Much improved in R13 - random notes and feedback

I mostly skipped the last few releases, as I really hated deck combat when it was introduced.

In this release, there was an orientation session and hints which helped a lot. I started off with the default locked deck, but then I tested the regular card deck (whatever that is called), and it wasn't terrible!

I love the overland map, I tried some quests. Conversation is much improved. No more constant "Step back!" spam. I found that I could handle some monsters, like wolves, bears, skeletons, kobolds, but many are still too strong for my 8th level character. Either that, or I really suck at combat. I eventually settled on a mage with staff, and for groups of 3 monsters, I run around back and forth with autoattack on, slowly wearing each one down until it's dead. Not sure if you are supposed to do that. It isn't super fun. I'm not sure how else to take on groups of monsters by myself. I know ideally, you would try to "pull" one at a time, but when you are dropped in the middle of three in an overland encounter, you don't have that option.

Is the kingsport sewers supposed to be for high level characters? Because I can normally dispatch skeletons no problem, but I got killed instantly a couple times in a row. In the last release, I made the misfortune of entering kingsport sewers first. Oops. No wonder why I hated it, and assumed the whole game was that way. It would be kind of nice if there was some kind of indication before you enter a dungeon of what level you should be. Getting quickly killed shouldn't be the indicator. I also attempted to deal with the red sash bandits (which I did in the first couple of releases), but the hordes of giant spiders at the entrance prevented me from even checking it out now. I guess my running back and forth trick doesn't work on them.

Since reagents are too much of a bother, I just load up on lower level skills that don't require them. I suppose once I know where to harvest a reliable supply, I might invest some points in those skills.

I tried out crafting. Butchery, Tanning, etc... It was ok, but it seems that some of the crafted items cost less than the ingredients. I've seen that in many other games, and I never really got why. Why would anyone craft something if they could make more from the raw ingredients?

Anyhow, thanks to a sickday today, I got the holiday hat from the R13 Tour, and I'm looking forward to R14!

 

Awesome write up. I have just begun learning the game yesterday and I'm curious what is the "holiday hat" you got? Thanks for the info.

 

The holiday hat is the Christmas looking Santa hat. You get it by doing the R13 grand tour. Which will be taken down in a couple days for the R14 grand tour

 

Also when I got to level 9, I added back some light armor skills and was able to almost totally eliminate slugs. Much better.

I now have two decks, a locked deck and one random deck with a locked heal slot. The locked deck blows through focus too fast and I'm forced to run back and forth doing the auto attack. Ugh.

The problem with swapping locked and random decks is that you would need to spend your skill points differently to optimize each of them. Like the random deck works better with a bunch of skills that speed up your draw and remove slugs. That would be wasted when you swapped to locked.
Edited for clarity (I hope)

 

<<click here for how to video fo yule hat

Here is a video on how to get the yule hat or holiday hat. You won't be able to get it after the next release and it will become a rare item only bought from another player who has it. I only missed the first one. I'm sorry to say I did too
Hey foobard welcome back and welcome Eetheom. You are brave to play a mage foobard. I perhaps took the easy way out and bought the augmented armor from a vendor and spec'd a warrior for survivial.
I love playing warriors anyway so not an issue really. Now that my level is up in the 40's I am trying out the archer build for the first time. Everything is looking better and better I do agree.

 

I would give deck advice but thing are likely about to change a bit XD good feedback.

 

Thank you! Hopefully I have time to finish it

 

additional notes:
It is much easier to pry a staff from the cold dead hands of a kobold mage than to craft one yourself. Plus it has a cool skull at the top!

I spent a while trying to figure what class of weapon a staff was, bludgeon or polearm. I think it is neither. You can't put skill points into staffs so you can look like a badass when your focus runs out. I haven't tried wands, but I imagine they work the same way, except with less points of damage. :-(

I did most of the R13 Grand Tour in single player online, because I remember in prior releases the lag from multiplayer was unbearable. Towards the end, I tried multiplayer, and it was much better. There is still a half or quarter second pause when a new person appears on the screen. That would be unacceptable in a released game, but this is pre-alpha, so I'm sure they will fix that eventually. One benefit to multiplayer for people doing the tour, is that other players can distract enemies so you can walk straight through busy sections to get what you need. Of course they can also pull mobs in your direction, whether on purpose or not.