Nogamara

WoW’s TWW pre-expansion event

WoW’s “The War Within” pre-patch (or pre-expansion) event isn’t too different from some other events they’ve done in the past, with enough dedication it allowed you to level a character or two quickly.

The problem is that this one is completely ridiculous. Like yes, I know they’ve repeatedly hinted in the direction of “the real game begins at max level”, but even as a relatively quick and proficient leveler I’ve had enough fun to keep myself occupied. First it was at least one character per class at max level, then it was one per faction per class. I managed that in Shadowlands and in Dragonflight I was happy with just all of them on Alliance and a handful on Horde.

Anyway, just today I spent about (or slightly less than) 4 hours in the event and managed to level a Paladin, a Hunter, a Priest, and a Monk to 70. Yes, I know about Pandaria Remix and that it also allowed to push new characters quickly, I’m not mad at people who did not have all classes and needed to catch up, I’m annoyed that I’d be stupid to ignore the event and not just spend 1h of not very challenging game play to level one character to 70.

Yes, sometimes it became repetitive but from 13 classes I usually enjoyed played 10 or so and then just got 3 done for the sake of it. Now I still need to do this event cycle about four times.

And they also disabled currency transfer *again* so I can’t even buy the mounts. Hopefully I won’t forget to check before this ends, or I need to grind 2 toons from 10k to 20k currency instead of just moving it around. Sigh.

WoW’s TWW pre-expansion event Read More »

Dawntrail MSQ finished

After a day off I just finished the Dawntrail MSQ, I think it was a bit anticlimactic. Basically after you enter the last hidden zone there are a couple of neat things, but nothing major anymore. I wouldn’t say boring, but those 4 subzones were a bit much. The Level 100 trial is kinda hard if you’ve not seen it before.

So Warrior is 99 as well, I’m about to continue on the tank role quest because I want to hit Level 100 as well.

Other plans? Get a couple of levels in on Scholar/Summoner with duty roulette, level my two retainers, and unlock flying in the penultimate zone (did the 5 others). Oh, and I’ve kinda did the sightseeing log for the first time, just missing one zone there as well, that’s some good XP.

Dawntrail MSQ finished Read More »

Dawntrail continues

The “I want to do all the things” seems to have kicked in now.

I’ve not finished the MSQ, but my Bard is Level 100 and I just got my Artifact gear. I still have a couple of 99 MSQ steps left so I investigated if I could get the Warrior to 99 “quickly” and do that on that class. Grabbed the Wondrous Tales, did some duty roulette, and was 93. Also finally had a look at Aglaia, the first of the Endwalker Alliance Raids. After a second day of duty roulettes it’s 96.

Spent my Poetics on healer gear for Scholar (I prefer White Mage and Astrologian, but this gives a free caster job, and vice versa) and also did a bit of Mining in order to be able to level my Mining Retainer.

10 days of sub left.

Dawntrail continues Read More »

Dawntrail updates

I think I’m close to 2/3 done with the Dawntrail MSQ (looking at the length of the quest list on the wiki), at level 96.6.

I’ve only had the big reveal a bit ago (at least that’s what I think it was).

Overall I like it, but either I’m just not in the right mood or it’s absolutely not as great as Shadowbringers or Endwalker. Not on a quality level, really. It’s fun, it well-made, but it feels… a bit like a generic MMO expansion and not like an awesome FFXIV expansion. Maybe the last two were actually too good to be surpassed that easily.

The first two zones were fine, but a little forgettable.

My main gripe is the music. Again, it’s not bad, but I’m missing the bangers of the zone music. I didn’t play SB or EW for very long and yet I instantly recognize most of the zone music with the first few notes. DT doesn’t have that.

Anyway, continuing on and wondering if I will make it through the MSQ and whether I will have enough time to level a second job, because with the looming WoW expansion I doubt I’ll play more than a month.

