Kaliwenda.3428

GW2 is my main MMO that I'm currently playing like a side MMO in that I log in to do dailies every day and a key run once a week but right now I don't have any other major goals I'm working towards. So my play time is a lot less that it has been in the past. The best thing about it to me is that I don't have to worry about my gear going out of date when I take it easy, that's no small thing in MMO-land. I love this game for many things, but that is one of the top three reasons for me. :)

The concert and the /rockout emote are some of my favorite things in the game recently. Sometimes out on the landscape you can hear NPCs talking about the band too. :)

I mainly play alone b/c no one I know IRL is into MMOs, and while I am perfectly fine with that, I'm always happy to join up when I can. I've met lots of nice people that way. The positives far outweigh any negatives in my experience. Once in a while I've had a bad experience but I am quick to leave the situation in that case.

I said PoF difficulty, b/c I definitely didn't want HoT difficulty, but now I'm remembering some of the places in PoF where I died repeatedly and I feel maybe that was the wrong choice.

I was thinking that coming in to a new expansion at release time instead of years later might be better for me since there would be more people around to hang out and run thru the maps with.

Now that I'm all caught up I'm hoping to be able to keep up :)

I loved it at the start, especially Grothmar. The Metal Legion concert was the high point for me for sure! :) BJora was OK I guess but felt a lot more tedious to work thru.

Drizzlewood part 2 took just way way way too long to complete the full meta but I wanted the Otter so I stuck it out. I was able to cut the time sink down a bit by crafting the weapon set to break down for otter parts. I haven't been back there since.

Champions chapters I only do once to advance the story(*) and get the mastery points. I hop on a different character who is further behind in the Saga to earn the mastery XP so I don't have to do the DRM's more than once.

* I find it really hard to get the story particulars in the Chapters since so much of it happens in the middle of the DRMs and if you're not at the right location, or in the middle of clearing objectives, the dialog is easy to miss. I really have no idea what the story is at this point so I'll have to look for some walk-through videos to catch up.

I really like the way the game encourages a cooperative spirit. People learn that helping is a good thing for everyone, you don't have to compete for mobs or nodes. Lots of times I've had people jump in when I'm having trouble, and I tend to do the same for others.

And I also do love that there's no gear grind, that's no small thing!

I just watched a video of that story step to refresh my memory. I remember being frustrated by it too. Hearing the commander say that the egg skills are like the Zephyrite crystals made a lot more sense to me now...I'm not sure I really understood that at the time I went through the story.

I can't really say that I *enjoyed* HoT, but I did get through it. I think Ashantara gave you good advice. Practice and getting better gear (via crafting, in my case) made a lot of difference for me.

Yes, thank you! I have a nice new weapon to use after I put away my winter-themed ones. :)

Hats tend to be problematic for asura ears too. But I would love a top hat that dealt with them properly :)

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > @"Kaliwenda.3428" said:

> > Just double-checking here...so it's normal right now for me to be stuck at Calm in the Storm with no way to advance it? I wasn't able to do the Crystal Bloom community event, but I did participate in the Ebon Vanguard one.

>

> Correct, yes. The Community events are unrelated to the story Calm in the Storm- they are just something extra to encourage repeat participation. It should advance with Chapter 2 in January

Thanks! :)

Just double-checking here...so it's normal right now for me to be stuck at Calm in the Storm with no way to advance it? I wasn't able to do the Crystal Bloom community event, but I did participate in the Ebon Vanguard one.

I didn't participate in the global event this time around only because I was too busy IRL to take the time. Today is the first day I was able to do any of the Dragon Strike Missions at all. For me it was just a timing issue, not any kind of disappointment with the event.

> @"Atomos.7593" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > > @"Mortifera.6138" said:

> > > Dragons! /10chars

> >

> > It's the End of Dragons so any Dragon pets will automatically die and wipe themselves after the expac is over

>

> Does Aurene count as a dragon pet too? :grimace:

Ghostly Aurene could be cute tho...

I never use it...tbh I don't even know what it does :) I arrange my bags in a specific order and have the last one as an invisible bag, that's worked well for me all along.

I do find myself still clicking the gear to get the deposit materials button though...I wish I could move the new deposit materials button to where the gear is now so I don't make that mistake so often.

Yes, I would love this! I don't need a reward, even...just want to get the story :)

There's always that NPC at Dragonbash who seems really into the commander...

> @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> I like them. Easy gold and AP in combination with the login rewards.

