September 2014 - Page 6 of 8 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Angry Red Ball

September 10, 2014 by Belghast

Starting Coil

For some time now after coming back to the game, we have been in a process of getting enough level 50 characters up to be able to tackle the official 8 man raid in the game. Now there is a 24 man raid, but to some extent I equate that to the LFR system in World of Warcraft. Both Labyrinth of the Ancients and Syrcus Tower are tuned in such a way as to allow complete strangers to be able to complete them. They are however an excellent source of gear, and all of us have been doing them pretty much on a weekly basis on a shot of getting some ilevel 100 gear. The Binding Coil of Bahamut however is serious mode raiding, or at least it was when the game was released. It takes eight players through a series of separate “turns” as they call them… or floors as I think of them as we traverse one big raid.

Last night we took a friend of the guild in with us to get to our eight players, and she and another guildie had a sizeable amount of experience in the dungeon. For the most part we were trying to figure out the fight on the fly, however after a few wipes Spiral started giving us tips. Thanks in part to these tips we made adjustments and progressed pretty quickly through Turn One. Since we had not been there terribly long we opted to continue on to turn two. The First half of Binding Coil of Bahamut consists of five turns in total, with an extremely large boss encounter waiting at the end of it. In order to progress to the next turn, your group has to have defeated the previous one. I can see this becoming a bit of a pain later on as we bring new folks in that have not been keyed for the one we are actually working on.

Angry Red Ball

When we reached the second turn, I feel like the bottom dropped out from under us. The first turn once we adjusted a bit was rather manageable. So I had this fear that we would simply blow out the entire first half of the raid due to the fact that we way over geared the level that the encounters were designed for. This was pushed aside however as we started the second ADS encounter. ADS is a angry red ball defense system that you encounter as the first boss in turn one, however this time around it brings friends. The entire encounter is somewhat of a gauntlet in that you are trying to get to the boss before it enrages, which the process starts the moment you encounter the first mini-boss. You proceed down towards ADS by taking a series of optional bosses out, Each time you take a specific boss out, it removes a negative effect from the final encounter, but at the same time adds some form of a buff.

On our first turn we tried to take as many mini-bosses out as we could, and I think we only actually left one alive. The end result was absolutely brutal as we fought a severely buffed and hasted final boss. After that we more ploddingly identified which orbs removed which buff and gave which buff to figure out the path we could afford to take. Spiral had told us that every group she had been with went left, but we wanted to know WHY they went left. As a result we ended up going right, and for a period of time this seemed like the correct answer. The mini-boss before ADS removed this frustrating mechanic known as Rot that causes a debuff to be passed around the raid like a baton. If the debuff is NOT passed, everyone in the raid takes a significant amount of damage. We thought this would make the ADS encounter more manageable, however after a few tries we noticed that it was giving ADS an insane haste buff, causing it to absolutely wreck us.

The Left Path

So at this point we figured out why exactly every group went left, and by trial and error decided that this would be the best course of action. It is at this point that I should explain that we knew a supposed easy way to defeat the boss from the moment we walked in. The thing is while we can totally cheese out the Binding Coil of Bahamut, we will not in any fashion be able to cheese the Second Coil of Bahamut that features turns 6 through 10. I figure that if we learn these fights now, we will have an easier time learning the fights in Second Coil, because we will have some insight into the way that the designers of the raid content think. So throughout all of these tries we had a guaranteed win condition in our pocket, but we chose not to use it for as long as was feasible as to learn the fight for real.

Admittedly our biggest issue with this content was the fact that we lacked a Bard. I can already tell that group composition is going to be a pretty critical thing for certain fights. Normally we would have had Warenwolf on his Bard, but he was not available tonight. We could have shifted players around to get a bard, however we were not really prepared for that and didn’t see that zoning back out and back in was really worth it. As a result we struggled through and came within a sliver of defeating the boss a few times before taking not of just how late it was getting. Finally when we were just about to call it, we opted to take the easy route. Apparently ADS is one of the few bosses that is actually significantly easier to defeat after it enrages. Instead of having to deal with mechanics like Rot, you have to deal with constant AOE pulse damage through the raid. It literally becomes a burn phase and an endurance match for the healers to keep the raid up long enough to dps the encounter down.

Post Apocalyptic Halo

After we had finished the second turn we all dispersed, and I filtered off into playing some Destiny. I really did not want to get too terribly involved in anything, so I opted to just poke around in the level two mission that I had already defeated. One of the cool things about the way the world is laid out, is that you can just wander around off the main course allowing you to explore new areas that are not necessarily involved with the current task at hand. I had not unlocked the completely open world version of the zone yet, so this was the next best thing. Funny thing is a little bit into me poking around I had someone from my friends list join my fire team. I have to say I am not quite used to this concept yet of someone just randomly dropping down into your game. I sent him a message warning him that I was kind of just poking around aimlessly and went on about my business.

