Question About Armor & Weapon Quality & Ratings...

Im at a Combat Vendor in Vertas right now as im posting (offline) & i am thoroughly confused. Theres Elven Archer, Elven Elder Archer, Founders Leather, (plain) Leather Armor, Leather Guard & Royal Founders Leather & all of it is light leather armor. The same names are for Cloth, Chain, Plate & so on, but...whats better (stronger) armor or are they all the same considering their all light leather & is the only difference appearance (looks)? If the only difference is looks then im going to assume that the armor tree from lightest to heaviest goes something like this - Cloth*Leather*Chain (Chainmail)*Mail*Plate. If not or if i left some out please correct me. Same thing for weapons, Ornate Basket Hilt, Ornate Elven Longsword, Founders Cutlass, Royal Founders Cutlass, all are 6-18 damage, so again i assume the only difference is appearance? This is really the only game i can remember that is so vague on details about weapons & armor that i really dont know whats best or strongest. Heres some examples of other games weapon details when you mouse over the weapon, compared to ours here...



​

Im just saying its very confusing, especially when it coes to the armor, but the weapons also. Oh also a question, is there a list somewhere that lists ALL the weapons & armor available in the game? If so where might that be? An if your curious why i keep posting here its because its the only place i can post unless i pay...what...i think $39 or $49 dollars to not be a "visitor" in the game anymore (basically im stuck here till i buy a copy of the full game xD)....

 

P.S. Whats better Cotton Cloth Leggings +1 or Leather Leggings & same question-Cotton Cloth Gloves +2 or Leather Gloves? Thats what i mean by confusing, i dont know what to buy to improve my armor & weapons now that i finally found a "Non Player Vendor" with good stuff... ......

 

The plus doesn't really mean anything at this point. The name of the item doesn't actually tell you how good an item is, unfortunately. For armour you want to look at damage resistance and fizzle chance primarily and then bonus attributes. For weapons look at damage numbers and other bonuses.

 

Khalest, the game is on sale at the moment. It's only $19 (until next Friday).

The only way to know how good a crafted weapon or armor is, is by hovering the mouse over it and pressing the shift key. It'll show all the masterworkings and enchantments that have been done on it. "Minor" is always less effective, but also takes away less durability. Also look at the durability of the item. Sometimes you can get something with awesome masterworks/enchantments but only 30 durability (which means you have to repair it often, and it won't last as long).

In SotA, apart from a few artifacts, player made gear is best. The Ornate Elven Longsword of which you posted a screenshot above is only for looks. You can salvage it to get a pattern which you can apply to a good player made weapon.

 

Ya i found it curious that the armor & weapons we pick-up out in the world (litterally off the ground or a body) usually have better bonus attributes than the stuff we pay for. Like the standard Longsword 5-16 damage i think, yet you get a Highland Defender Sword or a Rusted Elven Longsword or a Rusted Bandit Dagger & they have omg like up to 3 extra attributes like +40% weap damage & Poison & other things......

 

Hey there @Khalest. I can see how it could be confusing! Some quick pointers that helped me out:

1. Don't judge a weapon by the + [number] after the name. Look at it's stats!
2. Just because two weapons do the same amount of damage does not mean they are the same. There is no system where for swords, say, short swords are less powerful than long swords. Instead, different weapons will have different bonuses associated with them. Short swords are faster, better for poisoning opponents, while long swords hit more targets per swing and do more damage.
3. Some of the fancy sounding weapons you mention are indeed cosmetic changes, though, but will have the same basic stats as a general variety: for example, in that screenshot the Ornate Elven Longsword has the same general stats as a generic longsword.
4. Ways weapons differ from one another:

• Weapon size and weight: the heaver a weapon is, the slower it swings, but the more you can charge up an attack with Free Attack enabled. Charged attacks increase the amount of base damage a weapon does on a swing.
• # of targets hit: how many targets maximum that can be hit with a single swing of weapon (from 1 for a bow up to 4 for a polearm)
• Damage: Some weapons have higher minimum damage, some weapons have higher maximum damage, and weapons differ in the range (max - minimum) of damage, meaning some offer more consistent damage output than others
• Critical: base chance for a weapon to land a critical hit
• Strength bonus: the amount of bonus damage your weapon can do depending on how strong you are (bigger, heavier weapons tend to have higher bonus to damage from your strength, like two handed weapons)
• Parry: the amount of damage reduced from an enemy attack when you successfully parry. Some weapons are very good at parrying and reduce incoming damage a lot.
  
