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quote:Removed the Wizard's Vault objective "Loot the Chest of Grand Valdhertz Riches in the Valdhertz Crypts Minidungeon."
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Aug 29, 2023 23:13
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The landlord special of game design
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Aug 29, 2023 23:21
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Oh good they figured out the next best thing to actually fixing a longstanding bug. That isnt the one with like a 30 min timer that only opens after killing a mini boss? at least when it is a jp you only need to touch a certain spot.
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Aug 29, 2023 23:23
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Here is my current verdict on the expansion after playing through the available maps and strikes and new content. Give it a once over and complete enough of the dailies/weeklies/quarterlies to get your quarterly rewards in order of legendary starter kit > bag of gold > mystic coin until those are sold out, then shelf the game for a few months until they fix enough bugs that you can actually complete half of the events in the expansion for your mastery points and add in the missing content from the expansion that they will release every quarter. In the meantime play some of the dozen other game of the year/decade contenders that released this year until they get the bugs sorted out, like remnant2/baldur's gate 3/tears of the kingdom/age of wonders 4/soon starfield/ect ect ect pick to your personal preference.
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Aug 30, 2023 03:00
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Holy poo poo Warrior with twin daggers is loving insane
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Aug 30, 2023 03:17
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Here is my current verdict on the expansion It's a $25 Guild Wars 2 expansion with everything that entails. Is it buggy? No, not really, but it's not perfect either. Are any longstanding issues fixed? No, but of course arbitrary new features ripe for neglect have been added instead. The things players actually complain and care about continue to be quite intentionally ignored. Is there a lot of content? No, but you were only going to play a couple weeks and then put it down for 3-6 months anyway. There will supposedly be more when you return. Have they added a compelling endgame, a new raid, WvW Alliances, or new sPvP maps? Nope, and they likely never will. Is the writing any better? Actually, yes! It's nothing special mind you, but it's a big step up from the drek since Icebrood Saga. Will it consume your identity like that one MMO you played when you were fourteen? No, as always it largely doesn't care if you play it or not. Overall it continues to be a solid-but-fading game in a decaying genre run by a studio who excels at ripping defeat from the jaws of victory and couldn't market water in a desert.
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Aug 30, 2023 03:43
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boho posted:Overall it continues to be a solid-but-fading game in a decaying genre run by a studio who excels at ripping defeat from the jaws of victory and couldn't market water in a desert. 
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Aug 30, 2023 05:31
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Well, I'm having a blast melting stuff in open world with hammer weaver, so that alone makes it worth the price of admission. Getting a pistol in a few months is just another treat. The new maps being very griffon friendly is also a plus.
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Aug 30, 2023 07:27
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Are the login servers making GBS threads out today or something? Been unable to connect without just massive lag all day and game keeps throwing tons of errors at me about some firewall nonsense (nothing has changed on my own internet settings at all)
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Aug 30, 2023 16:51
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Inzombiac posted:I tried literally 10 times. Bugged out each time. It's ok, look, they fixed it! Update - August 29, 2023 posted:Removed the Wizard's Vault objective "Loot the Chest of Grand Valdhertz Riches in the Valdhertz Crypts Minidungeon."
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Aug 30, 2023 17:36
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Sounds like a lot of the upset posters will be moving on to something new for a while. I'm looking forward to it. Anyways, I finished EoD last night and did the True Ending achievement. It was badass. I also got a turtle egg, and I think I'll do a little of that alongside Skyscale to see what it's like.
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Aug 30, 2023 17:56
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Zeg posted:Sounds like a lot of the upset posters will be moving on to something new for a while. I'm looking forward to it. It's probably not good for the game if people get frustrated enough to just stop playing.
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Aug 30, 2023 18:20
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The old daily system sucked and the rewards sucked. The new one will be better once they add more options to get your 3, but it feels way better reward-wise. Never once in many years of playing did I ever say “oh cool” for any login or daily reward. The fact I can choose a skin or QoL upgrades is way more motivating. I’ve found the daily things more varied so far, too.
