ArcheAge: Catch-All

The hard part is getting down.

Just hit Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaagh.

So I've got my paladin to level 11/12 or so now, and I've hit the part of the quests where the crafting people start appearing.

If I'm not going to spend any actual money on the game, is there a particular kind of crafting I could/should dabble in?

Also, I ran into the auction guy, and looks like you have to be a paying person to sell the ores and flowers I picked up along the way? Should I just sell these to a shop keeper or something?

Last thing...do I have to find the exact right kind of merchant to sell stuff? the crafting people don't want to buy my old armor and shields...

GoldenDog wrote:

I am a bit worried that there is nothing to do at level 50. I'm on my third neutral zone (level 37) and all three of them are completely stocked with 50 wannabe pirates and 50 enemy faction guilds.

I found a big oversight on the game's behalf for pet mechanics. Even if I go stealth, wolf runs around visible and announces my presence. While there aren't repair or XP bills, I've spent a couple gold to bring back my pets. I've only got the experimental glider so that's not an option for travel.

It's not an oversight. They expect you to manage your pets much more closely than other games. In a fight first thing I almost always do is to dismiss my pet/mount.

There's TONs of stuff to do at 50, and before! Still if you don't want the hassle of fighting, crafting, and going solo it wont be easy nor for the feint of heart.

Druidpeak wrote:

You can upgrade the experimental very easily with plans from mirage Isle. Link.

If I remember right, the 3 blue prints cost less than 2 gold total.

Took me a while to realize how easy the glider upgrade was.

Yep I think you get the item required for it around level 25 from a quest as well. There's also a very good glider that drops as loot in the 20 range. I used it all the way through Alpha.

Roo wrote:

So I've got my paladin to level 11/12 or so now, and I've hit the part of the quests where the crafting people start appearing.

If I'm not going to spend any actual money on the game, is there a particular kind of crafting I could/should dabble in?

Also, I ran into the auction guy, and looks like you have to be a paying person to sell the ores and flowers I picked up along the way? Should I just sell these to a shop keeper or something?

Last thing...do I have to find the exact right kind of merchant to sell stuff? the crafting people don't want to buy my old armor and shields...

Lot of the very early armor and gear don't sell. You have to delete them. Yep as a f2p person I don't think you can use the AH, and you also cant plant or build, and have very limited crafting abilities if at all.

GoldenDog wrote:

I am a bit worried that there is nothing to do at level 50.

I'm around level 42 and I'm starting to think there's going to be too much stuff for me to do at 50 and I've got to pick what I want to focus on. Farming/forestry/animal husbandry, crafting, ground and deep sea mining, running trade routes, ambushing enemy traders, sea battles, sport fishing, elite dungeons, world bosses, working as hired muscle for fishers and traders, war zone PvP, arena PvP, and starting Nov 4th castle sieges with siege equipment. And if you just want to keep grinding PvE fights you can level up every skillset to 50 with one character.

Oh, and if you want to sell things on the AH as a free player you can purchase a license that will allow you to do that in the cash shop. Basically a micro transaction. And you can craft anything you want but the limit on labor points makes it unrealistic and the cost of purchasing all of the mats is prohibitive.

You can also use public farm areas to grow certain things.

Without at may getting auction house rights it will be hard but there are several basic things that you could grow and sell that way which would use smaller amounts of labor.

Likely the best thing to do would be to sell stone that you mine.

Few quick updates. Some more land has been opening up since the devs have gone on a massive bot banning campaign. They apparently banned over 1200 accounts in one go a few days ago and announced it globally in game as a bot rapture. Since then the server has had an active GM on most of the time and if someone starts spamming gold stuff they immediately get banned and if you see a suspected bot in the world, say that guy named fbghbf who's just grinding away on the same mobs for hours on end, you can mention it in global chat and the GM will swing over to check 'em out. The mass ban opened up a lot of land and with a new continent opening up next week some people are already selling off their property to get ready for the next big land rush.

