True Newbie Looking For Advice

edited September 2021 in Quick Class Questions

Sorry if this seems negative, it's not meant to be. Just trying to explain so I can be given the proper help. Also I apologize for the length. Also if not allowed to post, than delete.

I have to start a little about my past gaming experience because I think it ties into my issues.

I played Oregon trail and legend of the red dragon in the 90s on PC, they were very simple DOS games. My first console RPGs were Dragon Warrior 3 and Final Fantasy 4, were one utomatically got your skills as you leveled. I hated FF7 and those that came afterwards.

After that from 1997 to 2011 I played table top RPGs. I played chaotic neutral (not chaotic stupid) Damage dealers, mainly warriors or monks in DnD. All I had to do was roll initiative (when applicable) and use my one attack. There was no Role-playing, you talked like you would in that situation and unless it was something severe, metagaming / OOC was ignored.

I tried to be a healer but defending myself would always come before healing the party and people complained that I wouldn't sacrifice my character to heal the parties. There also was no use of skills, which is why I quit because I was tired of nothing but hack and slash.

I have played a few mmorpgs but there was no role playing in any of them. Final fantasy XI, City of Villians, DCUO, Champions online, WOW. I never had to use macros because all I ever had to do was my one attack. Again all I played was a damage dealer. I tried to player a healer once in FFXI, every party had a power leveler or power healer. Before I knew it, I was high level and couldn't keep up with the healing because I didn't learn as I was leveling. And the PVP experience in these online games ruined PVP for me, I don't like it.


FAST FORWARD TO ACHAEA

An acquaintance suggested Achaea on reddit. I looked at the class skills and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer amount per class but I liked grook and knew it was for me, especially since we both have add. Being a frogman Eleusis was the only city that made sense to call home. Two out of three choose themselves. Now for class.

I saw RP was required. I figured playing a smart mouthed antagonistic clown that went around bopping NPCs on the head and throwing water balloons at my fellow characters would be easy. So I chose a Jester and learned my perception of the class was wrong. The class is a gypsy that uses pranks instead of curses. And If I went pranks exclusively the character would be very weak and frustrating to play.

The game was refreshing at first. It was different, especially the other players and that difference made me wanna learn how to and play even more.

I'm very introverted and don't feel comfortable asking others questions In game, especially over open chat. I prefer to find answers in forums, where the spotlight isnt on me. Unfortunately I am not finding any basic teaching walk through strategy guides or suggestive class build guides, which should be able to be done without giving away the game. And are found on pretty much every game forum I've been on.

I am near level 60. I didn't or dont feel like I learned anything from the newbie section and because I went the wrong way from the jail, by the time I found BEKU, I was about to be tossed from the Newbie rooms. I still make the mistakes of occasionally attacking the wrong NPCs in rooms outside the city (Mingruk for example) in Manara.

I am tattood but I don't think about them, pretty sure if I check at least my boar tattoo is gone. Someone told me how to auto drink potions so all I do is check my inventory on occasion and refill when necessary. And I've only leveled with a tutor once because I'm pretty sure Jester isn't the class for me.

Also I had my first insanity warning this morning when I was saying goodbye to another character, wishing them good luck and reminding them not to forget to clot. I didn't think telling someone to remember to use first aid on their wounds was OOC but I guess I was wrong.

At first I wasn't taking notes but at some point, I realized I needed to because there was way to much being thrown at me all at once. I kinda wish the newbie section would've capped my level & xp but not let me leave until I completed tasks that showed I had a general understanding of how to play. I was reading on google and saw someone give suggested areas to train in for specific level ranges. They mentioned clotting to stop bleeding. Something I wish I knew about 30 levels ago but didn't see anything about that in game or on the forum. Probably would've stopped me from dying near or over 30 times.

I kept getting told to complete my tasks. I did and joined a house to complete the tasks. Now I'm getting hounded to select a mentor. I don't get the clock conversion and help time/date isn't helping, and every mentor seems to be getting off withing an hour or two of me logging on. I get on 12am est to 5am est majority of the week but will get on during the day if I have free time.

On top of that, the mentors all have requirements of their students and the house wants to know my character goals. I don't think surviving, enjoying life and spending my days learning who I am, would be an appropriate response. I'm a newb, how am I gonna have real character goals if I don't know how to play the game?

I want to play a PVE class/character closer to my personality. One where I can be introverted and don't have to say anything unless need be. Especially since people in other rooms wanna talk to me and distract me during combat, or I dont see someone trying to converse with because I'm in combat.

