Showing Posts For Twoflower.3176:
“It’ll be okay, I can solo a personal story mission despite having dozens of ridiculously unbalanced missions in the past, I just gotta get through this so I can join my friends this weekend in the Arah dungeon…”
Should’ve known better.
For starters, the initial “defend the camp” goal? I am swamped and downed ten times in a row while my NPC helpers basically do nothing. That’s giggleworthy.
Next, tank shooting. NPC helpers getting slaughtered while I try to make the tank work. Every time I try to turn the turret, my camera flips 180 degrees and I’m kicked out of the tank. I can’t line up a single shot on those giants because my controls and my camera keep bugging out. I finally give up and switch to the mortars, which turn at a glacial pace. Every time I manage to take out one giant and switch to the other, before I can down it the first giant’s respawned, making me start all over again.
Then I get a connection error and what progress I did make is lost.
I have not had fun with this game’s personal story since Claw Island thanks to bugs, overly difficult missions, and yawn-inducing Trahearne focused writing. But at least the bugs can be fixed. So, fix this one, please.
It’s a good comparison. Also, the crates are sometimes provided to the player for free — one of them, anyway — to encourage them to buy a holiday-specific key. Plus, TF2 crates ALWAYS cough up a relevant holiday item, so the market is usually awash in unwanted items you can trade for if you didn’t get the one you were looking for.
In TF2 terms, this event is more like the only item being available is an Unusual Hat (2% chance) and all other items in the crate being the same junk available year round. That makes them pure unobtanium for all but the most lucky and the richest, with others left in the cold.
It’s a player-unfriendly way to design your reward table. I guess it’s more rewarding for the company, but only in the sense that they can milk the gullible / rich / desperate even harder while others call it a scam and avoid the entire thing.
Not all casuals , working folk , etc agree with the gimme now gimme all crowd.
Posted by: Twoflower.3176
Casual player here, full time job, etc.
It’s fair to ask someone to work for a reward but I don’t think the level of work required by this event is fair. So, I’m not bothering to go for the rewards.
Fortunately there are events and missions which I can play anyway and still enjoy the holiday. It’s just a shame I’ll have nothing to show for it at the end of the day because the bar was set too high.
So, not angry, not demanding changes, just a bit disappointed that this much of the event was placed outside the realm of possibility. I’m not rewarding that approach with money (to buy gems or keys). Hopefully future events will be a bit more forgiving and fun.
Everyone should get everything at all times , seems to about sum it up right ?
Absolutely not. But there’s “You’ll have to work a bit for it” and there’s “Welcome to your new second job.”
There’s a line which each individual has, which is a point of no return. Prior to that, it’s effort but it’s effort you’re willing to put in for the reward you get. After that no matter how nice the reward is, it’s just not worth bothering with because it costs too much money / time / resources.
A casual player lacks money / time / resources. I’ve got a job, I’ve got house bills to pay, heck — I have other games I want to spend time playing. These are completely out of my reach, so I’m not going for them. It’s disappointing that Arenanet thinks these costs are reasonable.
I’ve been in other MMOs with other holiday events that also have tangible rewards and they too made us work for them, but the level of work was within reason. This isn’t. So, pass.
As a casual (is only one level 80 considered casual?) I’m not even going to bother going for any of the rewards. There’s no conceivable way I could have the materials for the skins — which would be put to better use on other crafting anyway — and I’m not playing the casino odds.
The actual EVENT, the missions and candy scanner and coming acts? Those I’m getting in on.
You can specialize in turrets without FILLING your bar with turrets, though.
My current approach comes at engineering three ways simultaneously:
1. My weapon, either rifle or pistol depending on if I want crowd control or conditions, with a slew of proc-on-crit traits. These also transfer over well to flamethrower. This is my primary direct means of damage and while I don’t do insane burst damage I do more than enough to put things down before they put me down and to keep control over the fight.
2. Slot 7, which I leave open for either Elixr B (self buffing) or Flamethrower (terrific AOE when doing events with groups) or an Elixr for condition removal if things are getting rough out there. If I’m grouped and we’re good for mitigation, I can throw another turret in here instead (but flamethrower’s usually better).
3. Finally, 8 and 9 are Rifle Turre tand Rocket Turret respectively, using my Inventions traits (30% damres and self-healing turrets).
