Nogamara

The Daily Routine

/ / 3 Comments / Final Fantasy XIV, Games, WoW /

I brought this on myself but currently there’s GW2 to log in for the daily login reward, then there’s EVE with all the accounts which grant a daily login award after 13:00, SWTOR (which doesn’t remember the password and needs the 2FA code) after 13:00, then I can do a few dailies and World Quests and progress the story a bit in WoW, and then I haven’t started with FFXIV.

On logging in my 3-4 retainers are waiting with their finished 18h Venture, there’s Expert Roulette for a few days to cap my highest-tier tomestones, the MSQ is too good on EXP to not queue up with a non-max level job (but at least I can browse or chat during the cutscenes), then sometimes I feel like doing the other roulettes, Trial or Level or even 50/60/70/80 (but not PvP). Then I still have some Beast Tribes to do. Pixies are really quick for good EXP on a 7x char, I started Qitari recently and want to finish Namazu – and don’t forget to check Grand Company turnins for some quick wins.

And that’s without the weeklies. Wondrous Tails, the 4 wings of Aspho on normal (especially the 4th one, but they are kinda quick), then Custom Deliveries as long as my DoH jobs are not at max level (missing Goldsmith and Leatherworker atm, both at 83ish) and maybe I even forgot something. Oh right, the Fashion thing and Cactpot. I totally gave up on Mini Cactpot, by the way.

On the other hand I feel like I’m progressing at a nice pace – all of the jobs I wanted at 90 are at 90, gear is shared inside a role (which is awesome) and I feel like I could skip most daily things if I lacked the time, which isn’t the case at the moment.

I guess it makes sense to not play too many MMOs when just one can absolutely fill your daily gaming time even if there’s plenty of it.

Speaking of WoW, I must have missed the reason why we went to Zereth Mortis, or it’s not such a cool thing that I forgot already. The zone is… ok I guess? I am completely happy to focus on just one character (which I already did in 9.1) and ignore the gear threadmill for now. I’m still at 240-241 iLvl and Sepulcher will drop 252 on normal. I am not running M+ but I’ll see that I get the World Boss done every week. Also maybe the Cypher will provide an upgrade or two, when I spent enough research.

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Hello Zereth Mortis

/ / Leave a Comment / WoW

Last night I saw that my WoW guild has a raid planned for Sunday so I claimed my WoW token and am now a subscriber for the rest of March. I just spent around 2h progressing the 9.2 content and while it’s not great, it’s not bad either. The only “argh, really?” moment was at the end where I had two quests left: “Go to Hub A” and “Go to Hub B”. I accepted 2 dailies and went to Hub B, then did my 2 dailies. Then I went to Hub A and the followup quest was “fill this bar by doing World Quests and Dailies.” Well thank you, I just did 2 dailies, and of course the progress didn’t count. /slowclap

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P2S down!

/ / Leave a Comment / Final Fantasy XIV

Last night we finally did it and killed P2S, the second Savage fight of Endwalker’s first raid tier – after around 70 wipes (and quite a few close calls at 2-5% and enrage). Guess we’re not great but looking at the damage numbers we’re nearly as off-meta as it gets. (see below)

Really nice, except I wasn’t feeling well and made soo many mistakes. Also only a grey parse again at 4.15k DPS 🙁 Anyway, got no loot but let’s hope we can continue this.

Meanwhile I managed to get my Gunbreaker to 90, which makes it the 8th job at max level, now I just need to try to redo my bars and actually play a little at that level and not just downranked all the time. Next up: Astrologian (81.x) and Reaper (77.3), I guess. Been playing Summoner a little but I simply don’t like it, guess it’s back to Scholar (once I got Astrologian maxed) to boost the shared DPS via Healing and not the other way round. Come to think of it, it’s such an odd pair of jobs…

Killshot after P2S – RPR, WHM, DNC, NIN (back), PLD, WAR, SMN, SCH (front)

So, here’s a screenshot of the current “Top 50 for speed” on P2S, via fflogs.com:

Top 50 Compositions for P2S

So, we have the 2%+1%of tanks, the 8% of magic dps, 17%+11% of melee DPS, the 2% WHM, basically only our Scholar is in the meta and our Dancer is not a Machinist who wouldn’t even register. Still kinda weird comp, but it’s everyone playing what they like (except the WHM who was recruited as “we a not-shield-healer”, and the Reaper originally played as a Dragoon for P1S.

