Still distracted by crafting

At last i’m at the end of leveling crafting jobs, just cooking need leveling and that won’t take much time, by using few quests and crafting high level items i can level each job in 2-3 hours, if i planned this i would spend less time traveling around the zones to collect materials and used the auction house to buy some of them, but no one can accuse me of being efficient, this is more about having fun than reaching the goal.

Now i can go back to the main story and do dungeons right? no!

I wanted to start high level crafting, at level 50 there are many minions (or pets) to craft, better gear to make and many cosmetic items, but many of them need a stats requirement before making them, my gear was weak so now i learn what stats crafting/gathering jobs need and how to achieve that, i didn’t read or watch any guides, i know i can save time by doing that, but i’m having fun trying to figure that out myself.

At this level crafting need some hard-to-get materials, some of them need from me to be in some zones in a certain time, like an ore that only appear in 1am in game time at one zone, this system designed when the game lunched as end-game crafting system.

Anyway, if i’m having fun with crafting then that’s what i’ll keep doing, dungeons can wait.

FFXIV: distracted by crafting

The plan was to continue the with the story, i know that first thing i have to do is going into a dungeon, when i started the game and logged in i faced a action bars filled with abilities that i have no idea how they work! i forgot how to play the game.

So i spent few days just relearning how to play the class or my job as Bard, reading the abilities text then testing them on mobs then rearrange the action bars, little by little i started to remember how to play.

Then i noticed that my crafting and gathering jobs are not leveled yet, so i thought it’ll be wiser to level them to level 50 at least before going back to the main story, so i spent all my time in leveling gathering jobs first (Fisher, Miner and Botanist) because they are needed by all other crafting jobs.

As you see in the screenshot above, my gathering jobs (DoL) are at level 51 and 53, leveling fishing was the easiest one because of something called Ocean Fishing, it’s like a raid but for fishing, i remember sending Blizzard a suggesting about making dungeon fishing, i hope they do it.

Ocean fishing is fun and quick way to gain many levels while fishing, every 2 hours a ship sails into the seas and 24 players can join the fishing trip, the ship stops at 3 places for i think 7 minutes at each place, sometimes an event happens where the sea and the sky turn into a festival of rainbow colors, this is a buff for everyone and anyone can catch more fish which gives more exp.

Leveling crafting jobs is slower but FFXIV crafting can be fun, it’s a mini-game where sometimes it can be stressful because you can lose the crafting materials if the crafting process failed, there is a some RNG here but you can play it safe and make normal quality items, but for high quality items you need to take risk and it’s worth it.

There is a system called Levequests, and you have 100 of them, every 12 hours the game add 3 but the limit is 100 which is a lot, these quests could be one of three kind: fighting, gathering and crafting.

Gathering and crafting have no fighting, so i spend my time doing just that and it feels like it’s a whole game inside FFXIV, i mean there is a lot of content in the game just about crafting jobs, a lot of quests and Levequests.

A player can take a levequest for crafting then make the requested item, if the player made a high quality item then he or she gets double rewards, which means faster leveling.

I’ll keep leveling crafting jobs until level 50 then i can go back into doing dungeons.

One more thing:

While Mining i saw these peaceful, beautiful monsters, i call them “existential crisis” because they look like they are living in never-ending horror, and i love them … a lot, i hope there is a pet that looks like them so it can follow me every where with a ceaseless, noiseless scream.

So long WoW, and thanks for all the fish

Yes, you can level fishing here

When i started playing WoW in late Mists of Pandaria i thought i’ll play an expansion or two, i started with Warlords of Draenor which i liked even when Blizzard abandoned the expansion, i loved the quests and the stories more than other expansions, i loved the class design and i still think WoD Shadow Priest is the best version of the class/spec.

Then comes Legion with it’s artifact weapons and the end of the Legion story, i’m fond of Surmar even when it frustrate me so much, i think WoW players who played it back then still hate to hear “an illusion, what are you hiding?”, in Legion i started playing a Hunter and i loved it so much, beast mastery in Legion was overpowered.

BFA was a mixed bag, didn’t like the main story and didn’t like that old gods have one patch instead of a whole expansion, i liked the quests and the side stories, i liked the zones and the music, in general i found BFA fun to play, the Azerite gear was never a problem for me.

In Shadowlands i loved the leveling but when i reached the end game i felt like i’m done, i’m repeating the same pattern like the old expansions, and i’m not having fun while playing Shadowlands, so i stopped and started playing other games.

i also went back to Classic and started leveling a hunter and i liked that a lot, it seems Shadowlands endgame was overwhelming for me, it felt like a homework instead of playing, while Classic with its simplicity was easy to understand and enjoy.

But there is a chance that Blizzard will announce The Burning Crusade soon in Blizzconline, and they may choose to wipe the servers and make everyone start from level 1 or 58, also Square Enix  announced Endwalker, the next expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, that made me want to go back and keep playing to start the expansion with everyone else.

Of course there is a good chance that i get sick of doing dungeons 😅 but i’ll see, at least i want to finish the Heavensward expansion and right now i’m in the middle of the story line.

