Guild Wars 2

I’m sure I’m missing something, but how are you suppose to get so many audio logs for the monthly?

You only get one per account per periscope, and I haven’t seen that many periscopes out there.

Thanks for any help

Supposedly there are 50 scopes spread around the norn and charr zones, including places as far afield as Iron Marches and Fireheart Rise.

Would not surprise me if there are even some down in Fields of Ruin and Timberline Falls…

Honestly tho, i would recommend ignoring the periscopes and go do 12 different jumping puzzles.

Here is a list of supposedly easy ones to complete: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjk07/puzzle_jumper_monthly_achievement/

Edit: i stand corrected, here is a list of zones and pericope locations within each of them: http://dulfy.net/2013/03/26/gw2-sonic-periscope-audio-log-guide/

Yeah. sounds like it’s not worth doing. tnx

I skipped it as a requirement too. I just got my Monthly via Events, Veterans, Dailies and Jumping Puzzles.

I did my whole Monthly in WvW.

I only need like 20 more logs to get to 150. Of course I did this because I hate jumping puzzles so much that I would rather kill 150 periscopes. Also just is case you didn’t know it is one log per periscope per day.

Zaxares.5419:

I skipped it as a requirement too. I just got my Monthly via Events, Veterans, Dailies and Jumping Puzzles.

Same. Doing the periscope one just seemed a bit excessive to me.

I dunno, seems easy enough to me. There are 50 periscopes you can pick up daily, so to describe the extremes:

- do all 50 on 3 days during the month
- pick up 6 of them on 25 days during the month

Both solutions seem less effort then seeking out and completing enough jumping puzzles to me, although everyone of course has their own preference.

Personally I’m just playing normally and see how many logs I end with (got 80ish now) and might have to do a round through their spawns on the last weekend to get the last few to 150.

i found fifty periscopes took me three days to complete this part of the monthly
http://dulfy.net/2013/03/26/gw2-sonic-periscope-audio-log-guide/
link to a page that shows where the fifty are. it took me the longest getting the dailies then it did anything else

I suck at JPs so I went the scope route.

Gotta admit, when Molten Alliance score, especially with a protector, it is a HUGE pain. I used my Ranger for most of them, made it easy.

Range + pet to take blowbacks = easy.

The problem its not only the knockback, its also that you need to collect 150! Every “kill monthly” achievement was 50, and with lot more mobs to do it, and without daily cap.
This achiev take from you 1-2 hours and 50-70 sivers per day to FARM 50 logs. Thats x3. You need like 5 hours and 2g just to do a borring (now not kitten) run arround maps to destroy an antena… 150 times…
I bet no more than 1% of the active population do this achievement, if no less. It just not worth the time, the gold and the “monthly obligation feeling”.

Noone makes you do them in these 3 days, that’s why it’s called monthly Noones fault that people just want to do it right away the 1st day the new monthly comes up.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The knockback has been reduced for players level 16 and above, and removed for players 15 and below.

Could you verify if this is per area or per character? Update notes say areas under lvl 15, while you speak of player level.

If you’re doing the bare minimum for the monthly I don’t recommend doing the audio logs, since that will be the most time consuming. I did the four dailies, spent a few hours in WvW and the monthly essentially completed itself. You can get the 50 WvW player kills, 100 veterans, and 100 events without even trying.

But if you do insist on collecting 150 audio logs, use the dulfy guide to see where they are, and remember that you can get each one once per day.

I rather enjoyed the periscopes the way they were. It was fun getting the right strategy with different characters to destroy them. As to boring runs, combine them with daily Ascalon/Shiverpeaks killer, as well as event completion and reviver. Gets two, sometimes three dailies taken care of as well as part of the periscope monthly.

MatthewMedina.5419:

It’s true that other monthly achievements were set lower, but we made this higher specifically because there are a finite number of these, they do not move, and they respawn quickly.

While I agree with most of your post, on this, we disagree. If you can only pick up the salvage item ONCE PER ACCOUNT PER DAY, it really does not matter if it spawns every 30 seconds. For all practical purposes, the periscopes spawn ONCE per day per location.

I did the sonic periscope monthly within the first week or so, and I didn’t incur any costs. It takes little time to travel from the city to the zones in question. For instance, Hoelbrak to Wayfarer to Diessa, and at low levels, it wasn’t too difficult to pick them up on any characters that might be in the area. Also, if someone else had taken down the periscope, and you were anywhere near the vicinity, the salvage material was just waiting there for you to pick up. I have to admit, the maps were of a great help, and I memorized the locations in a couple of zones after the first 2 or 3 times.

