Seeking Understanding

[Triscone]

Hello all. I'm a newcomer to PG but am really stoked and excited about the game. I've had a LOT of fun the past 5-6 days and plan to continue playing much much longer. That being said I have encountered a few things that confuse me. Things I don't understand the reasoning behind and am looking for input so I can understand whether I am missing something or if "that's just how it is."

Firstly I'll start with skills. I have reached 25 in Fire Magic which gives me a recipe for using Saltpeter to research new spells. I head to wiki and find that basically I am not going to be able to get it myself outside of areas that the wiki designate as 40+?!?! Is it intended to level from 20-40 using only the skills gained at 20? That seems like a rather large gap without gaining any significant Character progression but perhaps I am looking at it wrong.

Secondly, also related to skills. Mentalist abilities are learned from the guy in Myconian Dungeon, but favor is required to purchase those. Mu gives a favor to kill Myconians, and has a liking for the heartshrooms they drop as well, both for a favor quest as well as for a favor turn in. The problem is that basically I see no way to possibly begin farming these things at Level 15 Mentalist, which is when these skills start to be relevant...Again, what is the intended path for the player? Wait 15 levels before purchasing those skills?

Thirdly, and finally, bosses and curses. I think this is something I just don't know enough about. How many players are expected to be in a group to tackle the bosses, I'm looking at you ursula and rhino? Was in a group that had little issues clearing to the bosses, but once there we were slaughtered. All we had to show for our time were curses that are gonna require us to GREATLY level up and then gather back up and attempt to clear them again.


I realize that to many these seem like whines, and I expect to receive a certain amount of L2P noob from that, but they really aren't whines. They are honest questions about things I just don't understand. I want to play this game for a long time to come and I'm just trying to learn what I need to be doing to advance in an efficient manner.

[kell.shepherd]

1) Some mobs will drop Saltpeter. Some of the better ones are cows in Eritibule. The drop rate isn't great. You can also buy them from player-vendors in the keep of Serible.

2) Mentalist skills can be first learned by the fellow standing beside the meditation pillar in Serible (near the garden).

3) Bosses are no joke. There are often runs through the crypt to get the Necro skill that should allow you to clear your good name (and the curse).

[awatu]

1. saltpeter can also be found in container/sacks around various places on the ground
2.As stated above Echur in serbule can teach mentalism
3.Boss curses can be avoided all together, they are set off when a boss rage gauge is full it does its special attack, some skills reduce rage so if in a group and you all work together using rage reduction skills its possible to never get him to curse

[Triscone]

I will slaughter some cows to check this out, but I read the same thing about sulfur and didn't see one within the first 30-40 kills and don't remember getting any saltpeter either.

Perhaps I misspoke on point 2, I realize Echur teaches the trade, but some abilities that feel pretty key reside locked behind favor at Mu in the Myconian Dungeon. I am at 24 mentalist and still cannot kill the mobs in there to unlock his skills.

Interesting that the curses can be avoided by rage reduction and thanks for the advice about tagging along on a necro run. My question however is how to judge what a group needs to do to kill these bosses. Trash for our group was no problem but it seems like the bosses were very very very significantly harder. Just curiuous what the intended group/group levels/idea is when tackling bosses in a dungeon with comparatively low level "trash" mobs.

[kell.shepherd]

Yup sadly you'll have to kill spiders in the cave for his (if I can call a mushroom 'he') yo-yo then you'll have to craft or get some string. A hangout or 2 and you should be in his good graces.

From what I've seen, the crypt is an area that's relevant from start to endgame so, yeah, the bosses in there are legit.

[Julcat]

Hello, welcome to PG.

You will find the game is more gear centered rather than particular skill level. You don't need to stress about having the highest skill level available, as long as your gear is good for your level.

[ShieldBreaker]

Yup sadly you'll have to kill spiders in the cave for his (if I can call a mushroom 'he') yo-yo then you'll have to craft or get some string. A hangout or 2 and you should be in his good graces.
...

Sorry MrWhiskers, you are think of the Mushroom Way, not Mu.


....

Firstly I'll start with skills. I have reached 25 in Fire Magic which gives me a recipe for using Saltpeter to research new spells....

Secondly, also related to skills. Mentalist abilities are learned from the guy in Myconian Dungeon, but favor is required to purchase those....

Thirdly, and finally, bosses and curses....

For Saltpeter gathering it from bags found on the ground is you best bet, next too buying it off another player. Good spots to check are the destroyed cart in South Surbule and the Dungeon Under the Hand has a few spots with lots of supply ground spawns showing up.

You don't need to Use Mentalism while farming the Mushroom cave, in fact the Mushroom people are extremely hard to kill with Mentalism. It isn't a skill suited to killing them at all. Probably why they are good at teaching it.