Interesting thing of note is that apparently if your friend zones into one of the “darkness” areas that are instanced… it also pulls you into the area as well. So one moment I am wandering about killing level 7 mobs that I had stumbled onto, and then the next I am being sucked into the battle with the Archon at the end of the level 2 mission. This was all fine and good as it is a pretty fun encounter, and since there were two of us the game scaled up the difficulty a bit. The problem is… moments into the encounter my partner in crime disconnected from the mission leaving me there to deal with all of the mobs alone. It turns out he was trying to upload a video clip and it disconnected him, which for future reference might not be the best thing to do in the middle of a fire fight. I managed to finish off the encounter solo and got a nice helm as a reward for doing so. On that note I shut things down for the night and tried to figure out why exactly my Vanguard Armory was not showing up. Thanks to Ashgar I went in and did some “renew licenses” function within the PS4 settings, and that seemed to clear it up immediately.

#FFXIV #BindingCoil #Destiny

Destiny is Gorgeous

September 9, 2014 by Belghast

Squandering the Morning

This morning I have absolutely squandered my morning away, because today the servers for Destiny came up. In truth the servers came up over the night, and there are already a large number of folks milling around in Tower that are level 10 or so. This morning my overriding goal was to get a character created and get it to tower so I could eventually meet up with friends and play. This formidable mug you are seeing represents the new version of me in Destiny. At character creation you are given the choice between Human, some sort of translucent skinned humanoid, and robots. Generally speaking I tend to heavily favor humans but there is a fatal flaw in the character creator… no beards. Since I can’t have a beard then I pretty much have to go robot.

All in all I am fine with this because I feel like a badass with the green glowing eyes. I played robotic characters in City of Heroes and Champions Online, so I guess that fits my motif anyway. I ended up rolling a Titan again, because I have to admit I like having the insane attack that slams the ground and knocks all of the enemies away. Additionally I found I liked having a jet pack better than some form of a modified jump. In theory the titan becomes more tanky over time, which also definitely fits my overriding goals in pretty much any game. Similarly I know that there will already be a lot of Warlocks and Hunters among my friends, so I figure it is best to stick with what I know and enjoyed playing in alpha and beta.

Destiny Is Gorgeous

The thing I keep forgetting after large blocks of time being out of the game is just how damned gorgeous this game is. I guess as a habitual member of the PC master race, I have a hard time realizing that the consoles have finally caught up. Always in the past there was something wrong with the console images, either they were grainy or washed out or blurry. They lacked the saturation and definition that I was so used to from playing on a PC. The PS4 however playing destiny looks amazing, and I doubt it would perform any better on a PC, or at least not with the mid range video cards I generally purchase. The big difference of course is that I am running around this landscape with the joystick rather than a keyboard and mouse. This is the biggest adjustment for me, because I still don’t quite feel comfortable without the precision control to make headshots that a mouse gives me.

Thankfully Destiny has more than a fair amount of aim assist, and while I can’t really draw a bead and get head shots reliably, I can chew down encounters with body shots. I managed to make it through the first tutorial level in pretty good time, and as I now idle in Tower to write this… random people keep landing and dancing with me. I am not exactly sure when I will really get a chance to start this game properly. I know we have plans for this evening, but I might pop in after that to at least run the first couple of missions. This is one of those games that I don’t mind being behind the curve. I am not really competing with anyone to get to max level first. I feel like Destiny is going to fill the same role that Diablo 3 does. Fun game that I can get into quickly, kill some stuff and pop back out without many hard feelings. I like the big open world areas in Destiny for this, in that I can land and make my own objectives or simply run around looking for interesting stuff.

Beginning Coil

The picture is completely unrelated here, but I look adorable like always in my White Mage outfit. I mentioned earlier that we already had plans for tonight, and primarily that is because we have decided to start raiding Binding Coil, and this evening is the time that seemed to work the best for most people. I honestly figure by the time evening rolls around Destiny will be completely unplayable, so I thought this might be a good idea to give us all something to focus on other than the inability to play with our new toy. For some time we have been gearing up and wanting to start Binding Coil fresh as a guild. I believe that mostly we will be going into this one completely fresh, in that none of us are really doing research ahead of tonight. One of my biggest joys is figuring out content with my friends, and I think we will do just fine.

One of the most awesome footnotes about the community however is the reaction folks have had to us beginning Binding Coil. Now this raid in one form or another has been out for a year, and they simply keep adding new turns to it. So as I have talked to some fairly serious raiders about our guild starting the Coil fresh, I’ve received a completely unexpected reaction. Were it World of Warcraft, I would have gotten reactions like folks chiding us for being “Months Behind”. Here I have gotten nothing but positive responses, talking about how they wished they could go back and see the Coil with fresh eyes again, and that we would enjoy ourselves. This overwhelming sense of others wishing us well and being happy for us is extremely refreshing. I am glad that this same strong community attitude extends to raiding as well as the dungeon content we have experienced. Hopefully we will go in, clear the first turn and walk away with some awesome memories.