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The end of the content

/ / Leave a Comment / SW:TOR

Today I finished the content I hadn’t done in SWTOR’s Onslaught expansion and as I didn’t subscribe, I think there’s no point in continuing now. Sure, there’s this one char I’ve been running through KotFE, I’ll continue that – but I noticed that doing the Weekly Conquest goal on a 75 char (who has already maxed out to 99% just before 77 and can’t continue) it’s kinda pointless. I can get some Tech Fragments (and I’m nearly capped at 11k) but all the gear is being disintegrated anyway, there are no more Renown Levels to be done, the only thing is the kinda huge undertaking of trying to complete the season, and I’m not really sure that’s a goal I want to take on right now.

The Onslaught content was relatively good, I guess, but I hate the fact that the meat (after Mek-Sha, so the content that wasn’t here at launch, I think?) were only 2 Solo-Story instances, which I had wanted to duo. Why the hell, Bioware? Why do I have to play alone? Also they’re a joke in 306 gear from a difficulty perspective, but I can forgive that – but not being able to play them in a group is really meh.

So yeah, I guess my plans (after the Sage is caught up) are now: Finish Onslaught again on my Bounty Hunter, progress through KotFE/KotET on Juggernaut, ignore Trooper 🙁 and that’s it.

I know, I know, if I had just subscribed I could continue with the story – but I wonder why everything feels so pointless. I was deliberately taking a few days to get acquainted with the game again and somehow it’s not really drawing me in.

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I actually played SWTOR

/ / 2 Comments / SW:TOR

OK, so after trying to get back into SWTOR a bit (spreadsheets were involved), there are a few things that happened.

  • As a Preferred Player (not subscribed) I “activated” 6 more of my characters (the last one you played stays active anyway)
  • They all seem to be item Level 305-306 and Level 75
  • Managed to reach the Conquest goal on 3 of them
  • You can still easily waste 50k points by finishing the wrong thing on the wrong toon, I could have had 4 now
  • Made it to Galactic Season Level 4.5
  • I am nearly caught up to the end of Onslaught on one character
  • Started KotFE on one character
  • None of the characters I looked at have a Level 50 companion. Highest I saw are 45 and 44

So I have 12 characters at the old max level of 75 and only 2 of them had finished KotET and a third had finished KotFE. For the majority of my active play time not all the companions had been back, and I hated that – also back when I did it it was kind of a slog, on the Sage a bit and on the Operative even more (I think on the Bounty Hunter it was fine). So that’s the reason why I never did it.

For the one character where I started KotFE today I noticed that I kinda remember a lot oft this, despite only having done it three times, and I don’t even know how long ago the first time was. In my mind I had this dreadful stretch of time, but if you spacebar hard enough (just skimming the options to select) and I was SO surprised how quickly it goes – but maybe my Sith Juggernaut in 306 gear just kills everything very quickly and I don’t have to search for things. But still:

  • Chapter 1 – 13 min
  • Chapter 2 – 15 min
  • Chapter 3 – 12 min
  • Chapter 4 – 25 min
  • Chapter 5 – 12 min

I guess I can do this. So while I’m not making any grand plans, I’ll see if I can push him through this and then all the way through Onslaught in the next weeks and maybe do a Conquest or two per week.

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A return to SWTOR?

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SWTOR’s new expansion Legacy of the Sith has dropped and I actually patched up and logged in!

There has been a huge UI overhaul and the SWTOR subreddit seems to collectively hate it. I’m not super happy with some of the things, but overall I don’t see a problem – but I’ve not done a lot of things yet. Yes, the class icons are an abomination and I really hope they’ll patch them…

I did play through the “Echoes of Oblivion” thing of one of the last patches last night, and while I liked it overall, I am not a fan of this type of setting (to avoid spoilers), I prefer more non-abstract down-to-earth missions.