Grievance also got a server first when we built our own Black Pearl over the weekend. (I think Trion changed the name of the ship to the Howling Yawl or something like that to avoid copyright issues, but everyone still calls it the Black Pearl.) That ship is the definition of overpowered at this point. Until other guilds get their own Black Pearl we're basically masters of the sea when we choose to be. The radar range is larger than any other ship, it's faster than any other ship and has more cannons so you can pick your battles, chase anyone down or get away from anyway and then outgun them. The guild took it out on the first night and just wreaked havoc. Dozens of hostile vessels were sunk without putting a dent into the Pearl. The only change we're going to have to make is that in the future we'll need to deploy some people with harpoon clippers to latch onto some of the enemy vessels to slow them down so we can hit them with the cannons easier. Oh, and we were able to stream the building of the Pearl during the 24 hour charity stream on Twitch so that was nice.

All of the big guilds are getting ready for the Nov 4th opening of Auroria and the addition of guild castles. One guild I saw last night was actually running formations with their members to help them prepare for siege warfare. It was odd seeing players actually move in formation as I'm used to just seeing giant chaotic melees with lots of random jumping. I also believe they'll be adding submarines in that patch so people are already eyeing those as the next big personal acquisition.

Personally, I've started doing a few smuggling runs from the East continent to the West using my clipper. So far I've only gotten caught once and they took me completely by surprise. I don't think I've ever had so much fun doing trade runs as I have on this game. Having the trade pack on your back completely bar you from using teleports or your glider while also slowing you down really forces you to live in the world for a bit.

The population on my server kind of tanked. It must have been like 50% bot associated accounts XD. I will play for a few hours and only see a handful of people. Usually it's level 50s working on their pets and skills.

I made it up to level 43 and am an invader in cat world. The biggest issue I am facing is Mana regen. I have no food left as the quest quit giving them. I am also too broke to purchase it at 7 Gold per 20. I blew 85 gold on one Apex for an auction license and costume... Glad I got it at 85 Gold because now Apex is selling for almost 100 Gold.

Decided I wasn't go to re-roll a different server because it has taken me months to get to 40. I would rather wait for paid transfers.

If you're having issues with mana I know the meditation skill in auramancy ran really cut the down time in between fights and I think there's a passive in vitalism that returns 3% of any damage you sustain as mana. Also, most of the melee builds I've run haven't had much issue with mana consumption. What kind of build are you using? It also might be as simple as changing from one type of armor to another. It kinda' blew my mind the first time I saw a tank in cloth armor but it can totally work in this game.

I am running Stone Arrow (Archery, Shadowplay, Defense). I still don't have a shield yet though since the quest rewards offer either a bow or a shield (have 3 unspent trait points). I always go for bow since that's my DPS.

I have dual-wield swords that are good at close range, but I only fight melee when the zone is peaceful because I can let my health dip down. Shooting arrows till the mob is 30% health and finishing off with melee is ok, but I am candy for a gank. Going pure bow, I can kite and never take a hit to health. Problem with pure bow is I run out of mana after 4-5 mobs!!! Can't even complete a quest for 8 creatures without food or rest.

My rotation is
attack buff/pierce/bleed/poison/rapid shot/rapid shot/rapid shot/pierce/poison/rapid shot

4 Rapid shots is the same mana as one bleed and I've calculated my mana use to be efficient given the number of skills and a comfortable kill speed. I am not using a single trait in defense so I think I might just ditch it. Defense is definitely better for PvP, but I can't level without some mana regen.

All leather armor.

Well, if you're not taking hits and you're not aiming to be a ranged tank then you have a few options if you ditch defense.

If you dropped defense for auramancy you'd have the primeval build which tends to be the most popular of all archery builds for PvP. The meditation skill I talked about opens at level 30 and heals 4% of max mana per second for 9 seconds and has a 2 minute cooldown. This skill tree is all about countering cc effects.

You could go with Witchcraft, which the popular trickster build, and at level 25 you get play dead which restores 1% health and mana per second. It's on a 3 minute timer so that's something to bear in mind. Mainly though witchcraft is going to be for crowd control. The 8 point passive also causes 2% of the mana you cause to an enemy to be converted to mana so that's a big plus.

If you opted for vitalism that would make you a ranger. They're not exactly PvP powerhouses but you'll see one every now and again beboping around. Their active skills aren't going to help your mana issues but the passives have a few things. The level 1 passive converts 3% of received damage to mana but if you're not getting hit then... yeah. No good. The 6 point passive increases your spirit by 9% and I THINK spirit helps increase your mana pool but don't quote me on that.

