I use this addon for rebinding, it lets you do inventory items (potions and stimulants and such) too, which is nice Fool Item http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=53663 if there's an easier way I'd love to hear it :)
Awesome, thank you. I will give this a go tonite and see how things work. You know, it took me about 5 years of WoW playing to really get my character working like a true bad-ass in a raid. Never made it past middle dps in our groups but that was good enough.
I figured I'd repost this here, since as I found it on page 77 of an eighty-something page thread some folks might not have seen it. It's Joel Bylos talking about changes to make the GameMasters Pack more appealing after B2P. So the final outcomes of the discussions I have been involved in. 1. Veteran Rewards System: As was suggested by quite a few people here, we will be adding a veteran rewards system to The Secret World. This will be retroactive back until launch and we will be offering a mix of boosts, cosmetics and other useful items for veterans to purchase using their points. The full list of items which will be available to veterans will be made available during January, once the team has come back from holidays and we have a chance to sit down and sort it all out. 2. We will be adding a "price" guarantee to all subscriptions and GMs. This is basically a policy that states that if any DLC costs more than the points given to a subscriber in a month, they will receive the DLC for price of the maximum number of points. This will be added to the descriptions of those account types during January (when the guy who does it is back from holidays). A practical example of how this works is if we were to release a $20 DLC, subscribers and GMs would never pay more than 1200 ($10) points for it. Please note that this does not apply to stand alone expansions or DLC bundles which may contain multiple DLC. 3. As mentioned previously we will be implementing an autobuy DLC feature for accounts, which will ensure that players who don't want to worry about using the store, will receive the DLC each month. More details on the system will be provided in January. Those are the results of my discussions with management regarding the concerns of the playerbase regarding the change in business model. For now. As with everything in this business, adjustments can be made. I am sure the discussions will continue. More importantly we will be watching and listening. Not everyone will be happy with the calls made, but the great thing about MMOs are that things are always up for being adjusted. I will be around on the forums, answering questions here and there, but I will probably leave this topic to simmer for a while. I appreciate the feedback and frank dialogue that I have been able to have with you guys, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
That is nice I guess. Doesn't necessarily address the problem of not having enough points to buy that stuff.
They say right there, if any DLC costs more than the given monthly allotment you get it for the allotment not a penny more. Expansions are off the table , as that would be absurd. If they manage to do a full xpac they will charge what they can get for it. DLC bundles shouldn't be an issue unless they include some oddball outfit with it. In which case I certainly hope lifetimers get a alternate way to buy said bundle outfit. Thusly you will as a lifetimer always get free dlc (the points are non existent, they are just a reflection of part of what you would pay per month on a regular sub). You pay for your own new outfits if for some reason the DLC that month ate up your "Bonus" points. It is possible they might push the monthly DLC to the full 10bucks and leave you with no extra points, but how is that different than the normal lifetime before this change?
No, sorry, I've not been clear. I mean they are adding stuff for veterans to buy, but if the point allotment has to go to the DLC stuff -- as they are suggesting it might with some regularity -- then that is of limited value. Unless they intend us to pay cash for it, in which case I will continue to be pissed, because the way to reward your early supporters is not to have your hand in their pocket again.
Vet rewards are .. vet rewards. They are free things. You are going to have tiers of things. You have the free item for -any- subscriber. You have the free whatever for being a vet of (insert time here) you get 1200 points (10bucks) per month with a caveat that any DLC may equal that entire amount. Leaving only new outfits and things they add to the store normally as off your plate. If you elect not to sign up for the auto pay dlc you can spend your points as you see fit, this month get all the outfits they added (and your free item, and your vet item) but not get the actual DLC. Next month you get the DLC you missed. I don't think instances will be DLC, and they have stated core updates to function will come in without pay. That is like the quantum bracer, pvp, raids and instances. You may not have the full story for whatever is added without the DLC but you should get access to them. Just like we didn't have the full story even now for what is going on in all aspects of the game. I do have the small worry that DLC will end up always costing the full amount, thus I will never have "bonus" to buy fluff unless I pay for it. Yet this is really not that different from CIty of Heroes. Yes there any new hard game content was paid for by subscription , which is the major difference. Yet I couldn't get all powersets released in the window if I didn't cough up some real dough. Here they aren't selling core mechanics, they are selling the extra activity. Considering how much is already in the game (and you don't have to pay to come back to it) I still don't see the issue?
