SEGAvangelist
Member
Dude, just pick one story quest up and do the side quests as you go. The quests will lead from one to the other in an organic way and it becomes very efficient, actually. You'll get the hang of it and start to like it I think.
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The Secret World |OT| Everything is True
- Thread starter derFeef
- Start date
Dude, just pick one story quest up and do the side quests as you go. The quests will lead from one to the other in an organic way and it becomes very efficient, actually. You'll get the hang of it and start to like it I think.
So I've been giving the free weekend shot and I so far I've sunk more time into this than I care to admit. The world Funcom has managed to create truly is impressive, I didn't think it was possible to this engrossed in an MMO's story. That said, are there quests that lead you to group instances or something? Ive been doing every mission I've come across and so far I haven't encountered any dungeons other than the solo ones you sometimes enter for quests (I just entered the blue mountain area). Am I missing something here, or have I just not reached a high enough level yet?
There are quest givers with sort of a greenish sort of quest symbol next to the dungeon entrances. In Kingsmouth it's in
the north at the Orochi black helicopter encampment (Polaris)
Overlook Motel (Inferno)
the trailer park (The Darkness War)
Also every area has open challenge areas called lairs that are meant for high item level people
It's designed with a different quest flow that WoW for example. You pick 1 quest, do that, get those fast secondary quests on the way and either primary or secondary ones will take you to a new questgiver who makes you go to a new questgiver etc. You're supposed to go back and forth around the zones and take in the story, not 'grind quests'.
Yeah the quest limits are something you need to get used to if you are playing with the standard mmo mindset. I think the mission flow is perfect in almost every case.
Wow you are blasting through it if you entered blue mointain already. Blue mountain will probably give you a hard time if you are not equipped properly (and even then). Dungeons are the pink (not green
mission icons, and if you try to enter the dungeon it should give you a warning like "dude, get some help, this will kick your ass".
Just as a hint, you can visit the first playfield of every area in the game via Agartha, if you want to get a sneak peak
Wow you are blasting through it if you entered blue mointain already. Blue mountain will probably give you a hard time if you are not equipped properly (and even then). Dungeons are the pink (not green
mission icons, and if you try to enter the dungeon it should give you a warning like "dude, get some help, this will kick your ass".Just as a hint, you can visit the first playfield of every area in the game via Agartha, if you want to get a sneak peak
Yeah... if you have some quirks with the game better keep it for yourself because the chat will jump on you real fast. Someone said to me I should go back to WoW because I said the stealth missions are not very well designed and it should give you more feedback.
Generally turn off the General chat, you will have a much greater time
My experience with the community has been okay so far, but then again I come from the dota/hon community so it's easy to beat that
Best experience meeting players has always been while playing the game though and not talking in general chat which I generally avoid except for helping out people.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
How are you in Blue Mountain in a day? o_0
So do you think you'll be picking the game up?
Sounds like you've been missing a lot of quests and story haha. Are you primarily just doing the story quests? That would put you in the Blue Mountain in a day. I put probably 3-4 days of game time in before I moved to the Blue Mountain area.
HiddenWings
Member
I think someone tripped over the ethernet cords or something.
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
Only about 4 more missions to go for my reward and bonus points!
Should be resolved now.
@funcom_tsw said:
@funcom_tsw said:Players should no longer have issues connecting with #TSW. Thank you again for your patience and enjoy the game!
Should be resolved now.
Well I played a bit Friday, and then I had to pull an all-nighter Saturday to keep tabs on some stuff which ended up with me mostly just playing TSW to pass the time. I've also really only been following the main quest and doing the occasional side mission I happen to bump into along the way, which I'm fairly certain has put me in Blue Mountain way too soon as I cant make it more than a few steps in without being torn to ribbons. If I have some time tonight I'm going to try and make my way back to Innsmouth and start working through whatever I missed (like the first two dungeons apparently).
