Rejoined today after many betas off...fairly lost

Hi there folks,

Came back to check on the game after some time away and I can see the game is really moving along. For the most part, everything has changed since I last played, most of it for the better. When I last played, gems had just been discovered to be able to imbue weapons. I had a lovely pair of swords, one with lightning and one with fire, that I made and happily ran around smashing things with.

I'm really lost on combat. Is there no auto-attack? Having to constantly click the left button is something I cannot do (nerve damage to hands) so I'm assuming that is one reason fights seem odd to me. Decks are wildly different than they used to be, and while I understand the random ones, apparently you can also force specific random ones in a slot? Does the white dot on my screen mean anything during combat? Do I have to get it in the red circle to hit the mob? Do I have to aim?

Skills are much more complicated than before too. Before you simply bought them, now they level up, which makes more sense organically, but am I filling a bar somewhere? And I have so many skills. Not sure if that's bad, but it sure seems complicated. Did I overbuy?

Lastly, weapons and armor - I crafted my own before, while now I run around in the stuff I got when I materialized on the planet. Are there different levels of armor or is it just cloth/leather/chain/plate and then skills take that base and adjust? And should I find a better bow somewhere? Pretty sure mine was made by Acme Inc.

 

Welcome back ...I'm sure someone will be along to give you lots advice very soon From me, if you would like a nice bow to start with, just add me or whisper me in game and ill give u a nice one to start with.

 

Auto-attack can be turned on in Game options. The thing in the middle of the screen indicates what the game will auto target if there isn't something selected (or for the 'use' command).

Gained experience goes into one of two pools, adventuring or production, and skills draw from the appropriate pool as you use them(Pool values are at the lower right hand corner of the appropriate skill window).

There are different levels. Plate, for example, goes Plate < Augmented Plate < Epic Plate. There are also material bonuses. Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Currently, you have to repeatedly hit the T key to toggle auto-attack on (even when you have it preset to on, it turns off every single damn time you exit combat).

Yes, you have to aim now, but targeting has issues (you don't always hit the target you are aiming at). You can use G to select a specific enemy (though it doesn't always help due to bad targeting mechanics).

We have a faux skill use system, the experience is listed in the skill menu (so it isn't easy to see when fighting as the menu fills up major portion of screen) and actually training everything will leave you very xp starved (meaning you use skills but they don't go up, which is stupid for a skill use system). You are able to select things to train and not train, but overall they just made it far more complicated than it needed to be. I use the assumption it is so devs can grief new players as it isn't clearly explained in game nor does it really help the intended focus of stopping afk bot leveling.

Armor and weapons are useless to craft and way too expensive due to bad recipe amounts and RNG item destruction. They add minimal benefits, but mainly the only thing that actually makes a difference is your adventurer level and the skill level that you are using. There are lots who are able to survive quite nicely on starter gear without ever having to go to upgraded/crafted armor.

 

Thank all three of you for the reply. Bow Vale, I may take you up on that offer if I don't feel too bad about begging.

Sorry...this really confused me. So if I open the skill window (K, I think?) there will be a pool of experience from my romping around I should be spending? I did not notice an on screen experience bar, as typical for the genre.

Thanks for the attack explanation Moiseyev. I can handle pressing T each fight over the endless clicking. It sounds like you went into more detail on Arlin's post, and I'm honestly even more confused. When I get home in a few hours, I look forward to opening this window and seeing...something.

The new player experience is fairly poor, however this is still a game in beta so I didn't feel it was worth complaining overmuch about. I managed to fall off the island while a ghost, and /stuck does not work there (as you have no spawn). I had no choice but to delete the character. The response to clicks is sluggish and animation is a bit robotic, but still see progress from when I last played. I do expect that upon release it will have the necessary polish.