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Aug 30, 2023 18:59
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SweetJahasus posted:Are the login servers making GBS threads out today or something? Been unable to connect without just massive lag all day and game keeps throwing tons of errors at me about some firewall nonsense (nothing has changed on my own internet settings at all) Haven't tried logging in today, but I know exactly what you mean - I've experienced it before. Literally reinstalled the game, did a very thorough check-up on my PC/network connection to make sure it wasn't on my end. Changed my firewall settings to allow access to GW2 with no restrictions, changed the port, etc. This link might help, or it might be 100% on Anet's side of things. I've had that happen - one day it ran fine, the next day it repeatedly gave me the errors you're describing. On a game this old and poorly optimized, it can be tough to pin down.
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Aug 30, 2023 19:17
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Ort posted:The old daily system sucked and the rewards sucked. The new one will be better once they add more options to get your 3, but it feels way better reward-wise. Never once in many years of playing did I ever say “oh cool” for any login or daily reward. The fact I can choose a skin or QoL upgrades is way more motivating. I’ve found the daily things more varied so far, too. Even if they add one more option for dailies, we'll still have 66% fewer options per day than before (4 vs 12) and you're still locked into choosing game modes ahead of time. It's just needlessly complicated and removing of choice in a game that generally has offered lots of ways to play in the past. The new rewards are cooler for sure! So let us earn them how we want 
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Aug 30, 2023 19:23
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I spent an hour working out a new condi Necro build but wasn't getting the results I expected and was genuinely stressed out over it. Check your gear folks. I was on my Zerker/Strike gear tab  edit: Got the light Ascended pants and tried making a jester costume. Hit the random colors once and it gave me, of course, Joker colors. Tweeked it a bit and actually like it 
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Aug 30, 2023 19:40
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Syenite posted:It's probably not good for the game if people get frustrated enough to just stop playing. Yeah, overly vocal minorities tend to make the doomsaying seem much louder than it actually is.
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Aug 30, 2023 21:17
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The astral acclaim store also strikes me as iffy for player retention. The old system doled things out carefully over time so you did have to keep coming back to work through the login bonuses or collect your couple of gold a day from the cheevo tasks, but this is going to give me all the good stuff within a few weeks and then why bother? I assume their economy guys have made sure it averages out over time to roughly the same level of gold/resources entering the game, but it's now massively front loaded. It's gonna be even less good for people who don't want one of those legendaries, or don't need more ascended gear, or whatever. Although I guess I just didn't really bother keeping on with the old stuff at all, so maybe keeping people like me for those few weeks turns out better anyway.
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Aug 30, 2023 21:50
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As someone who restarted like 2 or 3 weeks ago after being away for a decade, new system is great due to frontloading. But I'm probably an edge case player.
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Aug 30, 2023 21:52
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The disastrous balance patch after EoD killed my hype for the game, and I ended up quitting except when festivals came around. SotO (and the new expansion model) has actually given me a ton of optimism for the game's future. Yeah, the initial implementation of the new dailies needs a bit of tuning, but it overall feels like an improvement. The goodies are substantial, and it doesn't feel exploitative. They just need to take the best part of the old system, which was having more than enough options to get completion credit.
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Aug 30, 2023 22:08
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I just don't think chasing the sales boost they got from releasing PoF or EoD by going "ah we'll make more expansions quicker and cheaper" is going to pan out the way they want. Expansions only move the needle if they're events. Putting out the shell of an expansion every year with limited new maps and quarterly updates isn't an event, that's just patch cadence.
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Aug 30, 2023 22:13
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They're probably chasing the bucks from spendthrift people like myself who also buy the 4000 gem pack when they buy expansions.
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Aug 30, 2023 22:25
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I think the release tempo is fine if the quality is there. And obviously lots of folks seem optimistic, I think especially those who took a break and are returning now. OTOH, I feel like many of us who have been playing straight through the end of Icebrood Saga through End of Dragons are a little disenchanted and were hoping for more from SoTO. I needed some A/A- content and this feels like a C+/B- to me. Or maybe I just need an extended break and come back in a year with fresh eyes.