Not sure about picking it up. I wasn't really looking to get back into an MMO, and I really only downloaded TSW to give myself something to do Saturday night, though I have to admit that the game is super engrossing and has a lot more going for it than I initially thought.
Yep! I'm doing every mission in every area just to see the story unfold. Some of the sidemission stuff like the haunted carnival missions in Savage Coast are just sublime.
I wouldn't buy it if I were you. I really liked the game up to Blue Mountain, but it goes downhill after that. Funcom blatantly frontloaded investigation missions and the more interesting story into the early areas. The game gets a lot worse once Egypt begins.
And the endgame is awful. It's basically a considerably worse version of WOW. Everything I loved about the game completely vanished at endgame.
D
Deleted member 10571
Unconfirmed Member
Sounds an awful lot like Age of Conan at the time :/
I actually think you feel it already at the second zone and only gets worse from there so far at least for me.
But yeah, it's not too surprising after Age of Conan.
What a crock of shit. A lot of the very best missions in the game are farther in. Egypt has FANTASTIC investigations. The early parts of the game are the worst.
Well, you said it. Egypt has some great investigations and they didn't end in transylvania either.
It totally isn't. I find Egypt to be far more interesting than Maine, but ymmv obviously.
And if you do not like Egypt that much, you already could have played 100 of hours and not just 20 like in Conan (if you imply Tortage). AND EVEN THEN the cinematics, talking, mission quality still is the same. Better for me even, love Egypt.
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
If you say so. What I said seems to be the general consensus outside of fan threads and forums.
The game is still worth the money, but I think it was a bit rushed.
The endgame in particular is awful. I haven't seen anyone defend it.
Ah the vague 'consensus' of truth that can be found everywhere else against the deluded people who enjoy the game. Is this consensus readable somewhere, as it sure ain't showing on the game channels...?
The endgame seems to be hardmode grinding I don't particularly enjoy so I'm not going into that, but I have to ask this as the fact is that there's many good investigation quests after Blue Mountain...
Where would you read those consensus outside of forums? Just curious.
I can't comment on the "endgame" yet, luckily. And ugh I hate mmo terms, especially with games like TSW which breaks the MMO mold a bit.
Finished my 30 missions this evening. Got enough AP and SP to switch from pistol/hammer to shotgun/hammer! Weekend well spent! Now if we could just tackle Ankh...
Wow, cool, how did you keep track? Just taking notes? Also I did not play enough this weekend
I did the 30 mission thing too, just kept track with a pencil. I was thinking I'd save the points for next store update, but then I immediately splurged them on the 'Wiccanista' set with a fur-trimmed coat and some leather boots that look a lot better than the stuff available on London store.
I still haven't been able to group with gaf either, so maybe for the ankh...
I still haven't been able to group with gaf either, so maybe for the ankh...
Haha, no. I wish I had kept track. I had a ballpark idea of how many I had done but had completely lost track. I just kept doing missions until the 1200 Bonus points showed up in my account in the store.Wow, cool, how did you keep track? Just taking notes? Also I did not play enough this weekend
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
I spent the weekend questing in Scorched Desert and will continue this week along with doing some PVP so I can gear up for another Ankh attempt this weekend. I have three purple QL8 pieces so far and a few new abilities that should help.
For anyone that has tanked this instance already, what was your HP and DEF/PROT like? Any recommendations?
We had a really tough time with the Orochi Dead Ops X3 boss. Everything prior to that was easy enough. I had around 7500 HP and good chunk of defense but they hit really hard and healers couldn't keep up with the damage, even when I tried supplementing with healing passives, abilities, and potions.
I'm using a Blade/Chaos tank build with Escalation, Uneven Ground, Crimson Theater, Brandish, Art of War, Martial Discipline, Illusion (sometimes sub other abilities like Karma, Blade Torrent, Domino Effect, etc.)