Outside of that you might want to look into what it takes to craft the mana food or potions. I honestly haven't looked myself so I don't know how tough it would be to put together.

Alright, going to swap for Auramancy which sounds like the best instant gratification. I have 3 open points, but not 8 for Witchcraft. I imagine I can swap back to defense at 50. Do I see a shrine or a skill manager to swap?

Also, where do I got in cat-land to get a battlecat mount?

Thanks for the help.

You have to see a skill manager to change your skillsets. Their symbol on the map looks kind of like a recycle symbol with two arrows going around in a circle.

As for the mount, I honestly don't know. I've played a cat to mid 20's and I'm in the west on my 50. I just followed the quests and they eventually got me where I need to go. By following quests I got a mount, a battle pet, a donkey, rowboat and glider. Oh, and if you haven't already done so, upgrade your glider asap to the Ultimate Glider. You can buy the blueprints from Mirage Island for a few silver each and the materials on the auction house are also pretty cheap. And yeah, just like their armor and weapon crafting system, you have to craft each level until it's improved as high as it can go. The free glider works fine for getting started. The improved glider requires level 10 to use, the enhanced glider is level 15 and the ultimate glider is level 20. I don't think I bothered upgrading until around level 40 and now I use the thing constantly.

Just FYI you can change skill sets at a Nui stone too.

As for the car mount the public stables are not too far down the road from tiger spine of you follow the road, it will be on your left.

Archery is a man a hog. Has to be some downside to never getting hit.

Auramancy will be great with your 3 points. You can get meditation to help with your downtime and the other 2 you can consider things like teleport for more mobility and a CC breaker like shrug it off or liberation. At 50 could add in wings for magic immunity as an option too.

GoldenDog if you ever think about a reroll and look to Ollo east I am more than willing help you through the levels.

I felt really stupid last week when I figured something out. Labor points are account wide, not character specific. I deleted a character I'd made on a separate server so I could have a low level toon that only farms to help out my main. That's when I noticed the labor points and loyalty tokens were the same no matter what character I was on. Bummer. If I wanted to splurge I could have both characters drink a labor potion every 12 hours to get a 2k total point increase rather than just being limited to the one but other than that, I'm struggling to see the benefit of having 2 crafting characters.

Kehama wrote:

I'm struggling to see the benefit of having 2 crafting characters.

none really.

Kehama wrote:

I felt really stupid last week when I figured something out. Labor points are account wide, not character specific. I deleted a character I'd made on a separate server so I could have a low level toon that only farms to help out my main. That's when I noticed the labor points and loyalty tokens were the same no matter what character I was on. Bummer. If I wanted to splurge I could have both characters drink a labor potion every 12 hours to get a 2k total point increase rather than just being limited to the one but other than that, I'm struggling to see the benefit of having 2 crafting characters.

Isn't it 5 labor pts per 5 minutes log out per character? So that mean you could get 10 when you have a sub and play one character, plus 5 for the one that's log out?

Kehama wrote:

Labor points are account wide, not character specific.

Yea I parked my level 5 alt at the Marinople Trial House to idle when I am not on my main. That way I don't have to use teleport stones and I can idle using an approved method. I was using... ahem... macros, but they said it's cool to use the Courthouse seats without fear of being banned.

So I idle on my alt to open Jester Bags on my main and have some extra labor for mining.

I was really proud of my macro though. I programmed a 24 minute macro that lived at a town inn... My character got out of bed, flipped the light switches, sat down for a bite, stood up and yawned/stretched, then went back to bed. All automated to a toggle using a record switch on my Logitech MMO Mouse.

But now I just sit at trial.

The continent of Auroria was unlocked yesterday afternoon and the rush to obtain 1 of the 4 castle areas they had opened was on. Frankly, it was insane and the game ground to a halt. You had, literally, thousands of players cramming into small pockets of a single zone during the phase where everyone was mining 1 of 2 areas to get the materials needed to claim a castle. Since the game will only display 200 players on screen at a time you had invisible players attacking other invisible players, lots of time freeze moments where a dozen players looked like they were moving around with everyone else standing still. You couldn't heal or attack half the people you saw because they weren't actually in those positions any more and basically it was a big hot mess.