On bosses and curses, you know you are in a good group when at least one person in the group has soloed the dungeon. But I have been in groups that seemed to be doing well then ended up with me being turned into a female deer by a boss. So getting cursed is part of the game and with experience you can gauge your groups and chances against bosses better.

[Eachna]

Unfortunately, you've run up against some issues that aren't obvious.

* Fire Magic is meant to be a difficult/expensive skill. It's not really meant for brand new players, even though it's available in town. So, yeah, saltpeter is "supposed" to be hard to get. If you check the vendors in Serbule Keep usually one or two will have a stock of saltpeter.
* All skills give you basic powers for free when you level. These are abilities like "Psi Health Wave" and "Mindreave". You should get a new ability every level to every few levels. The other powers you buy from NPCs are specialized. They're not really more powerful, they mostly just expand your options. If you're still leveling your first two skills, I'd personally suggest ignoring the powers you buy from NPCs for now. You can always go back and pick them up when you're tougher and more prosperous.
* People tend to pick up multiple pairs of combat skills. You'll probably find you won't stick with Mentalism and Fire Magic forever. When you go to level your second and third sets, that's when you'll buy the special skills as you go.
* The real "power" in the game (power = combat performance) comes from the "mods" in your gear (your armor and jewelry). This is a key lesson I really wish was explained better "in game". Basic skills with good mods are much more powerful than specialized skills with bad mods. A mod is "good" if it applies to a skill you have slotted in your skill bar and "bad" if it doesn't apply to a skill you have slotted.
* Also not really explained well is how important support and trade skills are. You don't just want to set yourself to Fire Magic and Mentalism and then try to barrel through to 60. There are going to be crafting skills that boost your favorite combat skills, and more generic skills that are useful for everyone to have. I don't know what crafts are good for Mentalism but I know Alchemy is useful for Fire Magic, and Mycology is useful for Alchemy. "Everyone" should have Gourmand (and at least some Cooking), First Aid, and Armor Patching. Butchering/Skinning/Autopsy/Compassion are all nice to have. The single most useful skill for gaining favor is Surveying used with Geology and Mining (most NPCs will accept some sort of gem or metal for favor). There are lots of skills that give a +1 to a permanent stat every level or few levels that makes a noticeable difference when they all start to stack.

The game feels like it has ups and downs like waves. You'll have these slow slogs as you work on grinding out "something" (like the slow cresting of a wave). Then, once you finish it (or at least have "enough" of it) the next few things you do will speed through a lot faster (like when the wave crashes). Then you'll have another grind as the water pulls back and crests again. It's not a steady march of progress.

[cr00cy]

Well I only add that there is small dungeon in etibule (BAsment). Just go acrros teh lake near Sie ANtry farm, you will see lone hopuse. Ther eyou find soem goblins, faires, worgs, etc. Deeper in teh dungeon you cna find few minable nodes. If you are lucky , tehre will be salpheter too. But im not sure if its doable on lv 25 (you need minig skill too, but i dont remeber what).

Other than that, yeh, Fire magic is not really good newbie skill. But if you want to stick it, i think your best bet is to buy Salpheter it from players.

Other than that - bosse sare real deal in this game, often they dificulty is MUCH higher than rets of teh dngeon. For example, i remeber dying to rhino in crypt as fairly well geared lv 50, if i got too cocky. I think around 5 peopel in arounbd lv 25-30 should be able to kill bosses on 1st level of crypt.

Like other said, most of your combat power comes form gear, so even with lovel lv skills, you should be able to kep up if you have good gear.

Dont worry too much about skills bought from trainers. Just level up, get gear, earn some cash and come back when you can afford them. Just because trainer has skill with low lv requaiment, doesnt mean you have to get to him at that lv.

Good example: there is werewolf tariner in Kur that has 8 lv skill. But i honestly cant imagine 8 lv player making it all the way to her.

[Tagamogi]

Hi Triscone,
I'm similarly confused at times. I find it sometimes hard to tell whether a difficult obstacle is there because random obstacles are cool and fun, or whether it's there because it's something that just got overlooked during the development process. One suggestion I have is that you report things you find a bit odd with the ingame ! - Suggestion button. That way, the developers will see it and either know that there is a problem, or they will know that a lot of newbies get confused by a particular intended thing which may mean that it's time to update the game text to clarify it a bit. (I still feel guilty sometimes about spamming them with stuff I'm not quite sure about, but they said they want reports, so...)
A lot of the player base has been around for long time and is a bit overgeared, so I think it will be valuable to have newcomers' perspectives too.