Passives are usually something like Turbulance, Probability, Master of Illusions, Regeneration, Agitator, Brandishing Support, Lick your Wounds (sometimes sub Perseverance, Fluid Defense, Immortal Spirits, etc.)
They put up a special leaderboard on Chronicle that was called "Celebration Missions" or something like that. It tracked the number of missions completed during the weekend event.
I completed the event and got my bonus points but it looks like we will be getting the shirts later. I saw someone running around with the grey bloody Innsmouth Academy hoodie so I guess that is the reward for completing all the issue 1 missions. DO WANT.
For anyone that has tanked this instance already, what was your HP and DEF/PROT like? Any recommendations?
We had a really tough time with the Orochi Dead Ops X3 boss. Everything prior to that was easy enough. I had around 7500 HP and good chunk of defense but they hit really hard and healers couldn't keep up with the damage, even when I tried supplementing with healing passives, abilities, and potions.
I'm using a Blade/Chaos tank build with Escalation, Uneven Ground, Crimson Theater, Brandish, Art of War, Martial Discipline, Illusion (sometimes sub other abilities like Karma, Blade Torrent, Domino Effect, etc.)
Passives are usually something like Turbulance, Probability, Master of Illusions, Regeneration, Agitator, Brandishing Support, Lick your Wounds (sometimes sub Perseverance, Fluid Defense, Immortal Spirits, etc.)
Wow, cool, how did you keep track? Just taking notes? Also I did not play enough this weekend
They put up a special leaderboard on Chronicle that was called "Celebration Missions" or something like that. It tracked the number of missions completed during the weekend event.
I completed the event and got my bonus points but it looks like we will be getting the shirts later. I saw someone running around with the grey bloody Innsmouth Academy hoodie so I guess that is the reward for completing all the issue 1 missions. DO WANT.
Have until the 13th to see how far I can progress the story before my first month ends. About to push into Blue Mountain tonight and I'll see how badly I get my butt kicked. Not done with the game but need to take a break from it for a while since The Last Story will be arriving next week as well. Want to put some time into that and Xenoblade again. Not worth keep the subscription active while playing those. Figure around late September I should be back in. Think that will be a good scheduled to keep. Sub when I'm not playing anything else and then stop once something more time consuming comes along. That's really the pattern I had with Everquest 2 and Dark Age of Camelot, cut down on my console game buying considerably as well. Worked well for me and I'm not sure why I ever stopped with that pattern.
My sword/pistol build is working fine for me. Not sure if it's tank or dps focused though. Perhaps tank since I have more points into the talismans. Want to try and make sword/blood viable but feel to weak when I use it. Maybe I should go full magic and see how that goes.
My sword/pistol build is working fine for me. Not sure if it's tank or dps focused though. Perhaps tank since I have more points into the talismans. Want to try and make sword/blood viable but feel to weak when I use it. Maybe I should go full magic and see how that goes.
HiddenWings
Member
This particular encounter got superbuffed on Tuesday, apparently on accident. A group I was in that laughed through it on elite before struggled with it on Thursday. It's in the Test patch notes that the damage is too high. It's just not tuned well right now.
All makes sense now.
That explains so much haha.
I'm pretty sure I tanked it on tuesday or wednesday, the healer must've been super good. I use hammer/chaos on my tanking set with all evade/block gear, and use that elite passive that heals for 40% when you go under half hp.
My free weekend observations:
I completed the story quest up to the point where I needed to move on to the next zone, and did enough Missions in Kingsmouth to easily qualify for the 30 mission 1200 bonus points.
In my limited time with The Secret World, it seems like the kind of game that I could play, but not for very long. It seems like all three factions use the same areas and missions, and the faction-specific missions are few and far between. So there's too little to differentiate between the three, when it's a very story-driven MMO. That part is similar to a complaint I have about The Old Republic.
I didn't like the Missions being limited to 1 story, 1 dungeon, 1 main, and 3 sides. Especially because I kept running through the exact same areas over and over again. I don't need 20 of them and just run through all of them in a checklist, but it does feel horribly inefficient to keep passing creatures I know are quest mobs, but clearly not for the quest I'm on.
