Yet another game that dies in part because of no core dungeon finder tool.
When will they learn.
I agree, the dungeons are quite nice.
I have a love/hate relationship with TSW. I keep coming back to it for the story/theme, but the questing system frustrates the ever living hell out of me. The game has a big issue with either not giving you enough information about a particular part of the quest or has misleading information. So, I’ve found myself constantly going online for “solutions” to quests, which I hate to do. It’s enough that the game can be outright brutal at times in terms of difficulty for a solo player and while I enjoy the challenge and the stories they tell, I don’t enjoy the piss-poor execution of it all. Also, jumping in this game is an absolute joke, making getting to those prized pieces of lore another exercise in frustration.
Here’s a few examples of the quests I did in Egypt recently:
1st quest: text says something like “stop the worshipers from completing the ritual”. I immediately think, kill the worshipers around the altar. I see their spirits move to the altar after I kill them and think, oh maybe I need to kill enough of them to fully stop the ritual. So I spend the next 10 minutes slaughtering every worshiper in range. Nothing. I must have opened up my quest journal twenty times by this point in attempt to understand what the hell I was suppose to do to go on to the next step of the quest. So as a last resort, I look it up online and find out that the altar was clickable and could be destroyed. Great.
2nd quest: quest where you have to defend a guy from hordes of enemies using mortar/explosives. You are given no information on where the explosives are nor how many enemies you are suppose to stop. I quickly blew up the explosives (which curiously refresh after about 10 seconds) and proceeded in vain to fight them off thinking it was just one group of them. I ended up killing most of them before dying, so was hopeful in the long run back to my corpse. I did better on the second attempt with timing the explosives better, but the groups of enemies that kept coming had me dying a frustrating death. I went online to see how it was suppose to be done. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one having issues with how difficult it was. I tried a few more times and got further by using the mortar, but the 5 minute runs back to my corpse were really wearing on me by this point so I gave up and tried another quest that happened to be nearby.
3rd quest: Go into the dream world and find out why the person is troubled by the nightmares. I see a spirit spawn when I enter this quest and it seems like I’m suppose to follow it and I do, until it disappears into a portal-like anomaly. There are nightmares nearby that act like enemies and attack me and when they touch me I go back to the real world. I can’t fight them. I thought that maybe I was suppose to make them follow me into one of those portals, but nothing happened. I wondered around a little while longer but could find no clue as to how I was suppose to solve this quest. At this point, I just quit.
Thankfully, bugs aren’t really a problem anymore with the quests, it’s just how they’re implemented in the game that I have huge issues with. I will say that dungeons are indeed awesome, probably the best in any MMO thus far.
Delta
1863
If I PM you my email, would you be so kind as to send me one?
Delta
1864
If I PM you my email, would you be so kind as to send me one?
Nephrinn, those portals are usable. Use it and it goes away and spawns another phantom to follow. And the explosives in the second quest are visible sticks of dynamite set around the quest area. I can understand your frustration in overlooking these things but quest elements like destructible environmental objects and usable objects are present from Kingsmouth onwards so I’m a little mystified as to how you made it to Egypt without adding those particular mechanics to your quest-solving toolbox. Which isn’t to say there aren’t obtuse quests. I’m not sure how you’re meant to figure out where to go on some of the steps in Hell and Bach, for example.
(If it makes you feel any better, I spent so much time exploding on an Egypt sabotage quest because I’d navigate a maze of lasers and cameras, get to a switch I presumably needed to pull, it would refuse to do anything (‘cannot be used right now’), and then the camera would see me and I’d blow up. Turns out the first time I did this I successfully pulled the switch and I actually just needed to go through the blatantly obvious door it had opened back near the entrance that I’d completely skipped past because I was so focused on getting to the switch.)
Granted, I haven’t played the game since last year, so it’s understandable that I would miss the dynamite. I believe it only tells you to defend the guy rather than something like “defend the guy from countless waves of enemies using explosives and mortar”. I had these same sorts of problems all throughout Kingsmouth and the other two areas. I just don’t understand why the quest text can’t be more helpful/descriptive. I feel like I die more often than not from simple ignorance rather than enemies being too tough or clever. Maybe that’s how they designed it and maybe some people aren’t as bothered by that, but I definitely am. Maybe I’m just too cozy with having my hand held by most other MMOs, I don’t know.
As for the portals being usable, I must have missed where it is you’re suppose to click. They certainly don’t look clickable (no yellow outline), so I probably didn’t even try. I know I tried walking my character through several of them. They need better visual clues for those sorts of things.
(If it makes you feel any better, I spent so much time exploding on an Egypt sabotage quest because I’d navigate a maze of lasers and cameras, get to a switch I presumably needed to pull, it would refuse to do anything (‘cannot be used right now’), and then the camera would see me and I’d blow up. Turns out the first time I did this I successfully pulled the switch and I actually just needed to go through the blatantly obvious door it had opened back near the entrance that I’d completely skipped past because I was so focused on getting to the switch.)
I actually made it to the end and flipped the switch and died immediately thereafter because I thought the switch had turned off the cameras. Thankfully I noticed the opened door when I came back. :)
Also, I don’t want to sound like I’m ragging on the game. I fucking love TSW and highly recommend it to anyone. I probably had more fun from it in the 40 or so hours in it than the 900+ hours I put into Guild Wars 2.