I think not being able to evaluate boss difficulty is one of the intended things - it sure is a lot scarier to engage a boss if you have absolutely no idea what will happen. After getting smacked by the rhino boss when I innocently walked up to him, my usual chicken strategy is to look up the boss on the Wiki first and decide whether or not that particular boss curse is one I can live with if I overestimated my abilities. My best guideline otherwise is that I need to be able to clear the area near a boss with absolute ease before I actually have a good chance at the boss.
Special resistances can help amazingly with some of the bosses, e.g. fire resistance for Ursula. You should be able to tell what damage a boss does by clicking on them (or go to the Wiki, of course), so that may help you prepare for a fight.
If you do get cursed though, especially at the lower levels, there are always players around who can help you get rid of it. (I'd like to help you with the rhino boss but I haven't been actively playing for a while, so I'm not convinced I actually have a build that I can kill him with at the moment...)

I'm not sure I'd try farming saltpeter - I've definitely gotten some at higher levels but it tends to be more of a random happy surprise than something that drops on demand. As satisfying as it is to collect things yourself, other players or the vendor used tab are probably a better, or at least much faster, way to get it for now. You can also try switching skills around for a bit to see if there is an other skill that you can more easily level right now.

[grumpygamer]

A quick follow-up on boss difficulty... Most (all?) bosses I've come across have big warnings before you get to their room/area where it gives you an indication of the difficulty of the mob you'll encounter. I find that to be a good indication of difficulty even if the mobs prior to this boss are very easy.

[Citan]

Thanks for the feedback! I consider newbie-questions to be invaluable feedback, because it shows what isn't intuitable about the game. Not everything is supposed to be instantly intuitive, necessarily, but most game mechanics should make sense within their own context. But because we change things around a lot, systems that may have made sense once don't always stay sane. Boss monster difficulty is one such area -- bosses were once easier than they are now, and while I toned some bosses down when we changed monster difficulty, it's especially hard to find the sweet spot for newbie bosses, because it's hard to tell how powerful you're going to be at that point.

The rhino boss in the crypt is almost certainly too difficult ... or, perhaps another way to fix that is that the monsters near there need to be tougher. But probably just toning down the boss in this case. Another SUPER-unfortunate boss is 'Tremor' in the myconian dungeon. His curse is supposed to be annoying -- back when basic attacks weren't that important, it was an annoying curse. But we made Basic Attacks much more important recently, and now Tremor's curse is one of the worst in the game... and it's in a low-level dungeon. (We'll fix it soonish, but the point is just that changes do have unexpected side-effects, and I rarely find all of those on my own -- I only realize there's problems when I get feedback.)

As far as finding research components, it's supposed to be time consuming and/or expensive. Keep in mind that other skills have other time-consuming and/or expensive aspects that aren't necessarily obvious. For instance, to make the Staff skill really shine, you need to find the Hoplology skill, which is in a difficult level 40 dungeon. Prior to that, the skill is good, but not amazing. Similarly with Mentalism -- some of the best powers will be missing for a bit until you can come back and get them from the myconians.

But saying it's supposed to be expensive and time consuming is just the general goal. Precisely how difficult should it be? I dunno. It's alpha; we're mostly winging it based on feedback and, sometimes, metrics. And it can see-saw back and forth a bit. I suspect part of the problem with fire magic is that I recently made getting Fire Dust a bit too easy, so it seems extra-weird that the later components are so hard to get. The fix is probably to make fire dust a bit less common while also making higher-level components a bit more common. You'll see in each snapshot build's patch notes where I attempt to tackle one or two of these kinds of things each time. (How many arrows should a "bundle of arrows" generate? How hard should it really be to level up First Aid? On and on it goes.)

Bottom line is mostly: it's alpha, I dunno, please give feedback (as you have!) when something seems amiss -- either too hard OR too easy -- nobody ever reports the too-easy stuff. We're going for an organic difficulty, where not everything is necessarily as hard or easy as everything else, and that means we don't have to make everything perfectly orthogonal, but it can also be an excuse that hides major content problems.

I'll talk with Silvonis about setting up an area of the forum where newbies can give their first impressions about things in a safe environment -- that is, one where people don't say "learn to play noob" etc. (That doesn't happen much around here, but when it does happen, it makes newbies shut up, and that's bad.)

In the short term, the advice in this thread is pretty good. If you have trouble with boss difficulty levels, the wiki can help. If you can't find something you need, try checking the Used tab of vendors; if that doesn't work, try using the user-requested-items board in the back of Serbule. There's no level or skill requirements there. It acts as a sort of reverse-auction-house. Try requesting 1 saltpeter at whatever price you can afford, and see how it works out. And having level-appropriate gear is at least as important as having level-appropriate abilities, so when you're stuck on one, try working on the other.

Alpha can be a rocky time, but it definitely has its up-sides, too. Hopefully you can work around the difficulties, and if you continue to give us feedback when you find them, the game will get better as a result.