Meh if the vet rewards are purchase they aren't rewards. I hope others are calling them out on it. There has been (admitedly my mind can get hazy) no other game where "vet rewards = pay for it" Now if the DLC never eats the whole points, and we have enough left over for said "vetnes" maybe I will let that bit go. However I agree that vet rewards being purchased is a stupid idea.
It could have been worse, like in LoTRO where lifetimers got regular monthly points but the game introduced items you had to buy to avoid more grinding.
The current dirty rumor goes as follows. Funcom wanted to free 2 play it ala Conan style, EA said no dice cus they have rights to sell boxes for 18mths. This we see live is the compromise. EA is supposedly going to buy Funcom to get rights to the dreamwatever engine since hero engine isn't working out for them Insert favorite conspiracy theory here.
It's possible, because EA potentially faces financial issues if TSW just went F2P - they'd be on the hook for all the physical copies that EB would send back to them.
I'm liking B2P so far. Totally based on my own subjective experience of course, but having to pony up *some* money up front seems to be a positive gating mechanism for the game. The noob areas are populated again, it's possible to put a group together for the lower level dungeons without much hassle and (most important to me) the new people I have been meeting, with few exceptions, are there to have a good time and seem to be honestly enjoying the game's ambiance and lore. Even the irritation of the Mayan Apocalypse (seriously Funcom, could you not have made it opt out? Perhaps with a simple side quest? It wouldn't even effect the backstory, since one can already just ignore the zombies popping up everywhere anyway (but watch those AOE's!)) is not causing the angst it would if the game was subscription, since most of the newbs that find it too distracting say they are just going to wait until it is over to start playing again. No subscription means no feeling of lost money if you skip a week.
It's nice to see a new crowd of more casual players. Nothing is more dispiriting than going to Agartha to look for a group and seeing the constant wall of text from douchebags specifying their stats or what stats are needed for their group. I gave up any hope of PUGing after that.
I have to say, I am really enjoying this game. It is definitely not like GW2- shee-it it is hard, stats really DO matter and it is not forgiving at all-plus the "current-real world" as opposed to your standard fantasy setting for many MMO's is a nice change for me. Heh, I am 35 hours in and I still get hugely confused on thing- I am never sure when I am gonna get more HP and actually level up, the areas go from what seem to be easy mobs to double my HP so I better run away mobs and everything in between- heh so I am never sure if I am in the right place or not but that's cool- a hard complicated game seems to require some decent strategy to live is a nice change from the "easy" MMO's out there now. My daughter is funny- she absolutely will not play it. Too creepy.
Well, the thing is, you really don't. It's almost all gear related. As you put points into your talisman slots, you enable yourself to slot better and better gear. In fact, I would say that ranking up your talismans is more important than your weapon rank. But just putting points into the slots does nothing -- you have to find or craft the gear to slot. The flipside of this is that it makes it really easy to downgrade your character. Say you want to drop back to Kingsmouth to help a friend that's just started, but you don't want to totally overshadow his efforts. Just unslot some gear, or even replace it with vender basic gear. Presto! You're a noob again! In a similar vein, say you've leveled up as a DPS soloist, but now you want to try tanking. Reslotting everything as a aggro specialist means that you are basically starting over, and can go back into the early dungeons as a beginner (and if things just aren't working right, you can say screw it and change back into your "advanced" form). I'm sure Inigma will be in here later with a better guide, but I got a few minutes before dinner so let me help you out a little more. Your talismans fall into three broad groups. Those that primarily boost Health (for Tanking), Attack Rating (for DPS), and Healing (for Healing). You have seven slots, so you can mix and match to fit your playstyle/role. Note very well: Unless you are working in a group, overspecialization is dangerous. You really can build a glass cannon in TSW. Put everything in, say, DPS, and you better have a guy standing over there healing you full time. Which also brings us to the interesting fact that Blue gear does not mean better, not exactly. Green gear is already "mixed." You'll have some Health in your Attack Rating booster, or some Healing in your Attack Rating. Blue gear is specialized with only one boosted stat, so you can really customize/gimp yourself if you aren't careful.
