Quests are very.... different

Those were tips given to wish you the best. I was only trying to help. Of course you don't have to learn it all at once but would you want to know you can get 500 gold a day from the Oracle or how to send mail or anything? When you are ready I was pointing you in the direction to find notes to keep soloing and truly welcome to the game.

 

Thanks! I like the encounters right now. It's guaranteed to have resources. And even though usually there's a hard corner i collect resources in other the areas and leave. i'm doing as many of them as i can find!

 

The instructions say to stand near the devotionals. I've found the only way to trigger the buff is to jump into them. And on occasion, you still need to jump up and down once or twice. You can have two active at a time, and they last 8 hours. Honor and Sacrifice are pretty useful in general, one increases the rate your focus regenerates, one increases the rate your health regenerates. (Both can be found in Veritas Sanctuary, I might add...)

Food provides some decent buffs, especially the obsidian varieties and dragon stew. Lots of players' vendors sell them. You can two food buffs active at a time, the "better" the good the longer they last.

 

Stand in one of the notched corners and then just jump.

 

Ah. VS has both the ones I use most right next to each other, I've gotten into the habit of jumping into one, then out and into the next in one jump, then out the exit of the town on my way out.

 

I've found the easiest way to be jump up and run along the back of the pond, then jump again to get off. Got to watch those little knobs along the way, though, you wouldn't want to fall on them!

 

From the perspective of a new player who has never played any MMORPG before, but gave SotA a chance in the last couple of months:

I had to find so many workarounds to finish the main quests... if it wasn't for the forums and the wiki, I would be stuck thinking I was doing something wrong the whole time when in fact it was just a bug or lack of progression feedback. Important NPCs disappearing, weird graphical bugs, items not appearing when quests are done out of order, finished quests that never leave the journal, huge difficulty spikes... too many hurdles for new players.

I love the game for the economy and the crafting system, and feeling overwhelmed by the number of possibilities is great, but it sucks that new players constantly feel they are lost and doing something wrong.

 

If you want to solo all (up to the Oracle quests that go after truth love and courage) something like lvl 60-70.
The Quests are something you do as soon you reach the lvl you need to do them, how high depends on if you group or solo them.
In the end you get some nice exp but it is not thought as something you make levels with.

 

You can do the Hilt in group and it is no problem to bulldoze through hilt with a group of 6 as long they are not total dweebs.

 

Look for Mac2 youtube sota videos, if he does not have it as an tutorial it is not worth knowing about...

 

Even if it was totally bug free and such, this is an hardcore rpg (and the verdict is not out if it is really hardcore)
I played since UO 1 (in other words more than could be considerd sane) plus tabletop so well, I think for someone doing it first time it is very hard and a steep learning curve.
BUT!
Consider it an longterm thing, the game is not thought to be played for 40 hours and then you have beat the game.
It is more thought to be an 3-4 years thing or however long you have fun with it, ut definitly not the usual 30-40 hours

 

They need to update instructions then since they changed it. Walking by a devotional would change the ones that you had chosen to the one you were walking by. So the devs just made it so jumping in the water was the only way you got them.

 

It is possible to finish all the quests at level 50 or so. (The level changes so much from the XP awards, especially during 2xp, because you gain five or more levels from doing them!) If you have the right hints and know exactly where to go, even Grannus Colossus can be done solo at mid level.

 

devotionals would had been easier if they was designed as arches you walk thru

 

I think Grannus is kinda hard (if you not serious know how to game the AI) but Hilt solo is kinda pretty serious stuff for lower or mid level toons.
If you make it to the forge you have still to clean out the elementals and with the lava you need something like range to at least pull them of to safe ground...

 

I hear people keep saying this, but I've never seen a Dev say that's the way they were designed to work. I understand that many people compensate this way, but to me, until I hear a source, this is a just a player compensation to a lack (pacing/scaling) in the quest design.

Furthermore, from a story standpoint, most of the dialogue seems to convey a sense of urgency, not, "Oh this is something you can do when you get around to it." Any pausing should be explained as part of the story itself, which of course, it is not. This is a challenge though in a lot of RPG's. Many urgent quests give you all the time in the world to complete. There are some cool things you could do even in SotA to convey a greater sense of urgency, but enough said.

 

I've seen this a lot, the new players who come into the game and learn its complexity find that it truly opens up to quite an amazing sandbox. But those players have to embrace complexity like games of old, not the modern games on rails. Im only in my 40's and I have been waiting for a game like this for a long time, tired of all the MMO's on rails I have played since UO. We have guild mates who started this game at persistence and they are already higher level then me with more GM's (and I have 75 now).

Make sure you join the Shroud Discord channel where you can ask everyone anything question you have and they will answer.

Check out Mac's videos on everything. I used them recently to start doing quests for the first time (in 3 years).

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuBnlkpnnxUpUehDde53Jbw/videos


Im generally a olo player too but Ive been joining Upper Tears groups now for some time where you can get 1 mil xp and hour. You could be adv lvl 50 in a few hours at max and its nice and easy and people dont mind a low lvl person like you in the group, they enjoy helping.

See how easy it is:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/276608721

 

Right? I feel the same! And I'm seeing all those bugs and glitches you listed. It's bad enough SoTA has a 'hardcore' questing system (no hand-holding, not continuous), making other games look like a stroll in DisneyLand by comparison. But to have npc's not be there, city maps not showing where npcs are, quests not disappearing from the top right corner even after finishing them (also i had duplicated quests there), etc., etc... all adds up to a frustrating experience. I can only imagine all the players that have turned away from the game due to such frustrations.

 

I'm still here because of the economy/crafting/merchant/items/housing/decoration sandbox part of the game.

For the questing part, I think it shouldn't babysit players like other MMOs (it shouldn't be a stroll in the park), however, it should be bug/glitch free, and have supporting systems that work (in-game maps), and a story line / npc dialogue that is written in a way that is sensitive to the questing avatar's strength to help with pacing. In it's current state, the questing system gives the game a very bad impression that they were poorly designed and very shoddily put together.

Thanks for those links, I will check them out! I had my first brief dungeon experience the other day grouped with a few other very experienced players and it was fun!

 

Grannus is nothing to do with AI, and everything to do with speed, stealth, and knowing which red herring to avoid.

Hilt is about knowing that respawn is disabled, and slowly taking territory. Or go with friends. I will admit it was a pain in the ass because I couldn't just sneak around things.