Good Morning Friends! You ever have one of those nights where you spent the entire evening playing a single game… but also feel like you made no real progress in it? That was my night and I am not entirely certain what I have to show for it. I know I was playing from at least 6 pm CST onwards because I caught the early Tequatl at server reset, but I have no clue how to account for the rest of my evening. I know I teleported into a few zones to help with bounties for folks who posted a plea in the “Looking for Group” tool and added a few people to my friends list through doing that. I did not however get over my fear of posting my own groups and actually doing the strike that I needed to do. I think at some point I gave up on the notion of either miracle-ing my way into an existing group posting for what I needed or getting the fortitude to do it myself and moved on with other activities.
That meant going back to Lion’s Arch for what I knew would be the final conflict and Scarlet Briar sacking it. I say this without concern about spoilers because… it is sort of a known secret at this point. Even though many of us never experienced the Living World Season 1 content, we have been confronted that the Lion’s Arch or the Claw Island missions are not the same ones that we see today, and ultimately probably went to the wiki to find out why. I am an old enough player to remember both versions of the city fondly, and while there are folks who wish we could go back to old Lion’s Arch… I have to say I greatly prefer what is colloquially referred to as “Disney Lion’s Arch” because it makes a more usable hub city. Destruction of your main city is still one of the most daring moves I have ever seen a game make, and I am not entirely certain it was a good call for the longevity of the title. It created some bitterness in the players who were fond of it before and a lot of dissonance for the players that came later.
Essentially there are two copies of Lion’s Arch that you experience in the story. The first is as the attack has fallen upon the city and toxins are building up around you, while you attempt to rescue as many as you can. There is a miasma meter that ticks up over time, and you do whatever you can to save whoever you can in the process. I only made it so far as rescuing Evon Gnashblade and I think 30 citizens before the gunk claimed me and ended the mission. I am not sure if you can legitimately do all of the objectives that you have presented in front of you in the time you have available. What does not help this process is the fact that all of the enemies appear to be infinitely respawning. I learned this the hard way pretty quickly when I was carefully clearing everything before starting an escort, only to have it immediately respawn on top of me.
The second instance that you encounter is “retaking” Lion’s Arch after regrouping with the refugees in Gendarran Fields. The new map is essentially one big meta as you fight enough skirmishes in a region to get the boss to show up, and upon defeating the boss you take back control of that sector. For the purpose of my quest, I needed to do enough events to fill a bar similar to earlier steps in the Living World Season 1 content. I stuck around and helped out in trying to retake the city, and we failed miserably at fighting one of three legendary bosses that have a Red/Green/Blue resistance scheme. The one we were fighting was Blue and vulnerable to Red or Green… but I could not seem to get my team to go over to the green puddle and get the corresponding buff so we could actually finish the fight. We got close, however, for only having a half dozen or so people fighting it. We failed the instance though but did get more than far enough to finish my quest.
The Breachmaker is Scarlet Briar’s giant flying airship drill and you see it during the cutscenes upon zoning in during the attack on Lion’s Arch the first time. I got far enough in the quest chain that my next step is a story mission which is likely an attack on that Breachmaker itself. Last night when I got there I did not really have enough time to get engaged in anything that would potentially take that amount of time. The problem with Guild Wars 2 story sections is they are not really a predictable length and as a result, I need to make sure I have an hour or more before diving into them. A lot of them take considerably less time, but every so often there is one that will take a few hours to get through. Unlike FFXIV, this game is not exactly good about warning you.
Other than the Lion’s Arch nonsense, I encountered this contraption yesterday… and Arena.Net got another 600 gems out of me. This is the Noodle Cart Chair, and unlike most other chairs… up to 2 other players can join you and there is a button to press to eat noodles. This was me and another player sitting on the chair together in Rata Sum, and every time I have thrown mine out I’ve ended up with someone joining me. This is maybe one of the coolest cosmetic microtransactions I have seen because it adds something social to the experience. I mean I love noodles anyways, but this is just delightful and the animation of watching the jadetech making noodles, washing bowls, etc is just magical.
Another thing that I did yesterday was to spend some time fishing because I have been waiting around in Seitung lately hoping to catch someone doing that meta event. That is one of the two steps I have remaining for the turtle mount. So when I am not procrastinating about starting a strike group, I am idling in the zone hoping we end up with enough critical mass to complete the boss. It did give me a chance to play with another microtransaction that I picked up a while back. I love the octopus fishing pole and the way its tentacles move subtly as you idle between casting. Fishing in Guild Wars 2 is not necessarily the best system I have experienced, but it is far from the worst. Would that all games could have a fishing system as good as New World. It is enjoyable enough and I should really get more used to throwing my pole out while waiting around for Tequatl to spawn.
Tonight my plan is to try and knock out the last steps of the Lion’s Arch quest chain, and then move on to Living World Season 2. I will probably also try to keep tabs on both Strike groups and Seitung meta in order to hopefully catch one of those. I need to look up the event table for that zone so I know how often it fires. Tomorrow, however… will be all about the drop of the Last Epoch Multiplayer patch.