> Even if I have little time, I can always find time to pick 3 easy dailies.

This is the way I feel about them too. Usually I try to do one WvW daily for whatever reward track I'm working on, and then the rest PvE. I like bounty zergs and the joking around people do when there's a wait for the board to refill after reset. And on those days when I end up doing area events, I almost always find myself thinking "Oh, I should come back to this area more often". It's a nice way to keep a foot in the game when I'm not able to spend long amounts of time.

Welcome!

You're going to love the Metal Legion concert!

My wild-azz guess on where the story goes is that Aurene creates a new world at the last minute to save us from the destruction of Tyria that we can't overcome. Then we find out that she has some kind of issue causing her to break down and spew unintentional mayhem, which is the focus of the next cycle.

Either that or time travel. ;)

> @"Naeleen.7601" said:

> The problem (in my opinion) is not having to run around to collect loot from chests once Claw is defeated. It takes way too much time to complete the southern meta event chain, then wait 15 more minutes for the cache champions to be defeated (or not), then push the north meta events, go all the way through the frost citadel. It can take up to 2-2,5 hours. Many people are fed up with the grinding nature of the achievements in the latest Icebrood Saga episodes, especially those that have mastery points locked behind them. Even myself, maxed the last mastery just last night, because I was avoiding playing in the map. You did a great job back then, splitting the pre-events from the main meta events in Verdant Brink, Auric Basin and Tangled Depths. Slightly made Dragon Stand faster as well. The same can be done now, in a rather easy and non-gamebreaking manner: War Supplies! Split the southern and northern meta events and put them on fixed time schedule, bihourly I guess. But for the northern meta to even begin, have players donate X amount of War Supplies to a NPC, otherwise the event will not begin. At least we'll have a reason to use War Supplies this way.

The first map I got into yesterday had a handful of players trying to do the southern meta, struggling but doing ok with it, until we ran out of time in Leadfoot Village. After that everyone bailed.

I got into another map with a squad, but after about 15 minutes of doing the same stuff I'd just been doing and knowing how much more time I needed to invest to get to the Claw fight, I gave up.

I understand wanting to create something that feels like an epic incursion into enemy-controlled territory, but this goes overboard in my opinion. It's not just that it's so long, it's the unrelenting nature of the event over that amount of time...its really punishing on the eyes and hands/wrists.

Thank you for changing the location of the final chests :)

I hope you are looking into ways to reduce the time of the meta.

I got into a map that failed, then got into a new map running with a squad, and after about 15 more minutes I just got to the point that I didn't want to keep going on, knowing how much time it takes to get to the final boss of the new meta. I left the squad and quit the game. This is unusual for me.

I feel like I have to keep trying to run it now for the mastery point and the otter, because if this meta stays the way it is (dependent on the first meta), I don't think it's going to be possible to complete after the newness wears off and people get all the achievements.

Is there a way to make it bigger? I looked in the settings but nothing jumped out at me. Thanks!

Can't get into any of the LFG maps right now :(

The maps I get into are not even trying to do anything. :(

I was lucky this afternoon and got into a map that was just ready to start part 2. I was able to pinpoint more clearly why this meta feels so exhausting...the only down time is that one break at the waypoint for about two minutes before it kicks into the assault on the Frost Citadel. The rest of the time it's a constant go go go kill kill kill rush to the next area repeat...

I know I missed opening a few of the tribune chests because it was so chaotic that either I couldn't see them because of all the visual clutter or I had to hurry and follow the tag so I didn't get left behind. There are some points where there was so much visual clutter from the frost effects that I really couldn't see much of anything. There was some of this at that one meta in Bjora Marches where we took down that chained thing, but this seems a lot worse.

I still really have no idea what the story steps of the assault are, no time to read anything while it's happening, so I'll have to look for some guides online to understand what the fight is all about.

I think it's still early days and that once more people get all the masteries filled there might be more people opting to heal at the claw fight so there's not so much dying there, at least I hope so, and as we get a few more days into it people will probably start calling out strategies in the chat and it'll all go a lot smoother.

The thought of running this 10 times for the mastery point was really depressing to me after this second run, but then I went and got the points from the "impressive puglist" and "spiritual renewal" achievements, so I have enough to max out all the masteries once I get the experience bars filled in. I appreciate that we are given different kinds of things to do to get the mastery points for those of us who struggle with the more challenging parts.

I need this. :)