#FFXIV #Destiny

Atma Weapon Get

September 8, 2014 by Belghast

Naps Are Evil

This morning I am completely dragging and seem to be wallowing in a near zombie like state. The answer to my predicament is rather simple. I indulged in taking a nap with my wife yesterday, and as a result I paid a heavy price. As glorious as naps feel, I for whatever reason cannot take them. I mean I can fall asleep for a nap just fine, but the act of napping dooms me to being unable to sleep later. I am envious of my wife, who can wake up from one nap and immediately fall asleep for another one. My body however seems to hate sleep, and if I partake of the forbidden fruit it means I will be wired at midnight trying desperately to get my body to calm the hell down and sleep.

Last night was of course one of these nights. So this morning I am in a stupor that I fear no coffee will raise me from. I would love to say that the nap was worth it, because it really did feel amazing at the time. However the ultimate results or nap taking seem to always leave me in this condition, and it seems to be a less I have to relearn on a regular basis. So I present to you… Naps are Evil, or at the very least they are unadvisable for someone with screwed up sleep patterns like myself. I realize that I could drug myself into a sleep like state but that generally causes more issues than it is worth. So once again I will just deal with it this morning and hopefully get a good nights sleep tonight.

Atma Weapon Get

This weekend for me was ruled by an overriding goal, to acquire all twelve Atmas and be able to upgrade my axe to its next evolution. There are some caveats there but I will get into them later. Over the course of the past week I have done enough FATEs to gather up around 80,000 grand company seals. If you figure that on average you get around 100 seals per FATE, that means I completed somewhere in the vicinity of 800 FATEs between collecting all twelve Atmas. I am guessing that would Math out about right considering I am roughly 2000 FATEs into the 3000 FATE achievement. So yeah… my guild thought I was crazy for embarking upon this, but I pushed through it regardless. I am by far not the first to get it as Warenwolf and Cylladora managed to get theirs significantly before I did. I feel like they simply had better luck than I did in a few of the zones as I know for certain I ground Southern Thanalan for 3 evenings.

In any case it feels good to put this step of the process behind me for the time being. The funny thing is… I am not absolutely opposed to doing the grind again for another job. I figure at some point I will do it for my Dragoon, however I am going to need to put a lot of pacing between the two grinds. More than likely I am going to shift focus to working on my White Mage for awhile to do something “different” feeling. I tend to go on these missions every now and then, where I am all consumed with getting this one thing done. The games that get me to stick around are the ones that can create large numbers of these traps to ensnare me with in order to keep feeding me new goals that I actually want to accomplish. So far it seems like upon returning to Final Fantasy XIV there are more than enough shiny baubles in the distance to keep me focused.

Beginning the Animus Grind

While I finished the most random portion of the level 100 weapon, I still have to power it up. The Atma Bravura while ilevel 100, it really is no different than your existing Zenith weapon other than having a changed appearance. In the case of the Warrior the blade is coated with blood. From this point out I have a slower and more deliberate grind. The first step is to get 1500 tomestones of mythology which I will then exchange for one of 9 books needed to power up my weapon. Each book is in itself a quest, that involves me to complete specific dungeons, fates or leves in order to complete that step. If I am understanding correctly, each time I complete a book it will imbue my weapon with some stat improvements until finally after completely all nine it will be a proper level 100 weapon.

Some of my guild members are taking a completely different route to get to their ilevel 100 weapon, and in truth it is probably the easier route. I like this one however because it reminds me of how it felt to do an epic weapon quest in the original Everquest, and to some extent in Everquest II. They are long epic quests and at the end when you finally get your hands on the next step in the sequence, it feels well fought and earned in a way that simply saving up tokens could never feel. I am sure I am romanticizing the process, but completely relic weapon quests in Final Fantasy XIV has this same feel for me, so I can see myself doing even the most insane ones just to be able to say I did it.

There is a club of sorts among the folks that have completed the Atma step that I have noticed. They sit around and tell tales of how long it took to get this piece or that piece. Sure it was an arduous grind, but I feel happy to be admitted into that club and be able to tell the tales of the process to get my own bloody axe. Similarly I am sure I will enjoy retelling the tales of the various books that I had to complete to get my animus step as well. The truth of it all is, that these little goals on the horizon are what will keep me hooked on a game for more than just the moment. This long range missions are what keep me grounded and focused. So I might be insane for grinding them out when there are potentially easier alternatives… but I am enjoying the journey.