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Aug 31, 2023 01:11
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I don't -want- to be pessimistic, but the increasing volume of bugs is getting to me, today the pve dailies requires doing a activity, today's activity is crab toss, it is right now impossible to pick up the crab in crab toss. That is just one bug added to the pile on top of broken fractals, events, uncompleteable new masteries gating progress and so on. And then there is the stuff that isn't a bug but you don't know if they will ever revisit, like the new mount leygliding just making the game worse for existing because you either don't have it and have an annoying popup or you do get it and you get hijacked by any random leyline in your flight path that might be traveling the opposite direction you wanted to go. Ra Ra Rasputin fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Aug 31, 2023 |
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Aug 31, 2023 01:32
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A yearly expansion cadence nearly killed ZOS and ESO, but on the other hand it’s also the model keeping many should-be-dead MMOs alive via boutique overpriced collector’s editions. In GW2’s case it’s just Living World that you have to pay for up front along with an opportunity to sell whales a $149.99 collector’s edition. Which makes way more sense than the old model of hidden costs for old content patches.
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Aug 31, 2023 03:01
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as somebody who originally left before heart of thorns dropped, I'm enjoying all the content I missed at least, lol
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Aug 31, 2023 03:03
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SotO feels like a 'deluxe' Living World. Like what IBS should've been when they announced it having 'expansion-level content'
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Aug 31, 2023 03:30
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I always have to peer at a leyline for way too long to figure out which direction it's going in. Don't know why my perception of it is so bad, but it sure does suck when I get it wrong.
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Aug 31, 2023 03:33
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DoNotFeedTheBear posted:I always have to peer at a leyline for way too long to figure out which direction it's going in. Don't know why my perception of it is so bad, but it sure does suck when I get it wrong. You are not alone!
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Aug 31, 2023 04:55
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I only recently started playing the game and played the LWs/expacs linearly like you would a single player game. Bouncing between that and the meta over an extended vacation from the world at large has landed me with a one lasting observation: New players would GREATLY benefit from a no-skyscale instance of pretty much all the pre-POF maps. I cannot tell you how much of a bummer it was and is to try and jump into a meta train - some of which are necessitated by those stupid 'do events to push this abysmally slow progress bar along!' interludes - only to get left in the dust on multiple occasions. HoT especially is *notable* for this, and skyscales everywhere made the experience harder than it already was, at times. I mean yes you can say 'just play POF and get the mounts' but my overall enjoyment of what was arguably one of the game's better story arcs would have been greatly hampered if I'd just went straight into it. That, and the amount of grinding necessary to even *get* the mounts puts you in the middle of meta hell anyway, so you're still getting left in the dust a lot, wondering if you'll get there before the meta train you're trying to follow melts the one champ you need for etc etc etc That ANet patted themselves on the back for making the skyscale more accessible w/ SOTO is laughable, btw. It is so hilariously not-accessible to newbies that anyone who says it is should be laughed out of the room. The amount of mats you have to barf up at ppl took a lot of grinding to acquire (which I thankfully already had the time and inclination to do, so I've overall been grumpy but ok w/ it), and it feels a lot like the steps are there for the sole purpose of appeasing only the crybabies whining about how they had to work for their sparkledragon, so everyone else should, too. Either way, the most enjoyment I've gotten from the game as a newbie was around other people who didn't have the mounts. Events went great, the steps to get there were easy to follow because I could see other people doing it on foot. I would love to participate more in trains that explicitly discouraged the flying mounts for the sake of the people who do not have them (and am grateful for the commanders who list the mounts/gimmicks they *are* using to get places when they starts theirs up). Old Boot fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Aug 31, 2023 |
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Aug 31, 2023 07:24
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There should be a skyscale mastery to let non-owners hang on to you with a magic tether for use in events
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Aug 31, 2023 07:47
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Tonight, I learned that you don't need an ascended insignia to change stats. That seriously ruined all the cool other things I'd done after going broke to learn this valuable lesson. gently caress.
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Aug 31, 2023 08:16
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I will agree with the sentiment that when I came back without buying PoF first, it was incredibly offputting to be left in the dust to everyone with a raptor or skyscale and barely able to keep up to events properly because of that, PoF's mounts needed to be integrated better to the game. What made me buy PoF however was the free-trial roller beetle during halloween, that sold me on mounts.
