Completely free to play character

Eolan

so I'm planning on starting a new character where I start from complete scratch, no retirement credits and no RL money spent(so no credit package, lesson packages or membership) I want to see how the True noob experience is. With that said, I would greatly appreciate any help on picking a class that will be best for this endeavor. PVE will me my main focus as I will be required to farm IG gold to purchase any credits. I'm open to all classes, all specs, cities, etc.

Im positive my credit accumulation will be near nil at the start so transing my main skills will likely take time. As ill only be getting bound credits from leveling up.

Argwin

Two Handed Runewarden is the usual answer for best unartied hunting. Requires a bit of lessons in Runelore to get hunting runes and runicarmour depending on how self-sufficient you plan on being, but otherwise you can make a lot of headway without being tri-trans.

Also, don't forget about renown for credits to buy arties and lessons. It's still really slow, but once you can survive mirror tower you have an easy 10 to 20 credits a day.

Cooper

Have you played recently - in the last year or so?

They introduced a system that lets players earn up to 20 bound credits per real life day. It is a struggle to get to the 20 credits as a new character or player if you do it alone - but with a city you can join stronger people and earn the credits much easier.

You can go just about any class you'd like for PVE - they also recently rebalanced PVE between classes and there aren't as many "bad" PVE classes as before.

Any knight class and specialisation will do just fine. Paladin in Targossas, Runewarden in any city, Infernal in Mhaldor. Knight is also great in just about any PK situation as well!

Eolan

Didn't even know renown was a thing! That sounds like a great addition to help out new players. Is it gated behind a certain level? Or can I start earning credits via renown as soon as I get out of newbie area?

@Cooper @Argwin

Asenatha

Or can I start earning credits via renown as soon as I get out of newbie area?

You'll actually probably hit your renown cap (2000 a day, or 20 credits) before you even hit level 10, because all of the newbie tasks and initial quests reward 50-100 renown each. It's a little overwhelming, but just roll with it!

Argwin

Quests reward renown based on your level and the difficulty of the quest, and every newbie task gives renown. I just started an alt recently and got 20 credits (max per rl day) just doing newbie tasks.

Also, ADVENTURE LIST lists all or the renown tasks.

Accipiter

You only need about 600 credits to get all the essential skills, with renown that is a month or so of heavy grinding.

There is a pretty huge gap to get to high level artefacts, and talismans will be mostly out of reach, but reasonable levels of PvP (especially group based which is what a lot of combat is nowadays) is well within reach.

I would recommend looking at classes with innate travel abilities just because travel is one of the first things people by an artefact to avoid.

Shecks

You can pretty easily earn a lot more than 20cr per day by the way - that's purely just from Renown. You still having bashing, shops, voyages, Market, CFS, talismans, etc. There are plenty of events where you can win credits too, including artisanal contests, ship races, championship games, etc.

Achaean economy / market works a lot like a simplified version of real-life. It takes money to make money, and you can make a pretty ridiculous amount of money in-game if you have a good understanding of finance concepts like assets, risk, liquidity, etc.

IMO it's not a big challenge to play completely for free, but you should probably accept that it could take years of hard work to be a serious threat in PVP without some artefact investments. You can be PvP active of course, with a very low (free) budget, but I wouldn't expect to be winning any tournaments or joining Mark.

Sheverad

Just been wondering about this lately, since it's a really good system to help new players or players that don't plan to invest a lot in the game. I see that with some effort you can have a good income of credits which can help you along your goals, but I'm wondering how viable it is when the population in the cities are so skewed. The easy way of doing a foray, for example, you may need like 2-3 more people to help along, or at least 1-2 knowing what to do and having the arties/level to do it, but it's been certain periods of the day some times where I've seen Mhaldor or Targossas or Ashtan have like 2-5 people online, and the other 3 cities having 20-30.

It's a pity with these great cities offering good RP opportunities and unique skillsets. A novice going there and not having people to do some content regularly, might make them leave if they want to be free to play, whether it's the city for another populated one or the game in general. I'm not sure what can be done in this case to help f2p players or those who don't want to invest a lot. Could there be something to help matchmaking here (I know it would be weird)?

Basically, just wondering if someone who wants to be f2p might have to resign themselves to choosing their city, and by extent character RP path sometimes, based on the number of its citizens (potential to join you in combat/forays). And if, as sometimes seems to be waves of migration from one city to another, should you then just follow that and try to redefine the RP?

Iaxus

I've been in cities that are small pop (like current Targ or couple years ago Mhaldor) and high pop. The amount of people really doesn't matter, because from what I can tell everyone is willing to help out when needed. Especially the low pop cities, because they know helping with things like that will help retention.

Reyson

It also helps to remember that having numbers of people doesn't mean as much as having very strong, capable, and motivated characters. If I had a thousand unartefacted level sixty characters, we still could not do the Reckoning forays, because we'd get stomped by the mobs in there, whereas having just one person with the level, artefacts, knowledge, and willingness to run forays even after they've already got their renown makes a much, much bigger difference than population size.

This is ultimately why people like Proficy are so beloved in their factions. You can say any number of things about any character/player in Achaea, we've all been around each other for long enough to murder one another outright over cabin fever. But some people will invest time to see other people get their rewards just because they're on the same team, and that might just be one of the nicest things about Achaea, and Achaeans.