I didn't really enjoy the writing -- too florid. Characters' lines aren't realistic dialogue (hello, Norma), but more appropriate maybe as printed word. A few of them might have been okay, but it was basically everyone waxing lyrical about the encroaching fog and inevitable doom.
I am a huge fan of the Lovecraft universe, and so it was nice to get a game with that atmosphere. Polaris featured many bosses and not much trash, which was nice. It did lapse a little into the you're-in-an-MMO-and-here's-a-clear-example-how territory, breaking immersion a bit.
I also liked the SP/AP freeform leveling system, with the ability to basically master everything eventually. But ultimately, I can't see what the end is. What do people *do* after maxing out the SP/AP wheels?
I completed the story quest up to the point where I needed to move on to the next zone, and did enough Missions in Kingsmouth to easily qualify for the 30 mission 1200 bonus points.
In my limited time with The Secret World, it seems like the kind of game that I could play, but not for very long. It seems like all three factions use the same areas and missions, and the faction-specific missions are few and far between. So there's too little to differentiate between the three, when it's a very story-driven MMO. That part is similar to a complaint I have about The Old Republic.
I didn't like the Missions being limited to 1 story, 1 dungeon, 1 main, and 3 sides. Especially because I kept running through the exact same areas over and over again. I don't need 20 of them and just run through all of them in a checklist, but it does feel horribly inefficient to keep passing creatures I know are quest mobs, but clearly not for the quest I'm on.
I didn't really enjoy the writing -- too florid. Characters' lines aren't realistic dialogue (hello, Norma), but more appropriate maybe as printed word. A few of them might have been okay, but it was basically everyone waxing lyrical about the encroaching fog and inevitable doom.
I am a huge fan of the Lovecraft universe, and so it was nice to get a game with that atmosphere. Polaris featured many bosses and not much trash, which was nice. It did lapse a little into the you're-in-an-MMO-and-here's-a-clear-example-how territory, breaking immersion a bit.
I also liked the SP/AP freeform leveling system, with the ability to basically master everything eventually. But ultimately, I can't see what the end is. What do people *do* after maxing out the SP/AP wheels?
Man, I really don't understand people complaining about quest limits. The game very clearly leads you from one batch of quest givers to others. It seemed very simple to me. I'm glad I never played WoW to be ruined by that. I can't imagine taking 20 quests at a time, I'd feel overwhelmed.
Yeah, same. And I played WoW and a lot of other MMOs - I think this is the best mission system in any MMO. It makes you care about the world, the people and you get to KNOW those too, which is important. The action missions lead you to more areas, not only one.
I would understand the concerns if it would just be "go here, get/kill X", but those missions have several Tiers and require you to travel around. Having multiple of those missions would be a total overkill.
As somebody who plays a lot of MMOs, I can tell you it just doesn't feel right. I eventually got over it and learned to live with it, and it doesn't even really bother me any more, but coming from basically any other RPG it's maddening. It's like, I'm exploring this world and I run into this guy but I can't do anything but come back later because all his missions require me to drop this one I'm 4/5 of the way through.
It leads to a lot of running back and forth for no reason, but eventually I realized that The Secret World is less about going dozens of different places and doing five quests and moving on, and more about "here's a place, take your time and explore the heck out of it because you'll be here for a while."
You don't drop missions, you pause it. Pick it up later and continue on 4/5 just fine.
Did GAF pull a hammy this weekend? Haven't seen anyone on all day! Also, could someone repost how to get the custom GAF chat channel tab working so we can cross-cabal chat?
Would also like to say that I can't believe I stuck with Pistols instead of a shotgun this whole time. I am doing so much more damage with a shotgun thanks to the passives that stack even better with my hammer skills than the pistol ones did. Every time I hit someone now, I do 4 different sets of damage. Also much easier for multiple enemies with the shotgun. Lots of AOE attacks. That's coming in very handy in Egypt.