And now, they are soooo much easier to do, and plenty of time left to do them. =)

Haaaahahaha You would do this today, the day after I finished my 150…

I love you guys!

But yes, great move to reduce/remove the knockback. Many times I found half destroyed scopes with a full compliment of Moltens around it because people had given up.

GuzziHero.2467:

But yes, great move to reduce/remove the knockback. Many times I found half destroyed scopes with a full compliment of Moltens around it because people had given up.

One of the problems with these things is that if someone left the molten mobs undefeated and you came along and got rid of them, they’d respawn again within seconds. It obviously wasn’t taking account of the fact that you’d just spent the last ten minutes taking one lot down…

I’m lucky, that never happened to me!

lunawisp.2378:

GuzziHero.2467:

But yes, great move to reduce/remove the knockback. Many times I found half destroyed scopes with a full compliment of Moltens around it because people had given up.

One of the problems with these things is that if someone left the molten mobs undefeated and you came along and got rid of them, they’d respawn again within seconds. It obviously wasn’t taking account of the fact that you’d just spent the last ten minutes taking one lot down…

It is annoying to have to clean up other people’s mess but 10 minutes? O_o
I hope you haven’t been trying to fight them next to the scope …

MatthewMedina.5419:

If this is boring to you personally, hopefully there are other achievements that help you meet your monthly. :-)

While I agree with everything you say fundamentally, I’m a bit curious about the reasoning behind this particular achievement. The best thing about the new daily/monthly set up is that according to what part of the game appeals to you most you can usually get them done without too much of your time bleeding into other areas. For these periscopes, they don’t exactly add anything to the game. Are there people that actually find these fun? Not easy or convenient for achieving the requirements of the monthly. I mean genuinely intriguing, captivating, interesting, thrilling, etc.? They aren’t even part of any sort of routine while normally playing the game.

Not sure why there is so much fuss about this month’s monthlies. Dailies, vets, and events come naturally through playing the game. You only need to do fractals 3 times to get that achievement. And even after I had done those, I accidentally got the WvW player kills monthly. And 12 jumping puzzles in a month is pretty soft as well.

I wouldn’t even go near the audio log achievement. I’ve been picking them up as I see them, not looking for them, and I’ve gotten about 30 so far this month. 150 is not a reasonable number to expect people to “naturally” come across, unless they are playing through all Flame & Frost content on every character, and farming the low level zones on top of that. However the other achievements are definitely viable throughout the “natural” course of playing the game.

This was the most boring monthly achievement ive ever played in a game!

Repeatly doin brainless activity is so fun!

And 150? why so many it isnt fun and nobody think its fun to repeat stuff thats exactly the same 150times without connection to other content in a game.

No one says you have to do this for your monthly, if you find it boring.

Just a reminder, you only need to complete four tasks to earn your monthly!

Personally I started doing this for my last monthly, but wound up doing Puzzle Jumper instead.

Curo.2483:

I wouldn’t even go near the audio log achievement. I’ve been picking them up as I see them, not looking for them, and I’ve gotten about 30 so far this month. 150 is not a reasonable number to expect people to “naturally” come across

This, just this. This guy is a master to put complex ideas in simple words.
To the dev (ty for answer btw ), i recomend to calculate how many people do this achiev compared with the last mont players that complete the monthly. If the % its to small, you know that something its wrong.
I wont say what you must do, i dont have the info to know that. But try to no repeat mistakes please
All i know its that i would do this achiev IF was 50-, but 150 its too much.

I got 80 so far and only because I looked up locations on the wiki. When I searched them without help I found 3 in over a hour.

Khisanth.2948:

lunawisp.2378:

GuzziHero.2467:

But yes, great move to reduce/remove the knockback. Many times I found half destroyed scopes with a full compliment of Moltens around it because people had given up.

One of the problems with these things is that if someone left the molten mobs undefeated and you came along and got rid of them, they’d respawn again within seconds. It obviously wasn’t taking account of the fact that you’d just spent the last ten minutes taking one lot down…

It is annoying to have to clean up other people’s mess but 10 minutes? O_o
I hope you haven’t been trying to fight them next to the scope …

Slight exaggeration for effect As far as fighting them next to the scope, I’ve found that any attempt to get out of the scope’s range just resets the mobs anyway.

Hubby and I got our 150 early in the month. It did take some dedicated work to get them considering the knockbacks and spawned/spawning mobs. We got quite creative with taking down the mobs so I guess we learned from the experience – definitely has made us better at dealing with mobs now… The achievement is definitely doable but because of the difficulty of the scopes we did wish after about 75 of them that the required number was lower than the 150 – 100 would have still been good.

