I don't enjoy HoT. We are in agreement and saying the same thing. I do however like GW2, and simply wish the design of HoT more closely matched that of Vanilla, at least in regards to exploration.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:22 |
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xZAOx posted:While "just take a few hours and get these masteries" is of course is a valid response, it really misses the point. You shouldn't have to grind anything (or do any other content) to enjoy what aspects of the game you like. Exactly. This is a big difference from how the base game was that people bought into, and that's why it frustrates some people. It's clear some of you like this new direction, but recognize that others don't for good reason.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:24 |
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BobTheJanitor posted:Grinding is doing something you don't enjoy (usually at length) in order to get to do the thing you do enjoy. Trying to redefine it doesn't make it any more enjoyable for someone who doesn't want to play the game in the specific way they're being forced to do in order to get to the things they like. But literally everything gives you exp in this game. Doing events gives you exp, doing adventures gives you exp, doing hero points gives you exp. There is no one specific way that anyone is forced to play the game in order to progress masteries and I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of anything you can do that doesn't advance masteries beyond sitting around in DR roleplaying or something. What are these "things they like" if it's not a thing that gives exp? And why do people feel the need to grind out masteries to do them? The only thing I can think of that's actually gated behind higher masteries is map completion, but there are only four maps in the expansion so if literally the only thing you enjoy in the whole PvE game is map completion, why even bother to play the expansion? If masteries didn't exist then it'd take a few hours to do it and then you'd have nothing to do again anyway.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:27 |
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Organza Quiz posted:But literally everything gives you exp in this game. Doing events gives you exp, doing adventures gives you exp, doing hero points gives you exp. There is no one specific way that anyone is forced to play the game in order to progress masteries and I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of anything you can do that doesn't advance masteries beyond sitting around in DR roleplaying or something. What are these "things they like" if it's not a thing that gives exp? And why do people feel the need to grind out masteries to do them? The only thing I can think of that's actually gated behind higher masteries is map completion, but there are only four maps in the expansion so if literally the only thing you enjoy in the whole PvE game is map completion, why even bother to play the expansion? If masteries didn't exist then it'd take a few hours to do it and then you'd have nothing to do again anyway. Playing how I have for the last 3 years has not gotten me even close to the masteries required to do the things I enjoy, like map completion. That's why I have to grind. And I play the expansion because it's a major content update to a game that's been stale for years? You're being pretty ridiculous and condescending towards other people's personal opinions.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:34 |
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Obviously SFD just needs to make a event night for farming spiders with Arus.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:38 |
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So I ventured into HoT with my Warrior yesterday, and drat do I get poo poo on. Does anyone have a good build enphasizing survivability?
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:43 |
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Everything gives experience, but the rate at which you fill the bar varies greatly between activities. Filling fractal mastery probably takes an hour and a half in CoF, but it would take days or weeks to fill by actually running fractals instead.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:48 |
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I noticed maybe a half hour total of playing beyond when I'd gotten bored to get all the mastery I needed for the story... but then when I play, I just tend to wander wherever doing any event that catches my eye. I thought that was everyone did outside of pvp/dedicated dungeon farmers (rip)?
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:49 |
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Strategic Tea posted:I noticed maybe a half hour total of playing beyond when I'd gotten bored to get all the mastery I needed for the story... but then when I play, I just tend to wander wherever doing any event that catches my eye. I just didn't find a lot of the events that interesting (defend this camp! carry boxes from A to B!). I mostly just wanted to plow through the story to kill Mord and see who of this horrible cast would end up dead. Now I need to earn the right to buy poo poo from vendors for the mistward stuff and then also grind out currencies and I'm just sorta bored with it.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 17:57 |
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I'm wondering what high-level masteries are required for map completion. I legitimately don't know! I've only run the first chapter of the HoT story, and a bunch of HP trains in verdant and auric. I've explored a good amount of TD, and barely walked into DS. In that time I've seen like one spot locked by wallows (in NE auric, which has an HP challenge, POI, and vista), and the chak area in the lower NW of TD that needs poison mastery for I think a mastery point? Pretty much everything else in the maps seems accessible with stuff in the first two tiers of the HoT masteries (which includes wallows, now that I think of it). I understand the frustration of having "what you want to play" locked behind high-level masteries, but unless "what you want to play" is finding invisible mushrooms or challenging exalted champs or maybe getting slightly better results on an adventure with speed boost shrooms in it, I don't really see much if any core HoT content locked behind high-level masteries. Just some of the stuff to complete the advanced versions of the elite spec weapons. I think that honestly the biggest problem is that you need to replay much of the content to fully unlock the mastery progression system. That isn't a problem with the core leveling experience. Just completing like half the content in Central Tyria would be enough to get you to level 80, with all the base spec lines and skills fully unlocked. That's not the case in HoT, even fully completing all the content there won't get you to maxed HoT mastery. On the other hand, since mastery is account-wide, it does provide an incentive to play through stuff again with alts rather than just let them languish in the character select screen... I don't know, it's kind of a thorny problem, without clear answers. I am of the opinion that about a 30% reduction in mastery XP required for each rank would feel more in line with the other progression systems in the game.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 18:03 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 10:19 |
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BobTheJanitor posted:Grinding is doing something you don't enjoy (usually at length) in order to get to do the thing you do enjoy. Trying to redefine it doesn't make it any more enjoyable for someone who doesn't want to play the game in the specific way they're being forced to do in order to get to the things they like. There is not going to be any difference between that part you don't enjoy and anything that comes later. I'm not redefining it, just letting you know if you consider what you are doing before getting the first couple masteries grinding you might as well quit now because it is absolutely no different after.
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# ? Nov 12, 2015 18:20 |