Need a little help...

Those banners have nothing to do with getting the shroud. They are from quests that are local to the three outskirts areas. Arabella will tell you useful stuff, but she will mostly tell you about the other two paths, and not the one in the town you are in.

 

Oh yes true, but it does lead new people in the right direction to start on the actual Shroud quest. They will then at least have an idea of where to go to next.

 

***UPDATE***

Few things...

First and foremost I want to thank everyone who has replied and contributed to this thread. This validates everything ive heard about this community and that friggin rocks!

Second, I am doing better now. I found some good spots to grind, one of them I will actually tell you, because I dont think it will get nerfed, the other - well I will have to keep it a secret because im afraid it will get nerfed. The one that I found that I cant tell, it has some mobs that are relatively weak, die pretty fast, but drop at least 300-400 xp each. I watch my XP like a hawk when I kill a mob to gauge how much I get per kill and these drop a lot more than normal. The problem is, there are not many of these mobs but i found a pretty good rotation.

The other place I found is a bandit village just off of Aerie (cant remember name but its a swamp scene just northeast of aerie on the road). There is a place there in that swamp that has bandits and bandit leaders. I can take a max of 4 bandits at once or 2 bandits + 1 leader. They drop lots of weapons and vendor trash. Its not high tier stuff, but there are places in that village you can run to where mobs cant path and you can go heal up if you get in trouble. Its saved me a few times when I got overwhelmed. I just kill and loot till im full then go sell everything. For a noob I make pretty decent gold doing this. It gets boring after a while and then I leave but it definitely helps the pocketbook.

Third, My skills are doing well. I still haven't gotten into masterworking yet because im simply still too confused about how it works. I have some silver I mined from sieges and some iron and copper, but not a lot. Mining ores seems to take forever, as you cant really find many (or at least I can't) and the amount of ore it takes to make 1 ingot and then the amount of ingots it takes to make one blade and/or hilt is just insane. So I am going to wait on that until I can either get higher level and then just loot better vendor trash or kill in higher level areas that may have more ores to mine. I still need to read up on how to masterwork as well, will do that this weekend and may tinker around with it a bit.

I leveled up alchemy and can now make my own poisons! I make stinging poison, takes like 3 bottles and 5 nightshade or whatever and I get 3 poisons in return, which is cool.
My complaint about poisons is that they don't last long AT ALL!!! I think 1 bottle should give like 20-50 charges and then disappear, and then you have to re-apply. 20 seconds is barely long enough for 1 fight. The problem with this is that not only are the poison bottles pretty heavy because you have to carry a lot along with focus and health pots, but it is pretty expensive to craft them because you need so many. Just some constructive feedback, I feel like the poison system really needs to be looked at.

I shouldn't have to carry 50 poison bottles on me that will only last long enough to grind loot to sell just so I can make 50 more and only come out ahead by like 900g (this happened last night). If poisons lasted longer either 20-50 charges or a base longer amount of time (5-10 mins) it would be MUCH better. I feel like the poison system in the game is a huge gold sink and im kinda sad that I am even considering not even bothering with it, as it barely feels worth it. Maybe this is because I am just a noob and being a noob on this game you struggle, maybe once I put enough points into the apply poison skill it will help to make it worth it, but right now it sucks lol!

I know about farming certain mobs like spiders and scorpions but that puts me in a position of "do I kill critters and animals (insects) to harvest and use the organs to make my own poisons" or "do I say screw it and kill humanoids and loot rusty weapons to sell at the vendor and just use those proceeds to buy components and make my poisons that way"? In either case, its stopping gold revenue. That said, it is nice to apply a bleed plus fire damage plus poison to a mob and just watch them melt. I plan on testing stuff today. I am going to go where those bandits are and use fire/bleed/poison and see how much I can get ahead looting and selling stuff and see where my profit margin lies. Maybe buff up the "apply poison skill to where it gives a better chance of not consuming a poison? I don't know. Ill keep messing around with it and see where the cards fall.

Thats all I have for now, but I will keep reporting in here and there and replying to everyone, until then Safe Travels!

 

@Dread1313
1st of, welcome to the zoo

2nd. Congrats... you got @Mac2 (he's Mac in game) sharing advice. My advice: take his. Spend some time watching his videos ... he's gotten really good at those (that was an inside joke)
but seriously...he's the highest level player in the game and has forgotten more stuff about it than many of us know.

I will say this much though....be careful with your loot. A common mistake newer (actually many) players make is assuming that because one item says it's a +11 it naturally must be better than a +6.
This is definitely NOT the case. A +11 or whatever can be a pure POS if it has junk adds on it. Unfortunately, lots of that worthless junk stuff gets put on vendors instead of being scrapped like it should be . Consult with someone knowledgeable and save yourself heartache over wasted loot.

@Sara Dreygon crafts both armor and swords and as the highest level sword wielder knows what a good piece is and what junk is. I *think* he has a vendor in Brekken Bay... or just send a message and ask where his vendors are. These players are willing to freely share their knowledge.