We were quite proud of finishing that part of the monthly, though. At least you do continue to get karma for them when turning them in, which is why we still go after them if we encounter them. Thanks, Anet for putting in a fix for them.

Aerinndis.2730:

Hubby and I got our 150 early in the month. It did take some dedicated work to get them considering the knockbacks and spawned/spawning mobs. .

Props to you for completing it, but you’ve got to be kidding me. Your limiting factor was the difficulty of the mobs, and not the hours it takes to locate 150 periscopes (even with a guide)? You must have unlimited time on your hands for the difficulty of the mobs to be your primary issue here! I believe the mobs and periscopes (with the new nerfs) are completely balanced and fun to fight. But the time you have to invest in hunting the periscopes down one by one is ridiculous. Apologies if you guys are just low level, as I could imagine how that might be harder.

Not unlimited time – it was more what we did with the time we had. We had the maps with the scope locations and planned the most efficient route for each one. We usually tried for three maps a day for 30. It was more about being efficient in getting to each scope than anything. We got most of the dailies done at the same time as we were enroute to the next scope. Killing the mobs also helped on some dailies so it was a win-win overall. It also went much quicker time-wise once we were familiar with the route to the next scope. Since it was a monthly you could do 5 scopes a day and still make it if you started at the beginning of the month.

When I see someone trying to take a scope, I do try to go over and help them out especially if a mob has appeared. They are fun to take down when you have a coordinated effort by several and if it helps someone else make their monthly, even better.

PainShot.7154:

The problem its not only the knockback, its also that you need to collect 150!

It’s a piece of cake, actually. I did mine in blocks of 10 scopes per day on different maps. And that was during the time when these things really knocked you around WITH the tough mobs! It was nice going back to some of the maps I haven’t been to in a while.

PainShot.7154:

You need like 5 hours and 2g just to do a borring (now not kitten) run arround maps to destroy an antena… 150 times

I not getting how destroying the sonic periscopes costs gold. Of course, if you get killed by the mobs, then you have repair costs, but 2g?

I not getting how destroying the sonic periscopes costs gold. Of course, if you get killed by the mobs, then you have repair costs, but 2g?

Travel costs I imagine. If you go from waypoint to waypoint those costs mount up very quickly.

I agree the periscopes suck…150 is 3 times too many…I thought it was only 50 and was happily finishing off my monthly when it changed to needing 100 then upon looking further it was 150! I’ve seen maybe 5 different ones…all very irritating btw….knockdowns are not fun…knockdowns are not fun….knockdowns are not fun.

the are 5 areas with ten a piece in them 3 days tasked to do them spread out through the whole month easy

For me, and this is just my opinion, the sonic periscopes were much more appealing than some of the other choices. It didn’t take long to circle the zone and pick the 10 up, and I thought the challenge was fun. I still pick up sonic logs for the karma when I encounter them since the change, and especially seek out the ones with mobs. They were my favorite. =)

MatthewMedina.5419:

Geikamir.6329:

MatthewMedina.5419:

If this is boring to you personally, hopefully there are other achievements that help you meet your monthly. :-)

While I agree with everything you say fundamentally, I’m a bit curious about the reasoning behind this particular achievement. The best thing about the new daily/monthly set up is that according to what part of the game appeals to you most you can usually get them done without too much of your time bleeding into other areas. For these periscopes, they don’t exactly add anything to the game. Are there people that actually find these fun? Not easy or convenient for achieving the requirements of the monthly. I mean genuinely intriguing, captivating, interesting, thrilling, etc.? They aren’t even part of any sort of routine while normally playing the game.

I’m sorry you didn’t feel they added anything to the game. As part of Flame and Frost, they were positioned to make the Molten Alliance feel like an ever-encroaching threat, and that they were planning for something by spying on their enemies.

Specifically addressing the achievement, while we hope that all the achievements are intriguing, captivating, interesting, etc. as you said, the new system allows you to pick the ones that appeal to you personally. Admittedly, I wouldn’t put anything into the game that I felt was not fun. For me, the design goal with the perisopes was: yes it’s not fun to get knocked around. It IS fun to dodge and deke carefully and feel a sense of victory when you defeat something challenging and yes, somewhat frustrating.

However, this can be very subjective and there can be a fine line bwteen being challenged and feeling like you’re being punished, and as you’ve seen when we feel something is more punishing than fun, we aren’t afraid to change it and so we have.