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Aug 31, 2023 08:49
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Old Boot posted:That ANet patted themselves on the back for making the skyscale more accessible w/ SOTO is laughable, btw. It is so hilariously not-accessible to newbies that anyone who says it is should be laughed out of the room. The amount of mats you have to barf up at ppl took a lot of grinding to acquire (which I thankfully already had the time and inclination to do, so I've overall been grumpy but ok w/ it), and it feels a lot like the steps are there for the sole purpose of appeasing only the crybabies whining about how they had to work for their sparkledragon, so everyone else should, too. What part do you mean? It is way more accessible, but I don't think ANet had completely new players in mind. The effort to get it is like <5% the original collection. Maxing the mastery is probably the most time consuming, but that part isn't something you have to go out of your way to do (i.e. just play normally in new maps, stack boosters if you want to speed it up). I'll admit that already having a skyscale probably made it significantly easier to do the events needed for map currencies and collecting mastery points, but it's still something you can make in about a week of semi-casual play. In terms of old mats, it was just a few dozen ecto and quartz that a player should already have a decent stockpile of by the time they're in a position to be doing expansion content (and ultimately it's still buyable from the TP). The stuff you have to do on old maps was trivial and can be done in a couple hours of cumulative play. Not even any jumping puzzles or obscure events to do. Like they're not gonna hand it to you just for stepping into SotO. Even the raptor had a lengthy intro to get through originally. It took several hours and completing a lot of PoF to get the rest of the OG mounts. I'd estimate acquiring the skyscale from SotO for a non-owner is between the skimmer and jackal in time investment. The only really annoying gate is that unlocking the collection in the first place is rng-based. I concede to you that it probably feels bad to get left behind in big metas, and I'm semi-joking about having a magic tether to drag non-owners around. But I also don't think it benefits that much, at least for maps that predate mounts. Metas usually move pretty slowly and don't tend to ask you to suddenly go half a zone away to do the next event. If they do have you make a significant trek, the raptor is still a great traversal option that's almost as good as a skyscale in old maps without a ton of verticality. If I understand correctly, everyone who owns an xpac gets one now without needing to spoil PoF. At the end of the day, horizontal progression is still progression and players who have unlocked stuff will have access to those goodies. I'm sure what ANet thinks is that seeing other players with their cool toys will motivate other players to get their own. Maybe it isn't as true for other players. And also, if you insist on doing things in chronological order, you kind of have to accept you're not gonna get to enjoy modern comforts until you get to the part where they were added to the game.
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Aug 31, 2023 08:51
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Meowywitch posted:Zojja is awesome They have telegraphed her "ascention" quite a bit, so I'm sure she is going to be more broken soon.
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Aug 31, 2023 09:10
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gandlethorpe posted:What part do you mean? It is way more accessible, but I don't think ANet had completely new players in mind. Thus, having maps that take that divide between new player and vet into account would be nice. IDK why that's a controversial thing to say. quote:In terms of old mats, it was just a few dozen ecto and quartz Only a few of the provisioners you need tokens from ask for ectos. quote:Like they're not gonna hand it to you just for stepping into SotO. Which is fine because that's not what I said they should absolutely do, but I think it's changed the landscape enough that it should be more 'easier beetle' and less the original skyscale. People are already sequence breaking to get it, it's already trivializing ANet's old content, 'if they bought the expacs just hand it to them already' isn't a stance I'd wholeheartedly take but it's not one I wouldn't take, either. So congrats on being half-right, IDK? quote:I concede to you that it probably feels bad to get left behind in big metas, It's not just 'feels bad,' it's 'this is obnoxious.' This was an enormous problem that has thankfully cleared up a bit since the dailies switch, but if you didn't PvP/WvW and the options are poo poo, you were stuck with people bouncing from one event to the other much more quickly than you could. Maps with combat events especially had a habit of blinking out of existence practically the moment they started. This has thankfully eased up a bit, but there's still moments where it proves frustrating again. A more recent example would be the NK Blackout weekly; bunch of people got it, bunch of people were out doing it, but there was barely anyone on raptors. Trying to figure out where people were going was the easy part; figuring out how to actually get there was another story entirely. quote:And also, if