So i’m done with WoW for now, i may come back for TBC classic or maybe the expansion after Shadowlands, until then i’ll play FFXIV and other games.

Last screenshot in Classic, with my pet Steve.

Blade & Soul: First Impression

Here is an MMO i wanted to play for a long time, i only tried it once before for a short time, back then WoW took most of my gaming time so there was no time left for any other game, now i can play it.

It’s a themepark action MMORPG, all races and classes start from the same starting zone and have exactly the same story line, at least in the early levels, maybe in the end game things will be different, but so far the game is linear, i moved from zone to another following the quest line, the story have the usual tropes, an evil antagonist working for a dark lord … sigh, of all names to call the main threat why dark lord? it’s a name many MMOs use, it feels lazy, call him at least Jeff or something.

Anyway, there is a main threat which the player follow from zone to zone to help villages and people, the zones are beautiful and the quests are easy, they are the usual MMO quests, kill, collect, talk to NPC .. etc, but in this game it usually ask for little, collect one thing and it’ll drop 100% from the mob, or kill 3 to 5 mobs, unlike some MMOs where you have to kill the whole zone to collect 20 claws from mobs who clearly have 2 but drop none!

Jiangshi, some kind of zombie in Chinese culture

I play this game mostly for the world, to go around and look at stuff, take screenshot, and it offer a lot of beautiful places and so much details to look at, it’s a game from 2012 but it looks so good and even better than some newer games.

In the same time i’m finding myself not enjoying other aspects of the game, maybe because i’m still in early levels, maybe because the linear nature of the quest line, after years of playing WoW i’m finding myself preferring free-form of playing, to have a game where i can do all kind of things without the need to follow a linear quest line.

I’ll keep playing for few more days, one week of playing should be enough to tell me if i want to keep playing or not, the story may convince me to keep playing because at least i want to know what happens to the antagonist.

I like him!

Trying Beast Tamer and Aran in Maplestory

No context needed for this screenshot …. it’s a long story!

In a previous post i mentioned that Maplestory have 45 classes, i only tried three of them, so i thought i should try few more and i’m glad i did, the two classes i tried are different in the way they use abilities, let me explain.

Aran is a warrior who use a polearm, the main system for the class is combo attacks, basically if you attack you’ll rise the combo number until it reach 1000, it’s not hard to do that, it’s like WoW’s warrior who have to gain rage then spend it, but Aran have no way to spend the combos, with higher numbers the class gets more stats and more do more damage, then with levels the class gets an ability that procs when the combos reach 1000 and the screen borders set on fire and the warrior can make huge damage for a short time.

Add to that the unique class design that makes it easy to play this class with one button! you can activate many abilities by using arrow keys and attack button, like pressing up key + attack key or down key + right key (or left) + attack key, this takes time to learn but the reward is worth it, this is a class i enjoyed playing from early levels, compare that to other classes like the bowman which i found tedious and it needs to reach high level to start feel fun to play.

Beast Tamer is limited class, i don’t know why but Maplestory don’t allow the players to make Beast Tamer all the time, there should be an event to be able to create a character with this class, i don’t understand it.

Anyway, from the name i thought the class will be something like WoW’s Hunter but it feels like the druid without the shape shifting, the class use 4 animals and each one gives the character different abilities, to switch between these animals the player should press shift and a circle will appear:

Pressing the arrow keys will choose the animal, in the screenshot if i pres right i’ll choose a leopard, if i press left i’ll choose a bear, up and down still locked, i need to level up to unlock them.

I love this interface so much, i think it’s simple and fast, pie menus are used in many video games to provide the player a fast way to choose between different options, imagine using this to switch between druid forms or activate shaman totems.

The BT does not have job advancement like all other classes in Maplestory, it have skills for each animal and you level these skills with points gained from leveling.

What i liked most about these two classes is they break the template for classes, in WoW all classes have the same interface, the same talent tree, the same action bars, the abilites and the talents are different, but the interface and how it works is exactly the same.

The same thing goes for most other MMOs, you can’t play a class with one button, or have a class that require different interface and different talent tree.

Classes and jobs in Maplestory

The core gameplay in Maplestory is grinding, there are many systems to help the player level up a character, but in the end the main way to do that is by grinding and killing mobs, and there are a lot of zones for all range of levels, they are called maps in Maplestory community.

The game is all about combat, and for that it offer only 5 branches or archetypes: Warrior, Magician, Bowman, Thief and Pirate.

But for each branch there are many classes, some classes have their own branches too, the original class is Explorer which have 5 sub-classes: Warrior, Magician, Bowman, Thief and Pirate!

This must be confusing for the new players, but they’ll understand it after some time, each sub-class have different jobs:

• Warrior:
  • Hero
  • Paladin
  • Dark Knight
• Magician:
  • Fire Wizard
  • Ice Wizard
  • Cleric
• Bowman:
  • Bowmaster
  • Marksman
• Theif:
  • Nightlord
  • Shadower
• Pirate:
  • Buccaneer
  • Corsair

This is just the Explorer class, it ends with 12 jobs, the game have 45 jobs + 1 class that is an April fool joke, Pink Bean only available in April.

