diablo

Wrong Porridge Weekend

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Last Epoch – Fire Warpath Auto-Smite Paladin

Friends… I had a weekend where nothing was quite right. It was one of those weekends akin to wandering into your kitchen and knowing you want something… but you cannot figure out what it is. I was all over the freaking place. For example, I played some Last Epoch and got to Empowered Monoliths on my Fire Warpath Auto-Smite Paladin, and even took down my very first Harbinger. However, shortly after that I just lacked the will to keep pushing forward. Not that there is anything wrong with Last Epoch, but after playing a lot of Path of Exile during this league it just felt lacking. I wasn’t sure why I was trying to push forward, because I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted to accomplish. The moment-to-moment gameplay is fun enough, and there are brief chucks of excitement when you find a nemesis device on your map, but that is quickly over once you realize that you are killing monsters to fill bars so that you can fill other bars. Don’t get me wrong I love Last Epoch, but I think Path of Exile has just spoiled me.

Path of Exile – Widowhail Deadeye and Bleed Gladiator

Then there was Path of Exile, which has its own problems. I have my Righteous Fire Chieftain main that I have largely taken as far as I really can save for completely redoing my entire tree and diving further into the madness of cluster jewels. I have two alts my Widowhail Deadeye and Tanky Bleed Gladiator that are both fine, but both have their own problems that will need to be solved. The problem is, I am just not sure if I am willing to stick around and solve them. Widowhail Deadeye has NO defenses which means if anything looks slightly in their direction they fall over. Bleed Gladiator feels like a worse version of Righteous Fire in that I am plenty tanky… but also have to hit a bajillion buttons to make anything that feels like optimal progression. I was having more fun when it was just a Two-Handed Sunder build… but that had significant survival problems. Both of these characters can be fixed with an investment of time and gear and levels… but I am just not sure I am willing to go through the motions.

Path of Exile – Settlers of Kalguur Shipments

The League Mechanic has also become a bit stale. I loved it while leveling and gearing because so much of the gear that I am especially wearing on my alts and to a lesser extent my RF main… came directly off a boat. The problem is we were given a bit of a bait and switch when it came to the shipping mechanic because the reveal trailer promised three screens full of loot… and even when folks are shipping over 50 million in value they just end up with a single screen. I’ve not maxed out my workers but I am not sure I am willing to spend the gold prices that it would cost… or farm enough content in order to get said gold. Right now I am sending shipments to Riben Fell for 100k to 120k value and getting a reasonable amount of stuff back… but it is nowhere near as interesting as the giant loot pinatas we were promised. Acquiring stuff just seems to take more time than I am currently willing to put into it.

Diablo IV – Season 5 – Level 55 Barbarian

My friend Ace had been having a really good time with Diablo IV so I figured… what the hell since I seem to be floundering anyways I might as well give it a shot. I started off another Barbarian because of course I did… and I was originally going to go Whirlwind and I still might… but it felt MISERABLE to level as that. I fell back on good ole reliable and comfy Upheaval and as of last night was sitting at level 55. The leveling went extremely quickly, and in theory, I could probably even limp through the dungeon to convert over to World Tier 4 at this point. The problem is… I find the loot uninteresting in this game, and the tempering system is a bit miserable. So I am not sure what I am grinding towards save for completing seasonal achievements and progressing the Battle Pass.

Diablo IV – Tier 1 Infernal Hordes

Infernal Hordes is rather enjoyable. I am glad they are making this an evergreen part of the game going forward because it adds yet another thing that players can focus on. So far it doesn’t feel terribly rewarding given the amount of time it takes to complete one. The final boss phase can also be pretty miserable depending upon which negative affixes you choose along the way. That is probably my biggest problem… you only ever get to choose negatives. It reminds me of a worse version of the Red/Blue Atlars in t14+ maps in Path of Exile. With those you get some negative thing that is going to happen but also some massive bonus… either in the form of specific items dropping or the ability to duplicate loot or increase the quantity and rarity of drops. The carrot to this particular stick is just more aether… which lets you open more chests… which themselves feel rather anemic when it comes to rewards. Maybe these get better as I move into World Tier IV, but for now, mechanically they are a lot of fun up until the boss wave and seem to reward a lot of experience so just for fun’s sake they are worth doing.

Since coming back to Final Fantasy XIV, I have been entering the housing lottery again in the hopes of maybe winning back a plot after losing mine due to my own negligence. I realize it is kind of silly for me to do this given that I have already had a home and lost it, because I got distracted and busy around Christmas time. However this past period the same plot that I used to own was up for grabs, and I thought maybe just maybe fate would smile upon me and let me have it back. I did not in fact have the lucky number for the plot and yesterday I got back my deposit once again. I will once again try in a few days to find another housing plot, because what else am I going to do with the money that I have saved up? It is a bit frustrating, but I am largely resigned to doing this song and dance and never being the lucky winning number.

