GW2 Jan update impressions

[tanithryudo]

* Living Story updates in Wayfarer & Diessa - Huh... I guess I can pull my two lowbies out of their PS and run them through those areas. My ele needs to pass through Wayfarer to get her breather mask upgrade from Frostgorge Sound anyway.

* New daily achievements - Still waiting for more info on what it's been changed to. Anyone can give screenshots? Nvmd - If the crafting one doesn't require unique crafting, it shouldn't be too bad just via cooking.
Combo killer might need some doing for lower level peeps without a lot of zergs around...wonder if NPCs count. Or if it requires a party I might just borrow the second account and do it that way. Two birds with one stone. :p

* Dungeons - Not affecting me yet. But if they are significantly easier I might just finish leveling my guardian there since it's gotten boring playing her in general PvE. Maybe.

* Guesting - Now we just need a site somewhere that will track which God Temples are open on which servers.

* Orr -
** Uncontested waypoints for SoD/CS - W00T! (But why no love for Malchor's Leap?)
** ...population density adjusted - YES!
** ...skills adjusted to use fewer crowd-control skills - Take that Purifiers!
** Grenth Temple chain - Huh, so that's why we failed miserably last time.
** Orrian Jewelry Box - Yay?
** Heavy Moldy Bag / more varied crafting materials - Oooh... sounds like the prices for exotic crafted stuff might drop appropriately.
** temple chains offer new exotic wares - I hope they still have the old stuff in addition to the new stuff. This is relevant to my interests.

* Professions
** Mostly all fixes and don't see any significant nerfs. So that's good.
** Bundles inheriting weapon stats - will need to see how this works out in game. Also, how does it work for 2 one-handed weapons of the same rarity?

* General PvE
** Hearts give karma - ...I'll take this as a glass half full, I guess.
** "In PvE, if a player is awarded loot by killing a creature and the loot is of uncommon rarity or higher, a chest will appear that contains the loot that would previously have been on the corpse. If the rarity of the loot on the creature is lower than uncommon, the loot will remain on the creature’s corpse." -- ...What? What is this? How does this work? What is "uncommon"? Green? I get a lot of greens all the time. Does that mean my screen is going to be cluttered with chests in zerg events? What about those people who stack magic find? How painful is this system gonna get for them?

* Unlisted updates
** Changes to The Dreamer animation ...o_O



So 5 days into the patch and 3 days of playing with the update, I guess I'll add some further reflections.

* Living Story - I managed to catch of the events associated with it, but at the end, so haven't seen much of this aside from the initial build up yet. Still, this is better than missing events entirely since they only take place in the span of a few hours or so at a particular time of day, usually during my work hours. It's good they've learned from the likes of Lost Shores and stopped doing that. The slow pace at least lets me enjoy the new content without needed to rush it because it'll move on without me soon.

* New daily achievements - I actually don't think they take any longer to complete than before. It does seem to be "harder" though. Or maybe it's just cuz putting it on the UI is a constant reminder. Some stuff like the dodge one only seems hard when you're concentrating too hard on doing it. Everything else comes fairly naturally. Ironically, the chokepoint I still have on the dailies is still the events and daily variety ones.

* The laurel vendor looks promising though. I like we can get he shiny ascended stuff now, even if it's a month+ of time investment. But at least it's easy time investment. I have over 100 mystic coins, so it is within the bounds of my playtime to get another 100+ dailies for the ascended jewelry. I have my eye on the Jade Wind Orb and Lost Seal of Usoku in particular for my ele. For RP purposes mainly, but it's not like they have bad stats. After that, maybe Bud of the Pale Tree for my ranger.

* Orr changes - I'll admit I haven't spent as much time in Orr lately since I wanted to get my two lowbies up a bit. The new waypoints are kinda...meh since there's all of 1 new waypoint per map and it's in the boonies. I heard the god temples are harder to beat now, but there's also added rewards so more people are doing them, which all balances out.

* Professions - haven't noticed any changes in gameplay

* General PvE - haven't noticed any changes in gameplay. The new drop mechanic hasn't been obnoxious as I'd feared.