I’m not giving up a lot to use turrets. My other traits focus on dealing damage and keeping me alive. Engineers are a class that don’t need to give up much because they can be a jack of all trades, excelling at nothing but capable at everything.
Sorry to burst your bubble but… Flamethrowers don’t trigger weapon sigils.
I know. But it does trigger any proc-on-crit traits you have. And when I’m down to a single target or I need to work from a distance, I use my rifle — which tacks yet another proc-on-crit with its sigil. I meant that as two separate things.
The flamethrower is nice because it’s a STREAM of hits, each tiny, but each with its own crit chance. That means it’s more likely to pour on the conditions than the rifle is. Very nice.
Mine clicked when I started trying out proc-on-crit traits plus a crit-focused build… then yanked out my flamethrower.
It was very much an Aha! moment. Instead of juicing for pure power, looking for reliable and consistent direct damage, I was focusing on critting as much as possible so my sigils and traits kicked in, slathering the enemy in conditions. That got me started experimenting with pistols and other builds and now I’m doing decently.
That was a late game click, though; my early game click was getting self-repairing turrets, since I was trying and failing to make a turret-friendly build. Once I got those they started seriously contributing to my DPS and survival.
Career engy here. I used turrets all the way to 80 and I still use turrets.
I have 20 in the toughness line, for 30% damage reduction to turrets and self-repairing turrets. This self-healing plus my rifle (knockbacks and immobilizes) keeps my turrets alive. I very, very rarely lose one unless I completely ignored it and left it to die intentionally. Usually I finish my fight, scoop up the turret with E, and move on.
I don’t use them as tanks, that’s for sure. I don’t even use them for grabbing aggro or delaying a fight. They’re additional DPS sources and the rockets are good for interrupts and knockdowns.
Basic strategy…
1. Lay down Rifle Turret (it recharges FAST, so it’s good to have alongside slower turrets) and Rocket Turret, spaced a little distance apart.
2. Open fire. Juice up the turrets with their overcharges.
3. Enemy comes at you and gets repeatedly KD’d by the rocket turret. When it eventually gets close enough, Blunderbuss, point blank Jump Shot, Overcharged Shot to knock it back, Net Shot to immobilize.
4. Later, rinse, repeat until dead. Scoop up turrets with E and move on.
Did the fight already start? No problem, circle around the edge of the fray dropping your Rifle and Rocket turrets. Drop a supply crate on the veteran/champion’s head to seriously tilt the battle in your favor. I don’t think twice about jumping a veteran anymore and I contribute heavily to veterans, as my turrets plink away at the midrange without going down.
It’s not facerolling ownage like a GS Warrior or anything like that, but it’s extremely viable in PVE and has gotten me far.
Okay, it worked for me on the second try. I guess the Front Gate sequence is a bit random. I didn’t do anything differently this time around, except maybe to leg it with speed to the gate as soon as that goal was available; I only lagged behind by a few second the previous time though, to loot the guys attacking the logging camp.
Show up at a peaceful camp. “Defeat the Undead Offensive” pops up. Okay, fine, I’m an engineer, I’m good at point defense. I walk up to a gate to wait for the wave of risen to show…
…the risen show in a CUT SCENE. They casually walk into the village murdering everyone while my PC stands there doing absolutely nothing. They casually surround my PC while I can continue to do nothing.
Finally the cut scene ends and I am immediately ganked on all sides by enemies I should’ve been able to do something about long before that point if I hadn’t been forcibly restrained by Mr. Camera Man’s attempt at winning an Oscar for cinematography. I’m downed three times total before I can finally get ONE HALF of the battle under control and then approach the second half rested and ready to pound them.
Look, if you want an epic battle, fine — but don’t take control away from me and then put me in a curbstomp situation that should not have been one in the first place. Thanks.
(Also I’d rather mourn my mentor who was fridged to make way for Traehearne than this random dude, but whatever, I’ve given up trying to care about the story by now.)
Stuck in the same place as other folks — “Defend the Front Gate” and only the first ambush wave spawns. Nothing happens after that. I’ll try restarting the mission…
I picked letting an innocent die.