Great! Hope you enjoy it! If you need anything in game, shoot me a /tell. My mains are Gerbert "Depope" Aurillac and Mira "Mir-0" Romero. You too WalTer. Oh, and you only have to put up with the undead Mayans until the 7th...
I played in beta and liked it to a point... hated combat, but loved the atmosphere and the puzzles and well, everything else. But I didn't buy it at launch because I would have had to upgrade my home PC to run it. Well, now the monthly price has dropped quite a bit and I upgraded my PC anyways for PS2.
Excellent explanation. Yeah I have 2 SP points in each of my talismans yet 5 and 4 in my weapons so I seem to be neglecting important areas- And generally I really need to focus on my gear more. Speaking of, it seems that gear drops at least for me are often below me so should I be looking to buy gear on the auction house or just wait for drops? (I have only touched on crafting a bit so far) As for the Mayans- well I did get a spiffy sword from a drop so no complaints....yet. Oh and CSP- yeah I felt the same way but for 17 bucks with no sub fee- you really can't go wrong. It is much better now btw-it could be the money thing but I am definitely enjoying it.
This is mostly correct. When questing, you'll probably want about 3k health. The rest can be attack stuff. You'll have more than that for a while because all the green stuff has health on it. You don't need a healer at 3k health. Blue gear is strictly better in terms of stat budget. Blue gear gets more stat points allocated than green, and purple better than blue. But green stuff always puts some of that budget into health. So if you're having trouble staying alive in a full set of DPS blues, throw on a tank one in a minor slot and you should be good.
Eventually, you'll want to have one set of gear with more survivability for questing, and one set of gear (blues or better) for your chosen role in dungeons. You may have a role that lets you solo in your specialty gear, but many builds aren't quite so fortunate.
My first character did pretty well just on drops alone. Don't be afraid to take part in the dungeon instances with a PUG. Pugs are actually pretty fun in the game (anyone who knows me from other games would be shocked to hear me say that!), and the benefits of the group instances make them well worth it. And never skip the cut scenes your first time though.
Yeah, I didn't craft or get any gear from the AH, ever. No point. Just get drops. Gear up from missions, use it to do dungeons, get dungeon gear. Repeat in each area.
I bought stuff from the AH sometimes when I was gearing a new role or something, but generally if you're doing dungeons you'll rep any AH gear. I tend to be a crafter in games. In this one, the only things I crafted were potions of various sorts, glyphs, and gadgets. I need to pop back in sometime. Been busy with stuff.
Last night a friend and I fired this up for the first time. He was still playing around with character creation and I got started and ran through that first dream sequence. I woke up back at the puppet guy when he was just coming to him for the first time, so I started jumping up and down so my friend could see me. He couldn't. I saw other people running around, so was it just because he was in the pre-newbie thing? I got to Kingsmouth and we still couldn't find each other. We were on Skype, so we could talk to each other, but couldn't find each other in game. Also, all the builds I see are two weapon builds. At the end of the first Kingsmouth quest, when I got to the settlement, I got a reward of a weapon. Since I was pistols up until then, and I saw that the pistols were better than the ones I had, I took those. Then I went and upped my SP and AP and realized I could've taken a second weapon and used it by giving myself an SP point in that weapon. I suppose I'm going to have more opportunities to get another weapon, but did I mess up there? My third question: when I go into the AP screen I see all sorts of "types" of characters that look cool. Since I'm a pistol person, I chose Maverick and have been picking stuff off that list. I don't see anything about these types in the early build guides that I've looked at. What the heck are those? Just guides to help noobs? Or will I become a cool gunslinger eventually? Or should I ignore them and pick according to the published guides?
