Which attribute? Not curses anyway, though it seems to have the most desired builds for competitive PvP, the important word being competitive. Lingering curses to reduce healing or corrupt enchantments for massive degen. Have tried corrupt enchantments in FA and it is fun enough, could dip into death magic for well of the profane, a single skill well worth the point investment. Having written that last sentence hesitating about crossing curses off the list now, it's a good build to take down Gunther, yeah I'm Luxon. What I settled for is more multi-purpose so I'll keep going for now...
Death magic seems much more fun, but I'm kinda anti-minion, something heroes are good at and I can't be arsed. I know they are not perfect, but they keep enchants on minions better, spirit spamming is the same, good for heroes and tedious for players, suspect both are going to be reconfigured in GW2. That leaves 3 builds: toxic chill, contagion bombers and tainted flesh. Tainted flesh is interesting, but would be a little hard to control in the chaotic CMs, good degen pressure though. Ok so I'm going to discount contagion bombing, even without trying it, but it is limited to JQ.
Played about with toxic chill for a while, a skill bar with an icy-poison theme; there's good synergy between toxic chill and vile miasma, but vile miasma has a long recharge time for only -4 degen. But the notion of skills that interact like that: first a hex (or enchantment) needs to be on the target, then toxic chill poisons the target, and finally vile miasma adding the degen because of the previously applied condition. It's initially engaging, but when you think about it is still 1, 2, 3 in order.
This is likely to make a return in GW2, we've already been told about warrior chains and the levels of adrenaline making additions to skills, but I expect to see the traits adding conditionals to skills as well. I think I prefer this new way, the basic skills need to be interesting and diverse and then conditionals can be added to tweak a build one or another, instead of having to examine, locate and swap skills in and out.
So that leaves blood and soul reaping, which are what I ended up with, but first I need to choose an elite to set the tone of the skill bar.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Building a build, part 1
As a new comer to Guild Wars, and having just been wowed by the details of the sequel, thought I'd give my perspective on the so called 'build wars', just 5 years on the late side. Was having a problem of putting together a PvP build for my necromancer in Guild Wars. The builds on PvXwiki didn't appeal to any great extent. Did PvE first as blood, but quickly changed to curses, didn't particularly like it though and curses is hard in execution. So I embarked on a week long quest of examining skills and builds to find something that works for me.
On my warrior who I have just got to JQ/FA in the Factions campaign, the decision was easier, flipping between axe and hammer and getting practised with the standard builds. Each of those builds is singular in purpose, pressure through knock-down, deep wound debuff and damage, and though variation in the builds is limited that gets rid of build anxiety and to just go out and play the game.
So to begin, I needed to find the purpose for my necro build, then choose the skills and the elite. Did I also mention that I need to have a good theme for the build and don't particularly like half-and-half builds, don't mind adding in a skill or two from a secondary profession but still would like to feel necro. The decision to remove secondary builds in GW2 is a great idea for the RP and PVE side of the game, it makes the classes seem whole and hopefully the balance will be there that each class ends up roughly equal.
The purpose is the easy part, necros are support. And since I'm only ever going to be in Random Arena or Competitive Missions, it needs a good dose of self-reliance. So far so good, next the attributes and skills...
On my warrior who I have just got to JQ/FA in the Factions campaign, the decision was easier, flipping between axe and hammer and getting practised with the standard builds. Each of those builds is singular in purpose, pressure through knock-down, deep wound debuff and damage, and though variation in the builds is limited that gets rid of build anxiety and to just go out and play the game.
So to begin, I needed to find the purpose for my necro build, then choose the skills and the elite. Did I also mention that I need to have a good theme for the build and don't particularly like half-and-half builds, don't mind adding in a skill or two from a secondary profession but still would like to feel necro. The decision to remove secondary builds in GW2 is a great idea for the RP and PVE side of the game, it makes the classes seem whole and hopefully the balance will be there that each class ends up roughly equal.
The purpose is the easy part, necros are support. And since I'm only ever going to be in Random Arena or Competitive Missions, it needs a good dose of self-reliance. So far so good, next the attributes and skills...