#FFXIV #Atma #Animus

Dark Portal Closes

September 7, 2014 by Belghast

Larva and Whales

Last night we recorded our 21st episode of AggroChat, and it was a pretty enjoyable time. I was joined by the original cast of Ashgar, Rae and Kodra. This issue was more defined by what we didn’t want to talk about than what we actually wanted to talk about. A few of us wanted to avoid the gamersgate debacle at all costs, and overall I think we did a fine job of doing just that. The result was a very organic discussion that started with talking about what we had been playing, and ended with us delving into various items. Who needs show notes right?

I named the episode larva and whales because Kodra has been playing this super complicated puzzle game called English Country Tune. So far I have yet to figure out why exactly it is called English Country Tune, because it seems to be mostly about moving blocks around… some of which are called Larva for no apparent reason, and others are called Whales for similar lack of reasons. When I was listening to the recording, the whole discussion just seemed ridiculous.. and I figured that had to be our title. Later on we got into a discussion of the Wildstar server mergers and how our opinions might have changed a bit on the mega server concept after getting into Cactuar in Final Fantasy XIV.

Dark Portal Closes

It is a rather dramatic subheading for what in truth is not a terribly dramatic act. Yesterday morning while writing my blog post, I ended up talking myself into cancelling my World of Warcraft account. In a way I guess it was writing about the Nightmare Tide expansion in Rift, that made me realize just how not interested I am in anything to do with Warlords of Draenor. There have been a few times over the years when I have cancelled World of Warcraft, and in almost all of them it was the result of some negative reaction to the game. It wasn’t providing me this or that, or I was frustrated with these changes… or more often than not the lack of changes. This time around I feel completely apathetic about the future of this game. I have friends that work on it, and lots of blogger and gamer friends who are still devoted to it, so I hope it does extremely well and provides them a fun environment to run around in. I think it still provides lots of good things for the faithful, but at this point I have just lost the desire to be in Azeroth.

I think the biggest evidence of my need to just close things down is the fact that I have not played the game since April or maybe even earlier than that. I have kept my account active for one reason and one reason alone… I was wearing the Guild master title in the guild I started back in 2004. The only times I would actually log in, were to throw out an invite to someone who was wanting to check out the game. It felt frustrating to have a game I was not playing at all slowly bleeding money out of my accounts each month. Similarly I have come to the realization of just how much the game has changed, not in the content or the client… but in the community. Playing on the Cactuar server in Final Fantasy XIV has made me realize what I missed about Argent Dawn. The experience in Final Fantasy is much like it was in the early days of that server. Coming back each time seemed to remind me just how many people that I once cared about were no longer playing the game.

Similarly I came to the realization that I no longer need World of Warcraft as a $15 a month chat client. The folks that really matter to me I have contact with through social media, instant message, email or even the battle.net client. So I no longer have to rely on World of Warcraft to help glue together bits and pieces of my world. I realize the surest way to return to WoW is to claim you are never returning to WoW. I can’t make such a claim, but it does feel like it is over now. I am leaving not because I am mad at the game, or that I am disappointed by the game… I am leaving because I feel no desire to play the game. After months of having access to the Warlords of Draenor alpha, I find that I have maybe played the game a grand total of six hours. I hope it will be a rousing success, and they already have my money… but I won’t be crossing through the dark portal. At the end of November, my Dark Portal is closing and likely for good.

Fun with Malboros

If you ask a Final Fantasy fan what their most dreaded encounter is, I would imagine that Malboros rank pretty high up the list, more than likely directly below Tonberries. The constant fear of not being able to move out of the “bad breath” attack makes fighting them super frustrating. The Final Fantasy XIV version is every bit as terrifying as the worst versions in any of the console games, and in their infinite wisdom the developers of 14 decided to create a dungeon almost entirely devoted to them. Last night I got to tank Aurum Vale for my good friend Thalen who is slowly creeping up on 50. This dungeon is needed as part of the promotion system for your grand company, and it unlocks access to the highest rank stuff, so as a result we end up periodically running it for the up and comers.

I actually thought the dungeon was nowhere near as bad as I remembered it. It might be that we all greatly outgear the dungeon, but in truth that shouldn’t factor too heavily since Aurum Vale is the last of the dungeons that mentors you down. For the level 50 players this means a frustrating experience of losing all of the stuff you got when you dinged 50, as the dungeon mentors you down to level 49 exactly. The biggest frustration with this is the fact that I lose Infuriate the ability that gives me a 5 stack of rage on demand. It is basically my steel cyclone on demand button, as that is one of the best ways to get threat on all of the things quickly. In spite of these frustrations I had a really good time. I have to say I actually enjoy tanking the lower level instances for guildies as they need them.

#FFXIV #WoW #AggroChat