In the introductory tutorial area -- Tokyo subway sequence and your faction intro -- I don't think you can join up. Have to wait til Kingsmouth. From Kingsmouth on you should be able to play together. The game does run multiple instances of each zone; if you find you aren't in the same one, one of you can right-click the other's name in the group window (you did manage /invite, right?) and choose "Meet up." The second player should get a popup saying that so-and-so wants to meet up; if they click yes it should bring the first player to the second player's instance, and spawn them at the closest anima well. (I believe you will need to have discovered at least one anima well in the area, should be a non-issue.) Don't worry, it is impossible to mess up. Every character can eventually use every weapon and every ability. Everything you are doing right now is extremely low-stakes in terms of character progression anyway. Anyway, yes, you will want to get a second weapon as soon as you can. Offensive weapon builders almost always build resources for both weapons, so you will be able to use a consumer for both weapons; you can see you're leaving lots of damage on the table by not running two weapons. You can get a new weapon in any of the following ways: 1. Trash drops from mobs 2. Quest rewards 3. Crafting 4. From your faction's training chamber*, just go back in and take one, these are shit but are fine for now 5. From Council of Venice vendor near the Sheriff's Office in Kingsmouth for 100 Pax Romana (also shit, also fine for now) 6. For sequins**, from Council of Venice vendors * You can also experiment with weapon abilities here, nothing spent is permanent until you leave ** You will often get Sequins of XYZ from the zone you're in, usually from quest rewards but also sometimes for mobs. Mostly these have little value since you'll have what you need already, but you can spend them on weapons and such if you wish. The standard recommendation is to wait til you have 100 Sequins of Solomon Island, and then use them to buy two QL6 blue weapons from the Council of Venice vendor at the Wabanaki reservation in Blue Mountain. Those will last you through Egypt. These are pre-built decks from Funcom. They are almost universally shit because Funcom doesn't understand their own game. (I am not joking about this, Funcom are incompetent players and are frequently unable to complete their own Nightmare dungeons.) They do have clothing rewards, some of which are cool, and I do virtually everything I do in this game in order to become a prettier princess. But it is best to get your core build abilities before spending your AP to get sweet threads. Many of those decks are very AP-expensive and will leave you with some very expensive, very bad 50-point Elite abilities you'll never want to use. In addition to Funcom's general ineptitude, last time I looked one of the big problems with the pre built decks is that they don't take advantage of one of the free-choice skill system's most important aspects. See, active abilities have to come from the two weapons you have equipped, but passives come from anywhere. This is important because you will usually not have a good enough selection of passives in your two main weapons. I usually run AR/Shotgun when I DPS in dungeons, but you will have to pry my precious Live Wire passive Elite from Elemental from my cold, dead hands, and even then I will be revived by the bees and come kill you and take it back. The builds on the official forum are often complete shit and you should think hard about whether they make smart choices. If you are having trouble developing a build, let us know (and tell us what weapons you want) and we can help you develop a viable deck. We gave walTer some advice on how to make a smart build upthread.
Thanks, Inigima. Nice to know the Funcom builds can be safely ignored, but I still want to be a cool pistolero. So we looked over a bunch of builds and then said, "Let's just not worry about it and pick stuff that looks/sounds cool." So I picked pistols, and now Chaos. Also, I'm not sure I get the whole "defensive target" thing. I target a monster with Tab, and I can target a friend with... ? Then he/she will get healing from my passives? And no, we never did find the /invite. We R dum. I don't think my friend even made it to Kingsmouth.
You can solo with anything and you can even dungeon with anything up through Elite dungeons. Be advised that a. if and when you do Nightmare dungeons you will be expected to switch to a more optimal pairing, because they are hard, and b. if you have a ranged weapon and a melee weapon, you are effectively melee. Defensive targeting is targeting for "friendly" spells. Some abilities, and passives, will target your defensive target. Others will just target you. Also, you can be your own defensive target. Sample uses for defensive targets include: healing your defensive target as the group's healer while watching a boss' casts; targeting the tank for Reap and Sew; cleansing a debuff from a friend. You can invite a friend in a few ways. Offhand: 1. /invite name 2. /friend add name, at which point they will show up in your friends list (Shift-F) henceforth, and you can right click and choose Invite To Group; you can also just open the friends list and I think there is an Add Friend button 3. Click on their character, then right click the defensive target box and choose Invite To Group; obviously this one is useless if you are in different instances The first is generally easiest.
