Aggro

My ISP, the comically inept TM Net, is undergoing one of its regular screw-ups. As of writing, I can’t play Guild Wars. I can log in to server, I can mess about in town but the moment I try to travel or enter a mission, I get an err=5 message.

On the occasions when I have been able to play the game, the conditions have been far from ideal. I’ve been experiencing intermittent lag spikes so bad I have time to curse, ALT-TAB to Windows to check whether my modem has been disconnected, ALT-TAB back to the game, curse some more and still have time to pray my character is still alive when the lag spike resolves itself.

The aggravation I’ve been experiencing in Guild Wars isn’t just lag-related either. I simply cannot fathom ArenaNet’s thinking sometimes.

Take the acquisition of elite skills, for instance. Elite skills are captured from bosses who are found in specific locations. ArenaNet, for reasons known only to themselves, have opted to randomly spawn some bosses. This means you might have to revisit an area or replay an entire mission just to get the boss you want. It’s usually not so bad. It might take two or three attempts to get the boss you need.

The boss spawns in the Sunjiang District mission of Factions, however, are just insane. There are 4 bosses who spawn at the end of the mission. That’s 4 boss slots for 8 different bosses. You would think you’d need only two tries at most to get the boss you want.

Wrong.

Some bosses show up much more frequently than others. The Warrior and Ranger bosses are almost always there. This leaves two more slots for the other six bosses. The Necro and the Ritualist are not uncommon but the Assassin, the Elementalist and the Monk are relatively rare. The rarest of the lot? The Mesmer boss.

Guess which one I wanted to cap?

Tha-a-a-at’s right.

It took me over a dozen attempts before I saw the Mesmer boss with each attempt taking a minimum of 18 minutes. That’s way too much grind for a game that tries really hard to eliminate it for the casual player.