-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Guild Wars 2 |OT4| The only subscription you need is this thread.
- Thread starter Retro
- Start date
- Status
Been struggling to get a specific shot all night, giving up on it for now, way too tired. Here's one of the failed attempts:
How do you do those shots? They look so good!
Oh, I'm not trying to get everything done in one evening, far from that, but as someone who only took a peak at these events last year without participating heavily, I wanted to make a quick tour of what's available, see how it worked, and what could be gained out of it, because I did not participate in the first living story Season past the first Wintersday, and I'd really want to catch up on some of those exclusive items.
So far everything I tried has been nice to discover but extremely unrewarding and in some cases very confusing/frustrating which really doesn't leave me with much enthusiasm for the rest of the event.
Stock settings on Galaxy S5 Touchwhiz
Well I'll be...it's a very nice lock screen.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
Took a few tries to get the fight down, but I finally kicked Liadri's teeth in.
Snakethesniper
Member
Same here. I Also think that depends. I was in the boss blitz arena and it was empty, I went out and re-entered and I found myself in the arena with 2 commanders + other people killing the last boss.
Just to be sure, the activities are: arena, race, boss fight and the other arena?
Which is most rewarding to obtain the panda?
Don't forget the charged crystal and dolyak race events which, though not activities, provide a decent number of tokens for participation.
If the primary target is just the panda, completing the meta achievement is your best bet since it gives you everything you need. Both the 1600 tokens and the favor are available from it. The blitz provides a lot of achievements toward the meta, since there's an achievement for each boss as well as an achievement for taking out 50 of each type of enemy. That's 12 out of 14 right there if you bother to get them all. Then there's the one for doing blitz 10 times. Just doing a few of the blitz achievements and some from the bazaar would likely get you the meta pretty easily.
Beyond the meta, unless the blitz is doing really well, like gold tier well, it's probably the worst option for getting tokens. Bronze means it's taking a really long time, and the token reward is akin to that of losing in the aspect arena which would take 5 minutes. On that note, Aspect Arena provides ~10-15 or so tokens if you lose and around 20 or so if you win and the rounds are 5 minutes long. I'm not sure how the gauntlet nor sanctum sprint pay out. The times I tried sanctum sprint, I didn't receive credit for the achievement or reward x.x
The charged crystal and dolyak race events that take place periodically in the cliffs pay around 30-40ish tokens depending on the rank. Not counting the purchase of boxes to loot, doing those two events and aspect arena(or sanctum sprint if it pays similarly) in between is probably the best steady stream of tokens.
I think people wanted to do the bazaar first and the arena later.
That being said , i did have a lot of people in the areana last night.
Also I think all the 11111 mindless spammers/farmers left because you can't stick to one zerg semi-afk and get top reward.
I did a few attempts at the blitz. First time, I followed the zerg, we did all the 6 bosses that way. It took forever and of course we got the bronze reward. Second time, tried to tell people to split, but they wouldn't. It was faster to kill a champ with 2-4 people than the entire zerg... Got bronze again. Hopefully in the next few days people will start doing this properly.
I actually like what Anet did for this event, and what they're trying lately to split zergs.
While I'm perfectly willing to applaud Anet in their efforts to break the zerg aspects of the game, this Blitz event seems to be a pretty clunky attempt.
Right now the blame is on the players for being stupid, but from what I read, guilds like TTS were able to achieve gold rewards, and only got 8 champ bags from the reward chest.
That's a pretty poor reward considering what is needed to succeed, and very poor compared to a daily dungeon reward you can easily face roll with any PUG during the same, or less time, the worst part ? you have to pay gold to activate it ....
Sure, you might get tokens ... but the 1v1 challenges and Aspect arena seem to be a way better way to gather that with way less headache.
And well ... considering how profitable it seemed to have been last time I can't really blame people for being pissed.