Dawntrail updates Read More »

Random WoW observations

So we’re in the prepatch phase before the newest (to be released yet) WoW expansion The War Within. I’m not really excited or hyped, but kinda looking forward to raiding with my guild again, so many of them (including me) have been offline for the last 2 months, so let’s hope it just organically happens.

I still had this 6x Druid in Remix: Mists of Pandaria to level to 70 (and spend my Bronze) and today I did just that. With the latest changes to XP it took me less than an hour. From what I understood leveling in Retail should also be a lot quicker now, that’s good for everyone, right?

Maybe not. For many years one of my goals was to have a single character per class at the maximum level in the course of the expansion, explained in great detail on the MMOs & Me page. Remix: MoP has already put the first dents in this “goal” (if we assume that at the end of that all the characters, including the 70s of course, will just be normal ones) and then you don’t even need that route. I mean, it’s cool for people who really just want to do endgame activities but for me just grinding gear has always felt a bit pointless. Levels are kinda forever (a wild level squish appears), like, you are not being set back in your progress more than anyone else. New expansion, and now you’re still at the old maximum level, then you level and you are at max level again. That’s fine. What I never liked was being at max level but with suddenly terrible gear. Just a personal problem and not very objective, but that’s how it is.

But with no raid tier I didn’t play Season 4 of Dragonflight at all. Zero M+, zero raid bosses, I think.

Also Dragonflight was the first expansion in a while where I didn’t really bother with the second faction, as I am writing this my highest Horde toons are 70 Warrior, 69 Shaman (after logging in I noticed I was at 69 and 105% and still had to do 1 Archaeology dig to ding…), 67 Rogue, and 63 Warlock, not counting the Remix Druid. That’s a terrible quota out of 13 classes. At least I got all done on Alliance, but not a single intra-faction duplicate this time either. Wow. I’ll see if I get at least the aforementioned 6xs to 70, but not sure if there will be more. Kind of sad about this but after all it will be my 4th expansion where I main Alliance, maybe even 5th, but Legion was murky.

So, let’s see how quick leveling in TWW will really be and if “getting one to max level” will still hold any value for myself, or if it’s so quick that it might devolve into a very boring check list item for me.

Random WoW observations Read More »

Finishing up Endwalker

Being down to 6 steps in Endwalker MSQ left, digging it at slowly whenever I had time this week.

Had to actually buy a couple of pieces of gear now to clear the 620/625 threshold for some duties.

Today I finally checked my currencies tab and to my delight I noticed I could still convert all those Tomestones (Causality and Comedy) and White Scrip.

Also if I can finish the last raid duty of the expansion as a random without dying, maybe it is too easy?

Anyway, with this done I can now decide if I want to buy Dawntrail or do some other stuff for my 3 remaining weeks of the sub.

Finishing up Endwalker Read More »

Playing EVE… differently

The last few days I’ve spent quite a bit of time in HighSec, doing some missions, some mining, trying to (finally) fill out the AIR reward thingies, and also to see some things I’ve not really seen for many years.

One thing I did was doing 20 “Distribution Missions” from Agents, basically ferrying stuff from A to B, with the very, very occasional shooting or mining. So I’ll get 100 points for doing those 20 missions, and also get some 2-3 others done on the way, for example by grabbing 375 LP to spend, or raising standing with some NPC corp.
But mostly I’m kinda shocked how different you’re fitting your ships here, or at least what you could do.

I am using a Sunesis with some Hyperspatial Rigs and some Inertial Stabilizers, so it aligns in under 2s and warps faster, because I’m doing a lot of travel. It basically has no tank (I had some room for a single Multispectrum Shield Hardener and it has an MWD and an Afterburner. I am carrying a refit of 3 Mining Lasers and 3 Light Missile Launchers. If I was in NullSec this would be a completely unfocused shitfit, but in HighSec where there are no bubbles, no one who will aggress my 20m Destroyer (as I never have valuable) cargo, it’s perfect.