The shoehorning is my complaint. I don’t particularly like grenades on grounds of clumsiness — with or without fast cast they’re a pain to use — and aesthetics, since my awesome looking weapon goes away and I’m just standing there holding a tiny object in my right hand. It’s boring compared to melting face with a flamethrower or unloading with dual pistols, etc.
If there was a more viable way to pump out damage using other combinations, we’d be in better shape. I’m doing it anyway since I refuse to give up the things I find fun even if they’re weak, but it’s disappointing that grenades are the only route to true effectiveness.
Here’s my approach. I play PvE only, note.
It’s worked well for me — I can’t faceroll everything in sight like a greatsword warrior or a guardian, but I can hold my own and rarely need to flee. I dive into a fight with a veteran without thinking twice.
Rolling with a rifle, currently with a Sigil of Blood (the one which grants a stack up to 25 of attack damage bonus on kill) and my gear is largely Power and Vitality.
Skills, I swap these out when grouped or when the situation calls for a change.
6: Elixr H (solo), Healing Turret (grouped). The turret helps everyone and your F1 skill is like having a quick burst of turret on the fly. The faster-charging elixr is better when I’m romping around on my own but sometimes I still use the turret.
7: Elixr B (solo), Flamethrower (grouped). FT with the on-crit procs I picked is not too shabby, and helps a lot when you’re being swarmed by enemies during a dynamic event, particularly if you have other players around as a distraction. The toolbelt skill lets you add burning to your attacks, which is nifty; I can proc burning but this is a sure bet.
8: Rifle Turret. Fast recharging and its overcharge ability does bleeds. Don’t think of it like a TF2 turret or a tank (even though I specced it for toughness and self repair) but as an additional DPS source. Once done, pick it up and move on, it’ll be ready in time for your next fight.
9: Rocket Turret or Tumper Turret. Long recharging but you should not need these every fight, and the toolkit rocket attack is nothing to sneeze at. Thumper’s better for swarms, rocket better for bosses or strong single folks you need to interrupt and knock down.
0: Supply Drop. This thing is GREAT; you plop it down in front of the boss, or use it to lock down a point. Walk over the medkits when you get hurt, and set up your rocket and rifle turrets on the edges of the point, and you’ll hold a location down easily.
Open your fights with a hip shot. Enemy gets close enough, Blunderbuss and quickly Jump Shot (if safe enough) and Overcharged Shot. That puts distance between you and interrupts their big-windup-melee hit. Then Net Shot to pin them down. Repeat as needed. Roll in and out of the fight to avoid being hit and leave bombs behind in your wake, spam Jump Shot when too many guys get too close, etc.
There’s not much in the way of condition removal here, so you may want Elixr S or something instead of the big turret or the little turret, but honestly getting stunned is not a huge deal when you’ve got lots of turrets and the protection-on-conditioned trait.
This is NOT an optimal build. For that you’ll wanna spam grenades. Grenades are boring and annoying to use, so I choose the impossible — I choose rifle/turrets and I make it work for me. Good luck.
I’m a human engy, but I’m running rifle / flamethrower / turrets. Unconventional and not the most optimal, but grenade lobbing’s just too boring.
I LOVE supply crate, though. It’s a good tool for holding down a point or softening up a boss. The turrets are AI controlled, so you can’t juice or destroy them, but with the Explosive Turrets trait they will explode and do damage when clobbered.
I don’t think the warband can reasonably make a reappearance — same with your krewe or hometown pals. That’s just too much possible variation to take into consideration.
But there’s NO technical reason we needed a character to come out of left field and take over the whole show. The player could’ve been the one making the dramatic speech in the tree’s vision. The player could’ve been the marshall of the Pact. (The player’s the one that picks the direction the Pact is going in, anyway!) The player could’ve been the one folks were looking to to save the world. Just do what they did in earlier arcs — refer to your character by title (“Slayer” or “Hero of Shaemoor” or “Advocate” etc) and that’ll keep it generic without cutting you out of the loop completely.
A few bugs, really. Playing a L50 engineer. (I should’ve known my squishy engy can’t do a +1 mission…)
1. “Enter the Ritual Circle”. The circle is not located on the map. I poked a spawn of Risen (very gradually killing them, since doing eight +1 enemies at once is no small task) and wandered around aimlessly until I spotted it.