Christ Inigma, how fast can you type? I'm not being critical. You're putting out some very helpful info, and doing it in the amount of time I probably take to thrash out one paragraph.... But anyways, I have just a few things to add: Also, did you pick the same starter server? It doesn't matter that much, since you can use Inigma's instructions to always meet up, but it might be more convenient. Also, when you are grouped up, the game engine *should* switch you to your buddy's instance any time you zone. I almost never use Sequins, and have a huge pile building up. You *can* use them to buy healing potions and other expendables at the Council venders, but since I typically play characters with at least some healing skills the potions I scavenge from loot drops does me just fine. You can also (now, this was not in at launch) wander around London's pubs and coffeeshops and such and buy various differently themed buffs and such for Pax (the in game currency). Diet Bingo is one of my character's favorites, while a whiskey is another's, and I am glad we never have to eat another taco.... No argument there, but it is hard to think of a game that is different. Didn't Lum himself state many years ago that, "Your players will *always* know your game far, far better than you do." Nice to know there is someone else who does this, and glad that Funcom realizes it with clothing awards for many if not most of the official deck builds and game milestones. (Don't forget to check your wardrobe for new duds every now and then, as it is easy to miss the chat notification that you have been awarded a new shirt.) But as one of the "Pritty, Pritty Princesses" playing, I even have my own "no-clipping" standard. Basically, if the weapons clip over each other, I won't run a deck that requires those weapons/items. Yes, this locks me out of several good builds, but I absolutely hate the look of my assault rifle jammed through that book I have slung over my back (just as an example, and not meant to endorse any AR/Blood builds...). Oh, and I meant to add, when you click on an enemy, that is your offensive target, clicking on a friend makes him your defensive target. You can also find and bind keys to select closest target and cycle through target.
We made sure to pick the same server and faction, Arcadia and Templar, respectively. I'm used to cycling through targets with Tab from DDO, but I couldn't find a way to cycle through defensive targets (or even get to the first one) without clicking on someone. There was another guy at the beginning of Kingsmouth and we were killing zombies together. I didn't want to commit to grouping with him (and I didn't know how anyway), but I would've chosen him as my defensive target if I'd known how.
It's worse than you know. I'm typing it on a tablet, at work, between work tasks. Could be. I didn't know Lum before BF, really, I was a latecomer to QT3 via ehm ecks. You have one of them in your hand whenever you're in combat, I have a hard time seeing this as an issue. I can't tell if you know this from your post, but you don't have to wear the deck outfit to run the build, nor do you have to run the build to wear the deck outfit. Also, every single premade deck awards an outfit, plus you get a jacket for every inner ring segment you complete. There are also "starter" decks that aren't as AP-intensive, and they award full outfits based on the inner ring rewards. Some of them are nicer; the embroidery on the Haruspex outfit glows red, for example, unlike the regular stitching on the Ritual Coat from Blood. Plus lots of achievement rewards. This is in addition to Pangaea (in-game currency clothing shop in London) and the cash shop. I go back and forth on outfits. Sometimes I want to make a nice looking outfit. Sometimes I want to create a neat look; the Rocketeer helmet goes very nicely with the Demonskin Coat from Master Planner on one of the Hell Dimensions dungeons. Most often, I try my best to make the most eye-fuckingly hideous abomination I can come up with. (The new leatherwear vendors are great for this. I have no idea who designed that stuff but they should be arrested.)
Mmhhh... new player here as well - any advice on running sword & pistols as a combo ? Preferably going for a tank build, but I am open to alternatives. For reference, I have all weapon and talisman skills up to 4, and unlocked all four inner rings. Edit: And thanks for all the info on the last pages, already extremely helpful !
