The Wild Hunt: Djinn

[Part of the Wild Hunt story]

Geralt found sharing the small skiff with Yen to be quite pleasant. Just the two of them, sailing out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't without purpose however, for Yennefer did have a destination in mind - a shipwreck that she deduced was the home of a djinn.

One of the more dangerous fights in the game.

After a difficult battle, the pair managed to capture the air spirit with Yen making but one wish before letting it go: To undo Geralt's last wish made with a previous djinn, a wish that the two of them would always be together.

The creature accepted before flying off, leaving the two wondering why their feelings for each other remained despite having their magical link removed. It doesn't take long for them to realize that the magic of true love is much stronger than any wish, and they share a kiss while watching the sun rise.

Insight: Uh, you probably could have used the djinn to... I don't know... destroy the Wild Hunt, find Ciri, and win the game but sure - lets use it to resolve feelings instead. Be sure to prep for this fight though, it's one of the hardest you will face!

The Cursed: Free the Genie

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Meanwhile in Thay...

Dulf's Drow "equal", Gezzthemin, has no senility issues but is a much lousier companion to the arena team in round nine against a halfling mage and his elementals as the Drow basically acts like a shielded tank for most of it. It ultimately takes time stop and comets to bring the halfling down. Fortunately Gezzthemin is still of some use, as he can make something from the planetar's wing the team stole previously in the Hunter's Lounge: a scroll to weaken her. Due to an odd bug, he starts mass producing these - making enough for everyone!

I keep mentioning Planetars - this is what they look like.

Round ten has demons versus devils and the team in between. Luckily they mostly kill each other after eating the murderer Feldrak who was left behind as bait. The remaining enemies are planetared down. After this fight the shops have a better stock of equipment which the team eagerly purchases. Using it, they free Najim the genie and defeat the Efreeti hunter. Najim then locks up this foe into the jar that once contained him and shapeshifts to take his place to ensure that no one will notice he is missing.

Insight: Mass invisibility is very handy in the arena matches and is often one of my opening moves.

The Cursed: Trading in Problems

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The next stop from the De'Arnise keep is the city of Trademeet which for some reason is under attack by wild animals. In addition to that, a number of djinn have set up camp outside and have basically stopped all trade to the city (through charm buying everything) until the rakshasa they are hunting is killed.

You have it backwards - the genies make the wishes and you are the slaves!

Because not enough is going on, a recovered Rasaad is spotted here as well - fighting and defeating others of his Sun Soul monk order. When questioned after, he claims that this is a ruse to infiltrate a new monk cult. They leave him to do that and go chat with the mayor who has a druid scapegoat locked up for trial.

This druid, Cernd, claims to also be investigating the animal attacks, and with a little diplomacy the team secure his release and in return he shows the way to the nearby druid grove, the likely source of these problems.

Insight: You won't be able to trade with anyone here other than the Djinn who have terrible prices. Sell your stuff back in the city before coming here!

The Cursed: City of Problems

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Athkatla is a city of problems, the first being a circus tent being toyed with by a djinn. The team investigate, killing a number of illusions and the illusionist posing as said genie to free the people within. This includes the wingless elf Aerie, who is eager to go adventuring one day. Soon after they meet a thug called Gaelan who offers aid of a "large organization" to assist Imoen, for the price of 20,000 gold pieces.

Needing to do some "fund raising" the team explores the city finding many opportunities of work, but first Catharina visits the government district and buys a license to cast spells in the city. While there they also witness Viconia being put to the stake, and Catharina watches with glee as the deserter is immolated into ash.

Burn baby burn!

They also find Dorn who is openly plotting to murder one of the high priests so the team kill him before he does any damage, and are subsequently hired to deal with some fallen paladins. An easy task with a few skull traps and cloud kills.

Insight: Buying that license is super handy, do it early and don't worry about the gold. There's lots of it just lying around.

The Cursed: Black Pits Too

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Party Girl found Sir Erland drinking his sorrows away at a tavern, having been shaken with the horrible acts he committed during the siege of Dragonspear. She needed to get him straightened out quick as to meet the others to try rescue Catharina from her arrest. Fate had other ideas.

Najim the genie they rescued from Baeloth's Black Pits appeared and to give warning that they were being hunted but he was too late. A squad of hunters - "the Planar Hunters" - suddenly portaled in, led by a powerful fallen planetar (almost a minor demi-god) and easily thrashed all of them.

When they came to, they found themselves in a large, anti-magic underground facility among others victims stripped of their belongings. In short order, their "host" Dennaton made his appearance and declared that each of them was chosen because they were "champions". Now, they would fight for the entertainment of his crowd here in Thay or die. Having the fallen planetar at his side made even the most stalwart hesitate on fighting back.

"Don't worry," Sir Erland said quietly, still recovering from his bender. "We'll get out of these Black Pits too!"