(How talking to anyone not in your room/area without using a tell, isn't insanity for anyone not a psychic is still beyond me but that's the same in all MMOs. Lol)

A class where I have a full suit of armor from head to toes. And where all I need is a weapon to deliver 1 main attack like bop and a shield. A class super simple (yes I said that), where the other skills dont matter too much in PVE and I can learn to use them over time at my discretiom, or are auto skills that I dont have to do anything with. And where I don't need any special items like artifacts.

An Infernal looking for redemption, sworn to defend nature in Eleusis seemed like a good idea but the class is banned, I don't get why. I've read monk requires artifacts and use of multiple combat skills. I guess that maybe leaves blademaster, idk. I don't wanna give up on the game yet.

The game is starting to feel like a corner store job and not a game. I'm taking a break to try and read more on it.

IRL I am a security guard. They trained me in a bunch of skills I never use and the company makes us take refresher courses at least once a year to keep us from forgetting anything. All I do is watch cameras for 7 hours, walk around scanning stickers on my phone for the 8th hour, while praying no situations arise to cause my anxiety to spike. I want my character's class to be just as simple if possible, all I wanna do is log on relax and have fun. There's enough stuff going on to stress about, I don't want my character/achaea to add to them.

If you made it this far, thank you for your time and any advice or information you can share.

Comments

  • Class, tattoos, armour and race are all things in Achaea that are mechanical, so people will tend to treat them as neutral in RP situations unless you specifically call attention to them. If you want to make them a feature of your character you can, but I believe you will have a better experience doing what the majority of the playerbase does and focus on RP that isn't tied to mechanical things.


    Generally for PvE all classes are the same in complexity, so don't worry there. Every class will boil down to hitting one alias or macro over and over, the difference is in how much dps that macro does which you don't have control of in the moment.


    Being an introvert will come, people like to talk to new players because sometimes people can be shy and it is an intimidating game. All of the major organizations have newbie interaction and teaching as a major part of what they do by design. Just keep ignoring people and they will stop trying to interact eventually.


    For time conversion, work out how to convert your local time to GMT/UTC and back, all the Admin related stuff uses GMT. Otherwise IG a day = RL an hour and IG a month = RL a day.

  • @ChivTric


    Hi! Fellow Eleusian here. My fiance is getting back into the game as well as a jester, and she's been having a blast. Albeit without doing too much interaction with other players.


    Overall, once you get a handle on how to move about the world, and interact with it... you can just toddle off and do whatever you so please (within reason! Remember, actions have consequences! Certain denizens may hire on you, or if you hit loyals or a protected area, someone else may come and tell you to bugger off!)


    If you're wanting to play an Infernal class, but in Eleusis. You can very much start up as a Runewarden with a set of fullplate and the like. You'll have runelore, but be able to play it off as learning this new trade fresh from all that.


    I definitely come off as a hardass in game, or distant... However, I am fine for asking small questions here or there-- or if you need any direct help your house should be able to provide answers if you throw a random question out here-and-there.

  • I was planning on basing my character on race and class. I have Add. I lose focus and get frustrated easy. Traits I can easily play as a grook. As for the rest of the RP, if I'm not using the class and race to help then I might come off like a cold/rude machine because I am typically goal oriented when I get on. Gain a couple of levels, complete a few quests, clear out a dungeon, or learn a few skills. I'll basically only talk to people if need be, or If I see a question I can answer. That's how I am in RL now that I think about it. A cold/rude machine is not exactly how I think of a Jester's personality. It doesn't sound like many of the classes. Good thing I did not go Bard. Lol

    I'm on andriod playing on blowtorch at the moment and cannot Macro, I have to type everything in. I was typing in kill so that I would constantly do the most powerful attack but started to receive warnings from the game to actually select an attack.

    When is Serenade? The mentors mention being on days before or days after. I looked at the calander and I don't see it. Serenade is a song to me and I don't get sound on blowtorch.

    When I started writing this it was 247am GMT or 2247 my time. Which is actually -4 not -5 hours. But I cannot figure out how to convert game time into real time. I tried typing 21-pha-869 and 21/pha/869 I got "real date must be:..."

    I appreciate your help, it's been insightful.

  • edited September 2021

    Yeah, the Mingruk either flip me off or attack me when the gnolls do in Manara. I am so used to assuming every NPC or Denizen outside of a city being an enemy that I often attack before trying to greet due to the newbie section because the pygmy held me prisoner, I just assumed all pygmy were to be attacked on sight.

    I don't want to be a dumb killing machine but feel like that's my skill level at the moment. Add to that what I was telling Accipiter about being a cold/rude machine that is task focused, that loses focus and gets frustrated easy due to ADD and I guess I'm just an android/machine. As for chat and asking for help, I just prefer private tell instead of asking questions out in the open if I cannot find the answers on forums. And seeing people communicate in chat either to me or just in general can get distracting in the middle of combat.