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Instant travel and events in GW2
One of the best features in GW was the instant travel. Having just finished Volume 1 in Lotro, I wish a lot of other MMOs took this feature and ran with it. Since GW2 is more open world, I'm fearing this system is going to get curtailed. They have explained that roads between outposts should be relatively clear except for times of blockade type events; this doesn't confirm or deny instant travel, though it would affect the initial travel to discover an outpost. On the other hand, with the introduction of events, there’s the possibility of expansion to the instant travel system.
Map travel between outposts could be plotted out, like the way it happens in WOW at flightmasters, except the travel would be at most 30 secs duration. As progress is made along the route, any events that occur in the surrounding area pop up on the map as icons that could be clicked on by the player to interrupt travel and instantly travel near to the event in progress. This would be a nice system to combine both instant travel and event notification.
Another option is to allow players who are taking part in an event to broadcast the event to friends or people in their guild, and then giving them the option to instant travel to that person. The location could be close to the broadcaster but out of aggro range. To take that concept further why not allow a player the option to broadcast an event to other players in the surrounding area, it would be a nice way to allow sociability and getting people together to experience events.
Lastly what I think is the most likely, is NPCs in outpost allow for instant travel. A farmer's son is in an outpost waving arms about, shouting about an attack on the farm, the player talks to him to instantly travel near to the farm. There could be heralds in cities that have the same function, but indicating major battles that are occurring, maybe a town-crier in smaller posts. I just want to see a load of NPCs vying for attention, the so described 'hundreds of lions running all over every street of the city'. These are only the small touches, the nuts-and-bolts of events are the hard part but have the best confidence in Arenanet to pull it off.
Map travel between outposts could be plotted out, like the way it happens in WOW at flightmasters, except the travel would be at most 30 secs duration. As progress is made along the route, any events that occur in the surrounding area pop up on the map as icons that could be clicked on by the player to interrupt travel and instantly travel near to the event in progress. This would be a nice system to combine both instant travel and event notification.
Another option is to allow players who are taking part in an event to broadcast the event to friends or people in their guild, and then giving them the option to instant travel to that person. The location could be close to the broadcaster but out of aggro range. To take that concept further why not allow a player the option to broadcast an event to other players in the surrounding area, it would be a nice way to allow sociability and getting people together to experience events.
Lastly what I think is the most likely, is NPCs in outpost allow for instant travel. A farmer's son is in an outpost waving arms about, shouting about an attack on the farm, the player talks to him to instantly travel near to the farm. There could be heralds in cities that have the same function, but indicating major battles that are occurring, maybe a town-crier in smaller posts. I just want to see a load of NPCs vying for attention, the so described 'hundreds of lions running all over every street of the city'. These are only the small touches, the nuts-and-bolts of events are the hard part but have the best confidence in Arenanet to pull it off.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Done, done and done!
Finished off the last 3 books in volume 1 this weekend, it was a mammoth undertaking, a little bit tortuous in places but such a relief to finally get it done. Yay, got a few nice titles and a horse. Don't think I'd ever do it again though. Once is more than enough for me. My feeling is that the later books are going to be paid content, book 1-8 may be free not 9-15 seeing as they are almost a separate storyline. Anyways only have one more weekend before unsubscribing for the summer and until Lotro goes free to play (need to spread gold across alts, empty some bags and abandon my house).
Having doubts about if I'm going to return to the game. I chose to level a warden, for the instant travel that was so very helpful for the epic books. To my mind the class is iconic, the spear/javelin, shield, ranger. It probably comes from levelling a tank, sure survivability is great, but combat is extremely slow. Have levelled a captain and burglar to 20/30, burglar seems to be alright and is suppose to get better at higher (crit) levels, captain is equally slow with so few abilities to actively use. Have a good idea of the classes and at this stage none are overly appealing. That's a bit of a hurdle, there's no class that's appealing enough to level up in place of the warden, but was considering champion for a faster killing experience.