According to this neat flowchart it seems I have 2 instances lined up, then I will run into the wall that is “must be a subscriber to play the new expansion”, but I’ve not even logged in more than 2 (Republic) characters as of now, and I’ve been away for more than a year (last SWTOR post in September 2020), so I first need to find out where in the story I stand and maybe I have some catch-up to do anyway. Won’t hurt to familiarize myself with some of my toons again, and right now I don’t mind catching up with older content – but of course I won’t repeat this 10 times…

As I wrote this week I’m still 100% unsure whether to resub WoW for 9.2, so I think it’s a bad idea to sub SWTOR now – but if WoW doesn’t happen or if I’m gone again after a month, then this is a possibility. I guess having someone at home who has started playing again (and actually managing to get over 100 renown levels in the last week to get that “every class to 100” achievement) has helped the hype factor – as usual it’s better to play with friends.

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MMO – FOMO

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It’s a weird month. Lost Ark launched and I wanted to take a look. Today SWTOR’s new expansion Legacy of the Sith launched and I actually patched, logged in, and tried out the new character creation. We got a date for WoW’s 9.2 patch and I’m unsure if I want to get back and raid.

All this and I’m kinda busy with FFXIV. We seem to have added a 2nd (short) raid day without me really noticing and hardly anyone needs any drops from P1S anymore on their main class. We made some good progress on P2S already and maybe Sunday we’ll succeed… at least my EVE sub lapses in a few days, so I’d technically be free to pay for a 2nd MMO again (with my self-imposed limit of a maximum of 2 concurrent subs).

The question is if I want to. Maybe I’ll manage to find out if I can get by on my Preferred SWTOR account and have a meaningful peek without having to sub right now, then give WoW a chance for a single month, and then see how I feel about either of them…

Bad timing, this month is too busy.

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Other games

/ / Leave a Comment / Games

Played some non-MMO games this week. Shocking, I know.

First up is Ironcast, which I found in my Epic Games library. (Still gonna link to Steam as well). It’s basically a match-3 but you’re in a Victorian Steampunk Mech and the match-3 is only to grab resources (Ammo, Energy, Coolant, Repair) – you have only 3 tries to match per round, and mostly you need to survive and shoot the enemy. Or collect X crates on the field. Or salvage. And if you die you keep your level, but not your unlocks. Oh, and you can upgrade your mech with abilities and better weapons etc. It’s really fun and I played for a few hours.

Then there’s The World Next Door (Steam) which also seems to be a match-3 but kinda realtime. The story seems a bit thin, but I was excited to try this – unfortunately I can’t play it without a controller. When you enter battle you move with the arrow keys and when over a match, you press C to attack the closest enemy with that match. This would be fine, but if you need to swap tiles you need to stand on it, press X, move to the target, press X again and then C to attack. I gave up in the second fight because I find this impossible to do with the keyboard alone, and I don’t have a controller.

But I did find another gem here, Death Coming (Steam). Here you play the Grim Reaper’s pixelated assistant and you need kill (nearly) all NPCs on the map by causing accidents. This is so fun!

And it reminded me of The Incredible Machine, a 1993 DOS game I loved. I found a site where you can play it in the browser, and then I also spent a while on that.

The Incredible Machine

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More Savage Raiding and stuff

/ / Leave a Comment / Final Fantasy XIV

I wrote about our first visit to Asphodelos two weeks ago. Since then we managed to do P1S another time the following Sunday, this time without subs. We finished in 9:33, which was 26 seconds faster than the first kill, despite two new people, which was kinda nice already. Then we continued on to P2S with only reading up on half the tactics, but we managed to get to 80%, not yet Phase 2. But it looked good.

