halcyontwilight

The person who designed the original crafting and gathering system in FFXIV needs to be convicted for crimes against humanity. When you mentioned FFXIV, all the headaches I got from trying to enjoy the game came back to me.

Great write-up. There's no doubt that ArenaNet has done a great job applying the things they learned from GW1 and WoW, but I think the greater issue is if they can keep players engaged for the long-term. Not everyone wants to do sPvP, and from the sounds of things people aren't liking the dungeon balancing and the rewards for the explorable modes. We'll see the real consensus once more people hit the endgame PvE content, but I'm just worried that endgame PvE will only appeal to a small hardcore group of people who don't mind spending hours doing speed runs of the same dungeons over and over again for relatively minimal gain.

I really hate indoor enclosed areas while playing my charr, thanks to the wonky camera. I guess giant feline cats aren't quite as nimble as their smaller counterparts.

I'll go a bit deeper into the crafting parts, since the benefits of crafting really aren't clear in-game.

As a warrior, a solid choice of professions would be armorer and weaponsmith. A armorer can make some basic 8-slot bags, which should be the first thing you should make. Leveling up your professions requires a lot of materials which come from gathering nodes, salvaging items, and drops from mobs. It's a good idea to pick up gathering tools (you should get one tool from a early main story quest as a reward) and hit up the gathering nodes as you explore the world.

You don't need to necessarily level grind your professions early on, but leveling them up a bit does give you a nice chunk of experience (which will allow you to catch up in levels to where you should be) and more importantly allows you to make gear that you can use to hold you over till you get better gear from a drop/reward. Keep in mind that in this game, you will generally be more efficient early on if you focus on discovering new recipes than just grinding out a hundred of the same item.

To 'discover' new recipes (without buying them from karma vendors), simply use your refined materials to make various armor/weapon parts. Then go to the discovery tab of the crafting menu and drag the appropriate parts into the discovery area. Combine those armor/weapon parts with the various insignias (which are how you add stat bonuses to your gear) in the discovery tab to 'discover' the recipes for the basic bronze armor sets.

You will actually lose some money when crafting (e.g. buying the tin needed to smelt raw copper ore into bronze ingots), but in the end it's worth it thanks to the exp gains and the opportunity to keep yourself geared.

jkc.7691

My in-game character name for my charr guardian is Eishan. It would be awesome if I could join!

@Kain55 said:

Kain.8697

Just got it installed and I'm looking forward to playing with all of you. An MMO without a good guild loses its luster quickly.

Well now I see that the server is full. Any advice on dealing with this issue?

I just kept logging in at various points of the day into the server select screen until the status for Yak's Bend was High instead of Full. It might not work now (Yak's Bend is one of the few servers dominating in WvWvW, so tons of people have been transferring), but it's worth a try.

If any content related to the different girls you date in the game come in later as DLC, I'll still be disappointed. Wei's relationship with the various girls could have been plot elements used to further develop Wei's character and also help further color his motivations (e.g. Tiffany could have been further tied into the sub-plot with Big Smile Lee), but instead they cut all of that potential out. Even if some additional 'date' missions are added as DLC, it's unlikely that those missions will have any relevance since it's pretty clear that the devs were pushed to polish things rather than to continue their ambitious plans.

And god that gliched voicemail from Not Ping was such a tease.

Just install it so you can hop on and blast Romulans/Klingons/Bad Guys out of the sky every now and then. It's a great game to just hop on and complete a few missions or fleet actions.

There isn't a huge community behind STO, even with the F2P release, so only your love for blasting things to smithereens with your phasers will keep you engaged. The new Duty Officer stuff that was added isn't too compelling, and all the other stuff they added was either to streamline or pad out the content.

Great work! It would be cool to see mixed teams for some of your next videos. Something like conjurers + atronachs vs vampires + thralls.

@rjayb89: The reason why she always has the bow is because of a glitch with the hidden default gear. All followers have hidden default gear that they equip when you take away all of their visible inventory, and sometimes they'll glitch and favor the hidden gear (i.e. the hunting bow) over the superior gear that you give them.

If you're on PC, best way to stop this is to use the console commands. Open the console, select your follower with your mouse, then type "showinventory" without quotations. That will list EVERYTHING that is on the character, hidden items included. Find the hunting bow (which should have its item ID next to its name), then use the removeitem <item ID> <count> command to remove the hunting bow.

Be sure to include the count of the item, as that dictates how many of the item you are removing. Don't forget to save before doing the console commands too, just in case.

Once you remove the hidden hunting bow, your follower will use the bow that you gave to them.

Have some pity on the poor followers. They act as pack mules, get roasted by dragons, and catch ice spikes with their faces for you. And most of them do it for free too.

.....except for Barbas. God I wished he wasn't invincible. Mutt was annoying as heck.

@buft: No dragons that use shock spells AFAIK. They're either spewing flames or frost.

Between the hagravens and the fire adepts, there's plenty of people chucking fireballs at me. I actually haven't seen enemies use shock spells all that much, probably 3 or so times in the 50 hours that I played. But then again, playing as an assassin I typically backstab most enemies before they get a chance to react.

For those having trouble with the mages, you can also try using the ward spells to help close the distance. And the force unrelenting and whirlwind sprint shout helps out a lot against them too. Better yet pop an invisibility potion and give them a nice hug up close.

I roll with at least one melee weapon with a fire enchant, so that's what I found most useful in all situations. The paralyze enchantment is also useful, but it can be resisted and bosses and some higher-ranked enemies aren't affected by it.

Honestly though, it really depends on your play style. If you don't have a weapon that can capture souls, having that enchant on your mace will save you a lot of trouble trying to fill soul gems. If you want some extra damage the fire enchant works well since targets that are on fire take extra damage. If you want a enchant that will help you survive longer against mages the shock enchantment will help since it also damages the target's magicka with every hit.