If Turbine is going to strip out a lot of quests, slow combat is not going to entice many people, couldn't fathom the agony that would be grinding levels in Lotro. DDO had the whole active hack and slash thing that's different enough to tempt people. I would guess they would need to lower skirmishes (and/or PvM) to level 20, that way if the questing is unappealing, then there is something else to potentially interest new players. I could see myself returning if that happened, a champion tearing through skirmishes would be nice to do on occasion. To my mind, the success of this change to free to play depends on expanding skirmishes significantly. Adding a 'dungeon finder' like tool to form groups, and doing some freep v creep skirmishes, that's where I see the success lying. Same old questing just does not cut it anymore, though it was the lore and story that kept me doing the epic quests, the standard fetch and kill quests are going to turn off a lot of people.
A lot of current subscribers fear the influx of WOW kiddies but why would they when cataclysm will be released about the same time. Then again can't understand trolling along the lines, of logging in to say how boring the game is and how much better questing is in WOW, there's only one response to that.
Was a little unnerved at first about the things that I'd be losing (bags, rested xp, trait slots), but now it's more curiosity about how things will change and they must do so because the game needs an USP that's different enough from the competition. Lore and community are sufficient for the current subscribers, but what about the masses? DDO had that in the form of adventure packs (something innately appealing about that concept) and the combat. Where's Lotro's killer hook?
Having doubts about if I'm going to return to the game. I chose to level a warden, for the instant travel that was so very helpful for the epic books. To my mind the class is iconic, the spear/javelin, shield, ranger. It probably comes from levelling a tank, sure survivability is great, but combat is extremely slow. Have levelled a captain and burglar to 20/30, burglar seems to be alright and is suppose to get better at higher (crit) levels, captain is equally slow with so few abilities to actively use. Have a good idea of the classes and at this stage none are overly appealing. That's a bit of a hurdle, there's no class that's appealing enough to level up in place of the warden, but was considering champion for a faster killing experience.
If Turbine is going to strip out a lot of quests, slow combat is not going to entice many people, couldn't fathom the agony that would be grinding levels in Lotro. DDO had the whole active hack and slash thing that's different enough to tempt people. I would guess they would need to lower skirmishes (and/or PvM) to level 20, that way if the questing is unappealing, then there is something else to potentially interest new players. I could see myself returning if that happened, a champion tearing through skirmishes would be nice to do on occasion. To my mind, the success of this change to free to play depends on expanding skirmishes significantly. Adding a 'dungeon finder' like tool to form groups, and doing some freep v creep skirmishes, that's where I see the success lying. Same old questing just does not cut it anymore, though it was the lore and story that kept me doing the epic quests, the standard fetch and kill quests are going to turn off a lot of people.
A lot of current subscribers fear the influx of WOW kiddies but why would they when cataclysm will be released about the same time. Then again can't understand trolling along the lines, of logging in to say how boring the game is and how much better questing is in WOW, there's only one response to that.
Was a little unnerved at first about the things that I'd be losing (bags, rested xp, trait slots), but now it's more curiosity about how things will change and they must do so because the game needs an USP that's different enough from the competition. Lore and community are sufficient for the current subscribers, but what about the masses? DDO had that in the form of adventure packs (something innately appealing about that concept) and the combat. Where's Lotro's killer hook?
Monday, May 31, 2010
Routines and commitments
Finally made it to goblin-town, only a fortnight later. It was a nice place to explore and the music is the best I've heard in game. What brought the exploration to a close was the usual: mobstacles, full bags, annoying to-and-fro-ing with quests and the repetition in scenery (this staircase looks awfully familiar, and no it wasn't a case of going about in circles). Didn't get to see Gollum's cave, that was probably the overall goal, but getting fed up and running through tunnels with twenty goblins in tow meant I'd lost the patience. Time to get out and finish the rest of the book, and see the inside of Delossad. That instance was an interesting way to tell the story, touching objects to see ghosts of the past acting (Nameleth could do with some acting lessons, her depiction of possession wasn't all that) out stories and everything coming to together. It was kinda ruined though by the need to have mobs (cave-claws, worms) spawn after every vignette, it seems turbine thinks the player can't go 10 minutes without fighting.