You might not have found destroying the periscopes for their logs fun. Maybe you prefer jumping puzzles or events, in which case there are monthlies to suit your tastes. I’d like to think that this periscope achievement does appeal to some of our players, and we will definitely be looking at feedback and data we get from achievements like this to help inform our future design decisions. Thanks so much for your feedback! :-)

I did kind of enjoy all that knockback. lol

From reading the last coupla entries, GW is blessed to have so many people that are so easily pleased anf totally loyal. Very nice. Wish I had a guild full of these types. Good boy!

I think I was bored after 50 of these. The idea was good, but my opinion is that the number was a bit too high, so it just ended up feeling too grindy. Thanks for the effort. Just tossing my opinion in for future Monthly development.

Beat this like a boss, keep ’em coming, I like to use my dodging skills properly and this challenged me yeah.

The high frequency of the blasts, the range of same, and that you could only loot the periscopes once pr day pr account is likely what is the source of the frustration.

The frequency of attacks meant that unless you pack a stun breaker you got chain knocked quite easily.

The range meant that you could not really stand back and knock them down (they seemed to range more than 1200, the customary long range for character skills) that way.

and the 1 pr day pr account limitation meant that you really needed to scour the maps for them. Never mind keep notes so you didn’t attempt to loot one twice in a day.

Also, i am unsure if it was a fluke of latency or not, but there seemed to be no windup on the blasts what so ever. Meaning that you in essence had to dodge on a count or blind. If we were supposed to dodge on the sound, that seemed to not work at all.

Some of those are guarded by waaayy too much strength and repop is too fast…added to the knockback, just plain too hard. The game is not populated enough anymore in most areas for low levels to get help so there is way too much dying to be fun on these. ….and 150 is ridiculous.

I certainly don’t mind the periscope monthly. Heck, I applaud the fact that the Monthly makes reference to the events going on right now.

But I do agree with those who have said 150, even for a monthly, is too much. Most Monthly requirements can be done in a few days. But 150 periscopes in a few days is pushing it, given their their positioning around the map and how difficult they can be to find even when looking for them. I love running around in the charr areas, and I still rarely run across more than one or two.

In comparison to the other Monthly choices, 150 periscopes is just too much work for most players…even those, like me, who would be entertained killing periscopes for the Monthly.

Hubby and I pushed to complete the monthly in about 5 days this month. If we had done it at the more leisurely pace spaced out over the entire month, the 150 periscopes would not have seemed that bad. (all you had to do was 5 a day for the entire month). I suspect the devs thought 5 a day is very doable but didn’t see the O.o aspect when people looked at the 150 total. So for anyone wanting to get this done over a short period of time, yes, it seems very grindy. It felt like that when doing it but in perspective we really did not have to push so hard to get it done that quickly. Of course starting this late in the month now, well…… Lesson learned is divide the total in the amount of days in the month and plan accordingly.

Aerinndis.2730:

Hubby and I pushed to complete the monthly in about 5 days this month. I suspect the devs thought 5 a day is very doable but didn’t see the O.o aspect when people looked at the 150 total.

That 5 a day assumes the player is on every day of the month. Most players can’t do that. And the other Monthly requirements don’t seem to assume you’re on every day (4-5 Dailies, i.e.). Also, since there’s few indications where the periscopes are over an expansive amount of land, simply looking for the periscopes without the aid of an online map is a chore.

Coupled with the sheer number requirement, I doubt many players have joined you in completing this part of the Monthly. What a shame.

Ultimately it comes down to what parts of the daily work best for each person to accomplish and how they plan out what they do to get there within the time they do have.

Even if one did not use an online map, once you know the general location of the scopes on one or more maps you can make the rounds in a pretty short time even on a larger map. Thirty days is a lot of time to scout out even two maps worth of scopes. They do make themselves known and they mostly tend to be near pathways or villages (they are spying, remember?), plus no problem seeing the wave pattern when you get in the area of one or hear them if someone or something gets too near. One could then alternate between two maps (10 a day for 15 days) or even do two maps at a time over a period of 7 or 8 days. That or figure out the what is the best way to do it within your in-game time limitations. If that isn’t possible then that achievement isn’t doable this month but possibly the others in the list were to get you there.

We didn’t use waypoints because we were also completing dailies at the same time, gathering or getting our kills as we were heading to the next scope so yes, there probably was more time involved than if we had used the waypoints. The total number of scopes is daunting, certainly, but as in anything, good planning can make what looks impossible, possible.

I don’t know how many folk actually went for the achievement but we did see a lot of folk out there whacking scopes (at least on our server) and we gave or had a lot of help taking them out. And you can always ask if anyone wants to take out scopes with you or even ask for locations of them in chat.

The hours at which I can play GW make WvW an impossibility. As a solo player this was the least fun I have had playing this game and reminded me of other derivative content.