Posts made by Vialli

I have had issues when trying to use the Orbs of Proficiency when ranking up.
All 3 times I wasn't wearing any proficiency enchants which don't stack.

First issue:
Trying to rank Venomancy from rank 1 to rank 2, the pop up said you need 1 orb, which I had in inventory. I hit accept and the orb disappeared and I didn't rank up. It happened a second time. I did report that to discord.

Today (Orb of cryomancy)
15.21 game time in Ravens Crest, I tried to rank from rank1 Cryomancy to rank 2, again the orb of cryomancy disappeared without moving up rank. I was mounted for this. I took screen shots and spoke to Maltos. I had an orb of restoration which per Maltos I tried to rank up standing only (no inventory or bank open, and not in combat) and it did work.

Not sure what happened with the first 3 rank up attempts.

I saw something interesting on the patch notes about how mage is still the most used but not so much staff.
I take this another way.

A lot of players I see are using typical mage spells but are not mages. They are melee but they drop totems and use mage cc.

I posted this on reddit also:

Mage Build

No builds out there yet, and there are no proven meta builds so here is my best mage build.

General Advice for early game

I would advise to start as a pyromancer, as fire is good for early game. You can add different builds later as you learn more spells.
Wherever you plan to live (Aehern or Terra), I would advise spending your first 40 hours of game time while safe on Aehern. Build knowledge, and specifically clear all the goblin camps and complete the knowledge for the Goblin Shamans (the goblin camps are just South West of the stargate on Aehern). The goblin shamans give the totem spells at 100%, which are key to being a good mage. By the time you have done your safe hours in Aehern you can head over to Terra.

You can have several mage builds (fire, ice, shock, poison, acid). I will concentrate on ice, but the talent tree is the same for most builds:

Talent Tree
Intelligence Tree:
4 points in +2 mana regeneration
+1 intelligence
4 points in either +2.5% Cooldown reduction or +5% mana regeneration
+1 intelligence
4 points in cantrip expert (5% cooldown reduction on tier 1 spells)
1 point cantrip master (20% spell dmg increase tier 1 spells)
Perception Tree:
4 points in 1% critical chance
+1 perception
4 points in +10% critical dmg
+1 perception
4 points in true striker (ability advantage)
1 point in Inevitable (first attack cant be dodged and crit attack)
4 point in sharp caster (+3 crit chance – between int and perception)
1 point in overcharge (+25% crit dmg for magic abilities)
Constitution Tree:
4 points + health/magical armor
+1 constitution
4 points +magic armor/health
+1 constitution
Strength Tree:
Health regen/physical armor
whatever you feel like for the rest

Gear
Scholar armor (made with primal weave) for high resists on magic
Imbue / Enchant = T2 Evasion + T2 health regeneration on all pieces
Ice staff (T2 evasion, T2 crit chance)

Use www.fracturedtools.com for help with reagent and enchant needs

This caps evasion at 1000, with high armor on scholar you can take a beating (using healing and bandages too).

Spells
Frost blast
Magic missile (this can be replaced, I use it to keep scholar bonus up)
Frost Nova
Totem Of Winter
relocate
Minor healing (change for higher heal spells if needed)
Globe of spell protection / Beast appropriate armor (fire armor for fire elementals etc..)

Drop totem, open with Frost nova, Frost blast, Magic missile (or other) to keep scholar bonuses up. You can keep enemies frozen and dps hard. This build is great for the volcano areas on Terra with sulphurate and blazium deposits. You destroy fire elementals and greater fire elementals. Storm totems are good for earth elementals and trolls. For other builds swap fire skills and fire totem in, etc..

No idea about PVP viability, but for PVE with really high defense and good dps I can solo an ogre easily

Let me know your build thoughts

There is a full PVP planet coming in the future. Like other games a lot of PVP'ers will stay on Aehern as they like to attack people who are not PVP.

The crafting system is much better than it used to be. In early beta's you had to own the right recipe which made it almost impossible to get the set unless you were part of a big guild/town who could farm the big mob camps or purchase out right the recipes.

