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TSW leveling/zone advice
Chaserz
Member RarePosts: 335
I am playing again after finding a very nice and flexible build so now I have a couple questions.
1. Am I expected to complete the main mission quest line "Dawning of an Endless Night" before I would go to other zones? I know it advised not to race through the main mission quests only but I have gotten tired of Kingsmouth.
2. Where can I get upgraded quality level Assault Rifles? Crafting my own or questing?
Thank you
Comments
TSW currently has a fairly linear "levelling" progression through zones, at least until you reach Transylvania.
While there is no simple numerical "character level" in this game, overall gear QL roughly serves this purpose for the mission content, and there is a "level" number from 0-10 which is not displayed directly but used to calculate mission and mob difficulty ratings (it's the average of your talisman skill ranks).
Mission and mob difficulty range by zone:
Basically if you go into Savage Coast without having rank 3+ in your weapon and main talisman skills, you will have a fairly hard time. Also, there is a mechanic (implemented late in beta and aimed at preventing characters being powerlevelled) whereby XP rewards from missions above your level are reduced.
It is I believe technically possible to leave Kingsmouth before completing the Kingsmouth arc of "Dawning" (that mission itself extends over all 3 Solomon Island zones btw); I remember vaguely there being some kind of hard gating, not directly connected to story mission progress, that prevents going into Savage Coast from Kingsmouth, but this was back in beta and I'm not sure what it was determined on.
EDITED TO ADD: I may have remembered wrong. Just checked on the test server and was able to take a character with 0 SP spent into Savage Coast shortly after entering Kingsmouth for the first time.
EDITED TO ADD: There is, by the way, no hard gating on heading into Egypt or Transylvania from the Agartha portals to Scorched Desert / Besieged Farmlands, as players discovered during the Hallowe'en event mission which required recovering items from those zones.
For your other question: Improved quality weapons can be obtained variously: mission rewards, crafting, trade with other players, world mob drops, dungeon drops and token vendors are the main ones. The mission "ATC" from Danny in the skateboard park rewards a choice of green QL3 weapon. I can't find in my notes any missions in Savage Coast that give an assault rifle as reward, but those notes are not complete and in any case green weapons are fairly common as mob drops. Crafting weapons requires (1) crafting kits, obtained as mob drops or occasionally as mission rewards, and (2) metal, obtainable by breaking down other weapons (or "barrier" energy drinks).
The best quality weapons are obtained from dungeon drops and token vendors.
Each zone has a dungeon, where the bosses drop blue grade weapons of a QL equivalent to the hardest landscape content in that zone -- thus QL3 in Polaris (Kingsmouth), QL5 in Hell Raised (Savage Coast), &c. Groups for normal mode dungeons can be found either in zone chat or through the LFG tool (shift + C). Additionally the first time you complete Polaris you get a blue QL3 weapon of your choice.
Each zone also has a vendor called "Council of Venice Envoy" who sells blue grade weapons, not quite as powerful as those from the zone dungeon, for "sequins," tokens obtained from doing missions in that region. All zones in each region have the same sequin type, so sequins from Kingsmouth missions can be used at the vendor in Blue Mountain (in the cafe in the trailer park) who sells QL6 blue weapons.
Re: 1 - the story-line mission spans all of the areas of TSW and wasn't designed to (technically) be done at one time. Since it doesn't take up a main/side/dungeon mission slot, it can sit there as you progress through the areas and strengthen your character (trust me, you'll need to do this). You'll notice that while completing the earlier tiers of the mission in the Kingsmouth area, that it will suddenly give you a tier that sends you to savage coast (to the Academy). After that, it sends you to the mines in Blue Mountain. Some of these jumps to other areas can be daunting if you haven't been upgrading your gear and build.
Re 2 - the first reply mentions Council of Venice vendors in the first few areas that sell gear for the "Sequins" you earn from missions -- this is a great way to pick up a new AR. One tip: the Savage Coast vendor which is almost to the Blue Mountain zone line at Red's Bait Shop sells QL5 weapons (and Glyphs) for the same price as the QL3 vendor in Kingsmouth. If you're strong enough to make the run across Savage Coast and have the SP points spent up to 5, that's a nice additional bump in weapon quality. Also: the vendor in Blue Mountain (at the Trailer Park) sells QL6 weapons and Glyphs, but I think they cost 10 more Sequins, 50 vs 40, and the trip up the coast road in Blue Mountain could be scary if you're not careful.
I appreciate you both taking the time to write your helpful replies.
I will go to the bait shop and shop some ARs.
Next question if I may: I have used this template to start up my character:
http://www.drakkashi.com/secretworld/wheel.php?64=0&66=0&17=5&68=0&65=1&69=0&64=6&41=2&1=0&17=0&64=1&9=0&65=2&65=6
I have been focusing on mostly investigative quests to maximize XP. Now I find I have some 83 AP and at this point I am not sure where it would be best to put the points. I am enjoy being a damager/healer. I am not the top most skilled "twitch" MMO player in history. But I have been playing them for years. Any suggestions where to go from here would be appreciated.
Chase
My two suggestions for your build are the passive Improved Bursts and the active Fire at Will.
You are using a few burst attacks, so improving those should help. You could also swap in Surgical Steel to take advantage of the burst bonus.
Fire at Will is nice for groups. If you build with Suppressing Fire, you get resources on all the mobs. Then, you can hit each mob with Fire at Will, hitting the entire group.
There are 3 Council of Venice vendors in Savage Coast: the first in town, the second at the Academy, and then at Red's Bait Shop. They don't all have the same range of products, but you can repair your damaged gear at any of them.
A newbie can get all the way around Solomon Island, Kingsmouth to Blue Mountain, by mostly staying to the main road and keeping a sharp eye out for trouble. The zombies from the crashed bus as soon as you reach Blue Mountain are a problem: you can try outrunning them till they give up or running to the soldiers' camp. Or jump off the bridge before you trigger them and swim a ways. When you reach the tunnel back to Kingsmouth, there is a simple mission for a protective suit to get past the burning cars. Once done, you can use that tunnel at will.
Another hint / tip for getting AP points to help with builds: at one time, you got 1200 "bonus" points for use in the Funcom store, after you completed 30 missions.
You might want to browse the "boosts" section of the store (drop down menu, top left corner of screen, near the bottom). There are some double-AP point booster items (consumable, time restricted) that really amps up the amount of APs that you earn from questing.
Additionally, if you are a subscriber (optional since the game went buy-to-play), you get three perks: one is a click-able item that has a 20 hour cooldown that doubles actual experience (goes toward both AP and SP points) for one hour ; the second is a monthly "bonus" of additional 1200 points usable in the Secret World store, see above for boosts suggestion ; and the third is the monthly "bonus" of 20 Veteran Points, a different currency, that can also be used in the store to buy things that can help beginners -- including weapons and talismans, but you're probably better off banking those and buying the sequin items that we covered in previous replies.