[Crissa]

The mushroom cave is doable for a group at 15-25. That's the design. It's not soloable until much later (because of the wanderers). Even at 40 I die in there oft times. Heck, I can solo the brain bug cave, but if I try to just run past the mobs, they'll eventually eat me.

Ask people to group up! There's no shame in it. We all exist in the same instance.

[Mortitia]

Regarding Mu favor, you dont have to kill anything to get his favor up, he likes other things that are not linked to combat and are doable at low lvl.

[alleryn]

Regarding Mu favor, you dont have to kill anything to get his favor up, he likes other things that are not linked to combat and are doable at low lvl.

Does he? In my notes all i have written down are "loves blue crystals" and "likes heartshrooms". Maybe my notes are incomplete or blue crystals are easier to get than i think (i've yet to find one) ?

[Extractum11]

"Blue crystals" confusingly means blue gems, so that's anything from blue mineral surveys + Turquoise/Sapphire/Vervadium.

[Spiritfingers]

What makes some of the bosses so difficult...besides the permanent curses...is they knock you back into other mobs or they stun you a lot and the adds destroy your health bar. I haven't been to crypt in a long time but when I was new to the game, the rhinos would knock you back and you'd aggro mobs through walls and around corners.

[alleryn]

"Blue crystals" confusingly means blue gems, so that's anything from blue mineral surveys + Turquoise/Sapphire/Vervadium.

Oh, that is confusing. I assumed it was referring to something similar to the redwall crystal or the blue crystal velkort has the player chip a piece off of. Thanks for the elucidation.

[Mortitia]

Blue crystals are not dropped, you have to dig them. Maybe a girl in South Serbule can tell you about it. And yes your notes are incomplete, there is a third item even easier because he is sold by a npc, just have to find who and get money.

[alleryn]

Blue crystals are not dropped, you have to dig them. Maybe a girl in South Serbule can tell you about it. And yes your notes are incomplete, there is a third item even easier because he is sold by a npc, just have to find who and get money.
I checked the wiki and it looks like that third item doesn't unlock until Friends level, so that's still not a way to raise favor initially.

[Crissa]

Rhino knockback is easy to control - they can't knock you through walls.

I just hope when I go in there my group can kill it as I tank it, since once it's on me, we trade stuns pretty seriously and I can only live so long like that - and I can't kill it when it's doing that @-@

[Niph]

I checked the wiki and it looks like that third item doesn't unlock until Friends level, so that's still not a way to raise favor initially.

Well, he doesn't tell you, but he likes it even if not friend. :)

[Mortitia]

Yes Niph is right but officially you not supposed to know it at first.
The main problem for new players is to understand the design of the game. Unlike other games like Wow, the zones are not designed by levelling process, like Serbule is lvl 15-20, then Eltibule is lvl 20-30, etc. In fact, design is made so that players from different lvls can mix up. That's why Serbule is more a lvl 15-50 zone, so that high lvl players need to come back to this zone because there is a lvl 40 dungeon or because some stuff is dropped only in Serbule or whatever. To a lesser extent, you will find the same philosophy in other zones.
So what does that mean for new players ? That means that some mobs, npcs, favor are not designed for your lvl and that you will have to wait later, even after you left Serbule, to complete them. Unfortunately, nothing will tell you at first in which case you are. Should designers make this more clear or should they leave this "sandbox" spirit, i'm still unsure what is best but it's the way it is right now. Best tip : If you are wondering something, use /help channel.

[alleryn]

Personally i don't think there's a problem, at least in the particular case of mentalism and Mu. The player can get by just fine with basic abilites during the early part of the game and it gives an added benefit to having a friend/guildmate who can help you unlock "extra"/advanced abilities (by giving you heartshrooms/etc) earlier than you'd otherwise have been able to.

[Spiritfingers]

Rhino knockback is easy to control - they can't knock you through walls.

I just hope when I go in there my group can kill it as I tank it, since once it's on me, we trade stuns pretty seriously and I can only live so long like that - and I can't kill it when it's doing that @-@

I didn't say Rhino knocked me through walls, I was saying I would get aggro through walls and around corners with the knockback. I'm sure that wasn't intended and since been fixed.

[Caustic]

Ment was my first skill and I didnt get my spells from mushroom cave until muh later due to faction but also cost. Fire was easy for me but was my third skill and I had collected all of them as I had gone along.

Rhino is a bitch, I struggled as a 60 with new gear. Not sure now how it would go.

[Crissa]

Hmm, I've never gotten weird aggro from the Rhinos, but I always was in groups that cleared up to it.

[Spiritfingers]

Hmm, I've never gotten weird aggro from the Rhinos, but I always was in groups that cleared up to it.

I think that two things were happening. One, I was actually getting aggro in weird spots and secondly, we probably didn't Rhino fast enough before the natural mob respawns happened.