It’s like I’m playing a completely different game. Just some chill space trucking, no worries to be shot. But on the other hand I’m making less than 1m ISK per hour, so Level 1 missions are really just for beginners and to learn the game. Still weird how NullSec is a complete sandbox and the missions in HighSec (or grinding out standing) is so, so different.

Playing EVE… differently Read More »

Rediscovering Destiny 2

For no particular reason except someone mentioning it, I reinstalled Destiny 2 and put quite a few hours in it. Quite a few hours for me… playing a shooter, that is.

If you thought coming back to an MMO after a couple of years (in my case it seems I last played in autumn of 2019), this feels worse.

But anyway, I’ve had fun, and I’ve reached Rank 20 of the Season and was working on Guardian Rank 6 until just now, everything reminds me of the Season Journey in Diablo III. Some of those Bounties where I have to do 8 for a Vendor Weekly (and where I need two) are a bit weird, but ok.

My main problem right now are solo quests with real bosses. The public events and the parts leading up to the bosses are ok. Anyway, some goal reached, maybe I’ll rewatch one of these “things you need to do this season” videos and try to understand more.

Rediscovering Destiny 2 Read More »

Quick wins when training

When playing EVE for a long time and having “higher” SP characters (more so if they are somehow specialized and not general combat pilots) and they have training plans weeks and months long for special skills, one can easily lose track of the quick wins and multiple unlocks, easily seen by having a good look at the skills window and the ship tree (one of my favourite UI parts in EVE).

So I have this alt at around 30m SP, can do a few things, and is not a terrible combat pilot, deployed to somewhere on a special mission. Recently learned to fly HACs and Logi Cruisers, but after unlocking something else I needed I did this good look at the skills window and have now paused training on my main for a couple of days, because I identified these quick wins:

  • Caldari Strategic Cruiser + 4 subsystems = 1h (not combat effective, but I can move it)
  • Amarr Destroyer II+III + Amarr Cruiser I+II = 8.75h to unlock 8 Cruisers
  • Gallente Destroyer II+III + Gallente Cruiser I+II = 8.75h to unlock another 11 Cruiser (now all Pirate Factions)
  • Battlecruiser I – 0.5h if you’re at Cruiser III anyway. I guess I just stopped at Cruiser I at some point when buying skill books, then over the years added II+III and never even thought about BC.
  • Medium x Turret II+III + Large x Turret I = 9.5h

So yeah, of course it’s basic math – but it’s less than 2d of training to unlock (even if just to sit, move, and for the cruisers, maybe actually use the T1 variant) 20 hulls. Also if you’re going to shuttle to an NPC station that sells skill books anyway, might as well buy 10 more and inject them “empty” for future use, or for right now.

Also for an alt character that’s older than 5 years, maybe you never checked if they can fly all the new skills. Pretty sure either Signal Dispersion or Resistance Phasing (or both) are new. And then some 0.5-2h gaps in certain Rigging skills or Repair Systems. Yeah, I might not need a lot of this, but my main is stuck on a 17d Weapon Skill V train for a weapon system I don’t even own right now (afaik), a really good decision for a quick pause and giving this alt some love, even if just for a couple of days.

Overall maybe I was just cherry-picking a couple really good bang-for-the-buck skills (and the boring Magic 14 are trained already for the most part) but I was still surprised what I can achieve in such a short term, and I suppose I should’ve done this sooner. Everyone usually focused on training all skills to IV or V for the T2 ships and weapons but sometimes shallow and wide may be better than focused. Which is funny, because my main was originally too shallow and wide and not focused enough, so maybe I overcorrected on a couple of alts. Then again this alt could originally only fly Shield doctrines decently and of course by adding Amarr and Gallente there’s probably some Armor lacking, but I guess if you’re not operating inside of a NullSec alliance with NullSec doctrines and skillplans, better being able to fly that kitchen sink Omen with Cruiser III and T1 Guns III than not having one more cheap combat ship available.

Quick wins when training Read More »