There is also a big missed opportunity for a guild to be able to create their own instance so that they don't have to deal with randoms unnecessarily scaling everything.
There's a title for beating Liadri this year.
It could just have been an unlucky draw If the reward chest randomizes what it is going to give each time though .
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I want this. I want this a lot.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Flawless Defense is the only achievement I need :/
Anet should fix the older hair textures, especially facial hair. I was checking out the new hairstyles for norn and facial hair looks awful with them because of the lower quality textures and shading that is hugely different.
Tempted to do one of the new charr faces for my engi but I don't know if I'd stick with female and do Rox face or the male mad derp face.
Need Black Lion Claim Tickets. You can get the tickets or scraps from Black Lion Chests (RNG has become HORRIBLE on this - I think I've gotten 3 scraps out of the last 15 or so chests I opened). 10 scraps = 1 ticket.
Or gold. These skins can be sold on the trading post. But they usually range in the 60-100g price tag. I actually put in an order for the torch to see if it'll go through. I have something like 15 scraps as well but holding off at the moment
Tempted to do one of the new charr faces for my engi but I don't know if I'd stick with female and do Rox face or the male mad derp face.
Need Black Lion Claim Tickets. You can get the tickets or scraps from Black Lion Chests (RNG has become HORRIBLE on this - I think I've gotten 3 scraps out of the last 15 or so chests I opened). 10 scraps = 1 ticket.
Or gold. These skins can be sold on the trading post. But they usually range in the 60-100g price tag. I actually put in an order for the torch to see if it'll go through. I have something like 15 scraps as well but holding off at the moment
Right right right. I explored the Bazaar through and through yesterday. it's time for the arena! I want the Crown Pavillion right?
Off topic.. I'm going to watch Godzilla later, anyone seen it? 3D worth it?
Mail me 200g and I guarantee an item with the word Phoenix in it or your money back!
Off topic.. I'm going to watch Godzilla later, anyone seen it? 3D worth it?
Mail me 200g and I guarantee an item with the word Phoenix in it or your money back!
Yep. Considering achieving Gold reward requires completing the event in less than 8 minutes I think ? It's not that bad and it's repeatable.
From what I've read TTS people were chaining this.
With 6 commanders and their TS server to back things up.
This sucks, but for starters I want to let you know that if you're trying the solution Weltall and I made, for the moment it is still likely incompatible with Windows 8. As far as I thought, the legacy version of Xpadder running in compatibility mode was still able to function, so the issue you're having might be solvable, but the AHK script which really fuels the solution might not work properly.
If you still want to try getting Xpadder working we can check it out a bit more. Do you have any other input devices besides your mouse/keyboard and the 360 pad installed in Device Manager?
Nice work finding all the masters! What do you mean by both achievements?
Depending on what you mean, there's the Aspect Arena minigame in the sanctum, the Boss Blitz which is on the floor of the Crown Pavilion, and the Queen's Gauntlet, which is the 1v1 fights up on the catwalks above the pavilions.
The boss blitz seems like it is something that would be quite fun to do as a guild (I guess TTS has already demonstrated that it's possible
), and I'm looking into when to set up an event for us to do it.VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
What should I do after getting to the top of the Labrynthine zone? Queen's Pavillion in Divinity's Reach?
Aside from the title/meta, nope, nothing new there. If you've already completed her before, I'd recommend just running a lifesteal build(Thief/Necro) to one-and-done it. The fight is easier than before with the removal of the cage walls(ie: not as much camera issues now), but it's kind of silly that the title isn't retroactive(or they should have made the title for the higher-end achievement).
Kos Luftar
Member
You should record your jump from the top of the ship.
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
I actually made quite a few jumps (to my death) trying to get to that ship with the sliding door from the trailer. But I don't see any areas close enough that I can jump from (unless there's some kind of launch pad contraption somewhere that can get you there).
shysaursoft
Member
They're usually a composite of about 100 shots, stitched together into a wide angle panorama using tools like Microsoft ICE.