I'll have to look at the skill wheel to answer that, which I can't do right now. I'm not sure if there is any synergy whatsoever between those weapons; usually you want to identify what weapons have in common (crit vs. pen, attack type, etc.). Does Blade have focus attacks, because if so that's where I'd start -- get a builder and two consumers, all single target, that aren't of the same type (Focus) and take passives that either directly buff Focus abilities, like Increased Focus, or that otherwise benefit from that attack (e.g., Focus attacks hit multiple times, which lend themselves to abilities that proc on crit).* I mentioned this earlier, but a general template for active selection looks something like this: 1. Single-target builder (you only need one, find out which does the most damage on either weapon) 2. Single-target consumer, weapon 1 3. Single-target consumer, weapon 2 4. AOE builder (not required)/DPS cooldown/group buff/utility 5. DPS cooldown/group buff/utility 6. DPS cooldown/group buff/utility 7. Elite (Do or Die, usually, or group utility like Cleanup) That's mostly with dungeons in mind. Feel free to use something like Dirty Tricks as your elite when questing, it's a big chunk of damage as well as a Hinder for you to do some damage before anything gets to you, on a low cooldown. Passives I'll have to look at the wheel for. I'm not sure what you'll want offhand, although you'd almost certainly want Live Wire in a multi-hit build. * You can only get "credit" for one crit per ability use, but each one is a chance -- if you use an attack that hits three times, and they all crit, you only get one crit proc for something like Live Wire. But if you aren't critting all that much, you'll have more chances from that multi-hit attack -- if any of the hits crit, it counts. When constructing a build, think about tradeoffs. You could choose survivability... But it's likely you'd be better off by just nuking the shit out of it and killing it faster. As for doing a tank build, before I answer that, you do understand that that has meaning only in a dungeon, right? That said, you "can" tank with whatever you want early on, but Blade/Chaos is hands down the best tanking combo late game. Agitator and Fuel to the Fire will let you use anything you like to try and hold aggro, but not only is Blade/Chaos better at that, it offers a lot of other advantages, including reliable impairs. I urge you not to try a special-snowflake build for tanking. Everyone uses Blade/Chaos for good reasons.
I'll have a look - there are focus abilities in Blade, just not sure about the passives. Was thinking about getting the 3k health plus as much DPS as this allows you mentioned earlier. Just for dungeons it might be good to be more tanky than that, or ? Yep, I understand that for outside dungeons a more balanced build is good idea. And very nice to know about the B/C combo - perhaps I start anew, I am still pretty early in game. Might be faster then trying to raise up Chaos as a third option, or ? Thanks!
Passives can come from any tree so that's no problem. For questing; 3k health and the rest DPS is pretty much perfect. For dungeons: straight DPS pieces unless required for a fight. A lot of the stuff in Hell Raised you'll want an HP piece to avoid being instagibbed by Macroshock, for example. No need to reroll. This game will rain SP and AP on you.
Need a ton of SP/AP fast? Run a dungeon , and again.. and again. Even if you out gear it (especially if you out gear it) still one of the fastest ways to pile on. You should have your entire skill point setup done between egypt and Trans. Pistols and blade make a great tank set, I think you get some of the passives in chaos to blend them. The primary tank I have been with is that set, course he also tears up as dps. He does not use focus. I however use a ele/blade focus set for solo and go pure ele for dungeons. I blend in passives that give me two debuffs. That said later in the game mobs do have things to make you change your spec. Afflic seems to be one of the worst but you encounter ant crit mobs first. What I mean is the ant-crit purge you of a beneficial effect everytime you crit them. So if you are using a passive that builds a counter .. it goes bye bye. Any two weapons can work together depending on passives since most passives can be used without the weapon involved. When you are looking at the deck builder if the passive has a weapon symbol on it , or relates to a skill it will not translate. There is one skill in chaos that can only be used with melee weapons, which was a change to make it so chaos was not the only option for tanking nightmares. Ele/Blade don't get along. So I have to use passives to bridge what blade likes to do (pierce,afflic) with what elemental likes to proc off of (crit, hinder). Hinder is something that can be very hit or miss based on the mob, so I avoided that as my bridge. Thus my passives feed each other with crit procs afflic procs piercing which then doubles my damage, add in a weakness and mobs are generally going down with little difficulty. I know I have to fiddle with this build later when I hit the mobs that are anti-afflic. However I had no issues with this set and the anti-crit mobs. Wait til you start dealing with gear manager. I also play for the pretty princess angle and the store is a bane of my existence.
Missions are actually usually better XP/AP/SP than dungeons except for maybe the first time, once you're out of the early zones. Be cautious in proclaiming the virtue of weapon combinations if you are not doing endgame content, I "can tank" as AR/elemental if I want but it is going to be real shitty once I'm not doing Normal Darkness War anymore.
You had already gone over the nightmare bit, and they have tanked nightmare as pistol/blade. It really depends on what one wants out of the game. Nightmares are the "end game" but they aren't the only part of the game.