Have a routine where Monday to Friday is maintenance mode (do a daily quest or two, auction house, etc). Then full play sessions on weekends. For the most part can stick to it, except sometimes early on in the week, it that whole 'need to do it right now, can't wait til next weekend' feeling, but surprisingly that passes pretty quick. The strange thing is, come the weekend I'm looking for other (non-MMO) things to do than that task that seemed so urgent where I left off last weekend. Sitting outside in the sunshine reading is the anti-thesis of getting angry over something idiotic. Nah, it more like I'm bored with Lotro and need another MMO fix, except nothing's appealing besides Guild Wars 2. Arenanet is really on to something with their event system being able to intersect and divert from the personal story, longing to lose the blinkers and the unexpected breaking the routine of knowing exactly what I'm going to be doing before logging on.
Wouldn't mind playing Age of Conan for a bit, bring my lowbie bear shaman through the early Khitai zone. But more and more it seems a month of play at a single game is too long these days, only reason I spent 3 months at Lotro was because of a special offer during the last welcome back weekend and thought I'd get to level 60 and into Lothlorien, only managed level 50 and have enough. Think a monthly sub doesn't suit me anymore, but still got DDO and the original Guild Wars (liking the War in Kryta content) to dabble in every now and again. The list of things I'm disillusioned with in current MMORPGs is growing: levelling, gear-grind, mobstacles, time-sinks, subscriptions. At least there is Guild Wars 2 to look forward too.
Have a routine where Monday to Friday is maintenance mode (do a daily quest or two, auction house, etc). Then full play sessions on weekends. For the most part can stick to it, except sometimes early on in the week, it that whole 'need to do it right now, can't wait til next weekend' feeling, but surprisingly that passes pretty quick. The strange thing is, come the weekend I'm looking for other (non-MMO) things to do than that task that seemed so urgent where I left off last weekend. Sitting outside in the sunshine reading is the anti-thesis of getting angry over something idiotic. Nah, it more like I'm bored with Lotro and need another MMO fix, except nothing's appealing besides Guild Wars 2. Arenanet is really on to something with their event system being able to intersect and divert from the personal story, longing to lose the blinkers and the unexpected breaking the routine of knowing exactly what I'm going to be doing before logging on.
Wouldn't mind playing Age of Conan for a bit, bring my lowbie bear shaman through the early Khitai zone. But more and more it seems a month of play at a single game is too long these days, only reason I spent 3 months at Lotro was because of a special offer during the last welcome back weekend and thought I'd get to level 60 and into Lothlorien, only managed level 50 and have enough. Think a monthly sub doesn't suit me anymore, but still got DDO and the original Guild Wars (liking the War in Kryta content) to dabble in every now and again. The list of things I'm disillusioned with in current MMORPGs is growing: levelling, gear-grind, mobstacles, time-sinks, subscriptions. At least there is Guild Wars 2 to look forward too.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Time-Wasting Elves
Have been trying recently to confine mmo playing to weekends, because no matter how I attempt to limit the effects it has on getting a good night sleep I still get caught out and it's a major distraction from writing. So this weekend was interesting in that I ended up playing Portal as well as my current MMO of choice, Lotro. Spent several hours at Portal on Saturday, yeah several, probably slower than most, but did take a few breaks to puzzle out a few of the solutions. All in all it was one of the most satisfying experiences in gaming for a long time, funny, engaging and oh satisfying to finish it.
Contrast that with playing some Lotro last night, was working through Book 11 and it was incredibly infuriating! The book starts quite dramatically but the middle section had so many time drains and annoying tasks. It was probably a little about me not being in the mood to get so worked up about it, have to admit getting a little impatient with the game. Here's what annoyed me about those chapters:
Candelleth sends you to scout two locations where the ring Narchuil might be found, fair enough task. It's what the elves at those locations ask of you that's annoying. The first one sends you in to Delossad to investigate, that's not the annoying part, he also sends you to kill 8 Angmarims, the same mobs you just killed in the previous step, on the plus side he's not too fussy about which ones unlike Candelleth who wanted 6 of one type and 3 of the other. To be honest, it was just a 'huh' from me at that point. The other elf you get sent to, asks you to kill trolls and find the entrance to their cave, done! No wait you must now go back through the trolls (both stuns and knockbacks, fun times when climbing up ledges, yeah it did happen) and bog lurkers (btw what are these things anyway) to the cave and search it and kill their leaders, why didn't you say that the first time. Mounted up and just raced to the cave, 10 mobs chasing after me at all times, wading through mobs is getting really tiresome in this game (the stark contrast with Portal was not lost on me).