The arenas aren't underground this time.

Insight: Apparently you can win that initial fight in the tavern, though I'm not clear on the "how" as those hunters are really tough and get a free round to fully buff before combat.

The Cursed: Baeloth's Goodbye

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The final battle against Baeloth is super easy as the team is so high level (and fully prepared) at this point. Even with Catharina "silenced" (a spell that prevents casters from casting), it is an easy victory with the rakshasa being the most difficult opponent on the field.

Finally free of his geas, Najim the genie teleports the team out of there in thanks. It takes awhile for the squad to get their bearings before Catharina realizes that this is near her home of Candlekeep.

 Wish Najim could join the party!

They travel together in high spirits and reach there in no time, with the locals already asking her for mundane favors. However there also seem to be assassins lying in wait for her (all of whom are easily gibbed), and her step father Gorion quickly instructs her to prepare to leave again.

Insight: While you can "Game Over" in the Black Pits by having your main character at 0 HP when the fight ends, simple healing a downed main to 1 HP and ensuring you have the last man or woman standing secures victory - and when that happens Baeloth prevents any permanent deaths / revives downed party members.

This courtesy does not extend to his own fight. I accidentally went into it the first time still injured from the fire giant and he and the rakshasa wiped the party out with petrifies, power word kills, disintegrate etc. all of which are character removing "perma-deaths". After that game over defeat, I came in ready and the result was the story above.

Box 2: A Less Super Adventure

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

The first time the Super Adventure Box came out I had a total blast doing it. Now that it has returned with World 2, I'm finding it less fun than before - probably for the same reasons echoing throughout the forum. It's good to see that the creator fixed up some places that were causing major headaches after a few days though, and the infinity continue coin is a good gold sink which I happily sunk gems into. Definitely "pay to win" or at least, "pay to win faster" (which I think embodies regular "pay to win" anyway).

After the somewhat irritating level of the Frog King's swamp, players venture forth into the way more irritating rapids (knockback land - toned down), pain cliffs (insta dart death land) and storm top mountains (annoying ice slidey grind land). I went through on infantile mode first with the happy clouds to observe what horrors awaited me, followed my normal mode which was only slightly more troublesome but WAY too long in some bits that seemed designed purely to irritate the player, like having a mini-boss atop a slidey ice hill.  You have to run up and evade his boulders and then whack him. Getting hit knocks you back down the long slope. On paper that's fine. But said mini-boss has so much HP that you'll probably do just that, over and over for 10 minutes. Difficult? No. Annoying? Yes. Fun? What do you think?

At least one of the long maps has a shortcut somewhere, but the irony is you have to clear half that level first to get an item before you can use said shortcut. If you think that's bad, there's a part where you need to purchase an item with 400 baubles to proceed through the level. There's no warning before reaching it, and I didn't find 400 baubles in the zone prior to reaching that point so you'd have to either be lucky or informed before attempting it, otherwise you'll hit a brick wall (frozen, actually) that will curb your fun level like an anvil dropped into the sea.

Lastly comes Tribulation Mode, which exists purely to create rage within the player. One wrong step and you die. Everything is out to kill you. The rocks, the flowers, the floor... everything. Fun in Tribulation Mode is finding the right path instead of grindy mechanics, and it's super cool. Despite my strange liking for this mode though, the very nature of latency is what is stopping me from enjoying it fully. I don't mind dying if I run into traps, but when I jump to the correct spots I expect to survive - and I do... 50% of the time. This is what annoys me most, and probably what will prevent me from completing tribulation. It sure would have stopped me from completing IWBTG. Here's an example of someone else experiencing this pain.

Story wise there's some evil, 4th wall breaking, AI in the box modelled after Moto (ala Tron, the new one) that wants to affect things on the outside. Not much more yet about this, but it's good that it is just more than a simple asuran VR game. My only issue with it is it could mean that the box is permanently destroyed after world 4 where as I'd rather that it became a permanent fixture in Rata Sum after world 4. *shrug* Would be a shame to throw out all this work right? Oh yeah, and Scarlet is still invading in the background randomly but she's mostly insignificant for this arc.

In SAB, you grant the genie's wishes!

My very last concern is in the future of SAB. Could worlds 3 and 4 begin to introduce forced group content, which in my opinion is the worst design in the universe (like the aetherblade dungeon)? And if so, can the infinity continue coin negate it? This is the creator's response to someone who was having problems attempting things solo:

"This is as designed. Dungeons are designed for up to 5 people. If you choose to solo a dungeon you should expect this sort of thing. At least that’s how I look at it. Maybe because SAB doesn’t look like a dungeon there are different expectations? We did clearly communicate when you enter a world that 5 are recommended."

GW2 Dungeons sure. Five player 8-bit games? Unlikely.