    As far as Infernal, it was more so I could RP than anything. The Weaponmastery and Chivalry seem okay for runewarden but I don't like the idea of having to rely on Ink for runelore. I liked inferno also because it didn't seem reliant on anything to use abilities, hellforged seemed easier than runelore. So, other than that, Runewarden would be okay. How does runewarden compare to blademaster as far as needing extra items to use abilities?

    As for the jester, the only skill I've used is bop. I've tried handspring into the next room to attack the specific denizen I know is there. Not having any luck. It's been alright but like I said tarot and puppets not my idea of a jester, and having to store items in my inventory at the moment seems like a bigger inconvenience than it's worth. Maybe I'll bump into your fiance in Eleusis and they can sell me on the benefits.

    Thanks again for the advice and information.

  • @ChivTric Serenade happens at 0:00 GMT and is a shorthand for saying that. Converting to/from ingame time is notoriously difficult for anyone to get right and usually just ends up with everyone confused, so people generally don't in casual planning and will just say "this long after the serenade this many months from now".

    With regards to skills, the vast majority don't work on denizens, I think only bop does for jester. You can keep using kill or switch to bop to get rid of the message.

  • Is this true of all classes or just Jesters? And how does one know which are ineffective agaisnt denizen?

  • In the AB file it says "works on/against:" and that will tell you if it works on denizens, and yes it is true of every class.

  • This post is going to be a bit of a jumbled mess, but here is some info from someone who has played this game for more than 20 years. Most of this boils down to you not having played long enough, not wanting to talk to others in the game, playing on a phone, and not reading some help files.


    • Playing on a phone will be hard, especially as a new player. It is impossible to keep up with everything while on a phone.
    • Macros/keybinds, aliases, and triggers are required for play. If you play on an app that doesn't allow those, you will want to find another app
    • It sounds like you may have missed some pointers to help files in the newbie areas and before you joined a city/house, and after as well
    • Achaea is not similar or comparable to any of the games you mentioned. It is first a RP game, then a PK game, then a PVE game. The good news is you can do as little or as much of those activities as you want. Attempting to draw parallels to other visual games won't do you much good, neither will carrying expectations from those games to Achaea
    • The majority of class abilities do not work on denizens, and they are not intended to. Denizens can only be damaged, not afflicted. This is the same across all classes
    • Your perception of Jester & combat is wrong. Jester is not a gypsy class. PK in Achaea is extremely complex, and you don't win PK by doing random abilities on your opponents. PK takes a lot of calculation and focus with very specific abilities in specific orders
    • Achaea requires communication with other players, it is the cornerstone of the game. You will not be able to learn everything without talking to other players
    • Mentors are the people who are going to spend 1 on 1 time with you and answer what questions you have. Avoiding getting one has already caused you problems. You don't have to have end game goals set right now. A goal could be "learning how to use my class abilities", or "get level 65", or "explore more areas"
    • Notes can be taken in game in a journal, you should have gotten one and been instructed how to use it during the introduction quests/tasks
    • Tells across areas are not OOC because it's canon that adventurers can use them
    • Every class is a "almost 1 button" class while bashing
    • Some classes are restricted to cities - Infernals can destroy forests so Eleusis doesn't want them. These are called factional classes - Ashtan, Mhaldor, Targossas, Eleusis, and Hashan* have one or more factional classes


    My suggestions:


    • Play on a computer if possible
    • Go back through the initial help files HELP, HELP GOALS, HELP WHAT NOW, and re-read through TASKS
    • Pick a knight class - they generally have lots of health, good defenses, don't require artefacts, and are newbie friendly. Infernals are evil, Paladins are good, Runewardens can go anywhere. Note that good and evil do not mean the same thing in Achaea as they do in real life
    • Try and talk to other players. You can always excuse yourself from the conversation if you feel uncomfortable


    Good luck!


  • edited September 2021

    I appreciate you taking the time to get back to me. Playing on a computer is not possible at the moment. And the only reason I know of blowtorch is because I saw someone say they used it for the game. I think it was on reddit.

    Before I continue with your comment, what's PK? I've never heard of that abbv. in online gaming. Is that PVP or player versus player?

    The newbie section I went the wrong way, I know I did. I ended up lord knows where in a bit of yellow terrain that I could only ho back the way I came. While looking for the village and beku. So I know I missed a lot.

    I have no journal (in game) and don't recall seeing anything about getting one.

    As for taking a knight class, runelore, requires paying attention to ink. I'm trying to pay attention to my potions, mainly. I don't wanna keep track of any other potions yet. I was still leaning towards blademaster because it seems like it might have less to focus on.

    I will give everything you advised a read.

  • edited September 2021

    I am not seeing an option to say I'm satisfied with the help. You three have provided me more than enough to think about and to read. Thank you.

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