Meanwhile, on reddit, it's just a non-stop bitchfest about "wha this content is no fun if there isn't a super duper reward at the end".
Kids today. No joy from just playing for the sake of effing playing, huh. I think I may have to go on an online blackout for a few weeks, the signal-to-noise ratio has gotten a bit out of whack. The idea that there are people playing *only* so they can get a reward at the end, is just...
Yeah. No joy in those lives.
Damn I thought it might be. I tip my hat to you, how long does one take you?
I just hit 400 cooking thanks to a cheeky guide online.. now to transfer these master chef skills to real life.
Protip: Lemongrass, although a tasty spice, will not improve your IRL mobility.
shysaursoft
Member
Hard to say. While playing, I'll occasionally stop, /sleep, go into my settings and max everything and turn on supersample, and then take a hundred or so shots in a wide angle, then turn settings down again and keep playng. Repeat this a few times per sessions.
Afterwards, I'll go check them all out, see which ones have the UI in them (I use a macro to remove UI, take shot, replace UI - because I'm lazy that way, but sometimes the delay between removing the UI and taking the shot is too low due to low framerate, but anyway).
Then I start feeding the groupings of shots into ICE, adjusting the panorama settings, the horizon line, and so on, until I get something that looks right. Takes about 10 minutes per panorama.
Usually I end up with about four or five panoramas. Usually, I delete all of them, since they were crap. Now and then, I luck out and get one that I like. So probably about 40 minutes to an hour?
You can see the panoramas I've made over the last few years here: https://plus.google.com/photos/106589101359067100697/albums/5962529737889875249
Those are probably about 10% of the ones I made, the rest I deleted.
I think they mean the achievements for getting both all the master crystals, and all the sky crystals, since they're separate tracks.
Well you don't have to do everything there before going to DR, but you find the diving goggles up there? Got all the sky crystals/masters? There's also the dolyak rush and charged crystal event which are cycling all the time, and the Sanctum Sprint and Aspect Arena minigames.
AFollowerNotALeader
Member
I am waiting to see what Dredge fractal feels like now but if it is really improved I will be buying some myself.
We clearly evaluate the distinctions between Warrior and Guardian differently, but before I delve into them let me clarify that I don't think warriors are "better;" of course Staff/Hammer Guardians are great in WvW and ideally I'd have a frontline of 50% that and 50% hammer warrior. Now to quibble with your specific points:
Far less utility on my shouts? This will be our key point of disagreement, as I've mained warrior shout healer since release. Warrior can run trooper runes just as guardians, and given the shorter cooldowns, warrior is seemingly better for condi removal. As to the shouts themselves? The stability shout is clearly uber-amazing, but protection/regeneration is just ok and aegis/swiftness meh with those cooldowns. I'd rather give might/fury (For Great Justice!). But of course the major reason warrior shouts have more utility is Healing Shouts- my cleric warrior has 4 shouts providing >3k AoE healing each, which is much more valuable to me than group boons.
Far less utility on my weapon skills? Guardian's weapon skills have more obvious utility I guess, with stuff like Empower and Symbol of Swiftness. But warrior has the single greatest weapon skill between them, Earthshaker (so much so that I can't fathom why you would think guard hammer #2 is better- because of the low cooldown?). My hammer skills have more AoE to their CC in a zerg. And for my playstyle, mace/shield provides the defensive set I need to continue to achieve my true utility, pumping out healing shouts.
But ultimately I prefer warrior to guardian because I've never met a guardian in WvW whose teeth my cleric warrior couldn't kick in 1v1.
EDIT: Oh yeah, warrior has warbanner. So I'm more survivable than a guardian, I put out more healing than a guardian, and I'm better at reviving my teammates than a guardian.