For a few weeks, while the quests were still rolling and I was still “levelling”, TSW was probably the most immersive game I’ve ever played; really intense immersion and sense of place, even more than the Bethesda or BioWare games. I think only my first run through System Shock (when it came out) beats it.
The immersion was only enhanced by playing with people (I was on an rp server and the people I teamed up with were in an rp mood usually).
I definitely have a soft spot for the game, and feel it’s a great shame that it didn’t do as well as it could have done.
TSW is definitely way less handholdy than other MMOs, which makes the initial learning curve pretty steep but I feel like by the time you’ve successfully cleared out Savage Coast the game’s thrown most of its unintuitive design elements at you. (Like using /emotes as quest steps.) And there’s usually some onscreen text if you get near a usable item asking you to press U to use it. At least there is for me.
I’ve actually been getting the itch to start a new character up from the beginning and really take my time with the story beats instead of just leveling for leveling’s sake.
I still play regularly, and recommend the hell out of it. Definitely happy to help anyone out in-game or talk builds/strategies on here.
Don’t spoil the investigation missions. You can always pause and come back.
You should.
I think TSW is the only RPG in recent memory that I have played and actually paid attention to the voice acting and lore snippets. I cant even remember last time I bothered to listen to the voice actors speak through the lines, or read the whole text as I have always been more focused on the objective than the journey. I still switched off some time in Egypt though as I got tired of running back and forth between objectives on the same map… and having to do so much re-fighting of mobs I had already killed, but maybe I should give it another go. Maybe if they gave me a ‘companion’ that could fight with me, sort of like LOTROs Landscape Soldiers, SWTOR or NWO companions… It would go quicker (unless they would then balance the game around everyone having one of them out…).
When I can get on, I’ll see if Ye Olde #qt3 chat channel still works!
I still jump on whenever new content is added. I’m starting to feel ambivalent about the power curve now though- I’ve done all the dungeons and started nightmares but decided not to do that grind. I’m worried that future content will mainly be aimed at the hardcore who are all geared up and/or have a cabal to run with. I’m top of a ghost-town like cabal and have little desire to play this game often enough to warrant networking another cabal.
Still a cool game to play though. I’m still pissed off at the many mistakes that led to the games fall.
That’s actually not a bad idea! At some point I decided to switch weapons and so my points are kind of spread out on my character anyway (I know that eventually doesn’t matter). I’m also interested in the new stuff they added in the issues (I got up to #5 for free!). I heard at least some of it is geared towards lower-level characters.
And for the record, this game doesn’t work very well with a controller due to all the precise clicking that’s needed with the intricacies of the quest system.
Key tip: unequip your gear, type /reset and warp to any anima well on the map! DIY fast travel.
Thanks for the responses. I went ahead and grabbed it off Steam. Starting to download now. Over 40 Gigs! Going to be a while.
I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s all about.
Makes me wonder if someone has made an addon to do the “unequip” / re-equip for you ;)
Anyone got any links or tips for a good solo leveling/survival build that I can make use of? I know what worked last July and August, but I’m guessing the game’s been patched and certain skills/builds rebalanced since then.
Ideally I’d like the gold standard of build: one that makes it possible to solo…but also possible to accumulate enough skill points that I can accumulate auxiliary skills so I can make switches over for a different build with group utility.
I currently run this AR/Sword build for solo play. For group stuff you don’t want melee except for tanking/fist healing. I go over to AR/ELE at the moment for elite dungeons, because that’s what I had gear for before the ele nerf. AR/Sword is an amazing combo that can really pick up everything you want for solo PVE without real sacrifices, and is strong all the way from low point builds to extremely high investment builds.
http://www.badomens.net/calculator#01V3g.09.097V3s0040003vvu1vvg.09.06vvu0e.06fvvo.077vvg2.09.09.090006.04/535l3j373d443pfs5g4w0gbi549s8gft
The build there is a little spendy; early on you’ll have to cut a few of the fun interactions but the basic premise is to use affliction/penetration interaction to fuel passive self healing, damage enhancement and debuffs, while bringing extremely strong burst healing from AR. Anima Shot in particular is a key skill, as it’s both (minor) ranged damage and impressive healing. Also note the strong affliction/penetration/debuff interplay, especially with Clearing the Path. Clearing the Path is SO strong that even though it’s an AOE, it’s fine for single target damage with this build. Your AR resources can be spent for single target, aoe or healing while your sword attacks deal heavy damage and maintain debuffs on the enemy and buffs on yourself.
I have mostly 10.0 - 10.3 purple gear, and run one healing major talisman and one tanking minor. I’ll bring in more HP or healing as needed. For leveling, you’re going to have blended gear anyway. Just mix in enough healing that you feel comfortable to survive, and enough hp to avoid being burst down when things go wrong.
Red Mist is the least important thing there (aside from the aux weapon, which is basically just a toy). I change that up all the time. Taking Flight of Daggers out of the picture while leveling also greatly reduces the cost, although that skill is quite strong and generally worth the eventual investment.
It can also be worth working in Delicate Strike/Delicate Precision for your builder, instead of Grass Cutter. The determination there is simply which passive to give up to bring in Delicate Precision. Early on this is clearly advantageous, as you won’t have the deeper passives anyway.
The chronicle is here, but that changes depending on what I’m doing (which at the moment isn’t playing at all). http://chronicle.thesecretworld.com/character/Rime
