Gearing up in this game...

[Celerity]

I am a spider, and I don't think I'd put gems or paintings in the "easy" category, as they require several other tradeskills to obtain..

Beast forms are harder to do than the traditional humanoid skills and you seem to have pulled the short straw since spider is definitely the hardest skill trainer to favour in the entire game.

I consider gems easy since they give ~20 favour each and can be bought in player vendors for even as cheap as 160 each, so for friends you need 300/20 = 15 gems which is a cost of 15 * 160 = 2.4k. This is a rough calculation of course because it differs for each individual npc and depends on your bonuses from civic pride and notoriety. Gems would be difficult if you tried to survey them all yourself, since you don't get many of any one specific gem easily but since you can just buy them so cheaply off player vendors I don't think it's an issue.

I also consider paintings easy since you can farm high value paintings from the red wing of the goblin dungeon annex and normally coming back with a full inventory is enough to favour an npc to close/best friends and then doing a second run and maybe a third gives you enough to get like family, which is the highest favour you'll basically ever need from any of the skill unlock trainers. Now of course you'll have to put some effort into learning and training art history but the very act of training the skill gives you the paintings you need for favour.

[poulter]

For consideration:

Citan has advised in the past that Beast forms (by their limitations) are intended to be used by 'established' players (c. level 50). They appear to have been originally conceived as curses.

Crafting, whilst not obligatory, is a major component in the game and makes things much easier. There is a reason why the 'best' gear in the game are usually crafted, or, for a few items, drop from a boss.

You can regularly make >500k councils /week from selling tanned skins (200k+), running casino dailies (70k+), selling drops (100k), completing work orders, mushroom farming, etc. at level 50. It takes me under 4 hours play time /week to do so.

The number of mods (i.e. color /quality) on your gear make a huge difference. An 'average' red gear set has 27 'random' mods whilst a gold max crafted + augmented set has 56+ mods customised to the spells used by the player. Crafting skills are essential if you are into efficiency and effectiveness.

[alleryn]

But aren't work orders very RNG? Wouldn't you need to level several crafting professions just to have a constant flow of profitable crafting?

Some more than others.

But generally it's not hard to simply visit work order boards often and cherry pick the ones you want to do. Of course if you are most always in dungeons, this won't really work, but if you spend most of your time in, say, the Casino/Rahu, then you can visit these boards whenever they pop. Over the course of the month you are likely to see every work order you want to do.

The Ilmari work order board is all leatherworking and toolcrafting (i think... might be forgetting something). So with two skills (or really you could settle for just leatherworking and do a fair bit), you are going to see a lot of good orders, especially since a high fraction of the Ilmari work order are highly profitable.

The Sun Vale board is more remote and has more skills, so is probably not so worth it unless you have multiple crafting skills leveled.

Kur Mountains board is pretty good, and it's all cooking orders which most people will have leveled. The profit margins are hit or miss, but once you figure out which work orders are good to do, it's a nice addition.

Thimble Pete's board is the worst of the bunch. It's in a remote area, and many of the work orders are just bad. Still some nice stuff on them, so I hit it up if i happen to be in the area, or sometimes park an alt there to farm the more desirable work orders (trophy skins, the higher end cheese orders).

The Serb board is nice early on (especially carpentry) and still useful as the game progresses, but the trip to the docks can feel not worth the small profits, unless you are headed to Sun Vale anyways.

The Fae Realm board is hit or miss, and requires high crafting skills for the most part, but some of the orders are easy to complete and massively profitable (Fairy Icehearts and Royal Jelly for example are huge sums of cash that can be extremely profitable even if just buying the stuff from player ships).

[AgentBbrian]

~tldr
I think making augmentation and transmutation available to players from the start and unlocked via the tutorial would fix this loot garbage problem and give people the choice right off the bat to deal with gear/crafting/moneymaking and character competence, atleast giving people the option to choose, like "NEEDING" to be a crafter like people have suggested and those people who "WANT" to be a crafter or simply to just to try out the skills and playstyles to see what they like without needing to get to 50-60 as a brand new player learning and experiencing everything etc..

New guy here, hi.

I experienced a similar thing like the OP at the start, i was advised by people to do the crypt, got my butt kicked then lol'd at and told about the magical underwater sewer portal in the river to get started instead.
Had no idea it was there, and no idea a blue glowing thing was a portal. i dont think it even said it was a sewer portal.
Didnt know about the suicide hopping around down there either until was told.
Mostly i think alot of people have been playing this from so long ago that so many things have changed like difficulties of monsters as a minimum and they are so high level with alt-crafted gear now that they forget a new player is new and it's different to just making a new character without that backup and knowledge.