2. Next, after entering the circle, I was immobilized… and a dozen Risen immediately ambushed and pounded me flat within three seconds. The transformation into the god form didn’t happen until after I rezzed at the checkpoint. Game just disabled and murdered me. Yay armor repair costs.
3. Difficulty was a bit much, I downed several times as I was trying to rapidly get a handle on what my new abilities did while a horde beat me into the dirt.
The game really, really seems to favor throwing five times the number of enemies at you as you find in ordinary PVE open world play… Claw Island was considerably harder for me than Caudecus’s Manor, for that matter. Not enjoying being curbstomped by hordes here.
Look at the title of this very forum, as written by Arenanet… “Personal Story: It really is all about you.” Except instead, the later arcs are about Teahearne’s rise to power and all the great things he accomplishes and how wonderful he is. It’s not about you at all.
Under the original mandate, I think the player being a Mary Sue would be forgivable. You lead the charge, you save the day, folks thank you, you are awesome, etc. Cheesy? A little, but certainly more fun than you are along for the ride, you obey the orders, you become the footnote.
Engineer here. Set to Blow and Claw Island were deathtraps with slews of armor repair fees afterwards. Even using a turret-focused build which SHOULD be a “Hold this point down, solidify it, and kill anything coming at you” I couldn’t hold a point worth anything.
Having just slogged my way through the armor repair festival that was Claw Island, I’m disappointed to hear of what’s in my future here.
Having all three orders and all origins funnel into the exact same resolution path is very disappointing. Sure, the dungeons follow one story path — that’s expected — but I thought the whole point of the orders were that they approached things differently?
Also having Mr. Treedude Whoeverheis be the main character… bleh. I don’t care if I’m the critical enabler which lets him be awesome, I don’t care one way or another about him and I really hope he sacrifices himself nobly at the end of his story so I can get back to mine.
Pretty sure he’s talking about direct and easily exploitable loops. IE, use something sold by a merchant for 10 copper to make an item which sells back to a merchant for 100 copper.
That’s different from working on items which have variable pricing depending on the mood of the market. Crafting low and selling high is pretty standard stuff, after all.
Aha. I… THINK the recipe is in. See “Mystic Chests” on the wiki page.
Seems to be:
1 Mystic Coin
1 Glob of Ectoplasm
250 Janky Item
250 Janky Item
That… seems a bit steep. Even for a pile of janky items. If the chests are as wonderfully rewarding as processing random junk is (resulting in, for instance, a soulbound axe on my engineer) then bleh. We need some guinea pigs to give this a shot first.
There’s a wiki page about the forge which explains a bit about its mechanics.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_forge
Frankly, I’ve never found an efficient and useful reason to use the forge to process stuff I find which I don’t need. Better to sell items I don’t want and the auction house won’t pay for (see also: basically everything).
Posted today by John:
“While adjusting the supply and demand will bring markets closer to non-vendor based equilibrium, there is still the matter of massive surplus of some items. To address the surplus, we’ve created some new, limited-time Mystic Forge recipes that use these items. These recipes create boxes that give chances for gold and some cool items.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/john-smith-on-the-state-of-the-guild-wars-2-economy/
It doesn’t say when these recipes are going into the system. Are they already in?
The screenshot seems to hint at dumping butter and such in there. It’d probably help Tyria’s arteries to take all that butter we’re looting off bandits and pirates and expunge it from this world, lest the Elder Dragons find a race of slow-moving five hundred pound humans for tasty, tasty eating.
The plainness of the tabard is really disappointing — as is the excessive cost of it, being a single-use transmute. I guess I could keep it on my character by perpetually transmuting it each time I upgrade my armor, but that’s costly.
I like the backpacks, at least; they add something unique to your character with the logo without replacing something as critical as the chestpiece.
What I really wish we had was emblemed SHOULDERS. It’s a good evolution of the idea; there’s already an ankh emblem on the guardian shoulders, after all. That way you can fly guild colors without having to wear a tabard or a pack.
Even outside of PvP, I’d like to be able to select a loadout of utility skills.
As an Engineer I’ve got a slew of them to pick from and they’re all situational, based on whether I need to hold down a point, escort a pack bull, or run my personal story solo.