Next Sunday was not going to happen so we planned for Tuesday and Thursday last week, and so we went in for P1S again and finished after 2 wipes. The time was again 9:33, but with 2 deaths and a lot of damage down buffs. We all had the feeling we made so many more errors than the week before but routine seems to settle in, as shown by the time and the overall same DPS – but with deaths and personal setbacks. This is really nice. We then tried P2S again but due to time constraints only a few tries happened, but we got to Phase 2, so while we may not be quick in the grand scheme of things, for our hours invested we’re happy with the progress so far. This week we’ll be going for P1S on Tuesday and P2S on Sunday. I’d be a bigger fan of one raid day (even if these are very short), but organizing times for a static with people who work shifts and on weekends is hard. Certainly a lot harder than with a WoW guild where you just put a day and a date and it usually doesn’t matter if a single person can’t make it.

Regarding job levels I’m nearly done with all casters to 60 and I also hit 90 on Dark Knight and Dancer, but I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong because sometimes it still feels slow overall, but then again I am only doing all the roulettes and Pixie dailies, not much more…
I guess my focus is on Gunbreaker currently, then Astrologian and Machinist to 90, then maybe Scholar again. Oh, and I unlocked Reaper because I want to see the melee role quest in Shadowbringers.

Leveling progress

But on the last two weekends I finally managed to push Miner and Botanist to 90, and getting a few of the Studium Deliveries in Old Sharlayan done.

DoH/DoL jobs as of last night

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What’s up for 2022?

/ / 1 Comment / Games

As I wrote in 2020, I’m not big on any of these things:

  • being hyped up for future games
  • buying a lot of games
  • actually playing the games I own

But for some reason right now I’m a little obsessed (compared to my usual mood) with looking for other games to play and also what’s coming up this year. And what I missed in 2021. It’s weird!

So I’ve been scouring YouTube for some of these “lists” videos. Upcoming, best of 2021, overall or per genre and so on. And I actually went through my whole Epic Games library of 99% “got this game for free” list and wrote down some notes and watched the trailer, and I even identified a few I want to play, and most surprusingly, actually have played one for a while.

I am not sure where this comes from, maybe it’s coincidence or maybe I’m not 100% enthusiastic about leveling all the jobs in FFXIV atm. Which in no way means I am drifting away, surprisingly – it means I’m doing my roulettes every day (or some of them), I am raiding Savage – but I don’t feel like spending my whole evening on FFXIV. Maybe it is actually true that this game values your time a lot more than WoW does. There’s always something to do in WoW, but here I can more easily feel “done for the day”.

Anyway, here’s a list (in no particular order) of upcoming games I am at least moderately interested in:

  • Weird West, Adventure/RPG, March 2022, on Steam
  • Two Point Campus, May 2022, Simulation, on Steam
  • Forspoken, May 2022, ARPG, on Steam – 80 EUR, WTF?
  • Anvil Saga, RPG?, 2022, Demo on Steam
  • Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, FPS, 2022?, on Steam
  • Nightingale, Survival?, 2022? Trailer on YouTube

Do these twothree even launch on PC?

  • Redfall, Summer 2022, FPS, Trailer on YouTube, some gameplay (Xbox Series S?)
  • Triangle Strategy, 2022? Trailer on YouTube (Switch?)
  • Horizon: Forbidden West, 2022?, Gameplay Demo on YouTube (PlayStation?)

Now the ones that look interesting but have already launched:

And then there are some “big” upcoming releases and to my non-surprise none of these sound in any way interesting to me, no matter how highly anticipated or awesome they are supposed to be:

  • Elden Ring
  • God of War
  • Rainbox Six
  • Pokémon Legends
  • Sifu
  • Total War
  • that Warhammer 40k FPS
  • Gran Turismo
  • STALKER 2
  • Kirby
  • Mario and Rabbids
  • Sonic

Some notable mentions:

  • Ratchet and Clank – that upcoming title looks a bit meh, but I’ve always wanted to play the older titles
  • Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 – not really interested, but maybe I should look at the first one?

Finally, because this post isn’t long enough already, some games I own and have yet to play:

  • Transistor
  • ARK: Survival Evolved
  • Bad North
  • Cities: Skylines
  • For the King
  • Frostpunk
  • Moving Out
  • Neon Abyss
  • Pathway
  • Salt and Sanctuary
  • Surviving Mars
  • The Messenger
  • Totally Reliable Delivery Service
  • Prison Architect

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