At the start of necromancy.. zombie is not strong, none of the pets are strong, getting any gear for zombie as a drop is not a thing that early on, the zombie is the slowest pet in the game, so you dont use it and ignore it as a cheerleader along with all the AI issues of pets.
The damage is weak early on, they're slow and they lag way behind, get stuck on things, bug out on los, and a necro has to go back to a graveyard everytime to sort out the issues of them.
Anyone know why being the master of undead makes all enemy undead immune to the necros damage or spells? like youre basically not a necro.. just a gimp with weird pets and a disadvantage when fighting all undead.
Why would a necro be so useless against other undead? makes no sense, a useless restriction, rawr im a necro and every undead in the world calls me names and picks on me and can attack and kill me and bully me and i cant do anything about it because im a powerful lord of undead that for some reason needs consecrated graveyard grounds to summon unholy pets, or just lots of player tomb stones and suiciding mechanic weirdness.

I came to realise the gear drops were just another resource to farm, and rarely you will get something along the lines of what you may kinda want, but most times its garbage and the system is pretty much a ripoff of the loot/transmute system from blizzards Diablo3.
I was given a bit of advice when it comes to gear and their types:
Tailoring stuff = Power refresh
Leather stuff = Health refresh
Metal stuff = Armor refresh (lycan restriction)
If you have 3 armor of the same type equipped you get a bonus that activates with basic attack and has a 1 min cooldown


I have done a bunch of bartering so far in Kur Mountains, and i gota disagree with a few people who said its worth it or useful, no gear has been good from them so far.
How long ago they did their bartering before a whatever patched changed things i dont know.

The money making thing and guild and dailies and storage and workorders and favors.. this is not something a new player is going to know without a mentor or knowing someone or asking and understanding 100% of what they said, i found most people tell you up to a certain point and forget you dont know that little step in between and then your on the wiki anyway with 8 tabs open.
There isnt a window or ui menu anywhere to show you favors of the npc's you'v encountered to keep track or know what youre getting yourself into, the youtube video you watched of the promotional funny who was talking about the game didn't go over that when he kinda convinced you to get the game, and when you youtubed guides they were years old.

The augmentations and transmutations seem like a cool system, but it should be a system introduced to the player from the start at the tutorial.
New players should have the fun messing around with that the entire time theyre on instead of looking at useless loot all the time to the point they come on here to make a forum post once frustrated.
It seems silly to need to complete a quest in a dangerous area where even being idle can kill you(kur mountains) and then needing 25 skill in 5 crafting skills to be able to train the ability to enjoy the game more so when dealing with loot.

When you see things like pointless restrictions walls, skill walls, and just annoying drawbacks to the entertainment this game could offer it kinda wears you down like "what's the point eh?" and then you see people getting frustrated, burnt out and taking long winded breaks, and those people are no longer around to help new players and make guides for youtube, y'know? because you login and you gota get to work grinding it out.

~tldr
I think making augmentation and transmutation available to players from the start and unlocked via the tutorial would fix this loot garbage problem and give people the choice right off the bat to deal with gear/crafting/moneymaking and character competence, atleast giving people the option to choose, like "NEEDING" to be a crafter like people have suggested and those people who "WANT" to be a crafter or simply to just to try out the skills and playstyles to see what they like without needing to get to 50-60 as a brand new player learning and experiencing everything etc..

[Delfofthebla]

Some more than others.

But generally it's not hard to simply visit work order boards often and cherry pick the ones you want to do. Of course if you are most always in dungeons, this won't really work, but if you spend most of your time in, say, the Casino/Rahu, then you can visit these boards whenever they pop. Over the course of the month you are likely to see every work order you want to do.

The Ilmari work order board is all leatherworking and toolcrafting (i think... might be forgetting something). So with two skills (or really you could settle for just leatherworking and do a fair bit), you are going to see a lot of good orders, especially since a high fraction of the Ilmari work order are highly profitable.

The Sun Vale board is more remote and has more skills, so is probably not so worth it unless you have multiple crafting skills leveled.

Kur Mountains board is pretty good, and it's all cooking orders which most people will have leveled. The profit margins are hit or miss, but once you figure out which work orders are good to do, it's a nice addition.