you insist on doing things in chronological order, you kind of have to accept you're not gonna get to enjoy modern comforts until you get to the part where they were added to the game. This is such a weird response. Being passively penalized for *not* doing things out of order is annoying; I figured that would also be a pretty uncontroversial statement. Wishing there was a way for it to not be so annoying - in a way that doesn't step on either new player or veteran player toes - seems like a pretty milquetoast thought to have about a game I'm still overall playing and enjoying otherwise. And those two options are 'maps w/o skyscales that players can opt into' or 'skyscales that aren't as content gated' and, yeah, weirdly, I would prefer either option was one that didn't penalize anyone for wanting to get through a story in chronological order. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Aug 31, 2023 |
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Aug 31, 2023 11:05
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You're right that being a "have-not" new player is a pretty bad experience in this game, when trying to do metas with people that have everything unlocked. I think everyone here can understand your frustration. You're wrong that unlocking the skyscale didn't get much easier with this expansion - it did. One solution to the problem would be as you suggest, to make separate maps for people without a skyscale. Not a very good solution, as I suspect these maps would tend to be very empty, and it would probably be rather confusing to new players - the only people that would use them. There wouldn't be many commanders either, since getting a commander tag takes about 10x the gold as getting a skyscale - though there's a good argument to be made that the tag should be a baseline feature! As-is, it would pretty much be limited to people that don't have LW4 or the new expansion. The solution arenanet went with, was making the skyscale much more accessible in this expansion. I appreciate it might be confusing and frustrating as a new player, but if you follow a walkthrough or watch a guide online, it shouldn't take more than a few hours to unlock your skyscale for non-expansion content. There are some timegates if you don't already have the provisioners tokens, but they added a few more vendors for this in the expansion. Or you can throw money at the problem with one of the non-timegated trades. Doing 2 sets of weekly rewards will get you more than enough currency to buy 90g liquid gold in rewards, which should help with that, since as a new player you probably don't have a great idea of how to effectively earn gold. There are other high value items in the wizard's vault too, which only require a little more effort to liquidate.
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Aug 31, 2023 11:23
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“We heard your complaint, so we’ve put Skyscale rental NPCs in all pre-SotO maps. For just 25 gems per hour, you too can experience the glory of flight!”
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Aug 31, 2023 12:46
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Old Boot posted:I only recently started playing the game and played the LWs/expacs linearly like you would a single player game. Bouncing between that and the meta over an extended vacation from the world at large has landed me with a one lasting observation: the worst map for it by far is dragonfall, especially during the post-boss segment of the meta where you're chasing champion spawns around the map
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Aug 31, 2023 13:33
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Catgirl Al Capone posted:the worst map for it by far is dragonfall, especially during the post-boss segment of the meta where you're chasing champion spawns around the map Dragonfall and Dragonstand were exactly the ones that came to mind. Both quickly melt into a headache of eye-searing particle effects. EDIT: ..btt posted:You're right that being a "have-not" new player is a pretty bad experience in this game, when trying to do metas with people that have everything unlocked. I think everyone here can understand your frustration. Metas get confusing *with* players around, that's partly the problem. I found I had to at least have a map up and be somewhat conscious of what the topography looked like to make a call on whether or not I could feasibly keep up or just had to find something else to do after several failed attempts to keep up on a raptor on maps with hills that were just a little too high. As for the skyscale, I'll grant that I'm partly speaking out of prolonged frustration. I'm frankly in a good position to do the whole thing right now. But I had the time to devote to it. IDK how I'd feel about it if I had less, or hadn't already done a fair amount of grinding/horsetrading with the help of some ten-year vets. I'm primarily just stating one of the more explicitly obnoxious elements of a game I otherwise have enjoyed. That said: being confused alongside other newbies doesn't sound any different from how it would've been at launch, so IDK that I really see the issue with that. Population is the bigger concern. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Aug 31, 2023 |
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Aug 31, 2023 13:48
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