Okay, back to Candelleth, it wasn't in either place, oh I'm sorry, hmm where could it be. To the crumbled cottage and find a diary. This is probably what annoyed me the most, it assumes the players are stupid that they can't spend time to read the diary, figure out who L and N are and follow the directions in the diary. At this point I'm trying to imagine the thought process that the writer had, we need to have players march back up the hill to get exposition from Candelleth, so let’s use initials and also call Delossad by another name Sithad to confuse the players, can't have them taking the initiative, it must be Candelleth who figures it out after all. It doesn't make a whole load of sense. In my head I was imagining shouting up to Candelleth that I was going to investigate Delossad again. But no Candelleth has to tell you Sithad sounds like Delossad, was just about ready to kick her in the gorge and fling the diary after her. (Confession time: wasn't so quick to figure out the clues about the location of the keys, it was a nice little puzzle).
The next elf you get sent is probably the icing on the cake, she agrees to mend the key but first you must do a job for her (now where have I heard that before). Wanted to grab her and shake her violently and shout do you not realise the importance of mending those keys (where's the hobbit tinkers when you need them, fine by me if they use a scrap of iron from an old kettle, rather than needing mithril and a special hammer) Okay right about time to log off, and leave goblin-town until next weekend, have loads of quests to do there anyways and hopefully be a little more patient with the elves next time, they can't be blamed for living such long lives and their concept of time being so much more languid than humans (at least I’ve not been sent to Elrond in this book yet). Damn time-wasting elves!
Contrast that with playing some Lotro last night, was working through Book 11 and it was incredibly infuriating! The book starts quite dramatically but the middle section had so many time drains and annoying tasks. It was probably a little about me not being in the mood to get so worked up about it, have to admit getting a little impatient with the game. Here's what annoyed me about those chapters:
Candelleth sends you to scout two locations where the ring Narchuil might be found, fair enough task. It's what the elves at those locations ask of you that's annoying. The first one sends you in to Delossad to investigate, that's not the annoying part, he also sends you to kill 8 Angmarims, the same mobs you just killed in the previous step, on the plus side he's not too fussy about which ones unlike Candelleth who wanted 6 of one type and 3 of the other. To be honest, it was just a 'huh' from me at that point. The other elf you get sent to, asks you to kill trolls and find the entrance to their cave, done! No wait you must now go back through the trolls (both stuns and knockbacks, fun times when climbing up ledges, yeah it did happen) and bog lurkers (btw what are these things anyway) to the cave and search it and kill their leaders, why didn't you say that the first time. Mounted up and just raced to the cave, 10 mobs chasing after me at all times, wading through mobs is getting really tiresome in this game (the stark contrast with Portal was not lost on me).
Okay, back to Candelleth, it wasn't in either place, oh I'm sorry, hmm where could it be. To the crumbled cottage and find a diary. This is probably what annoyed me the most, it assumes the players are stupid that they can't spend time to read the diary, figure out who L and N are and follow the directions in the diary. At this point I'm trying to imagine the thought process that the writer had, we need to have players march back up the hill to get exposition from Candelleth, so let’s use initials and also call Delossad by another name Sithad to confuse the players, can't have them taking the initiative, it must be Candelleth who figures it out after all. It doesn't make a whole load of sense. In my head I was imagining shouting up to Candelleth that I was going to investigate Delossad again. But no Candelleth has to tell you Sithad sounds like Delossad, was just about ready to kick her in the gorge and fling the diary after her. (Confession time: wasn't so quick to figure out the clues about the location of the keys, it was a nice little puzzle).