The thing that probably shocked me the most this weekend is that I actually booted up Warframe and played through a few missions. Of all of the games I have played over the years… Warframe is the one that I really wish that I could get into. It has such an amazing community and really some significant support from Digital Extremes. It is essentially Path of Exile levels of complicated but for a genre more akin to Destiny… and I would love to get into it, but I still find it largely obtuse and incomprehensible. I wish I could reset the progress and play through the game with the updated new player experience, but given that my account is 11 years old and I have all manner of legacy items… that is not going to happen. I might try and find some sort of new player experience guide to see if I can limp my way through unlocking whatever I have not unlocked.

What I should have been playing this past weekend was Guild Wars 2, because tomorrow the new expansion drops, and with it comes a glow-up for the Warclaw and what appears to be an amazing housing system. I’m about five quests away from completing Secrets of the Obscure and probably if I really set my mind to it tonight I could push through it. The biggest problem I have is that I essentially ground to a halt when I hit Inner Nayos. That zone is miserable, full stop. I was playing through it the night I had my little retina detach freak out and all of the shit floating in the air… really seems to aggravate me being able to see the floaters shifting around in my left eye. It does not help that at times it has Heart of Thorns levels of aggro and density just making it extremely unfun to play through. Secrets of the Obscure did some interesting things, but across the board, it is probably my least favorite expansion content from Guild Wars 2. I will be happy to move past it.

So basically where I stand currently… is that I have zero clue what I will be focusing on this week. Hell, it might be something that I have not even mentioned here. I’ve had a rough few weeks and continue to struggle with insomnia issues, so right now I just want something comfortable that can alleviate my frustrations. I am not sure such a thing exists. Hopefully, things chill out so I can get back to normal, but for the moment… I am not even really paying attention to everything going on with Blaugust. I am extremely thankful for the mentors who are largely keeping things running in my absence.

AggroChat #479 – Froggers

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Featuring:  Ammosart, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey Folks! Apologies for another missed show last week but Bel very narrowly missed some Twisty Weather. This week we start off the show with a discussion of Grace’s recent experiences in Diablo IV and how the game has changed for the better. From there we talk about Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail and how a number of us are on the fence about playing it.  Ammo shares her thoughts about the expansion.  Bel talks about his recent experience with Pandaria Remix and how it has jarred him out of his stupor when it comes to forming groups and playing with other human beings.  Bel also shares some of the recent happenings with the Frogger incident.  Tam discusses his dive into Warhammer Orks and how they are maybe the best that game has to offer in the vibes department.  We close out the show with some discussion about a weirdly good Random PVP mode in AFK Journey.

Topics Discussed:

  • Grace’s experiences with Diablo IV
  • AmmosArt Explains FFXIV Dawntrail
  • World of Warcraft Pandaria Remix
    • The Frogger Incident
  • Orks are the best of Warhammer
  • Random PVP Mode in AFK Journey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Raid Leveling Not for Me

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Good Morning Folks! I am still sort of in this pattern of MOSTLY playing World of Warcraft Pandaria Remix. I’ve come to realize that I do not have the fortitude to play this optimally… which would be to do ALL of the world bosses, a random heroic and normal dungeon, a random heroic and normal scenario, and then complete ALL of the raids. Instead, I think I am going to focus on trying to get my World Bosses done as they are fun and it is pretty easy to find groups in the LFG tool. After that, I think my goal tonight is to start chipping away at the Heroic Dungeons and Scenarios that I need to unlock rings. Then the next stretch goal would be to complete all of the raids on Normal mode, but that is probably going to take all week as I have realized my appetite for that sort of thing is not what it once was.

Related to that I got my Tauren Paladin over on Drenden up to level 25 at which point I tried my hand at one of the leveling theories. The idea is to run raids starting at 25 and level your character through doing that. I’ve personally found this to be a little lacking as I think in total I gained a single level after having done two wings of LFR. Because of this gameplan I’ve also been leveling as Retribution which is fine for playing at endgame levels… but is not my preferred method of leveling. So as a result I think I am going to shift gears with this character and just level it the old-fashioned way while switching over to Protection so I can bounce shields all over the map for fun and profit. I am also questioning my choice of Tauren as I remember now why I don’t like playing them… because they feel painfully slow.

