The good The bad and the ugly.

Just some quick feed back and a couple questions:

2 Days old, started the Truth Path. The starting area & blood river was pretty good, I liked that there seems to be 'virtuous choices' though I suspect the a less impactful then they seem. After finishing that area and being sent to Aerie the 'path starts to fall apart' if you keep following the Truth Path. I kept getting sent to a new area without spending much time in that area and before I know it I make it all the way to Kiln and Brittany. Ventured around a bit, checked out the graveyard and sewers and decided I should head back to the starting area and try some adventure zones around there instead.

Spent some time learning bout Combat Deck and Combos, which is really unintuitive (bad) as they are not combos at all. The two 'combos' I started with were Crushing Blow + Stone Fist and Summon Skeleton + Enlightenment. Liking to figure things out using ingame tips only, I went to work trying to combo a move and was casting myself silly trying to cast one spell then the other and see some 'third effect'. No, no , no that was all wrong and you literally have to COMBINE them, and NOT combo them. I think that this could use some improvements such as an option to in the Glyphs window 'Combo' tab to have a checkbox beside each available 'combo' to 'Always Combine when available, automatically'.

I went to the Longfall Woods to continue adventureing and maybe it was redoing all my Glyphs but the difficulty seems like a bit of a step as I was mowing down things in blood river when I left it but needed to really work to stay alive in the woods. 1 spider, no worries, two spiders = ouch, three = forget and just run. After getting used to the Glyph and Deck system I was doing better and managed to complete the Vigilante stash without cheating or looking it up as well as the locked crypt which required activating the correct runestones, It took a substantial amount of running all over to figure it out which I kind of enjoyed. However the Ugly is that after opening it, I ran in to collect my reward and was greeted by a room full of skele's and an orange captain skele who started whooping me. I ran back out of the crypt to live and for some reason the door was back and I could not get back in. I had noticed it was now morning thought it was something to do with day / night cycle and waited until night again; no dice still closed. Much disappoint.

Also I am not a real big fan of these town sieges. I can see where they were going with this but in practice it seems all the players just run right through and ignore it instead of helping to break the siege so basically they go on forever or until some sort of timeout I assume. Good idea, bad implementation and a missed opportunity to force people to group to reach the town. Also there were way too many as more than half the towns I visited were under siege and a whole lot of player towns I just ran right buy. These need to be either 1) toned down B) reworked C) Just plain removed


Now for the Q&A:

What areas are good after the starting area and or long fall woods?

How do I get better gear? The vendors in Aerie and beyond only seem to sell stuff like molds and not actual weapons. Is crafting or buying from players the only way?

 

Welcome Maurier!

For adventuring, look for skulls on stakes as an indication of scene difficulty. Beyond starting towns and adjoining area, any one-skull scene usually is good for initial adventures. When that becomes too easy, look for two-skull areas. Then three-skulls area. And so forth. Crypts and dungeons found in scenes can be harder than the scenes you have entered them from, as you commented on. There are many adventuring scenes. Check out the SOTA wiki page at this link for choices: http://sotawiki.net/sota/Scene_Difficulty

For gear, much of the gear in SOTA is crafted. Adventure, pick up loot, sell loot, then use the coins to shop around public vendors (major cities) and player vendors (especially player towns). I'm sure the gear crafting folks here will chime in with specific ideas on where to look.

On decks, while combos are functional they are an incomplete add-on to the combat system experimented with early on. More love for them has been promised in time. Until then, there isn't any need to use them if you find them cumbersome. I no longer use them, preferring to use charged glyphs instead. Depending on your build they might be helpful though.

Lastly, the impact of virtues may seem insignificant starting out. But at higher levels some gear stats are influenced by virtue. We'll likely see virtue systems continue to evolve substantially over time. My guess.

Cheers!

 

I have found the decks very useful for training skills sinc eyou can train more than one at once and using buffs/defensive skills. Like I have my Dodge, Parry and Defensive Stance on same key and it cycles and I hit em when up. The downside is it means you watch the hotbar more than your should.

 

Welcome!

Yes, there should be more to do in every area it sends you to. It's slowly coming though, Jaaniford has more than it used to (did you find the mine under the lower waterfall?), Kiln's got something as well, although I don't know the Tier. As far as I know Veritas has zero to do that's off the main questline. It's a real downer because it seems like it should be a hub, it's the Elven City after all! And instead it falls mostly flat.