You're forgetting a few things, like Pure of Voice, which combined with Trooper Runes is what made Guardian the best group condi-clear class in PvP second only to Cleansing Water Elementalists. They can also trait one of their Virtues for 3 more conditions removed every 30-something seconds. Protection is up there with Stability as one of the best boons in the game. If a Guardian is building for condition removal, they'll usually run Save Yourselves and time it with their other condition removal cooldowns, or just not use a third shout because they already have 4 condi-removals from only 2 shouts. In that case they'll often take Purging Flames for 3 more conditions removed and the anti-condition field. Guardian Hammer 2 is seen as useful because it's just behind Thief Shortbow 3 as the most spammable blast finisher in the game, where the power of the Warrior Hammer Burst and the conditions to use it mean that it most often needs to be saved for the clashes throughout the fight. Finally, Warrior can put out 3k healing while moving, which is great, but Guardian can still put out 1.5k healing before gearing for healing power on a similar cooldown with the caveat being that he has to stand still. As compensation, Empower gives better Might Stacking than a Warrior can unless he builds more around it.
Like, there are definitely things that don't hold up at higher player counts but there are reasons that both Shout Warriors and Shout Guardians have been around for a long time yet it's only Shout Guardians that have made it into the top PvP meta. And that's despite the fact that Shout Guardians have zero killing power in PvP (and can only have a shot at killing anything in WvW where there's more gear tweaking).
All culling priority patch notes are just saying that the effects shouldn't spam on your screen as often in high player count situations if you're getting no direct benefit from them. From Water Blasts to Fire Sigil procs.
Saw it happen myself in Kessex Hills once. I've never had any real objection to the idea of the trains (or any kind of mindless activity people feel like doing) but it sucks to think that people could immediately get the impression upon walking out into the world with their first character that that was "what the game is like"
Indeed, there's a lot I forgot about Guardian because I don't play Guardian. Their greater condition removal is directly correlated with your point about PvP meta placement in my eyes. Even granting the edge to Guardians with boon conversion, it's still effectively a wash in WvW given the shorter CDs for warriors. And yeah protection is great, but the shout grants it for 4 seconds.
I'm not putting down the Guardian Hammer 2, a blast finisher every 5 seconds is great. But I think you're underselling Earthshaker, which has a 9 sec CD in my build and less in most others. The only condition for which I save it is having a clump of enemies to pound into paste.
Of course, here is the part I most strenously disagree. My warrior doesn't put out 3k, it puts out over 12k every ~25 seconds. There's simply no comparison to the healing of Empower. As for the might stacking, it's great, but even better when complemented by some fury (via For Great Justice!).
Which is a point I hoped to convey in my original post- I want a Guardian by my side. But ultimately I don't see the need to roll one given that I main a complementary frontliner.
Fuck, that last one is giving me a mild case of trypophobia.
Eh, I'm just glad people are getting to experience the content. It's very easy to come into the Living Story on a low note like one of the holidays (which are fun, but much more laid back), during one of the breaks, or mid-story with no way to catch up and really enjoy it without feeling like you have to frantically devour it or you'll miss out. That can turn people off from the game, so that when the high points do roll around (Bazaar, Marionette, SAB, Molten Facility, etc.) they're not there to see it.
The Bazaar's return is important for two reasons. The first is that they not only brought it back, but they also dropped it early (last year it was in July). They've got a big list of things they can bring back to give us something to do while they're working on other things. SAB, Dragon Bash, the Bazaar and Jubilee are all loose enough in terms of timing that they can put them in any time they need to, and because they're gone for long stretches it feels new and cool again. The second is that it shows they aren't afraid to bring back old Living Story rewards. Apart from the Panda and Dolyak Tonic, the other rewards are old items that players may have missed out on. It's definitely not something that new players can easily obtain quickly or easily, invalidating other players' work, but if you're a new or returning player and you REALLY wanted the Gas Mask skin, you can get it now. But it's set up in such a way that you can't get everything... at least not without blowing a lot of money / materials. There's some skins I have that I would absolutely hate to have missed out on, and feeling like you can never get something again ever is kind of a turn-off for me.
