任是无情也动人

Still... not feeling the impetus to go back to GW2. And honestly, the graphics for this game is feeling really dated now. Might just log in with the accounts to unlock the update (assume they're similar to how living story updates work, I dunno)...



In other news, have been having fun with Honkai: Star Rail. I am at the point where I am hitting the grind part. Such that I've decided not to further raise the world difficulty for now, even though I'm still rank short of the max rewards difficulty level. Characters are also maxed at 70 (of the 80 cap) which should be enough for most content if I'm reading the various resources right.

Also, yes, I have sunk money and pulled on the gatcha, though not for all of the banners. Got Luocha during his banner because he is pretty. Turned out to be a good choice cuz he is like the top defensive support/healer right now. XD



Though of course my luck being what it is, the free 5 star the standard banner gave me is Bailu, another healer. -_- Not going to do anything with her. My other healer I built is the free 4 star from the story, since she's much cheaper to build. IMO building 2x 5-star healers at the same time would just require too much farming.

After him, I skipped the Blade and Kafka banners. Blade because not too into edgy masochist dudes. Kafka because not planning to invest into DoT gameplay. Currently looking forward to the next banner for 饮月君 (Imbibitor Lunae, lol translation) that's coming up in less than a week. Counting the days now...



Also, been reading Star Rail slashfic on AO3 lately... XDXDXD

EDIT:

Also considering getting the light cone for this next banner as well as the character. Because...well, rawr. ^_-

So I've finished the main story on my main, and have progressed the masteries a little further. Still haven't gotten seige turtle yet, seems that will require doing the jade sea meta, and I haven't done that yet. This meta right now seems to be in the phase that the HoT Tangled Depths meta was at when that expac was launched, where it's hit and miss for pugs and usually requires a "good" party to defeat. I figure I can wait a while until more the population rank up their masteries/new specs and get used to the mechanics, before I try to leech off a win there. =P

Anyway, current goal right now is just to generically level the existing masteries and run the skill point challenges on my mesmer to fill out the new spec. But sometimes I get tired of playing missions or looking for skill points. Thought back to the discussion about maps in the last post, and then took some time to record just showing off the maps. (Also, sekretly using this to plug my favor singer as BGM. XD)

Full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsZ-OPg1pOw1MqJJtOBhXse_msnbBq8Lf

Embed will only show 1 video at a time though... so just putting New Kaineng 1/3 here.


Right now just got Seitung and Kaineng maps. I might do Jade Sea map next. Not sure if I'll do Echovald, since I don't much like that map... we'll see.

The release date is set for Feb 28. I'll...try to remember it. =P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUpAxUcCpyg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OBUKfNmvAU

Just noticed that the third beta event is running to introduce the various new specs.

Then I skimmed through some of the feedback on reddit...and yeah, no impetus to play still. (Also realized I skipped all of Halloween this year...and don't feel motivated to play Xmas either. Eh. There's something wrong when I am willing to shell out much more cash to play a 2D dressup game than a 3D MMO...)

The new ranger spec seems to be way too over-tuned for PvP and thus doesn't do any damage in PvE.

The new ele specs seems to be another overcomplicated main mechanic that feels too gimmicky.

The engi mace is meh, and the pet mechanic... is actually the ranger type pet, with similar pros and cons. So far the only reviews that were mixed. I mean, the bearbow ranger build is the easy mode PvE build for a reason.

The mesmer spec will likely come out the best, because that class is always Anet's favored child, so really don't have to worry there.

And the rest of the classes I don't play enough to worry about new specs. =P

So we have a first look at what Shing Jea island will look like in the upcoming expansion. Here's a longer guild chat video.

It...looks a lot like the Labyrinthine Cliffs zone, to be honest. Doesn't quite impress me the way Elona did. Also the building colors look, I dunno...gaudy? Oversaturated, and not in the good way that Draconis Mons was.



I'll probably wait for late Nov and then buy the preorder for my main account still. I don't have hopes that Kaineng City will look prettier since that was always an ugly place even in GW1. Not too much a fan of goth aesthetics so not exactly looking forward to the Kurzicks. There's still the Jade Sea, I suppose.

In other news, I noted that the elementalist new spec is hammer + wells. Sounds like it's meant to combo with dagger/dagger melee build. There was also a beta trial on Sep 22 that I missed.

And currently there's also Halloween event going on... eh, can't feel motivated to play it though. *sigh*

So GW2 is doing a beta preview from next Tue-Sat (Aug. 17-21).

No new maps or anything. Just get to create temp characters for the 3 elite specs that have been revealed so far: Virtuoso (Mez), Harbinger (Nec), Willbender (Gua).

Not so sure I'll join... I guess it'll depend on if I remember when the time rolls around.

Oh hey, and the weekend after that is going to be the anniversary. I'll try to remember to login then to get the bday gifts.

Found a rec video for this on my youtube recs. Apparently some fan made a RPG version of GW1 pre-searing.

cashew - Are you still doing game making?

Rec videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxmChRD2epdwSM70v_mcqLTq3xVQ761m

Game: https://j0m0.itch.io/guild-wars-rpg-maker

So I've actually been kinda ignoring GW2 for a couple of months now since I've been hooked on PWM, but I still occassionally login to get the new living story, or check in on reddit to see what's new. Just a few days ago, Anet released a roadmap for the future, and confirmed they are going for a new expansion, albeit in the vague and fuzzy future.

And it looks like Cantha.

Awesome. As for the vague and fuzzy timeline, eh, that's what I have mobile games for in the interim.

So I've completed the personal story and all 4 of the free mounts mastery tracks. Also did a bit of dabbling with weaver and did the starting personal story on 2 more characters to check out a few things. Also, staked reddit for news and stuff. So I'm ready to do my initial review.

I think in a lot of respects, PoF is the culmination of a lot of learning and feedback taken from the players in response to HoT. It attempts to capitalize on the things people liked, correct what they didn't like, and sometimes go overboard in the attempt.

( Read more... )

There's probably more stuff that I can't remember right now. Ask me and I shall trying to give my thoughts on it.

The first demo weekend just finished. That demo covered just a preview of the PvE map content for PoF, mainly focused on showing off the new area and the mount system. None of the new class specializations were available; apparently, they're showcasing those separately in the next demo. Because of that, I didn't play all that exhaustively. But from what I did play, here's some thoughts...

( the review )

Anyway, the upcoming weekend will have the specializations demo. Currently, it seems the demo characters will only have access to WvW and PvP for testing. Players are also arguing for aerodome (raid testing) access. Also not sure how it's going to work with existing WvW queues and maps... Best case is they'll make a new WvW instance for the demo to avoid conflicting with actual WvW games. Either that or just restricted to Edge of the Mists, I guess.