Now anyone can make Tier 2 gear, the cost is essence and gold. I thinking crafting has reached the point that crafting is for personal use, as intended.

Set up location at a town, use bank for gold and material storage
Farm grokos/goblins camps
Farm human bandit camps
When have about 4K gold, build house (2x2 is easiest to make in terms of materials)
Get a forge (inside house), smeltery outside house
Farm harder camps with guild or friends
Build distillery, essence extractor
farm crystal mats
Make t2 gear (by the time you have all the mats gold isn't an issue).

Use the wiki, and fracturedtools.com to help as guide to stations and imbue/enchants

If you have cleared the Groko camps, move to Human bandit camps.
In an hour you can easily make 1-2K gold/hr. Also the loot drops can be sold at the auction house (The Shire town near the Stargate has a very active auction). I would advise that you keep all reagents you collect as you will need them for upgrades later in the game.

If you are early in the game and still inside your 40 hour safe timer, I would suggest you get over to Aehern when someone opens the stargate. Through the stargate near the town of Hangover is the goblin mob area (South west of Hangover town). If you want to progress in the game as a mage you will NEED to complete the knowledge on the goblin shamans as the totem spells are the best in the game for mages. Stay in Aehern until this is completed, collect all new knowledge on plants.

Only move back to Terra (with all your good reagents) when you are near the end of the safe timer.

The old tutorials starting at the 'starter' towns were a bit better. It walked you through food, killing things, armor and crafting and then sent you out in the wild.

Tip for the future don't leave the tutorial island until you have killed all the mobs up to 100% and spent the knowledge points.
If you skip the island you lose out on about 5,000 knowledge points which is a big deal. It is bad that it is not really clear.

There are a few problems with recipes, durability, drop rates and the economy.
The current bottle neck is on the drops for rare items to make the armor. I personally or my guild would never sell any of the rare items (will stones, death crystals), as they are too valuable. I don't see much more items hitting the market as the respawn times means that people will fight over those resources so they still wont make it to the market.

The durability on gear is so high that there isn't or won't be much of a player economy when the game launches. If a poor set doesn't die after 4 weeks why worry about trying to become a crafter and work on the economy. Cut the durbality of poor and normal items way down.

No gold sink in game, gold has a meaningless value. Crafting costs are not high as you can solo farm 2K gold in under an hour at sea trolls or bandits.

The recipe drops are weirdly random and once you have them all as a guild what do you need from the economy?

Enchanting system is broke for materials. Some enchants super easy, some impossible or share resources with gear crafting items.

My rant over too!

So I have 60 talent points, been to all the mob locations, have a house , have a lot of 'stuff' and I am rich.
What else is there to do? The answer for me is not much else to play and/or test out. I am taking a back seat until more 'game' gets released. Most of Tasty Swords and a couple other alliance guilds are in the same boat and have stepped back from the game. Tasty Kaos and Farmville will decay and die.

Common Feedback:

1. PVE is easy, all the game content can nearly be solo'd. What to do next? End game PVE? Legends compete for resources with rare mats from gear. Too expensive to do legendary bosses
2. Would never go evil in PVP, as you can't afford to lose your gear. You die in T2/3 gear and you need 5 rare materials for another set that has less than 1% drop rate. Every death as an evil player in PVP requires at least 500-1000 high end mobs to be killed in a grind. PVP is very rare, and we need more. Durability hit would be fine, but don't take the gear!
3. Drop rates (enchanting / gear grind). The drop rates are so low on high end mats it is just a grind
4. Enchanting is not balanced. Some T2 recipes are easy others hard, no math has been applied to the stats on reagents to work out what combos can be used per enchant. Previous alpha's were good and cost a lot of money to take chances with it
5. No gold sink, all MMO's need one or rampant inflation kills game. New players can never get a foothold without a mechanism to keep gold supply down (plot costs and city upgrades are not ones, I can grind 2K in less than 60 minutes in bandit hotspots).
6. Advanced smelters please fix them
7. Why add weather when so many other things to fix?

We want the game to be a success and I am keeping my fingers crossed. I will be back when new content comes out, along with a lot of others no doubt!

