Imperial City First Time

arena25

So I began my foray into Imperial City...and man, it was awesome.

I got a quest to go into Memorial District...and yeah, it was so fun. I at first stood there, jaw dropped, at the immense detail it was done at. I then heard sounds of combat, looked down and saw a zerg. After analyzing, I found the zerg to be friendly (I was playing my main, who was Pact). One of the dozen people who were part of that zerg saw me and whistled. I knew exactly what he was trying to tell me..."Get down here, mate."

I quickly hopped down and joined the zerg. And, although I wouldn't gain any loot by days end, I had so much fun just slashing at stuff I would gladly take this over a boss fight any old day.

A quick summary:

Killed skeletons, killed Xivkyn, and also killed a district boss.

That district boss fight took 4 minutes, but I just loved how I was dodging and weaving, on occasion getting close enough to strike a blow on the dude before dodge rolling back to keep out of the fire circles he dropped. And after he went down I just felt this wave of joy sooth through me, thinking "I just slew my first deadly boss, as well as my first VR 16 boss."

Afterward, I decided to call it quits, but I had a lot of fun regardless. Although I won't be reaching Veteran Ranks any time soon, I've never had this much fun since I won a softball game in Physical Education class by a score of 18-0 in only 3 innings!

arena25

*Crickets chirping loudly*

No one? Ah, crap...I lost them.

Austacker

"Cancelled ESO Plus, not another dime until..."

But you bought the DLC it seems...

UrQuan

Well, I've now completed the IC questline and done most of the dailies once, and I have to say I've really been enjoying it. So far I've done it all solo or in small groups (2-5), and it's been pretty awesome. I've been slaughtered by a zerg a few times, and been in more small-scale PVP fights more times (some of which I win, some of which I lose), but even as a total PVE player, it's overall been a lot of fun (despite the frustrating moments when you're slaughtered before you have a chance to react).

Considering I've only been to IC 3 times on live, I think my banked amount of about 7K TV stones is pretty decent - much more than I expected to be able to accumulate by now. Also, I easily leveled to VR16 just questing and killing stuff in IC, and gained multiple champion points in the process, so that's not bad.

Highlights so far include keeping watch on an enemy zerg while my 2 teammates were fishing, the random dancing enemy player who wanted us to kill him (that guy was cool - he agreed to pretend to put up a fight while we killed him), and 5 of us taking on a district boss and (eventually) winning (after each of us had died multiple times).

TheShadowScout

I did some solo sneaking into IC... and lemme tell y'all, its no good place for a lone nightblade! Or lone anyone, really.
But... its fun!
As long as you don't expect to rake in the TV stones anyhow... though every now and then you manage a good gank of some risk-taker and walk away with a bag of stones... sometimes you even manage to bet them banked!
But stones aside, it definitely is a place where you better have a few friends with you. The storyline quests aren't really all that soloable (maaaybe some super-effective people can, but I wouldn't even get close), and even the trash enemies are pretty tough for a lone wolf. Not to mention a great many other players are looking for just the right chance to stab you in the rear while grabbing at your stones... (especially annoying are the classic gankers - jumping you while you are busy fighting some tough mob to try and get in that one final blow... and succeeding all too often. Wish the stone drop rate was reduced when they do that...)
The visuals though are nifty, the expees are great, there's exploring and skyshard grabbing to be had, and you will even get a few nice things now and then.

The sewers are more of the same, except in the narrow passages you can't just sneak around enemy zergs - if you meet one, you die, period, while in the city proper you at least have a chance to get away by staying stealthy and hiding in some corner... the most annoying things are the long load times, and getting killed "in transition" between city and sewers.

Highlight... random grouping with some other pact, then getting jumped by an DC group of two, putting up a real good fight... then an AD two-man squad joined the fun, we were killed, noticed upon respawning the fight was taking place -just- next to out pact base entrace, jumped back down as the DC and AD were busy hammering each other, and took three of them down before the last one cloaked and snuck away! \o/ Elation!
Stuff like that can happen even to merely adequate PvPers like myself, so it can happen to anyone!
Yes, I respawned a LOT, that's how it goes in IC. Yes, I lost a lot of TV stones, but I also managed to bank some... so, slowly and steadily even people who loose a lot can get somewhere, if they only remember to mob-bloodport and bank often.
Someday I'll even do the storyline... but that truly requires having friends along.

All in all... I may dislike PvP, but I still found IC a lot of fun! And definitely can say [austrian accent]"Ah'll be bekk"[/austrian accent]

UrQuan

TheShadowScout wrote: »

But stones aside, it definitely is a place where you better have a few friends with you. The storyline quests aren't really all that soloable (maaaybe some super-effective people can, but I wouldn't even get close), and even the trash enemies are pretty tough for a lone wolf.

Actually, with the exception of the Arena district story quest (not the daily, the daily is fine), all of the story quests are totally doable solo. I did about half of them solo, and the others in a small group, and I would call myself experienced, but I wouldn't call myself super-effective. The Arena district story quest you definitely need a group for, though. Of course, saying that they're doable solo assumes that you can manage to do them at a time when the district is relatively free of enemy players - or the enemy players in the district have chosen to leave you alone (which happened to a guild-mate of mine). If you're trying to do them solo and there are a bunch of enemy players around, you're going to get slaughtered. Oh, and I wouldn't attempt them solo if you're lower than VR12, and preferably VR14+.

TheShadowScout

Well, we shall see how it goes when I get my more effective characters to level and into IC. Just saying, my nightblade fails hard at the "boss" fights in the first questline, even without enemies ganking me, since the enemy mobs just overwhelm me.

But then, I always had trouble PvE soloing tough stuff on my nightblade, while my templar alt can do dolmen and public dungeons at level, my NB needs a bit more to get through those... though we'll see, I may play around with my skill setup, and try again and again, maybe I'll get throuigh it someday... and if not, I may learn to play better at least!

UrQuan

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Well, we shall see how it goes when I get my more effective characters to level and into IC. Just saying, my nightblade fails hard at the "boss" fights in the first questline, even without enemies ganking me, since the enemy mobs just overwhelm me.

But then, I always had trouble PvE soloing tough stuff on my nightblade, while my templar alt can do dolmen and public dungeons at level, my NB needs a bit more to get through those... though we'll see, I may play around with my skill setup, and try again and again, maybe I'll get throuigh it someday... and if not, I may learn to play better at least!

Yeah, that's probably more of an issue with the playstyle of that particular character then. Interestingly, I have a nightblade character who I always found to be far far weaker than any of my other characters at-level, and I would always have trouble with solo PVE boss fights on that character that wouldn't give me an issue on my other characters. I think the way I had set up that character just didn't mesh with the way I play. I switched some things around (most notably I changed the weapon setup and swapped some skills) and now have an easier time of it. You might have the same issue as me.