The politics of the whole thing was extremely interesting and if the game had actually been able to handle the volume of info being thrown at it it would have been epic. As it was it was a frustrating slideshow where final results came down to blind luck and lots of blind AOE's.

Here's some Salphira server specific drama in case anyone cares to read about it. On our server the West basically has all of the big dog guilds. Most of the time the West works together really well and there are only 1 or 2 guilds that PK their own faction. Overall, things are stable. The East, however, is more dog eat dog. There are a couple of larger guilds but they don't seem that organized and mainly it's tons of small guilds that also don't work together and you have constant in-fighting. The Pirate faction is still fairly small, though it's expected to grow now that Auroria's out, and they're not too big of a factor to anyone but the full-time fishers. Salphira also has one of the largest concentrations of Brazilian guilds with an estimated 50% of the server being made of up Brazilians.

The guild I'm in, Grievance, had about 300 players on during the rush and we had multiple raids going, all coordinated through Teamspeak, working together to get a castle. Most of the alliances we had before Auroria went out the window. All of the Brazilian guilds, which included 3 of the largest guilds on our server, all banded together to oppose everyone else. They were fielding thousands of players and could lock down multiple spots on the map even when we sent our full force against them. Again, the server issues made actual battles impossible. Quite often I would just run around in the middle of the enemy forces and as long as I kept moving forward no one could hit me because I was never where they were seeing. Only if I was crazy enough to stand still for 30 seconds or more would I get hit or if I happened to walk into an aoe that someone had set off. Anyway, we had allied with the pirates and all of the East guilds. Some of our officers were coordinating with them on neutral Teamspeak servers and they had stated they knew none of the East guilds were going to get any land and if the West was going to get all of the castles they wanted us to have one since we were willing to work with them. Naturally that made it even easier for the other West guilds to recruit smaller guilds to go against us as they painted us as selling out the faction.

In the end, Grievance didn't get a castle as all 4 went to Brazilian guilds. Every time we'd start to near the area to claim the castle another guild would get their guild leader there seconds before ours. For the last castle our leader was literally in the process of placing the item to claim the castle, the progress bar almost completed, when another guild grabbed it. We were vastly outnumbered and again the server problems were an exercise in frustration. Now everyone is going to have to look at their alliances in a fresh light and in 60 days we'll have the opportunity to try to take a castle. The castle sieges are limited to 70 versus 70 so at that point we shouldn't have to worry about being crippled by the server.

We got a few plots at least, but we didn't try for a castle.

I'm seriously thinking about quitting the game. Between the bots, gold farmers/spammers, cheats, hacks and disconnects, I fell I am throwing my money away.

I had to put the game aside from the cheats and hacks. I got tired of being picked out of stealth by the radar cheat.

Looks like it's going to be kinda rough on my server for a while since the all out war from the Auroria launch has continued on. The Brazillian Alliance, or BRA as we're calling them, has taken to attacking anyone in our guild whenever possible. This has made traveling outside of the safe zones without a raid group virtually suicidal. We were farming Hasla tokens last night when a large group of same faction guys came by, purpled up on us and wiped our raid out. So at this stage we're about 300 against a group of guilds over 1,200 strong. They've been attacking our fishing and trade boats so our guild income has taken a huge hit while they continue to pull in revenue from their castle taxes. Their goal is to keep our guild knocked down for the next 6 weeks so that we either can't afford to buy the rights to siege one of their castles or we can't outfit 70 raiders in the best gear. It's definitely kicked the game up to another level and now it's more EVE on horseback than ever.

peacensunshine wrote:

I'm seriously thinking about quitting the game. Between the bots, gold farmers/spammers, cheats, hacks and disconnects, I fell I am throwing my money away.

I keep waiting for things to settle down before diving in for real. I'm not sure when that'll be...

Does anyone still play Archeage?
My wife and I have been playing for the past couple of months and it's hard to find decent people.

I started playing about two months ago and I'm level 51 on Ezi server. Have a small group that I play with. What server are you on?

Inspired by Black Desert I decided to try this again. After running around a bit the game feels fairly deserted, at least the starting zones do. Anyone still playing it?

Nope lol