The glphys have a tiny, tiny, almost invisible green box that goes around it's possible combinations when you have one held down. It would actually work quite well if it were bigger and in any way noticeable. Hopefully they will correct that some day.

Hmmm.... maybe it closing that fast is a bug, perhaps @Puuk would know.

So welcome! You have the adventuring questing spirit, so you're in the right spot.

Feedback is great, please keep that going, and if you find a bug type /bug in your chat box. Your browser will open a page to the bug forums, and a template will be copied for you that you can paste into a thread. Paste that in, fill it out and thank you for your service.

I believe there is a mine in Longfall Woods, Tier 2. It's the place I'm thinking of if it's just south of Blood River a bit. Take the default entrance, then turn right and follow the wall.

Also check out the South Something Wetlands near there.

If you go through the Mine, you come out in Storm's Reach. You can take a ferry from there to Elementium, and then go to Novia, and you are back over near Jaaniford. South Sunless Barrens are there and you may be able to do them. South Broken Road as well.

When you get to Tier 3, back to the Blood River area and check out Blood River Forest, north of the starting areas.

But before all that, go do the starter areas of the other two questlines, Highvale Outskirts and Solace Bridge Outskirts, and start the quests in Highvale and Solace Bridge as well. The main questlines are meant to be played in tandem, not one by one.

Finally, come check out some events and such. Look in the Looking For Group tool (found through "Party" under the Social Window) and see if there's anything fun going on, Gustball, parties, etc.

Thanks for the feedback and welcome!

 

How do I start the other two questlines? Truth just started based on my answers at the beginning.

 

Go to Resolute for Courage, and Ardoris for Love

 

I think to get hooked in properly, go to Highvale for Courage, and do the Outskirts while you're at it, and then Solace Bridge for Love, and Outskirts while you're at it.

You can get between the three by using the Lunar Rift.

Here's a handy calendar if you want to cheat/not wait around.

http://xi6.com/i/sotaclock.html

 

Firstly, welcome to your new adventures in Shroud @Maurier.
As a new player, I think doing Blood River Outskirts, Solace Bridge Outskirts & Highvale Outskirts quests are all worthwhile.
They give you good XP & plenty of items to sell for building up gold.
They also give you time to work out the finer details within the UI.

You can use the Lunar Rift to get around.
Here is a handy timetable for the rift...
https://sacrifice-guild.enjin.com/lrchronometer43

and also a link to the world map (if you haven't already found it)
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/map/#

P.S. The Virtue quests take quite awhile to complete & you need to be around Level 50 or over to complete them. So take your time & see the world.
Good Luck & Safe Journeys to you.

 

Thanks for the tips. I will check out the other 'starting areas' I suspect I will now be overpowered but a good time to train some skills I did not before.

I did use the moongate (are we not suppose to say moongate?) to get back to blood river from Britanny. But just lucked out and it was there when I walked up, thanks for the link(s)

 

You can talk to Arabella again (the lady you spoke to at the start before you took a physical form) and she will point you to the other two main questlines. She can be found in several places ingame, the closest to you would be in Aerie, at the first market square after entering through the gates to the town.

 

I am not finding her anywhere in Aerie. You sure she is in that first market square? I even gave up and tried looking online and cannot find squat.

Good lord I would give my left nut for some NPC nameplates serisoulsy.

 

Also seems the town became under siege in the short time I was there and these sieges are honestly annoying AF at this point after only 3 days. They dont seem to serve any purpose what so ever in this implementation and only serve to interrupt gameplay when you are trying to do something.

After spending all morning looking for this I think I came to the undeniable conclusion that this game is still in BETA at best. So many unfinished things, and half baked ideas.

Its not bad its just far from a finished product. I probably wont play much more but will be checking back in several months. I like what they are doing but honestly my time is too valuable for me to give free feedback and do things like run around for an hour looking for an NPC in town I should just be able to get a waypoint to any NPC from like the town crier or any guard such as many other games do. There seems to very no QOL stuff here yet.

 

She is right there where I described when I checked just now (with a nameplate too!)

 

I'm 99% sure talking to Arabella isn't necessary. Go to Solace Bridge, talk to Edvard. He should get you started. He's in the big burned down fort.

Go to Highvale Outskirts. Talk to Edvard. He seems to follow trouble around. He's in the big burned down castle, near the gate.

If Edvard doesn't get you started, go up the hill to the right of the main gate, past the stables, and see if there's a dead body there that you can search. You'll be looking for Gawain's Amulet of Testimony.