Thimble Pete's board is the worst of the bunch. It's in a remote area, and many of the work orders are just bad. Still some nice stuff on them, so I hit it up if i happen to be in the area, or sometimes park an alt there to farm the more desirable work orders (trophy skins, the higher end cheese orders).

The Serb board is nice early on (especially carpentry) and still useful as the game progresses, but the trip to the docks can feel not worth the small profits, unless you are headed to Sun Vale anyways.

The Fae Realm board is hit or miss, and requires high crafting skills for the most part, but some of the orders are easy to complete and massively profitable (Fairy Icehearts and Royal Jelly for example are huge sums of cash that can be extremely profitable even if just buying the stuff from player ships).

Yeah I've been cherry-picking whichever orders I can, mostly so that I can get industry to 25 and not have to pay 20k to open a player shop. I'm assuming I need like 30-40 before I start to get the actual profitable ones though. It's mostly been break even or net loss so far.

I think making augmentation and transmutation available to players from the start and unlocked via the tutorial would fix this loot garbage problem and give people the choice right off the bat to deal with gear/crafting/moneymaking and character competence, atleast giving people the option to choose, like "NEEDING" to be a crafter like people have suggested and those people who "WANT" to be a crafter or simply to just to try out the skills and playstyles to see what they like without needing to get to 50-60 as a brand new player learning and experiencing everything etc..

The augmentations and transmutations seem like a cool system, but it should be a system introduced to the player from the start at the tutorial.
New players should have the fun messing around with that the entire time theyre on instead of looking at useless loot all the time to the point they come on here to make a forum post once frustrated.
It seems silly to need to complete a quest in a dangerous area where even being idle can kill you(kur mountains) and then needing 25 skill in 5 crafting skills to be able to train the ability to enjoy the game more so when dealing with loot.

Completely agree.

Anyone know why being the master of undead makes all enemy undead immune to the necros damage or spells? like youre basically not a necro.. just a gimp with weird pets and a disadvantage when fighting all undead.
Why would a necro be so useless against other undead? makes no sense, a useless restriction, rawr im a necro and every undead in the world calls me names and picks on me and can attack and kill me and bully me and i cant do anything about it because im a powerful lord of undead that for some reason needs consecrated graveyard grounds to summon unholy pets, or just lots of player tomb stones and suiciding mechanic weirdness.

Lol right? I've never played a necro that is so weak against undead. It just seems so...thematically incorrect.

The graveyard mechanic makes sense to me, but I wish I could at least use the corpses of my enemies instead like you can with the zombie. Why would a graveyard have better "mages" or "archers" than a fucking skeleton or goblin mage I just killed??

I have done a bunch of bartering so far in Kur Mountains, and i gota disagree with a few people who said its worth it or useful, no gear has been good from them so far.
How long ago they did their bartering before a whatever patched changed things i dont know.

Yeah I'm having a similar experience. It's just another dice roll, and it does not feel any faster or better than just farming elites for drops. I originally made this thread prior to getting a foothold in the wolf cave, and that has definitely helped my gear situation a lot. Farming elites is the best way to get gear that I've found so far.

When you see things like pointless restrictions walls, skill walls, and just annoying drawbacks to the entertainment this game could offer it kinda wears you down like "what's the point eh?" and then you see people getting frustrated, burnt out and taking long winded breaks, and those people are no longer around to help new players and make guides for youtube, y'know? because you login and you gota get to work grinding it out.

Yep. I started playing this game with 6 other friends of mine. You know how many of them are left now that we've all hit 50? Just 3. And I can tell 2 of the remaining 3 are on the verge of quitting.

@Celerity can break down my ramblings all day, and perhaps I'm not doing a great job of communicating exactly why I am frustrated, but the fact of the matter is, once you hit level 50, this game completely changes. Some people may be able to find the fun past 50, but many people (including 3 of my friends) could not. I'm doing what I can to stay engaged, but if the rest of my friends quit? I don't know if I'll be willing to stay.

[Glythe]

Can I weight it towards specific mods or something? Because it seems like I'd be spending tons of money and/or resources just for one more "dice roll". If I have better control or if the material costs are really low then I could see this being a pretty valid solution though.

You can weight crafted items. If I make an item I can choose which power should have more modifiers. With augmentation I can add a power to remove power choices from the possible rolls. When I roll what I want for one of the skills, I can add a different augmentation (remove the first) and block powers from the other skillset. I have been where you are; without aug and trans the game feels very different if you are over level 50 and struggling.

Honestly, I find "priceless" to be a very hard sell. It could be the most useful thing in the world and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it after what I've experienced already.