Would also like to say that I can't believe I stuck with Pistols instead of a shotgun this whole time. I am doing so much more damage with a shotgun thanks to the passives that stack even better with my hammer skills than the pistol ones did. Every time I hit someone now, I do 4 different sets of damage.
Also much easier for multiple enemies with the shotgun. Lots of AOE attacks. That's coming in very handy in Egypt.ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
New patch and TXAA support added!
UPDATE 1.1.1 - AUGUST 7TH
With this update we have enabled TXAA, and The Secret World is the first game in the world to support this anti-aliasing technique! This requires the newest NVIDIA Kelper (600) series of GPU. To enable TXAA in the video options of the game select "TXAA 2x" or "TXAA 4x" as your anti-aliasing under the video options of the game. These drivers are schedueled to go out of beta (WHQL) around the 13th of August.
I made a thread about it here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=485681
MISSIONS
Solomon Island
Kingsmouth Town
The Savage Coast
Blue Mountain
Egypt
The Scorched Desert
Transylvania
Besieged Farmlands
The Shadowy Forest
DUNGEONS/LAIRS
Hell Raised
Hell Fallen
Hell Eternal
Soviet Fort
The Facility
The Ankh
Darkness War
PVP
Fusang Project
WEAPONS
ITEMS
LOCALIZATION
The notes received during the mission "Crime and Punishment" - Tier 1 will no longer display black squares instead of letters
GENERAL
UPDATE 1.1.1 - AUGUST 7TH
With this update we have enabled TXAA, and The Secret World is the first game in the world to support this anti-aliasing technique! This requires the newest NVIDIA Kelper (600) series of GPU. To enable TXAA in the video options of the game select "TXAA 2x" or "TXAA 4x" as your anti-aliasing under the video options of the game. These drivers are schedueled to go out of beta (WHQL) around the 13th of August.
I made a thread about it here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=485681
MISSIONS
Solomon Island
Kingsmouth Town
- The Pick-Up: The mission can now be paused and resumed again later at the correct tier where it was left
- The Orochi Scientists now fight back
The Savage Coast
- Carter Unleashed: Carter will no longer be seen running straight through the ladder and the wall at the end of the mission
- Carter Unleashed: NPC Familiars found in the basement of the academy are now hanging from the hooks instead of floating in thin air
- The Black House: The pentagram will disappear when the player solves the puzzle
Blue Mountain
- Funeral Crashers: Fixed an issue that prevented players from resuming their mission if it was paused on tier 5/5
- Funeral Crashers: Added a journal entry for tier 5 of the mission
- Dawning of an Endless Night: Fixed an issue that could cause players to be stuck on tier 15/18 when activating the wards in The Blue Mountain and disconnecting
Egypt
The Scorched Desert
- The Last Legion: The Mission now properly resets when a player disconnects during the fight
- The Last Legion: Players going in PvP while doing the mission will no longer block the mission for other players
- The Last Legion: The Orb of Aten is no longer an interactive object after starting "Defeat the Legion"
- From Below: Dr Shirui and Experiment SB118 are now spawned correctly
- Halls of Lost Records Tier 5: The Nodes of Mystical Energy inside the Chamber of Satis will no longer enter an infinite cooldown
- The 3rd Age: Players can no longer interact with the sarcophagus before they have assembled the key, as intended
- The 3rd Age: The first goal will now only update if you get the Strange Metal Clockwork Key in your inventory
- Using the Altar of binding will now update the goal and will no longer cause the altar to become uninteractable
- Black Sun, Red Sand: The mission now has a mission description
Transylvania
Besieged Farmlands
- The Summoning The Plague: The bosses and mobs now always drop loot when defeated
The Shadowy Forest
- The Drăculeşti - Tier 4: Players must now pick up the explosives and detonators individually so that they may receive the items correctly
- The Drăculeşti - Tier 4: When you interact with a placed explosive, you will now receive a message indicating it has already been used
DUNGEONS/LAIRS
Hell Raised
