How to chose proper adventuring skills ? Trial/error is not affordable now :(

In this release I see that Advenruting skills cost much more.

I know that the idea is to prevent players from changing their layout too often, but this is alpha and all skills are unbalanced and some are just worthless.
So, now it only prevents us from experimenting.

If I train "improper" skills set, that means I have to suffer from it till the next wipe and that just force me to quit playing/testing.

Newcomers will be affected much more as they don't have any experience from previous releases.

Since now we have no second chance, I'm asking to post here known good skills layouts and advice what skills combinations are broken or worthless and must be avoided.

Also, I still don't understand Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence innate skills. I guess they have effect on Melee damage, Melee/Ranged speed and Magic power, but I have no idea what benefits they add. Does anyone know their exact effects (i.e. 1 point of Intelligence adds X% to magic damage/resistance) ?

 

Ahem. It's PRE-alpha

 

I'm with you ... I haven't even logged in this release because I'm afraid to spec into something I don't like. Waiting to see how things pan out.

 

Hasn't anyone been testing the game? When it was free, I mean? Seriously, I had 50k in the bank before the skill wipe, then they gave me like 54k... And I gained 4 levels and made up my loses (since release, 3 days ago), by selling weapons/armor on the vendor... Granted I'm a Melee guy and don't have the high overhead you magic users have, but use your common sense, specialize... Unless you have the gold, what else are you going to do? You don't have to use all your points now, they will be there for later (unless you plan on waiting for release 20 wipe)...

 

I guess that's one problem. The players who only jumped in for a few levels or so to just grab the hat each release are not going to have any money. This is largely not a problem for those that actually spend several dozen hours playing each month.

 

I would offer the following suggestion for experimentation

A)
Set up a test server like the one in UO where you can dial up whatever skills and equipment you're interested in and test away (hence the name)

B)
Make tournament/dueling arenas restricted zones where you can park your real deck at the door and within your adventure level point allocation, experiment with anything you like until you leave the zone.

And for the actual skills training, (I know this has been brought up by others) no charges should accrue until you lock in your skill selections and exit the training session.

The Devs get to test their global econometric model, and we get to test the skills we are interested in a restricted environment

I'm just sayin'
Sil

 

Well hopefully not to sound too harsh or judgemental, well maybe I am a bit, but I feel that is part of it. If someone is not participating that is their choice of course, but not participating enough to keep in touch will then of course cause them to lose out. It is what happens. I skip days at a time but then I kick my butt and get in the game grab a few resources, do the quest, check out the new stuff, craft a few things, say hello to a few of the precious people here and then do it again over and over and over and did I say over. **looks at calendar and clock for the thousandth time**

 

On playing SotA right now, on pre-Alpha, we are helping the game development and not enjoying the game. Sure, we all enjoy it a bit, yet it is not the goal.

We should refrain from try to grab all the fun right now and instead help the developers to build a better world for us to play in for many years.

However, addressing Lord Gorynych's issue, perhaps if we once a week were able to reset the skills (getting the money back), it will be a great fix.

 

Lord Gorynych,
I think if you take a look at some of the stuff community members such as Themo Lock and TheMadHermit put out you will find a lot of good information. But to give a quick and dirty answer for you to get started I recommend this:

Melee is the way to lvl up the fastest to start, also:

You are set up for swords/melee/locked deck as default when you start - go with that for a bit. Put skill points mostly in stats and health to start with (tactics tree). Get your Int/Str/Dex all up to 30 and your health to 20, then fill up the EarthMagic resist/str innates. Be sure and give yourself a light spell and a heal spell straight away.

As for stats, this is what i've been able to figure out so far, hopefully if i'm way out of the ballpark someone will correct me

Int: increases focus and focus regen rate, increases spell dmg, and decreases spell failure (fizzle)
Dex: affects swing speed, hit accuracy and crit chance
Str: increases hit points, health regen?, combat dmg (and possibly crit dmg?), and allows you to carry more (encumbrance).
Health increases hit points and health regen

I wouldn't put too many more points in swords - you probably will want to try out different weapons.

so...
Get plate mail from the armor vendor and pick up a "Greatsword" (laying about free for picking up at the Ardoris Arms dealer and Soltown blacksmith). Go to North Ravenswood follow the road around to the right and fight bandits until lvl 20 or so (there is an ankh to rez right there where you go in to the bandit's area, very convenient). Then go to Greymark and kill elves until around lvl 30 - 35.

also, raise your production skills! skinning is a great way to do this, also crafting stuff will raise it. Why? you may ask? well every level that you raise your production level you will receive a few adventuring skill points that you can apply to your combat/magic skill trees!

gold: best ways to get gold when starting out: loot elves and sell weps to an armorer or blacksmith for full price. process wood you gather and make bark bread. sell items that currently have no use in the game: black cotton, hemlock borer, emerald ? borer, tungsten, zinc, and uncut gems (the only gems currently used in game are rubies and sapphires). Take care whom you sell to, some npc's will actually give you full price for stuff, for example the alchemist will pay full price for uncut gems, some innkeepers will pay full price for bark bread, etc.

So, that's the advice I give to the new players I help out, hope it helps.

oh BIG p.s.! if you have pledge rewards like houses, calls, higher lvl deco - these all sell really well on the player vendors (ssshhh!!) [remember these are pre-alpha releases, you will get them all back next time there is a wipe.]

 

Sophi,
Thank you for your explanation! It would be really helpful for those who start.

What effective PvP builds can be suggested ? I read that mages now are the the only choice due to imbalance, but there are some magic spells that are not worth leveling.

 

The min-maxers currently use Enlightenment, healing grace touch and ray, death touch, ice fist, ice arrow, fire arrow, and death ray for the Firey Decay combo.

I'd encourage you to try out things in PvE and PvP that peopel ARENT using, to get data and bug reports on stuff that noone else is going to get data on, but its understandable if you dont want to since the price of skill training is blocking the ability for most folks to respec.

 

ahh Lord Gorynych, yvw!
I've probably given offense to someone though - making it easier on new players!!
nooooo!!
lol

 

by the time you're ready to try respecing as a mage (lvl 40 or 50 depending how good a mage you are) you will likely have enough gold to do it.
when you get to that point and still need some help give a holler out, either here or ingame, I go by Sophi ingame also.

names of some folks that i've noticed seem really good at pvp and that i see regularly ingame actually pvping:

Rixus
Bambino Ludovate
Chaos Darkbane
...... drat i know there are a couple others but their names escape me atm, sry if i didn't include you here, eek!

if you hang out by the owls head skill trainer you will most likely see some pvp action - note the skellies all over the nearby open lot.....