The game have two systems to encourage people to level many characters, one is linking skills which starts when a character reach level 70 (this is easy), that character can offer passive or active skill for any alt in the account but they should be in the same server.

Each job can offer a skill, so if you are a new player you won’t benefit from this systems, with more alts you’ll start to gain power which makes leveling new alts faster and easier.

The other system is called Legion,  this needs a whole post just to explain it, it’s another way to give alts more stats, and it have its own store which provide items to upgrade gear and provide buffs, one of the buffs is increasing the amount of gear drops from mobs and another provide more meso (gold) drop.

I like it when MMOs offer a way to level up your account and not just characters, Guild Wars and SWTOR do that, it gives the player a reason to level alts more than cosmetics.

With 45 jobs in Maplestory there is a lot to do and it takes years to maximize Legion system, for me i’m happy to just level few alts, the game have 275 levels and leveling from 200 to 275 takes serious effort.

Done with Darkening of Tristram

In every January there is an event in Diablo 3 called The Darkning of Tristram, it provide a way to go back to Diablo 2 era with retro graphics and items, there are achievements and items to get, 2 pets, 2 portrait frames, and banner graphics.

I have everything except the portrait frames, one need collecting documents from mobs, the other need killing a list of elite mobs, both needed just some grinding, and trying my luck with RNG.

If you want to collect all the items, follow this guide from Maxroll.

With that i’m truly done with Diablo 3 until the next season, i wish Blizzard will give the game last patch and add more things to collect.

Diving deep into Maplestory

Hello world, it’s been a while since i wrote here last time, i hope 2021 is better than the last year, so far i’m having great time, going out for walks after i kept myself indoor for most of 2020, i’m going back to shopping in the local stores instead of buying from the internet, of course i do that while wearing a mask, i’m looking forward for when we can go out without them.

As for gaming i’m focusing on Maplestory, this year i want to invest in games instead of trying many of them and never progress in any, so i’m back to Maplestory and i watched many videos about it to understand how the game works.

Don’t let the cute 2D graphics fool you, this game have so many systems to level up your characters and account, that’s why i look for guides and i found many written or in videos but they are so long, 1 hour long video for just gear?  that’s normal.

One thing i don’t like about Maplestory is the timed items, items that disappear after some time, some have 1 day timer and some have 3 months timer, my main used to have powerful items when i left the game, when i came back all of them gone and i have to go back to old content to farm items, and i still feel weak compared to what i was before.

It’s a system designed to create a fake urgency, usually it does not matter much but if you have a burning character (a character that level much faster) then you’ll get best items from boxes provided by the game, the last box provide powerful items that lasts for 3 months, the game expect you to get better items in that time, so don’t quit, keep grinding.

Still, i love the game, and i’ll keep playing it for a while, at least i need to level a burning character and get my main better items.

Diablo 3 season 22: done

For the first time i complete a whole season in Diablo, in the past i usually get the class gear set then hit the wall of doing the Set Dungeon, if you don’t play Diablo 3: Set Dungeon is a challenge  designed for a specific  class and gear set, it requires achieving some goals, usually killing number of mobs, using abilities on number of mobs.

They sound easy but in practice they need a lot of work, they are hard, so i usually give up on the season and that mean i could not get the pet which need achieving all season requirements to get it.

This time i searched for the easiest Set Dungeon and found a video saying it’s Necromancer Inarius Set, i started the season with a Witch Doctor, so i leveled a Necromancer, collected the set, did the Set Dungeon and for the first time i can complete the whole season.

And this season i got my first Primal Ancient Legendary items, a rare Pennant i didn’t know about it before, a rare pet and i reached Greater Rift level 80, thanks to people who wrote or made video guides about the game, without them i doubt i could do any of that, also thanks to people behind Maxroll.gg, your guides helped me a lot.

This is the season pet, The Book of Cain, with beard, staff and scrolls, i love it and i wish WoW have it.

Now i can focus on other games, i’m going back to Maplestory, they have new burning event, a chance to level another alt.

Not playing WoW … much

Hello? … it’s been a while, i should write about my adventures in WoW but honestly i didn’t play much, being busy with other games i don’t have much time to play WoW, so i decided to cancel my subscription, i still have 3 months of time in WoW so i play a little to kill a world boss or do a quest to gain renown.

I want to focus on other games, right now i find myself having too much fun in Diablo 3, i’m trying to push myself to do harder content in hope to get better gear, the RNG is not on my side, i tried to farm few items and none of them dropped, so my progress slowed down, but i’m having fun.

Reaching level 60 in WoW made it harder to fight mobs even in BFA zones, i thought i’ll have easier time doing that but mobs need more time to kill them compared to being level 50, i guess this is because of Azrite gear.

In Shadowlands there is way less gearing options, dungeons is the way to get gear then heroic dungeon then raids, and i still don’t like doing dungeons in groups, being higher level but weaker is … well, it sucks! it made me play less.

I’m coming back later, the expansion won’t go away, in the mean time i’m going to play other games, i’m planning to write about them here, some MMOs and few single player games.