• Item effects: some weapons have natural bonuses, like daggers with their bonus to having poisons on them.
  
• Components: different types of materials used to craft a weapon confer a variety of bonuses, and going in to this is a whole topic on to itself.

5. Ways armor differ from one another:

• Cloth tends to improve your Focus pool, letting you use more abilities, but of course provide less protection. More powerful versions of cloth tend to improve magic abilities. A cloth chest piece allows you to use the Light Armor skill tree.
  
• Leather provides more protection than cloth, make casting magic a little bit harder, and tend to improve your ability to dodge or evade attacks. A leather chest piece allows you to use the Light Armor skill tree.
  
• Chain provides more protection than leather or cloth, allows you to shrug off some physical damage, and can make casting some magic pretty difficult. A chain chest piece allows you to use the Heavy Armor skill tree.
  
• Plate provides the most protection and allows you to shrug off the most damage, but makes casting some magic really hard. A plate chest piece allows you to use the Heavy Armor skill tree.

 

Another piece of information: Different materials give different bonuses to armor and weapons. I hope a fellow player can give you a good link where that is summarized.

Ingame you can travel to Rinzai. They have a crafting museum. There you can see all armors and weapons that are craftable with all available materials, and by hovering your mouse (+shift) over them you can see their stats, so you can make up your mind what fits your playstyle best.

 

Can't we just drop the "+" on weapons? It's not only meaningless, it's often actually misleading to new players who will always see a +5 as better than a +3, whether that's the case or not.

Or at least, just drop the number. The plus can just be an indicator that an item is better than the base version in some way, whether it's a masterwork, enchant, or exceptional.

 

(makes a Home Improvement grunt) *UUHHEEHHHUHH!?!?!?* Me go buy to....err....I think i shall avail myself of this fortuitous opportunity & save myself some readied assets...i do say thats a jolly good price old friend i am obliged to you for the enlightenment......

 

Also btw, How The Hell Do We Cross The River? Or are we not meant to at a low level? I mean besides the few & far between bridges. It seems like the SotA world is divided into 3-5 major areas, each inaccessible to low lvl chars because we'd have to go through a lvl 5 Adventure Area to get to the other areas & my noob butt would die instantly xD I mean i have my hands full in the lvl 1 areas. Ive jus lately started playing online & i found theres a BIG difference in EVERYTHING. Like lower prices when we sell. less availability of items (weap, armor, etc), ALOT harder enemies, less towns & so on, you know...
Earlier today i barely made it outta a Lvl 1 Kobold Stronghold with 3 hp left just from being attacked by 2 Kobolds. Oh & thats another difference, lol, the online bad guys are ALOT BIGGER than their offline counterparts. Their like 2 - 2 1/2 times the size, at least Kobolds are....Now granted i was on my new mage & im not a good caster...but still man i actually verbally said OH ****! outloud......I kinna scared myself more hearing me say it outloud than the 2 Kobolds did when they jumped out at meh.....lolz...Well im off to Photoshop to hopefully finish my new signatures for here....Thank you all again for all the great, prompt & thurough help here in the boonies of the forums xD This is definatly a class act forum full of good people

 

Rivers on the overworld map can only be crossed through bridges. Yes, the map is split up into areas on purpose. There are three ways to get from one to the other:

1. Walk. The passes are dangerous, though, so best try not to do it alone at low levels. Or run through, get killed, and keep running as a ghost, ressurrect on the other side.
2. Use a moongate/lunar rift. The destination changes every 9 minutes. This resource can help you to determine when it is which destination: http://xi6.com/i/sotaclock.html
3. Add other players to your friends list and buy/make teleport scrolls. Use the scrolls to teleport to a player that is in the area you want to go to.