Being able to tap a key and swap to a new set of 6-0 keys would help a bunch.
I have a support / dodgytank build, which relies heavily on 30 in Inventions — super Toughness stat, and durable self-repairing turrets that explode violently when they’re clobbered. With the rifle and the Power trait which leaves mines behind when you dodge, I can roll in and out of battle, using my blunderbuss shotgun blast and the overcharged knockback and the net shot to keep an enemy off balance and controlled. It’s working pretty well so far, especially in big group events.
Skills are:
Solo: Elixr H, Elixr B, Rifle Turret (quick recharging), Rocket Turret (for tougher situations and AOE), Supply Crate (a good ‘This area is MINE now’ button)
Teamed / Dynamic Events: Heal Turret, Flamethrower (AOE and burn and combo field and control), Rifle Turret, Rocket Turret, Supply Crate.
You’ll also want Elixr Gun for pure support and conditions, and maybe Med Pack.
It’s tough to figure out what traits go with what, but the general rule of thumb us…
Power: Rifle. It has a bleed effect, yes, but primarily it’s direct damage based. Also this will help your grenade and bomb kit quite a bit. Also key for flamethrower, although the flamethrower has some burn condition damage and can benefit from precision as well.
Precision: Dual pistols. They pour on the condition damage and AOE.
Toughness: If you’re insane like me and want to go heavy on turrets, this is the traitline for you. 30% denser, self-repairing, auto-big-booming turrets. I haven’t had any serious problems yet with this design in PVE, and it’s really helped on “hold this position and kill things” events, but I am only level 40 and I do swap out healturret/flamethrower for elixrh/elixrb when soloing.
The key with engineers is that they are very versatile, so before you pour all your traits into any one line, consider what you’ll be weak in as a result. Being a generalist is both a tough and an easier road than a pure DPS or pure support class has.
Forceful Explosives was a “I dunno what else is worth taking here” pick. I leave mines behind when I dodge, so presumably it applies to them.
I suppose I could take the 5% damage boost when endurance isn’t full — I do a lot of dodging, but that didn’t seem worth bothering with since dodging=mines anyway, so I may as well catch more in my blasts. There’s also Incendiary Powder but this isn’t a crit focused build, so would it fire often enough to be worth it? etc.
Fortunately traits can be swapped out, so I can experiment until I find one that works best. Also, I do have Grenade Kit in my skill inventory — when time calls for AOE spamming explosives, that trait will be handy. Like I said, the key to good engineering is swapping things out as the situation calls for them.
Speaking to PVE specifically,
Engineer takes more work than facerolling everything as a Warrior, but can certainly deal damage. Even in dungeon runs careful placement of my turrets made them quite useful, the supply drops helped turn tides, and tumbling in and out of combat (with the trait that leaves mines behind when I dodge) while using blunderbuss contributed to damage well. It’s an active profession with a lot of thought needed to preparation for the fight, but in the end it works.
My build (although I’m not at 80 yet, so I may shuffle this up) focuses on being a “distributed tank” across many turrets, with basic power damage in the rifle for my directed damage source.
As noted above, you’re going to want to do some swapping based on your situation. For instance, when so, I’ll usually replace Heal Turret with Elixr H and Flamethrower with Elixr B. That gives me more personal damage and healing compared to widespread damage and healing. (Flamethrower shines when you have teammates distracting enemies, so you can get up close and AOE the crap out of them… but solo or vs. strong single targets it’s not a great choice.) You can also swap out traits when solo for more appropriate ones.
(Not sure this makes sense in the ‘players helping players’ forum since it’s not a question for help, but…)
Minions healing up between fights would help a great deal. Once they get injured a bit there’s no reason to keep them around — pop them and resummon — but that takes a LONG time and slows you down a lot.
Crafting is something you do ALONGSIDE brawling with baddies. One feeds the other; the brawls get you the stuff you need to make the things that improve your brawling. I’m not seeing a problem here.
I will grant that the drop rates on that stuff could be higher. A lot of different crafting professions pull from the same pool of items; in my guild we have four different people fighting over who gets totems and blood, for instance. Meanwhile, as our Designated Jeweler, folks have no problem heaping me with silver and gems… I get off easy compared to them.