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.
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.
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.
I did not make it terribly far last night as we had a family dinner thing to go to, which put me getting home extremely late. Additionally, the whole not really sleeping the night before because we lost power at 2:30 in the morning also meant I turned in pretty early. I did get to level 62 on my Barbarian and I did make an attempt at the World Tier 4 dungeon at 57 only to get wrecked by Elias. I think that fight favors folks who don’t have to stand all up in his grill. His attacks were just dealing too much damage for me to burn him all the way down. I am probably going to wait until around 65 before giving it another shot hoping that the levels and additional gear will make the difference.
I did create a baby Necromancer this morning just to play around with that class and see how the minion gameplay feels. It feels exceptionally strong, and to be honest… it feels like the easier option. Within 10 minutes or so I was level 16 because leveling in this game is just nonsense especially since I have the experience from monster kills buff in action. I will probably keep at the Barbarian because I feel like the visceral gameplay is more enjoyable for me personally, but I will keep poking around at the Necromancer as well. I would not be shocked if I managed to get both of them to 100 during this season.
The most important part of any character though is setting up the cosmetics and I feel like Necro has the best stuff. This is not a matched set of gear but it has the feel that I want it to have. I am such a sucker for “plate skirts” for characters and still consider Judgment the best gear set in World of Warcraft. I am hoping to get some time to play this weekend with my friend Ace and I am not sure if I will be bringing my Barbarian or dragging along this Necro when I do it. There are problems namely around the acquisition of gold and how awkward leveling glyphs feels, but all in all the changes that came with “loot reborn” have breathed much-needed life into the game.