 

I second lunar rifts. It can be annoying, because of the frequency with which you just miss the gate to your desired destination, but they are better than trying to run through passes at low level. I used them pretty much exclusively early on.

That said, there are only really four "zones." The west, northwest, north, northeast, and a sliver of the south are all connected. There is boat just outside Aerie that will take you across the channel to Elysium, and from there, you can take a boat outside Xenos to Etceter. You can also take a boat roght outside Central Brittany that takes you to Hidden Vale/Owl's Head.

There is the center zone, where Resolute/Highvale/Jaanaford are. The easiest non-rift way to get there is to go around to Nightshade Pass, not far from Central Brittany. It's a only tier 3 pass, unlike the others. If you just run and ignore the enemies (bandits and wolves) you can get down into the valley and jump into the lake. Swim across (which avoids the troll, and a fair amount of other enemies) and run back up the other side.

The southeast area is the next easiest. There is a gap in the mountains on the overworld guarded by a troll. If you're sneaky, you might be able to get through without getting sucked into the troll encounter, but that's hard to pull off. If you do get pulled in, just run. You start on a bridge, with a troll on either end. The trolls don't come on to the bridge very far, so you're safe at the center section. Wait for one of the trolls to be looking the other way, then run. Use Sprint or Dash if you have them (plus if you double-tap and hold the "W" key, you'll run, if you haven't already figured that out) and run past. Even easier, one of the trolls will sometimes spot some nearby bears, and run off to attack them. If that happens, you can just run right past without worrying about getting attacked. If the troll does spot you, he might chuck a boulder, which at low enough level might kill you in one hit. (If that happens, make sure you resurrect at an ankh before leaving the scene, or you'll get all kinds of death penalities.)

The last zone is Drachvald. There's no easy way to get there, aside from the lunar rift that goes to Brookside. There's sort of a sneaky way through the tier 5 pass, but you'll still be running past a lot of mobs that can mess you up quickly.

 

MY GOD! THANK YOU blacksheepboy You have enlightened this poor soul to the point of making me a shinning becon in the night sky! Really, you answered my query more indepth than i think anyone ever has here (no offense to anyone else who has answered/helped me, you've all done such a great job ) I mean seriously, i post in alot of forums & "IF" i get responses at all their ho-hum or lazy at best. Everyone here is extremely patient (you need alot of that sometimes to deal w/me xD) & knowledgable & willing to help & go the extra mile....*starts to well up with tears*...NOT! but no your all great people, i wish all forums had this class of people in them.....

 

And we wonder why new players don't hang with the game..... even I learned something. How about linking to the wiki from in the game ?

 

has existed for ages. /sotawiki

 

Nice. I didn't even know about it. But what I really meant was... you know links from the item. Something you can click on in each item.

Most people don't know about the / commands, especially new players.

 

Different materials do? Im a bit at a loss, i thought we didnt have a choice in the materials we use to craft items, or am i misinterrpretting your statement?

Oh, a museum? Well looks like this player is gonna go on a we lil trip here soon

 

YES, I second, third & forth that suggestion. Because every other game ive played that has had that "+" system (especially the 2 i referenced above DDO & Vindictus) the + can mean a world of difference in the weapon. As it is right now DDO goes up to a +15 weapon & Vindictus raised theirs recently to go to a +20, but to get a +20 on a weapon (which no player to my knowledge has yet) you have a HALF of 1% chance to hit that when "Enhancing" a weapon or armor. But anyway yes its very very misleading for new players even if their veterans of MMO's like myself. (actually i get confused easily but thats a diff story all together )...

 

We do have a choice of materials. Every component of a craftsable item can be made of a different wood, metal, cloth, or leather. And each of them give the crafted item special properties. Perhaps I'll find my misplaced link sooner or later if no-one else steps in to give that information.

 

When looking at a crafted item press and hold the CTRL key. You can then see what materials it is made of.

And I also highly recommend you visit that museum! It’s very informative.