Mistakes of a Beginner

Discussion in 'New Player Welcome' started by Silberfarn, Dec 17, 2016.

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  1. Silberfarn

    Silberfarn Avatar

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    Hi,
    I am a fairly new player to SOTA (R32) and made a couple of mistakes during play that I want other beginners to avoid. I list them in no particular order, numbering is for reference only. A lot of this is very obvius, yet I found no coherent tutorial in game and did not bother to read the excellent existing guides (mistake zero).

    1. Mistake: getting killed quickly by high-level enemies. I was basically wandering around Novia using http://www.sotamap.com/ looking for free housing lots and ended up entering locations that were way above my avatars capabilities. This also made the attempt to collect resources rather frustrating. Please check out his excellent post to avoid my mistake: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...what-is-going-on-a-sota-leveling-guide.41503/
    (that post is from Nov25 2015 and some keys won't work anymore, I did not find the "V" key working)
    In short: as beginner, only visit aereas with one impaled skull (on world map and at entrance of location). Kills things, collect loot, harvest stuff and go back to a city merchant to sell loot (unless you need it for metal/wood scrap, see mistake 5).

    2. Mistake: ignore quests. Quests are (relatively) easy ways of earning experience points (XP). Looking at http://www.questsoftheavatar.com can help you if you are stuck or lazy. More on XP below.

    3. Mistake: leave all skill-settings as they are and then run out of XP. At first I thought: wow, whenever I use a skill or spell, I get more proficient at it. That includes using spells even if you wouldn't need them: casting fight-spells while in a city, e.g.. What really happened was that my finite XP was flowing into the skills as I trained them until I ran out of XP. This is happening UNLESS you regulate this flow: press "K" and click on the little green triangles on your skills. You can increase your XP by doing quests or killing stuff, although you might end up with more XP flowing into skills than XP gained through killing things. So regulate the flow.
    Again, this is described in a much more comprehensive way here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...what-is-going-on-a-sota-leveling-guide.41503/
    Re-read the post until you understand it's meaning.
    You can look at your XP by pressing "K", bottom right. There is XP for adventuring skills and crafting skills, the Tab-key switches between both.

    4. Mistake: ignore glyph management
    This post helped tremendously
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f.../begginers-guide-to-draw-deck-building.52341/

    5. Mistake: ignore wood scrap and metal scrap for crafting raw materials
    You can cut your raw materials "copper/iron ore" and "Maple/Pine wood" required for refining ingots and timber by HALF if you use the "timber/ingot from wood/metal scrap" recipes. To get wood-scrap and metal-scrap put the looted weapons on either the blacksmithing or carpentry crafting stations and press the red "salvage" button on the bottom left of the crafting menu (the one you get when your avatar is at the crafting station after double-clicking it). Bows, staffs, wands give wood scrap, all bladed weapons give metal scrap. Bludgeons (hammer, axe) and polearms need to be put on the carpentry station _but_ give metal scrap after salvaging.
    For my first Pine-Longbow I felled 40 pine trees (40 pine wood = 10 pine timber = 1 longbow bowstaff), all the while selling the looted short bows from bandits to merchants instead of salvaging them for wood scrap

    Silberfarn
    (@mods: if this is the wrong forum, sorry. Please move it elsewhere)
     
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  2. Acred

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    Hello, @Silberfarn !

    You have managed to look at the early problems of a player starting out in SotA and give some very useful tips with your list of "Mistakes". I know we all learn from making mistakes, but it is nice to have somebody with fresh eyes giving these reactions, so others may not repeat them.

    I wish you many prosperous adventures in New Britannia and lots of fun!
     
  3. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

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    @Silberfarn
    Great post and very helpful for new players!

    I might add to #1 "go back to a city merchant to sell loot": Be aware that not all merchants pay the same for loot. Selling your looted halberd to the right blacksmith will earn you more money than selling it to a cheapskate blacksmith or a vegetable merchant. I don't want to make any recommendations because sometimes the prices are changed with a new release and I haven't compared prices in R37 yet. In the past, the blacksmiths in Owl's Head, Brittany Estates (right at the entrance) and Ardoris and the arms merchant Whitten in Resolute have paid well. In Aerie the Archery merchant Oakie Lawrence and blacksmith Henry Steel near the SE exit of town paid more than the blacksmith in the town center. This isn't a comprehensive list, just the merchants I personally frequent. As I said, I haven't compared prices in R37 yet, so the information may be outdated. I recommend carrying one of each kind of weapon you want to sell to different merchants and making note of what they will pay. :)
     
  4. Timmy Vortex

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    Nice of you to post this! Might help a few people as well :)

    Welcome to the game.
     
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  5. Elgarion

    Elgarion Dev Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Great input @Silberfarn :) Looks like you managed to fall into and climb back out of several beginner traps for sure! I hope others can learn from your mistakes. Thanks for posting, and welcome to Shroud of the Avatar!

    This link would also be useful for #1, as it is the creator of SotAMap (Jakub White) who put together a wonderful list of the various scenes and their skull ratings with direct links to their SotAMap location.

    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-adventure-scenes-of-the-new-britannia.49018/
     
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  6. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    @Berek. This great post needs to be stickied so it can help other new new players.
     
  7. Mata

    Mata Avatar

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    Herzlich willkommen Silberfarn!
     
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  8. Andrew Silverston

    Andrew Silverston Avatar

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    That is a great learning curve of SOTA. Some people find encouragement in finding out all these mistakes and learning from them, others feel discouraged to continue. I think it's great that there is a learning curve, it allows us to appreciate SOTA for what it has to offer.
     
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  9. Duke William of Serenite

    Duke William of Serenite Avatar

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    Can we clean this up so the devs can sticky?? This is fabulous!!

    GOOD SHOW!!
     
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  10. Lupo

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    @ Silberfarn

    thanks for the helpful tips :)
     
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  11. Silberfarn

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    Wow, thanks for the encouragement. I was sitting on this list since R35. Another mistake I made, which then turned into the biggest benefit for me ever in this game:
    after joining Kickstarter and mostly ignoring the game until persistence, I wanted to claim my kickstarter-era bought ($165) place-anywhere village lot. I clicked "convert into store credits" because I thought this is the game mechanism for turning your $-lot into a in-game-lot. Of course, it wasn't and I ended up turning my $200 worth place-anywhere-lot into a $165 POT-lot. I was a bit devastated by clicking away $35 in 2 seconds. But this made me join PaxLair and I never ever looked back, Kudos to Winfield, Se'an and the other guys there. Running back to your virtual home feels really cosy in an odd way...
    Cheers,
    Silberfarn
     
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  12. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Greetings and salutations Silberfarn! Glad to see the community here is helping you out. Have fun in SotA!
     
  13. Lyndoman

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    This was my biggest noob mistake. But it's impossible not to make most of the mistakes listed above if you come to the game cold. A few youtube vids are essential watching.
    To me learning the game is part of the game. It has an incredibly hard learning curve, but it's worth it.

    The skill system took me about 3 weeks to work out. Of course when the games mechanics are less fluid it will be easier to produce basic tutorials, but as stuff is still changing, not much point.

    Great post though,Berek how about a new player post of the week award. Encourage newer players to step forward and reveal their noobness in all its glory.
    Well done Silberfarn
     
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  14. Phox

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    Really nice post ! I am not a beginner anymore, but did the same mistakes !! However, thanks to your post, I realized that I never tried to make copper ingot with metal scraps. Still learning ! Regards :)
     
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  15. Shanna

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    I have already made every single one of these mistakes within my first 3 days of playing, hehe :) Great post!
     
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