- Nightmare: We have determined that mobs in Hell Raised Nightmare had an unnaturally high Defence Rating. This caused a frustrating number of glances, even for superbly-equipped players who had mastered the dungeon. Though the Hit Rating requirements of this dungeon remain high, we've adjusted them down to be more in line with the difficulty of gearing for the other Nightmare modes
- The Master Planner achievement now enforces the proper requirements of never changing your build, as intended
Hell Fallen
- When he summons the second Machine Tyrant, the first machine Tyrant no longer remains active (unless in Nightmare mode)
- If players are killed before Wicker's explosion kills them during the Ascendants encounter, a duplicate Wicker which leads the boss and/or adds outside the encounter location should no longer spawn
- After defeating the Ascendants during the last fight, the lootbag dropped can now be opened immediately
Hell Eternal
- Infernal Overwatch's summon spell "Klaxon Call" can no longer be interrupted
- Eblis's loot should no longer drop in inaccessible locations
Soviet Fort
- Halina Ilyushin should no longer cast Spite whenever she feels like it. She should also stay in her arena, as the program intended
The Facility
- Lasers will stop doing damage when they are no longer visibly hitting the player
The Ankh
- The damage from the Orochi Dead Ops encounter has been toned down
- Nightmare: After walking in and out of the Filth in the dungeon, the Filth Undertow effect no longer remains on the player
- Nightmare: The Dimensional Reaper summoned by Doctor Klein is no longer invisible
Darkness War
- Wayeb-Xul encounter: Bomb Mayans are no longer running towards the player and they will now always explode at 0 health
PVP
Fusang Project
- The "Capture a Facility" mission should again give the correct amount of Black and White Marks of Venice
WEAPONS
- Fists: Turn the Tables and The Scarlet Arts will now build counters on Hot Iron
- Blades: Mobs with Resistances should no longer resist the DoT effect applied by Sling Blade
- Hammers: Passive abilities that proc on critical hits will now affect Hell to Pay
- Blood Magic: Particles are now shown correctly instead of orange and green squares
ITEMS
- The Charged Ward Generator can no longer be traded, as intended
- The items acquired during King of the Hill will no longer affect the Monsters outside its intended location
- Fixed some clipping issues with hats and hair
- When purchasing the "Friend of the Darkness" title from the item shop, you will now also get the correct title
LOCALIZATION
The notes received during the mission "Crime and Punishment" - Tier 1 will no longer display black squares instead of letters
GENERAL
- London: Entering Tabula Rasa will no longer leave the character in the middle of empty space
- Agartha: Fixed an issue with a Gatekeeper spell that could not be avoided by players
- New cabals can again be created normally
- The Nightmare achievements for Master Planner (Ankh and Hell Fallen) are now visible in the achievements window
- The achievement "Corvophobia - The Poe (chase away 50 flocks of ravens)" should now update correctly
- Attacking the shield/barrier of a boss or mob will now correctly generate hate
- Lairs and region bosses will now automatically be locked to the player/group that summoned the boss
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
I would try and get some comparison shots but I'm not sure if I want to update to the NVIDIA beta drivers. I might just wait for the official release due out sometime next week.
After not having played this game for over a week, I logged in today again and what I realized quickly is I'm pretty much done with this game (I haven't left the Savage Coast yet). There's so much to like about The Secret World (check my previous post in this thread), but I can't fucking stand the unbelievably unresponsive and clunky combat system. Absolutely nothing feels right about it. SWTOR was even worse in that regard, but my patience level for bog standard mmorpg combat systems has dropped dramatically since then.
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
What is unresponsive about it?
How much of the ability wheel did you unlock and what weapons and abilities were you using? Did you complete any of the dungeons?