I expect to make at least 2 million from industry next month. This does not include running the daily (solo) every day or any sold loot. I pick up work orders for chairs, necklaces, flower arrangements, cooked food and stmot/weapons. I deliver them and make a huge profit and gain skill levels in the process.

In an MMO I expect leveling to be the main gameplay, but it's not in PG. It's favor grinding.

I'm going to stick with the game a little longer, but I do not think this kind of gameplay post 50 is very fun. I want to do dungeons, and I want to fight difficult encounters. I want to feel good about beating these encounters and I want to strengthen my character as I do so. I want progressing my character to feel fun. Favor/money grinding a new throwaway NPC every 10 levels doesn't feel good. It feels like work. I am working so that I can get access to more work, which will give me access to even more work. I never feel rewarded for my work either. Why. Why would anyone possibly want to do this all the way to 80?

Most skills have 3 trainers. For Fire you have Velkort, The Sand Seer, and a fairy in the Fae realm. Early trainers do not need to be fully bribed as I think I have velkort at close friends or best friends. It takes an eternity to bribe these npcs when you are starting out but at level 80 I can often fully bribe most of them in under a week. The second trainer needs like family for everything. The third trainer may require like soulmates for some abilities.

This may come as a shock but you are not supposed to play everything. There are a lot of players who have the fever where they think they need every skill at max level. Multiple struggling first time players came to me this week and I made them armor. They looked up what the craft needed for armor of their level and they harvest it or bought it. Making the armor is a gamble because you do not know what rarity you will get but if you make enough attempts you should end up with something pretty nice.

Max enchanted armor gives you an extra modifier and so does augmentation. A level 50 drop (or 70) can have at most 5 powers and 1 you can add. A max crafted armor can have 6 powers with the option to add 1 more. If you compared two players - one with full crafted and one with dropped armor (without transmutation) the power level difference would be insane. Just looking at armor+jewelry means you are missing 14 power modifiers. If we pretend you somehow have otherwise perfect armor without rolling (which has happened about twice in all the time I have been playing) the difference in character power would be staggering.

Go here : http://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner. put in your build and pretend you had 6 or 7 modifiers for every item slot.

The End Game in PG is about rolling perfect gear - which has to be crafted so it has an extra enchantment. Make a good build and create a perfect armor set and you will be as effective as two or three players running around in "random" gear/sub-optimal builds.

[AgentBbrian]

I expect to make at least 2 million from industry next month. This does not include running the daily (solo) every day or any sold loot. I pick up work orders for chairs, necklaces, flower arrangements, cooked food and stmot/weapons. I deliver them and make a huge profit and gain skill levels in the process.

Crafting..

This may come as a shock but you are not supposed to play everything. There are a lot of players who have the fever where they think they need every skill at max level. Multiple struggling first time players came to me this week and I made them armor. They looked up what the craft needed for armor of their level and they harvest it or bought it. Making the armor is a gamble because you do not know what rarity you will get but if you make enough attempts you should end up with something pretty nice.

Crafting..

SHOCK!
i guess new players have to know what they like or know what they want to do before they do it to enjoy the game, little bit of a backwards progression system and see the future skills needed.
I guess you can ask all the players who already know who have unlocked everything on how to play your character, but hey the game has "exploration" wooo pfft.

The End Game in PG is about rolling perfect gear - which has to be crafted so it has an extra enchantment. Make a good build and create a perfect armor set and you will be as effective as two or three players running around in "random" gear/sub-optimal builds.

Crafting..

See the pattern?
I read this and im like.. ok the issue is explained but not understood as an issue.
The OP talks about problems gearing and then people talk about giving handouts to new players struggling..
New players struggling..
New players struggling.....
This isnt a dig at glythe it's the same thing i see everywhere on these forums of long term players pointing out the issues but not seeing it themself and giving tips on the loopholes, when really being a new player in the current games development is much different from back then and things will slowly continue to change but will never again get that "new player" feeling of weakness and stuff, like how necro was gained from touching a shrine before to get instant access to never hurt another undead with lord of undead skills, now you gota destroy a dungeon and slaughter a strong boss which is nuts for a new player to consider, but people will carry you through, and yet again getting help from those that have been here for a long time... this pattern that people aren't seeing will not be good for the "fun" game in the long run.