Last thing before I shut up... your XP pool: Turn everything off. set to maintain (the little "-" symbol) and go build up that pool. The more XP you have in that pool the more efficient training skills is going to be. You also need to maintain an XP buffer because the time will be coming when you need it to offset any penalty you will get from death. The first million is the hardest; at least it was for me. After you get over that mental hurdle.. it's all downhill

There are a number of quests you can easily run as a new player and you can build up XP and get a feel for where things are by running around doing those. Again.. I think Mac has done vid's for many of those.

that's all I got.. have fun.. and enjoy!

-sol

 

@Dread1313 make sure you ONLY make Copper and Iron ingots with scrap! Get the recipe from the blacksmith in Owls Head Copper ingots from scap and the Iron one as well.

Scrap all the metal weapons and armor at the blacksmith table and start that scrap pile.

 

This is pretty sound advice! I have a ton of scrap lol and figured, well I guess I should start selling or else ill have to build a house out of that scrap pile I have... LOL!
All joking aside, this is what I value the most from this community, ADVICE AND INFORMATION. I dont care what anyone tells you, on my 40+ years on this rock one thing ive found to be more true than anything else, Knowledge really is true power! I dont want a hand out, but if you can tell me or teach me how to do something, well thats way more important to me than any handout.

I will head over to owls head and grab those recipes. Ill have to balance scrapping and selling stuff. What rule @Jaesun do you use when scrapping/vendoring stuff? What should I scrap, what should I vendor? Your help is greatly appreciated!

 

@Dread1313

here's another tip for you. go here: https://www.meretz.com/ download their app and link your account to it. You can earn Obsidian potions just for walking around. At the early stages of gameplay... the Obsidian capacity potion .. (sorry I forget the exact name of it) can be a big help as well as it will increase your carry capacity. OR if you have any COTO's (Crowns of the Obsidian.. an in game currency) already just go buy a pot now and enjoy staying out longer on the hunt.

 

@Dread1313 Contact Robyn Hood in-game and I'll get you set up with some better swords, for free.

 

Humanoid creatures drop so many wooden weapons that only have wood scrap when you scrap them, sell all of that crap, unless you need wood scrap. Wood scrap is however still useful, you can sell it or turn it into wood pulp and sell that too.

Any weapons or armor that has metal scrap when you scrap it I always scrap. Do note, some wooden weapons drop scrap metal (like hammers).

And lastly, if you didn’t know, you can scap 15 items at a time. Just drag 15 items into the crafting window ant then click scrap!

 

How the hell do I find someones trader that has a specific item they have for sale that I want (source: https://shroudoftheavatar.net/player/Vladamir+Begemot) if the source doesnt even say where the merchant that has said item for sale is located?????????? Am I missing something here?

(Edit: Disregard I guess, apparently there isnt a system in place xD)

 

You can check the market place here too to locate an item. Yes we don't have a perfect system but there are towns that are considered trade towns with mostly rows of vendors. You know like shopping malls. It takes a while to figure it all out. You are hopefully getting some answers here.

 

Thanks Majoria70! <3

 

I followed Mac's videos for the entire main quest up to getting the Shroud (story line complete).

 

@Dread1313 - First off, welcome to SOTA! I love seeing new players and their enthusiasm for this game. Yes, it can be confusing because the "tutorial" and questing system here don't lead you from area to area to progress your leveling like other games do.

Usually, games will give you a set of quests in a starter area and on the last one there, it sends you to the next harder area for another set of quests, and then onto the next, etc. Shroud is different in that the main storyline is separated into 3 separate quest lines that start in 3 separate areas of the map. Here, the best option is to do each "tutorial" scene, then do the related "Outskirts" scene, then move onto one of the other 2 starting "tutorial" scenes and their Outskirt scene before moving onto the 3rd tutorial scene.

Once you complete all the Outskirts and their quests, they will send you to one of the 3 major towns (Aerie, Resolute, Soltown/Ardoris). These all have an NPC named Arabella who will direct you to other storyline related quests that will advance you towards obtaining the Shroud of the Avatar. These towns all have side quests to help you gain experience and earn some coin too if you don't want to move on just yet (some are quick and easy). Your goal however should be to level all 3 of the main storylines (pertaining to Truth, Love, and Courage) simultaneously.

So, do a little of each one for a while... maybe until an objective seems too hard... and then continue one of the other lines.

This makes you jump around the map instead of a linear progression across the world like other games... but it's how the developers intended you to play through it.

Eventually, the 3 lines will merge into one objective and by then you should be strong enough to handle that phase of questing.

That said, you can still randomly grind and/or explore any scene of the game along the way if you wish and come back to the storyline quests later. If this is something you are interested in, make sure you hover over the little "i" icon for an adventure scene with your mouse to get some info on it before entering. It will tell you the Tier level, resources you can harvest, as well as whether there are any available/active quests in there for you. So, if you feel you are comfortable in a Tier 2 scene, you can search for other Tier 2's or perhaps move onto a 2+ or a 3 if you want tougher mobs and better xp.

Anyway, I don't want to write a novel here. Hope that helps you on your journey.