The next elf you get sent is probably the icing on the cake, she agrees to mend the key but first you must do a job for her (now where have I heard that before). Wanted to grab her and shake her violently and shout do you not realise the importance of mending those keys (where's the hobbit tinkers when you need them, fine by me if they use a scrap of iron from an old kettle, rather than needing mithril and a special hammer) Okay right about time to log off, and leave goblin-town until next weekend, have loads of quests to do there anyways and hopefully be a little more patient with the elves next time, they can't be blamed for living such long lives and their concept of time being so much more languid than humans (at least I’ve not been sent to Elrond in this book yet). Damn time-wasting elves!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Lotro and the inventory mini-game
Maybe it's unfair to pick out Lotro for inventory management, but it's the game I'm playing at the moment. Every session of play is either ended or started or interrupted by the need to vendor or port to my house or a trip back to town for banking and the auction house, but usually it's all of them to empty out the bags of every kind of junk:
1) Recipes: probably making the most demand on space, with metalsmith and tailoring patterns being particularly annoying. Yeah I complain when they also make the most money per slot in the inventory. But the whole mechanic of dropped recipes needs to go. Two solutions: make the normal dropped recipes a reward for unlocking mastery in a profession (there's no reward at all associated with it except unlocking more grind, and it would line up nicely with levelling), and all single use dropped recipes should be obtained from the crafting guilds and non-crit versions requring the small rep item or none, and the crit version requiring medium rep item.
A more radical solution for metalsmith/tailoring to cut down on the amount of scrolling in the recipe book and add some individuality is to restrict racial designs to that race, i.e. an elf makes elf clothes.
2) Potion/Salves: being able to use salves on yourself and others is a nice idea, but having the standard type as well, means I usually end up with a dozen different types only to vendor them. Keep only salves, simple as that! Conditions on a whole in Lotro are chaotic, unlike something like Guild Wars (previous game, sorry).
3) Reputation items: sooner or later they are going to have to introduce a special tab for those.
4) Yellow items: in a game where crafted items are more powerful, they are just vendor trash, maybe not at early levels but in the 40s they just don't seem to sell at all, and have gotten fed up with listing them.
5) Vendor trash: why the hell do they only stack to 10! But the whole concept of picking up bits of monsters and junk to make money in an rpg really needs to go. In a game with a decent crafting system why not create an economy where all money is obtained from gathering and crafting rather than picking up broken wings and insect legs. It's funny but when you think of how much money you make on your first visit to the barrow downs and I know I'm not the first to notice that, picking up bits of undead and rats and maggots and baraghest. Ughh!
That's enough for now, there's probably more to add to that list, but need to go organise some space on my alts.
1) Recipes: probably making the most demand on space, with metalsmith and tailoring patterns being particularly annoying. Yeah I complain when they also make the most money per slot in the inventory. But the whole mechanic of dropped recipes needs to go. Two solutions: make the normal dropped recipes a reward for unlocking mastery in a profession (there's no reward at all associated with it except unlocking more grind, and it would line up nicely with levelling), and all single use dropped recipes should be obtained from the crafting guilds and non-crit versions requring the small rep item or none, and the crit version requiring medium rep item.
A more radical solution for metalsmith/tailoring to cut down on the amount of scrolling in the recipe book and add some individuality is to restrict racial designs to that race, i.e. an elf makes elf clothes.
2) Potion/Salves: being able to use salves on yourself and others is a nice idea, but having the standard type as well, means I usually end up with a dozen different types only to vendor them. Keep only salves, simple as that! Conditions on a whole in Lotro are chaotic, unlike something like Guild Wars (previous game, sorry).
3) Reputation items: sooner or later they are going to have to introduce a special tab for those.
4) Yellow items: in a game where crafted items are more powerful, they are just vendor trash, maybe not at early levels but in the 40s they just don't seem to sell at all, and have gotten fed up with listing them.
5) Vendor trash: why the hell do they only stack to 10! But the whole concept of picking up bits of monsters and junk to make money in an rpg really needs to go. In a game with a decent crafting system why not create an economy where all money is obtained from gathering and crafting rather than picking up broken wings and insect legs. It's funny but when you think of how much money you make on your first visit to the barrow downs and I know I'm not the first to notice that, picking up bits of undead and rats and maggots and baraghest. Ughh!
That's enough for now, there's probably more to add to that list, but need to go organise some space on my alts.
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