Still having a Blast
I’m still heavily invested in playing ArcheAge even though I’m not blogging about it as much. The reason for that is very simple. When I have free time it becomes a choice between playing AA or blogging about it. As you can see, playing is winning in most cases. *Smile*
The AA game I’ve elected to play, farming and trade, comes with a decent amount of resource management. It’s not a matter of collecting materials and crafting them whenever I have the time or the mood strikes. On the contrary, it requires a consistent commitment to tending livestock, planting/harvesting crops and watching the trade market to know what’s most profitable for crafting into trade packs versus selling the raw materials to other players on the Auction House. Trade pack profitability can change hourly. And while the AH market changes more slowly, you have to watch the trends to get out ahead of them or end up losing profit.
The Inevitable
Besides my end game of farming and trade, I’m also working on getting into higher tier armor. I’m not much of a gear whore. I’m perfectly fine with have “decent” gear. Unfortunately, in a PVP environment, gear is more important than it would be to me otherwise. I want to have a reasonable chance at surviving unexpected encounters. Naval PVP is a lot of fun and I want to be a competitive contributor in those situations. AA is no different than other MMOs in terms of what you have to do to obtain the better gear. Having really good armor and weapons requires grinding. Be it instances, mobs or other players, there’s a time commitment required and I’ve only just begun.
Between property management, farming instances for gear and amassing gold for gear, I haven’t had time for much else. Don’t take my lack of posts as a declining interest. It’s quite the opposite. I’m digging in, in an attempt to bridge the gear gap I have before the release of Auroria. The highly coveted and brutally contested 24/7 PVP landmass being opened up on November 4th. Auroria is the only landmass with no housing zone guidelines (size or type). It’s also the only continent where you can grow and harvest one of the critical resources used in crafting armor and weapons, Archeum.
Waffling about Class Spec
Beyond “getting ready” to duke it out in Auroria, I’ve taken the lead in working with an alliance of other guilds in our faction to do another Naval PVP event. I’ve also started leveling three other skills trees. I’m still undecided about my final to class specs. I think I have eliminated melee altogether which would mean Paladin is now off the list.
My favorite in terms of play style is Justicar, which was severely nerfed, making it subpar for PVE and PVP. Justicar swaps the Battlerage (melee) tree for the Occultism (magic) tree. From a combat/skills perspective the moves feel most natural to me. Another strong contender is Cultist (Occultism, Sorcery, and Vitalism) which is decent DPS for PVE but is tricky to do in PVP because of the long cast times. Lastly, Battlemage is on my radar because it’s a good compromise between mobility for PVP and DPS for PVE, with survivability in both by replacing Vitalism with Defense. None of these combinations have strong escape mechanics which is a definite concern for PVP.
Missing Multi-Class Mgmt Features
None of these builds I'm considering are the current cookie-cutter win or even preferred builds. Even though you can play all classes, I don’t like the constant trips to swap between very different roles on top of carrying around multiple gear sets and weapons, when there are NO FEATURES to assist with managing any aspect. Consequently, I’m picking what feels good to me, comfortable for the way I approach combat and only requires carrying two sets of gear + weapons options + changing skills ad hoc + changing around your skill bars. That's enough in and of itself.
Without features to manage at least storing two builds, button click gear swapping and saving hotbar skill combinations, this is as far as I'm wiling to go. Yes, I’m making the choice to limit my options over the hassle. Other players are doing the same and only rolling variants that use the same armor and weapon combination because changing them around is annoying and expensive. I'd be more willing to suffer the cost if it was minus the annoyance.
Other Stuff and Halloween!!
Lots of other things have come and gone since I last posted. A few TIIL members have achieved crafting larger ships – cutter and merchant class. We had our first “all hands” guild meeting. I reached Veteran level in husbandry and commerce. I have to decide the third I want to advance to that level and which of those two to advance to Expert. The contenders are farming, harvesting and tailor, all of which are close to Veteran already. To help with crafting I also crafted a Regal Tailor workstation and Cooking Pot for my house. Both offer a few speciality recipes and eliminate the need to travel into a major city to craft even the basic recipes, as most small towns and outpots don't contain these workstations.
Thanks to guild members, I've also started a plushie collection of bobbleheads. Having to find a way to display them caused me to finally complete redecorating my main house. It cost a bit more than I wanted to spend but I did craft a majority of the items myself which always makes me smile.
Over the weekend I ran Greater Howling Abyss (GHA) with a few guild members and am now in 3/7 of the best instance armor available. GHA is a heroic dungeon and its armor is second only to crafted sets. It’s also way past time for me to start farming tokens in Hasla for the best in slot weapons and accessories. *shudder* Hasla is PVP zone where even same faction players will often Bloodlust to harass/kill each other on top of having to deal with the enemy faction.
Time to Decorate
Halloween came and I spent money in the Market Place for themed items. I’m a sucker for costumes! I’m not a fan of them only being available as random chest items. I decided up front how many chests I was willing to buy for a chance at getting one. Luck was on my side. I looted the Bloody Ball Gown in my second chest, having purchased 10 out of the gate. I elected to wear mine even though they’re selling for 1k+ gold on the auction house. From the 10 chests, I also received a dozen of the various hats going for 7+g each. I sold 8 and gifted 4 to guild members.
The MP chests and in-game quests have also provided a healthy supply of high stat potions I’m saving for special circumstances and lots of stat boosting candy. Beyond the chests, I had a ton of fun decorating my secondary house and one of my farms really cute items, including a coffin with animated bats and takes the place of a labor boosting bed.
Whew!
That about catches things up to where I am now. I really want to post more specifically about the crafting professions I’m doing that aren’t common place features in other MMOs. Along with discussions about the economy, trade market and the importance staying diversified in your pursuits. Hopefully, I can squeeze in time this week. In the meantime, here’s a selection of screenshots I’ve been holding on to for posts that never materialized. *sigh* Until next time!
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