Some tips for new players coming in:
Do not treat this like a conventional MMO where you head straight for the NPCs, grab a bunch of quests, click through all the dialog, and follow map markers to your objective. This is more like a traditional RPG with rich lore, characters, and a fully realized world and theme. Explore everything and don't rush to the end of the game as there is no reward for doing so.
There are no player levels in this game and players with higher level items are not that much better off than players with lower level items, when it comes to running the challenging and unique dungeons. Having better items and unlocking more beneficial abilities will give players an advantage but since the game limits the amount of abilities you can equip to 7 active and 7 passive, out of a possible 540+, everything feels really balanced. This is ingenious because it allows players of almost any progression point to quest, fight tough monsters, and complete dungeons together. If you are like me and work 40-60 hours a week, you are a lot less likely to get that feeling that you are constantly being left behind. There is no struggle or reason to struggle to stay ahead here and it's fantastic.
Take your time with the missions and quests. Listen to everything the NPCs have to say, exhaust all dialog options, and read ALL the additional information. This includes the quest info, reports you get for completing quests, collected items and lore, quest logs, etc. There is usually some additional information and background to be discovered outside of what is being said by the NPCs.
There are multiple dialog options for every NPC. The dialog will continue with new information until there is a green check mark next to the option.
Do NOT cheat on the investigation missions by looking up guides and hints. Though it can eat up a lot of time and test your patience, it is extremely rewarding figuring out the quests on your own. You can always "pause" the mission and come back later to continue where you left off it you get too frustrated.
For character building, the decks are a good starting point but can easily be surpassed in capability and are not a good reference for specific builds in tanking or healing. You will need to do some research and experiment! Also, don't get discouraged by the inner abilities as a lot of the best abilities are unlocked on the outer part of the wheel.
Do not let the combat turn you away from the game. As mentioned before, there are over 540 abilities which adds a ton of variety and once you start unlocking later abilities and doing some of the dungeons, things will really start to click. The combat is actually quite good and has a lot of action elements incorporated into it. Bosses and monsters have tells or patterns that appear on the ground which warn you of their attacks. They can be dodged using an active dodge ability or avoided by moving out of range. In addition, weapons build "resources" which are like combo points that allow you to unleash stronger attacks and many abilities have bonus effects that can process on a mob and once processed, other abilities can process further bonus effects. There is a lot to pay attention to and most of the dungeons consist of several boss fights that are interesting and accompanied by environmental mechanics that will force you to stay on your toes.
Run the dungeons more than once! They are really fun and challenging to complete and you can get weapons and items for your other builds while gaining a good amount of AP/SP to grow your character. It's also a good testing grounds for trying out new builds.
Don't vendor your old items! Break them down in the assembly window and use the materials to craft stronger items.
Participate in PVP. It's a lot like playing Team Fortress 2 in that there are clear objectives and it is very fast paced and team oriented. You will be rewarded with AP and SP to build your character for completing certain quests (e.g. capture anima well, capture facility, kill 10 players) and if your faction controls the majority of the Warzone, you get some really nice PVE buffs like increased damage and an experience points bonus. There are also some achievements that can be earned. It can get repetitive after a while but it's great in short bursts and a nice way to break up the questing. Hopefully they will continue to make improvements and add more content like the upcoming PVP dungeon they have mentioned.
Almost forgot. Roleplay. If you're into that kind of thing this seems like a pretty good place to do so. The community and developers have been very friendly to roleplayers.
Was awesome GAF Templars! Now I fall asleep on my desk...
Just look at my character in the second shot, he is so pleased!
Kazehaya, here. I'm glad I was "working" from home that day because that was an absolute blast. I wish we could do that more often but alas timezones...
Hopefully we will be able to group up and tackle some more content on the weekend when it is more convenient for everyone. I wouldn't mind doing those same dungeons again either because it was really fun and there are still some of us that need the Inferno gear for their current or alternate builds.
Really enjoyed last night, especially when that hell boss finally fell! I've never died so many times in such a small space of time on an MMO before, I had to swap out an attack skill for a self heal in the end.
That said, our healer did an amazing job under the circumstances, when you're faced with one hit kills there's really only so much you can do.
Can't wait to do it again!
I don't think I have ever had that much fun doing dungeons in a MMO before. It was brutal and I loved every minute of it.
She will really appreciate the compliment. She usually plays healers in MMOs but it is so different in this game that she had a tough time in the beginning and almost gave up on it. Those off heals on that last fight helped a lot in between pulling the boss between his meteor strikes. I also learned that while kiting with my back turned to the boss, I could continue hitting him with my AOE attack and leech HP to help keep my health up. I think ultimately though it was Idigoo's new pants that eventually lead us to glorious victory.
I don't think I've ever done so much thinking about builds in an MMO in my entire life. I absolutely love the fact that the skill system is so crazy open-ended that you can literally do whatever you want and still come out on top, which is verrrrrrrrrrrry nice
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. When I get a nice chunk of AP/SP, I'm usually stuck in the skills menu for a long time planning out my build(s).
I started the game using Pistols with Elementalism as a secondary and quickly switched from pistols to Shotgun, primarily going for the deck build. After realizing there are very few tanks in the game or people with viable tank builds, I experimented with building a Shotgun tank and then went full into Hammer tank for the increased damage mitigation. By the time I reached the outer ring of Hammer abilities I came to the conclusion that I hated Hammer gameplay and switched to using Blade. I enjoyed the Blade build so much that I decided to go full on tanking and went with Chaos Magic (along with some passives from Fists and AR) to compliment it. I still have a good portion of the outer ring unlocked for both Shotgun and Elementalism so I can swap in those abilities for solo play, questing, PVP, or pure DPS but I can say now that Blade and Chaos is going to be my primary build.
It was really fun experimenting and there are almost endless possibilities. It took a while to unlock all the AP/SP required to do this but it never felt like a grind.
I'd have messaged you lot ingame but then I realized I didn't remember anyone's name.
You can check the Secret World GAF spreadsheet. It has everyone's GAF name and player name listed along with faction, timezones, and dimension.
I see some people in the list that haven't joined the Cabal yet and some people posting that aren't listed at all. Don't forget to add yourself!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj-Z5j_AQ0xNdHlxeTlXbnRNYkFyUVpwSWZlMmxaMmc#gid=0
I am still in the early part of the game, haven't finished Savage Coast yet, and in comparison I would probably have 3 level 60 characters in TERA by now. Based on story, quest, and mission content, I would say that this game easily surpasses any other MMO I have played at launch, content wise. I would be sad too if I was close to the end though... I never want to stop playing this. I'm very much looking forward to Issue #1 and any future plans they have for the game!
