Quick Questions

Rinzai

Eld said:

Anyone have a brief summary of the mechanics of ship crew morale/xp? My understanding is that (neglecting trades/cooking/etc) morale rises or lowers on some regular (roughly hourly) tick, by an amount set by rations and wages, experience increases mainly through sailing around, and increased morale leads to faster experience gain. Is that roughly correct, and does anyone have an idea of the relative importance of wages/rations/food type in morale gain?

I had a lengthy conversation with Soopay about this and it appears that it's like a yearly thing, where they get a magical amount of experience, and from my understanding sailing or doing actions didn't ever really help this. I would love to have a real answer, but I have sailed a strider around like crazy with almost zero experience gain, which makes me want to (not really) do the crew experience ship trades, the not really because I've heard it has diminishing returns....

Honestly I gave up on experience and I just sail.  Need an artefact that gives crew experience like the cabin boy.

Delphinus

Rinzai said:

Need an artefact that gives crew experience like the cabin boy.

There are so many things I could say to this.

Sena

Rinzai said:

I had a lengthy conversation with Soopay about this and it appears that it's like a yearly thing, where they get a magical amount of experience, and from my understanding sailing or doing actions didn't ever really help this. I would love to have a real answer, but I have sailed a strider around like crazy with almost zero experience gain, which makes me want to (not really) do the crew experience ship trades, the not really because I've heard it has diminishing returns....

I just went through my logs, and experience gain definitely isn't yearly, or even monthly. With an inexperienced crew, you can see the level change multiple times per RL day. And while I can't really track how much time was spent sailing (since I wasn't the only person using it back then), there are times where gaining a level took multiple days, and times when the crew gained multiple levels per day (at a higher level), so something was affecting experience gain.

Synbios

Cardan said:

Veldrin said:

Nellaundra said:

@Veldrin, I have to ask.

Do you just have Ashaxei's corpse strapped to your back or something?

My plan was to try and get enough embers to recombine it

Ashaxei != Lego/Meccano 

I can imagine a giant Jenga/Uno-Stacko composed of embers. 

Presenting - The EMBER STACKER! 

Pull out that loose ember and put it on the top of the heap!

Explosions of fun for the whole family!

Will you be the last player standing, or will you be the one to make the stack fall? EXCITING!

Hours of fun for the whole family! (assuming they have starbursts inked on a daily basis. DO TRY THIS AT HOME!)

Challenge your mind and your health vial supplies!

Surprise Explosions(TM) can happen at any time. NO GAME IS EVER THE SAME!

Pictured above: Ruth just minutes away from either victory over the weaker and inferior Sapients, or turning into a pile of charred body parts. HOW RIVETING AND JOLLY GOOD!

MAKE IT SO, CARTON! OR TECDAN, OR WHATEVER MAKES A GOOD PORTMANTEAU OF CARDAN AND TECTON!

Aina

Can blademasters parry?

Sena

Aina said:

Can blademasters parry?

Yes, with a worn scabbard.

Sherazad

@Synbios: That's not Ruth. That's Jurixe.

Synbios

Sherazad said:

@Synbios: That's not Ruth. That's Jurixe.

Won't matter when the whole thing explodes, anyway. All charred guts look the same once exposed to the equalizing power of the ember-boom!

Tvistor

An ember boom is what you get when you exceed the speed of ember. It's approximately 'Whoa, Veldrin died again?' miles per hour.

Eld

Sena said:

Aina said:

Can blademasters parry?

Yes, with a worn scabbard.

And Parrying in Weaponry, obviously. Never checked whether the scabbard has to be positioned or just worn, but not like it really matters.

Rovelda

I know Serpents can give us something without our noticing. Any other class can?

Sena

Yes, but not as easily or stealthily (and only a specific item, in one case).

Rovelda

1000gc. Only a serpent can give us this? The only person I saw entering the room was an alchemist.

Sena

If you weren't blacked out, and you didn't just forget or not notice getting it, then it was probably a serpent.

Maht

Take an Occultist without a veil and his target has a veil. Will the occultist be able to fully utilize his doppleganger against his target, or does the veil prevent some of it's usage?

Veldrin

the Occultist will do 'plaugh target' as long as they are in the same local area.

Gamoud

Is Monk still the class with the lowest barrier of entry into combat? If not, what is?

Maht

Gamoud said:

Is Monk still the class with the lowest barrier of entry into combat? If not, what is?

If you mean by player skill/knowledge rather than lessons/materials required:
Runewarden if you have good weapons, Monk as long as you get decent at counting limbs, Priest is ridiculously easy versus a lot of people especially if you get lucky with demons (see Jibraaiyl killing dragons). Druid has a very low entry level but not much room to move forward that I can tell.