 

Welcome back Evadrepus. I am Majoria in game, please feel free to friend me in game. It helps to have a big friends list to ask questions and find someone online to help. Yes there have been so many updates and releases to improve this game and it is still happening as we speak. For me since skills are uncapped or soft capped and yes use based was implemented, I am going in many trees. Resistance is just coming in, some need to eat came in with focus dropped down so we need food and buffs to help us to keep ourselves generated and alive, Which is great, it was needed to make us strategize and for combat to be more challenging and interesting. That aspect will only be improved and balanced out and hopefully food and eating, sleep, and other considerations will be necessary for things we do in the game. So look at your trees and for me I am grabbing innates for resistance atm. I play a 2 handed axe bludgeoning warrior but I have fire innate, earth innate, etc, and since I play a paladin type or pretend I do I have much heal to support others I party with. Also copies of mind wipe to switch out the deck when I want different choices to show up or need choices to show up , I lock a healing ray, I lock rez because I do play healer sometimes, I have the first four slots as my hits, 1 slot for arrows for distance hits, 1 slot for buffs and stuffs and for the rest I am still working it out as I learn and try things. I am not one to have various decks atm. I do hear people who change out their decks for different situations, but so far I am not one of them. Atm I am lucky to work on the one I have during times when I have a moment to do so.

So in your thread look forward to lots of ideas for you. I do hope you enjoy being back, lots of amazing things. Hit me up anytime and I will give you some sheet music and instrument if you need so you can see that amazing feature of the game. *cheers*

edited - oops I meant 'mind wipe' not mind lock which is good as well at certain times. So I edited my comment.

 

No your xp will allocate to any skill that is set to train. As much as it is hated/debated/ranted/mywayisbetter/ all in all... there are 2 ways to deal with skills.. Just pick up the skills you want as they become available from the trainers. ( don't micro manage anything, this is by far the slowest way to gain skill, as your experience earned is split amongst every skill you are learning at that time.) use the "K" menu and on the top left corner of every skill you have there is a small arrow that is green pointing up. ( by default) if you click that arrow it changes to a - , to a bronze up arrow, or a double red down. Each of them do different things, hovering over them will give you a tool tip that explains each state. This is micro managing your skills which is the 2nd way to level. Turn only a couple up set others to maintain and ping pong them as you see fit.
There is no wrong way to level regardless what anyone tells you.. some ways are just not as efficient. I too am coming back after a 8 month hiatus, and yes a lot has changed!!! Msg me in game if you need help with anything and i'll do my best to help you out

 

For adventuring, for example, killing monsters gets you experience which goes into your adventuring pool, displayed at the lower right of your adventurer skill window. (Crafting/Production has a different tab in the skill window and is handled separately). When you perform an action that uses a skill either directly (using Thrust) or indirectly(using a blade skill or auto-attacking with a blade for the 'Blade' passive at the top of the Blades tree) experience is drawn out of this pool and applied to the skill.

Related to this, skills can individually be set to improve(green triangle), maintain(yellow triangle), ignore(dash), or actively lower (double red triangles):

Improve: Works like I explained above. When you die, experience will be drawn from your pool to prevent skill decay.
Maintain: Experience will not be spent to improve this skill, but when you die, experience will be drawn from your pool to prevent skill decay.
Ignore: Experience will not be spent to improve this skill, and pooled experience will not be spent to prevent skill decay.
Lower: This skill will decrease rapidly and some of the experience spent on it will be refunded to you. (If you want to just reset everything and get all the experience you can use an obsidian book of unlearning, but let's ignore that for now).

The amount of experience that is drawn from the pool to improve a skill is based on the total amount of experience in the pool(not included experience already applied to skills, just the number in the lower right). Generally, until you get more used to the system, it's a good idea to set everything to 'maintain' and only raise one skill at a time, since training a lot of skills at once can lead to slow progression.

EDIT: Quest experience is added to both pools, not split, which can be helpful early game for crafters.

 

Would need a dev to crunch the numbers but I believe you can have every adventuring skill and innate built up to level 40 and it would cost less than one skill at GM. Try everything!

 

Welcome back @Evadrepus !!!

Feel free to add me to your friend and whisper if you need any help, advice or just company

 

Welcome back to SotA, Evadrepus.

It will take some time to find which keys are comfortable for you to use. Many of them can be re-mapped in the screen under the "Gears" icon at the top right of your screen.

The ones I changed that were most helpful to me, were the 'e' key for interaction with a door, NPC, container, and for gathering/skinning/looting; and the 'z' key for sheathing and unsheathing my weapon.

 

Welcome back to the game!

 

Hey Evanrepus. Super nice to meet you! Please add me as a friend and reach out if I can help with anything. Welcome back.

 

Welcome back Evadrepus!