I see a flaw in the gearing system, just like diablo 3 had, since the transmutation and augmentation are almost identical to diablo 3, and diablo 3 had it's problems of gearing issues.
This gives way more power to my previous suggestion than i realised it needed.. to have the trans and aug be shifted to tutorial island and unlocked from the new player start as a backbone option for the game since crafting is the end all of treasure hunting.
And if it is like that then im like "why bother?" just to farm?
I can't has treasure? unless im stupid lucky or just ask trade chat for a crafted set to bypass the fun alltogether.. D:


Just get yer surveying for travel gems and gather whatever it is for whatever craft you wanna do... boom end game character
Being self sufficient is a goal.
Making friends is a goal.
Needing crafters is fine and all, but give people the option to use bluetac and sticktape to fix up their found gear with trans and augs if they want without needing to dive headfirst into 5 skills of crafting to get the 1/3rd max skill levels needed to quest for the damn skill in a frozen wasteland of death to unlock competence in character progression and entertainment.
Feels pretty 1 sided here for everyone who isn't interested in crafting and is forced to purchase a set.. forced..
I mean even Path of Exile has "solo self found" character options and people love that shit.

[alleryn]

(Snip)

I've basically played the combat-portion of the game as solo self found so far. I haven't bought any gear, or used transmutation, augmentation, or shamanic infusion to alter gear i use.

I have crafted two sets of winter gear, but literally just two sets. I didn't craft more than one piece for any slot. [Edit: One set was level 50 and one was level 70. I don't wear either anymore.]

I'm level 80 in my main combat skills and 70+ in most of my crafting skills (which i really only use for work orders/money-making). Admittedly i cannot do endgame content yet, but really the progression towards increasing amounts of power, the excitement of replacing a piece of gear when i find a better one, outweighs the delay in gratification of getting to pwn leet mobs.

I did receive a little help from the "higher ups" as i played (the Lomas quest i got help with), but i don't think any of that was something critical to my progress. I finally unlocked necromancy earlier this month (started in Jan 2017). I was surprised to find i could have soloed it easily. I guess if you really want to play a necromancer out of the gate it can be frustrating to have to put it off, but i don't see the problem with having some skillsets that are "higher tier" and can only be unlocked later in the game. It's not like it takes ages to unlock Necromancy or Battle Chemistry. It just takes a bit of perseverance.

I guess my point is that i enjoyed struggling as a new player (and i don't think it's any more difficult now than when i started in Jan 2017, but i could be wrong). This isn't to say that other players ought to appreciate it the way i did 'back in my day', but i do feel like it's worth pointing out that the struggle doesn't have to be, and isn't for everyone, a part of the game that is undesirable.

Good luck in your struggle.

[AgentBbrian]

I've basically played the combat-portion of the game as solo self found so far.

I have crafted two sets of winter gear, but literally just two sets. I didn't craft more than one piece for any slot.

I did receive a little help from the "higher ups" as i played

I guess if you really want to play a necromancer out of the gate it can be frustrating to have to put it off

It just takes a bit of perseverance.

I guess my point is that i enjoyed struggling as a new player

struggle doesn't have to be, and isn't for everyone, a part of the game that is undesirable.

Good luck in your struggle.

(Snip)
/10char

[Rockdelver]

Lol right? I've never played a necro that is so weak against undead. It just seems so...thematically incorrect.

The graveyard mechanic makes sense to me, but I wish I could at least use the corpses of my enemies instead like you can with the zombie. Why would a graveyard have better "mages" or "archers" than a fucking skeleton or goblin mage I just killed??

I'm in two minds about the "normal" undead mobs being used to make skeletons. I would definitely love it, personally, but rationalise that the skeletons I destroy have already been 'used' once already when they were created by some nameless NPC. I do think, purely for continuity reasons that appeal to me and probably me alone, that Zombies should be creatable only using non-undead corpses though, since they have the necessary muscle and sinew on them to reform into a Zombie. It fits the theme better in my opinion.

I understand your point about Necro damage not being optimal against other Undead, but on the other hand, in most mmorpgs using Fire Magic against Fire-based creatures doesn't give optimal damage either. Ditto with Ice, Electricity and so forth. Necro damage is, in my experience, usually very effective against just about everything else that I have encountered so far, so I put that down to swings and roundabouts so to speak.

Of course, let's not forget we all have TWO spell toolbars, so we Necros aren't limited to one damage type. I always use Mentalism on the second toolbar, and at 45 Mentalism plus some equipment mods I can do some decent damage. All the main spells hit for around 100 to 220 and Agonise hits for a DOT of around 800 and maybe a little more and the heal (Reconstruct) isn't too shabby either. What are you using as your second set of abilities?