We have had plenty of discussion on how to handle permissions in a town. When the game launches you are likely to see 100's of residents in each town. Some may be helpful, some may be agents, some may be thieves, you have no idea.
We discussed in TK having a town with set blacksmith tech but no smelters (minimum) in town and we would do all crafting in our own or housing plots (too much time and resources to be wasted).

For farming if you have no control over the residents the town (multiple towns) can easily die. We are in BETA with limited numbers yet people have been sabotaging or stealing the farm produce. There needs to be permissions for farming at least. Leave the town Blacksmith and Tannery alone if you want (I would use my own plot for mats anyway).

Permissions for farmers!!

What I have found is to build a house on the outskirts of a city outside the walls. Yes the process is longer, and the cost is higher but you can not lose your house to sieges or changes in city ownership.
You only lose the house to upkeep.

You could choose not to contribute and just leech off the city's tech tree (only on your property though).
It is better to become a citizen and contribute and it allows access to the city tech and use of buildings in the city.

What I have done on previous alpha's is base out of starter city, and use the chest there. When you have gotten enough gold and resource look for a home.

daily post

why are people doing 'daily posts' here?

The way I played all the alpha's was to base out of the starter city. Use the chest and do lots of exploration and get the knowledge points up. Grind the goblin camps and get the skills from the mobs you need for a build. You can get a good build using leather and base materials. At that point I joined a town, and built a house.
Built a house with a couple of chests and a fire. Added the stations I needed for my character, and then contributed to the town.

For the new people also seriously think about the size of the house you want to build, and where you want to build it.
You do want to be near a good PVE location to get gold, but you also need good access to stone and wood. Building a large house can take time and requires lots of wagons filled with stone and wood!
The last few Alpha's I started with a small house to get a base and some chests, I later upgraded when I got the cash and assets to do so.

I missed that too. Questions:
Do players have to purchase those plots if they are a citizen?
If you are a solo player not aligned with a city (purchase a house in the region), and the city is seiged can you lose your house?

weird my character had 80 hours. Is that the correct amount. I have played most alpha's but missed the last one.
Did it get added each time and become cumalative?

Some PVP’ers like to kill everyone and everything, break things or the game. Why go on a PVP only world and lose targets. Very likely the game will become two worlds only. PVE and mixed human world.

The evil players (or neutral) on the human world will then try and conduct raids onto the PVE world to cause mayhem. Some smart players will work out the mechanics to maximize their time on the PVE world.

The only things we do know is that end game PVE’rs won’t stay on the mixed PVE / PVP world.

Why not allow PVE players to play through all of the alpha testing without having to engage in PVP if that is their wish. I am in a guild that plays a lot of MMO's, and most of those players are not coming back to the game. At present in the Alpha testing phases since the "Spring Alpha" one of the main things that the dev's are doing is pushing people away from the game before it has even started. Is that a good business model? The fact that people are discussing it here, shows that people are leaving not joining.

The spring alpha was fun until your safe hours expired. If you wanted to explore and try the high end PVE areas they were constantly camped by Evil groups. No access to high end game areas for solo players or small groups. Do you want to spend 20 minutes of time travelling to a high end combat zone, spend another 20 minutes fighting to the fun content, maybe play for 20 minutes in the zone, than get jumped by PK'ers and get teleported home. 1 hour wasted, and nothing to show for it.
Has anyone played Albion? There is a large number of zerg guilds who control elements of the game, you can join them or just die a lot.

If the devs want to retain the playerbase they have to allow for PVE only in the test phases or customers will just leave.

The PVE / PVP dynamic is hard to get right. There are a lot of players drawn to the game who play solo, and enjoy the building/crafting PVE aspects of the game. In the last alpha a huge number of those players quit quickly as the game was unplayable due to PVP camps (also large groups).
A small penalty if a good player dies is fine, but you still have to go all the way back to your base which could be half way across the continent and start again. You lose all inventory.

Being evil will still be the easier option, and lawless cities will still attract the “larger” PVP groups.

If you want to actually have people playing alpha longer than the first 2 weeks to test farming and other city things, you will have to keep them in-game so they don’t quit because of the griefers.