Lastly, I created a little Vulpera Hunter on Eonar where another friend has a base of operations. In theory, my goal is to push this up to 70 before the event is up so that I can have yet another max-level character seeded throughout the cosmos in case I decide that I want to play on that server. I already have an Orc Deathknight that I played during Legion and a few babby characters of various ages. It would be awesome if they made the Stable go cross-character and cross-realm because that has been my core reason for not playing something other than the original Lodin. I did not love the concept of collecting spirit beasts again. I am kind of wondering how the Warband is going to change things up, because in theory, I should be able to have all of the characters that I am playing regardless of server on the same screen.

Now that I have capped my Barbarian, I think I am going to spend some more quality time with my Necromancer. There is a pattern that can be used from levels 20-50 that will allow you to craft legendary caches so that you can get aspects pretty quickly. So my plan is to push this character up to 20 and see how well that process works. Barbarian was a lot of fun, and I might still rework that character to go for the overpowered Dual Swing Twisters build, but I also want to see how the Necromancer world is doing. I also really need to find a bow build that I like because traditionally… tanky brawler, minion, and bow characters are what I tend to play over and over in ARPGs.

Anyways! Today is my first day back this week so I am not looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I also have to go into the office tomorrow so I am somewhat dreading that as well. Hopefully, you all had a wonderful weekend and an extended weekend if you are in the states.

Horned Hellrazer

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Good Morning Folks! When last we spoke I was sitting at level 62 and had yet to transition into World Tier IV. Shortly after making that post I got to around 65 and finished the capstone dungeon and have been rolling around on the maximum world tier ever since. At time of writing this blog post, I am sitting at level 92 with a good chunk of the way toward 93. In theory, if I push it really hard tonight and grind out Nightmare Dungeons I could hit level 100. I have no however been in the mood to “push it really hard” and have been mostly taking the leveling process in a super chill manner. I am already higher than my previous highest character which made it to 90, after weeks of frenetic play during Season 2. I am not sure what my real end goal with this season is save for seeing the Pit which I believe unlocks at level 100.

The biggest problem that I have been dealing with is performance issues. The worst place this occurs is during Helltides where players are zooming in and out of your effective range constantly… often causing the game to hitch at the worst possible times. Almost every death that I have taken has been due to a player coming into my immediate area and causing a hitch as things load in around that player. Unfortunately, group activities are pretty much required to chase the best gear you can get. I do want to shout out this player from yesterday while waiting on a boss to spawn. Dingalingus is maybe the best “awful” name I have ever seen. This season has seen me crashing out to desktop a lot namely when trying to transition between areas which is unfortunately what 90% of this game is all about. Some of the instability was with RTX features and I have turned all of those off which seems to have improved things marginally but I still occasionally get the disconnect/crash to the desktop when teleporting into town.

I’ve not entered the pit and as such I am not complaining about gold gains yet like every other player out there. What is killing me though… a few scenarios surrounding loot. In this Season, Diablo IV stole the concept of exalted gear from Last Epoch where at least one stat drops with an extremely juiced stat roll. Unfortunately, these can drop on items that are effectively vendor trash. Once you reach World Tier IV, nothing that drops that is not item level 925 aka the maximum level… is not worth paying any attention to. I was able to get fully decked out in 925 gear relatively quickly and by at least level 75, I was sitting in a full set. That means every unique that drops and “exalted” item that drops that is not at least at that maximum item level is worthless. So the tweak I would love to see going forward is that if a unique drops or if an exalted item drops it drops at the item level cap. Nothing feels worse than salvaging an item that could have been amazing but rolled with a substandard item level on it.

Minor complaints aside it feels like Diablo IV has finally arrived at a good “base” for the game. From here they need to work on adding more things to do and different ways to obtain the same end results. For example, if you really enjoy Helltide… but don’t enjoy Nightmare Dungeons… there is no way to level your glyphs and as such will always be weaker than characters who leveled up those glyphs slowly. There are a lot of gear drops that are focused on Bossing, and I am personally not a character who enjoys doing boss fights. I feel forced into farming them so that I can have a shot at maybe seeing the specific uniques that I need. The thing that makes Path of Exile so strong is that it has enough content that you can reasonably focus on sone specific niche and the market economy will make sure you still have access to anything you might want. Diablo IV is a good base game now, but suffers from the same problem that Last Epoch does where there just isn’t quite enough stuff to be doing yet.

It will be interesting to see how Diablo IV evolves over time. I am hoping we see more permanent system going into the game rather than temporary mechanics. I want the game to succeed and it is finally in a state where it feels good to play it. So I am hoping in another years time it will feel like a proper contender for the ARPG throne.