Go #TeamKiel! We won!
Here’s looking forward to some delicious Thaumanova lore, and hopefully some fun developments in the Living Story with Kiel in a Council seat.
I’m open to seeing her continue to develop as a good-guy Robin Hood, with possible potential fall into bitter jadedness (think GW1 and Gwen) or conflict between priorities and obligations to Magnus or turn out to be an ebil sleeper agent who tricked us all and will become our nemesis. Or whatever.
Should be more interesting than mercantile minded Gnashblade anyway, he’ll work better as a bitter villain out for revenge.
Then it was onto the Queen’s Jubilee and Divinity’s Reach.
I quite enjoyed the storytelling of the Opening Ceremony instance. I think they’re getting better at it, with good pacing, some character development and dialogue moments, mixed in with the requisite action. And in an instance, one has the privacy to immerse into the world and roleplay a little.
We got a glimpse of a suspicious “pillar person,” enough to see that she’s wearing scarlet and looks like a dark elf (er, Sylvari.)
Looking forward to more story developments in the coming weeks.
As for the other stuff I tried out, the Torchbearer activity was quite fun.
Just difficult enough to make the first try at it potentially not succeed, but a few (meaning 1-3) subsequent tries would generally get you the achievement. Talking to the priests to get the city speed boost helps, and equalizes the playing field, since my guardian is pretty darned slow otherwise. It wasn’t insanely frustrating or rage-inducing, which is good when it’s classified as a seasonal kind of achievement and lumped in with the Queen’s Jubilee. Something casuals can do in a play session quite easily, I think.
Crown Pavilion group arena… what can I say?
It’s really hard to criticize a loot pinata.
Goodness knows what’s going to happen to the economy and if there’s going to be runaway inflation as a result of the next month, but I’m not complaining. Southsun Instigators, part deux?
Yes, please.
I am totally getting my money’s worth out of my magic find exotics/ascended, even if the subsequent patch will revise it like how they’ve throttled goldfind this patch.
I’ll just quirk an ironic eyebrow at the supposed anti-zerg mechanics.
On one hand, it doesn’t seem like it’s working. Players are throwing an immense number of bodies at it and pretty much overwhelming it through spamming 1 and all the natural buff/debuff of classes working in sync and having sufficient critical mass to rez each other and deal enough damage via autoattacks.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t nearly be as fun if it involved massive group coordination. (I still remember City of Heroes’ Incarnate Trials with ZERO fondness for the necessity of herding 12-24 players through even basic boss mechanics.)
And there are places where one sorta kinda has to read the red circles and stay out of them, or suffer a debuff (of birds) and have to dodge to get rid of them, or not stand in the lava font or die, which basically do knock out parts of the zerg who aren’t paying attention.
Some attacks are more telegraphed than others, though. (Like that centaur barrage, it’s way OP, there’s barely any time to dodge out of that hail of arrows.)
Whatever.
Still not complaining.
When yellow rares pop with good frequency and greens and blues fall out of the sky, plus new champion loot bags and seasonal watchwork tokens, and it just takes pressing 1 and moving around with a modicum of attention to hoover it all in, even the most staunchly antisocial person will make an exception once in a while.
If Gnashblade bribed like this, even I would happily go over to the dark side.
If it helps, I saw repeated statements over mapchat that a number of players were really enjoying this and having a GREAT time, and just going by the crowds, it’s pretty obvious it’s very popular. Just goes to show what a majority of players really like, huh? Easy fun.
Very bummed there will be no Abaddon fractal. I liked Kiel better but voted for content. I just don’t think the reactor will ever live up to what the Abaddon fractal could have been. A real shame and loss (seriously.. we have CoE and an asura fractal already).. all for saving a few silver on WP fees (lets face it… most people voted for WP fees or anti RNG keys.)
I agree about the quality of story telling with that instance. I suppose it helped that it felt more like GW2 as there were characters we actually knew and may care about.
I was worried about the torch runs as in the twitch stream one dev said they were challenging and that he hadn’t done them all, but 2/3 I got first try (on necro so I certainly am no faster than a guard :P). Just took scouting out the route beforehand.
And oh the Crown Pavillion. What a glorious lootfest that was yesterday. Luckily I got in before some of the nerfs. Several cores, two lodestones, TONS of t6 mats and other loot and a few rares. I made at least 15g there I think and that’s not counting all the t6 mats I banked. I enjoyed the later the most as this means less money I have to spend on them for my gifts of Magic and Might. 😛
I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on the guantlet. I got up the penultimate boss then needed a break. Somewhat excited yet terrified of trying the final one with necro’s lack of dodges, but necros are doing this.. so challenge accepted I suppose. 😛
Ask and ye shall receive. 🙂
Well, no, I was working on that little rant first, then decided it would be better to cover the positive stuff before the whine.
Better than me. I took a bunch of breaks in between attempts.
I wiped what seemed like a dozen times on Salazan because I was fixated on trying to dodge/evade/block my way out of the ring. Eventually found an unreplied-to rant on the forums that somehow still gave me a paradigm shift to try and STAY within the ring.
The penultimate boss was also giving me paroxysms as a guardian. The pig is immune to immobilize, no cripple (except a racial mine), no chill, and I lag too much to beat anyone (including an NPC) at F interact.
The good news for you is that a necromancer in the right build pwns that encounter. If someone completely unskilled at necro could do it, anyone with more experience playing the class can.
Then it’ll be time for Liadri like a whole bunch of people are stuck at. The new Candidate T4 to solve.
Hehe, Salazan gave me a bit of trouble but I sorta figued after the first time I tried dodging through the ring and got insta downed that I had to stay in it. So luckily that didn’t take me too many tries.
The Deadeye dude… the thiefy heartseeker one.. that sucked for a good long while as I couldn’t see the kill shot. So switched up to burst axe and then ran into his face immediately everytime, feared when I could.
The norn one gave me some trouble but mostly because of bugs. I think I got it and the meatless murder achieve on my 2nd proper attempt.
And the sunblast lady? Tbh I think I just lucked out.. had no clue how to see her blast. I lucky randomly dodged one then camped a black hole and quickly burned her down.
Bleh to Kiel. I hope she *is* a villain in deep cover because if not she’s just a dimwitted bore.
For all that commentators, bloggers and forum posters go on endlessly about “challenge” and “dumbing down”, my experience in-game in every MMO I have ever played is that what players en masse respond to best is easy content with high rewards.
I remain mystified why we don’t get a lot more of it a lot more of the time. I bet for every player who wants “challenge” there are ten who just want faceroll easy content that pays well. SOmeone should make a whole MMO based on that, with AAA production values. That’d be the WoW killer they’ve been looking for all these years.