There was absolutely no way they were going to leave the farming zerg down there. I don't know if the first time was just an unexpected outcome or they purposely built it to function that way, but over the past year or so they've clearly gone out of their way to stop zerging, either by making it inefficient (Invasions) or simply impossible mechanically (Scarlet's Generals). The Pavilion was easily one of the biggest offenders when it comes to mindless farming zergs.
They also seem to be adamantly against turning world and Living Story events into private instances. Instancing doesn't make the content any better, it's simply asking for direct control over who we play with, or more importantly who we don't play with. Instancing means people are excluded from content because they're not in a big enough guild, or play the wrong profession, or don't have enough AP, and creates inequality. Soon large chunks of content is only for the hardcore warriors, elementalists and thieves with 10k AP, which I don't need to tell you is a small subset of the game's population. This starting to sound familiar at all?
I mean, if they wanted everybody in their own private copy of the world, where nobody can come in unless given permission, they could have just remade Guild Wars 1 (and I'm sure a lot of people would have loved that), but that's just not what their goal was with this game.
Saw it Monday on IMAX, going to see it again Friday. 3D doesn't add much, but it doesn't detract from it either. Worth it for the Imax screen and sound though. I thought it was great, but I knew going in it was never going to be 2 hours of CGI monsters beating each other up with minimal human subplot to move things along (aka Pacific Rim). People seem to be upset that they don't show Godzilla immediately and often, but it's all about the build up and the aftermath and the people pinched between the two. I would say that I maybe liked it more because I'm a Godzilla fan (and am thus more forgiving) and grew up watching the movies on VHS or cable (and am thus familiar with the kind of pacing those movies have), but my wife loved it too and she's never seen any Godzilla movies.
Out on one of the 'wings' of the Zephyrite ship are a pair of Diving Goggles... just sayin'
The Bazaar of the Four Winds is a playground, where you run and jump and complete little challenges for yourself. You can do it alone or with a small group, but it's all about the simple joy of movement and playing on the equipment.
The Gauntlet is a one-on-one challenge where everyone lines up and makes a go at facing down an enemy while everyone else waits their turn and cheers them on. It's like putting your quarter on the line at an arcade, where everyone waits their turn and watches each player's attempt, offering advice and encouragement. It's all about individual accomplishment, but there's still a sense of community.
If the Bazaar is the playground and the Gauntlet is the arcade, the Pavilion is essentailly the kids playing kickball or football during recess. And like those sports, there's a bit of organization and teamwork required to play, but it doesn't require extensive practice, drilling or kicking kids off your team unless winning is the only thing you care about.
For a small subset of very unhappy individuals, they'd rather sit on the bench and complain that they don't get a piece of candy every time they make it across the monkey bars, or that they shouldn't have to take turns at the arcade, or that they should automatically get the best players for kickball instead of picking teams.
You know what we call kids like that? Brats.
shysaursoft
Member
You always know how to make me feel better. <3
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Miktar, this should be the GAF National Anthem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWsRz3TJDEY
You know how people always offer the advice 'Imagine the crowd naked' when giving a public speech?
If you read Reddit or the Official forums and imagine everyone is speaking in the voice of a 4 year old who missed a nap, it actually works quite well. Especially with the way people type on the internet.
I'm old enough to have watched that live in 1989 and even I couldn't watch it for more than a minute. That late 80s / early 90s hip-hop has not aged well at all.
Thanks.. when you're next on I'll try and show you some! There's a tier of achievements for finding Sky Crystals (40 of them) and then a seperate tier for the Master Sky Crystals (10 of them).
I'll try and get in a big screen then, I don't have the money for IMAX and the nearest one is pretty far. I'll just go and see what time is eatliest for me, 3D or not if it doesn't add that much.
- Status