If you mean by actual lessons/materials require then probably Monk and Serpent as they can both do decently with monotrans and a bit in other skills.

Take this with a grain of salt though because I'm not a fantastic player by any means.

Aina

Does the Flame Fist ability or a fire-infused slash from a Blademaster destroy an icewall? I suppose it would be useless since both attacks require Shin, but I'm just curious.

Sena

I've never actually tried using them on an icewall, but I doubt it.

Jovora

I wouldn't suggest Serpent for monotrans. You won't be able to hypnotise (for goldenseal stacks, hypersomnia, disrupt, confusion, impatience, etc.) And you won't be able to relapse camus. Serpent is also very difficult to get your head around without a great teacher or a lot of time on your part spent practising and practising and understanding the finer mechanics of affliction combat and illusions. Illusions will be absolutely essential if you don't grab a level 2 or level 3 artefact dirk.

Monk is good but also very easy to walk over if you're only single trans. Expect to take a lot of damage from a lot of people. It's also a lot more difficult to kill people as a Monk with more max health across the board and without enfeeble you will generally struggle. Still very possible.

Knight is generally the best class with the smallest lesson input, but weapon reliance has always been annoying. You don't actually need great weapons, but it definitely helps if you can hit around the 2s mark(Because you'll be faster than most of your opponents attacks which is very handy.)

I would vote for Knight, personally. 

IDEA: Just out of curiosity, do you think a topic where we can discuss just classes, and can give our own more detailed input there would be better than throwing them into Quick Questions topic? I'm going to make it anyway, but just curious.

http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/437/class-questions#latest

Iocun

Single trans monk mostly means that you will cry out in frustration when fighting mounted people in the arena.

You might still cry out in frustration with tritrans, but kai cripple definitely helps, particularly when you don't have the arties that make you powerful enough to be able to kill people after losing your stance from jumpkicking. That being said, some people still manage to be pretty powerful as single trans monks, but it requires a precise setup and patience.

Eld

@Aina, no neither those nor shin annihilation can be used to melt icewalls.

Nellaundra

Iocun said:

Single trans monk mostly means that you will cry out in frustration when fighting mounted people in the arena.

You might still cry out in frustration with tritrans, but kai cripple definitely helps, particularly when you don't have the arties that make you powerful enough to be able to kill people after losing your stance from jumpkicking. That being said, some people still manage to be pretty powerful as single trans monks, but it requires a precise setup and patience.

When I was a Monk, I hated your camel more than words could ever convey.  I just thought you'd like to know that.

Antonius

Jovora said:

Knight is generally the best class with the smallest lesson input, but weapon reliance has always been annoying. You don't actually need great weapons, but it definitely helps if you can hit around the 2s mark(Because you'll be faster than most of your opponents attacks which is very handy.)

The fact people can even contemplate saying this just shows how many quality of life improvements have been made to the Knight classes in the last nine years.

Tilly

HELP ARTEFACTS DEFENSIVE said:

We do not make quarterstaves that have this feature. We did this exactly once and learned from our mistake. For well over 100 Achaean years it has not been possible to purchase a quarterstaff with the features of a Shield of Absorption.

Anyone know the story behind this?

Sohl

I think the quarterstaff already has defensive benefits, and was way too good when combined with SoA.

Dreas

Imagine, if you will, a Sylvan with a shield of absorption. And then weep.

Tilly

Do people actually use the lesser known weapons in Achaean combat? Bardiches, morning stars, and so on?

Aepas

Tilly said:

Do people actually use the less known weapons in Achaean combat? Bardiches, morning stars, and so on?

Not really, I spent a lot of money on a few hundred Bardiche, looking to get the best one. They are the most damaging weapon in game, but also the slowest. The problem is the damage does not offset the balance speed, especially when people have runes or decent armor. Atop that, it's not all that good at limb breaking and all that jazz.

After playing dark souls for a bit, I'd love to see a sort of stat progression for weapons, like strength affecting a bardiche/flail/axe a lot more than it does a rapier, but damage seems to be a sort of flat percentage gain on weapons. I might be wrong.

Basically, the game has ben around so long it's developed a sort of metagame where specific weapon types are usually used for specific purposes. That's why most knights simply use rapiers, (even though the thought of a knight dual wielding rapiers is silly in my head) because venoms and damage per second wins out, especially with the ability to stack sensitivity at least once.

Some shaman like Chima were known for using Bardiche, but only in blackout or recklessness, and heavily runed. A few classes do have the ability to utilize certain weapons, but the game still lends towards the most friendly metagame.

Goryllin was known for using his Axe and Broadsword as a damage knight, but with the changes to stats that seems out the door as well.

Also, I'm not a combat guru. Personal opinions here, and just what I see. I may be wrong.