CBT1 (Maybe 2) Battle Entries

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Battle Entry December 17th, 2015

Server has gone down for the first time since launch. Overall the server stability seems really good, I haven't had any disconnects even when there were 800+ people killing imps in the starting zone.

Which brings me to the first instance of hatred: Imps.

So for those who don't know, or get into CBT2 and they haven't changed it, the first quest you have is to kill a bunch of imps and collect staves/shields/etc. from them. On the plus side, the *items* RNG auto-complete for you (you don't have to actually pick them up off the corpse), so if you want to speed through and not loot silver then you can. on the down side, the way the quest areas are marked is misleading compared to pretty much any other MMO.

In WoW/Guild Wars 2/FFXIV and others, a quest will have a zone or area where quest mobs can be located. In this game it is true, but it is also true that the exact same mobs can be located near the next town even. It's not a small distance either, it's quite a ways. When the servers came up and we were all clamoring to get in and start questing, literally 800+ people were standing in the 4 yellow circles on the map, spread out in massive groups around 'spawn points' where enemies would pop up as they spawned in. They would auto-attack the air and hope to god they got the tag on the mob before someone else. If they got the tag, it was pretty likely that they would get a progression on the quest.

I stood there for like 2 minutes in total going ... "this is ridiculous, there has to be a better way." So I decided to skip the quest and see if another area had quests I could do instead. As with any MMO this is usually a good idea on a launch day if there are that many people. See if you can skip the quest and go somewhere else to start. However, as I ran down the road I came to a guard station which sat at a bridge on a river. On the other side of the river (Distance comparison: Iron Forge to Dun Morogh) there were fields of quest mobs.

I finally figured this out, because on your mini-map there are a lot of things that add up to noise. When you get used to the white squares being people, the red dots are objects/mobs that you can kill and orange dots are quest mobs/objects, then it makes more sense and you can filter through it pretty quickly. So I ran around far far away, having to run back sometimes to turn in quests (but still took probably 1/10th the time it would have taken to stand there and swing a sword at air) and went on my merry way.

Time till imp quests + black spirit quest completion: 15min
Level: 6

No joke.

I barely saw my level going up visually. I had no idea I was already level 6 and the time didn't seem to be too bad. So I tried to figure out how to level efficiently as the quests were marked as [ lvl 9 ] Do Some Killing So I ended up going to a town and seeing some NPCs that had Icons above their heads. This is where I will describe the Knowledge system, and is probably the main reason why I think this game will succeed where others have failed.

Knowledge - BDOTome Wiki

If you don't want to read that page, I will try to briefly explain why it is very intriguing. Knowledge of NPCs can give you conversations with other NPCs that are interested in the others that you know. As you talk to them (play a mini-game about it) you can gain favor/Amnity and different levels unlock things like Quests, Buffs and Shops on that NPC. They also increase your max Energy when you discover a new NPC. Energy is used for tonnes of things but lets go over that.

Until this point, the only thing I had been able to do is kill things and if I got close to a mob, sometimes I would run into a bush or thicket and I would get an Interact (R) bubble on it. This would let me harvest it. This works the same way as ArcheAge in the way that Energy is used for doing jobs (Labor), kinda. Energy is used for the following (but not limited to):

• Harvesting Trees/Plants/Rock (1 Energy Per Use)
• Investing into Nodes for Increases in Buffs/Drops/Gathering Nodes (10 Energy Per Investment)
• Opening Advanced Dialog Options (I have seen 2,5 and 8 cost ones so far) with NPCs
• Learning skills in the field (I rarely do this since I hit a town with a skill instructor frequently, but I heard that it does cost energy)

Now, ArcheAge is a horrible example maybe, because their Labor system sucks. This system is quite different. For one, it actually goes up fairly quickly. It goes up passively as well as by doing quests. It's like... if you need more energy, just do some quests (2 to 5 energy so far). There is no shortage of quests. There are hundreds of quests scattered around, and some are not even shown on the mini-map. Some of them are only visible as question marks because you have never seen that person before but the game says, "You might want to go over here to see what's what."

Then we get into the fun stuff. The second way to spend Energy that I listed was Investing it into nodes. You also gain another currency from quests called Contribution EXP. These two currencies are linked together like Siamese Twins. Contribution Points are an experience system that is pretty much a gateway drug to the other half of the game.

What are the halves?

On one side, you have the Players who run around killing things, leveling up and joining guilds. They kill each other over and over again for sport, take over nodes and zones (yes, you heard that right) and generally have fun doing their killing sprees. I will probably be doing that with a character myself sometime.

On the other side, you have the Housing and Crafting and Trade Routes OH MY! Systems that let you move product from one place to the other using trade route nodes (more money the further the distance you travel) and making things in towns, transporting them from town to town and all that jazz. Quite honestly, if you want to experience the world and explore everything, this is how you do it. You will have to talk to EVERY NPC IN THE GAME to get as much energy as you can so you can do those upgrades to your housing buildings, invest to increase rewards from quests and things like that. You will see the sides of mountains no one else goes to, because there's a mining camp at the foot of it with Imps that like humans for some reason, and want to trade with us. In order to do it you must invest in their node just to trade, meaning 1 Contribution Point = A Few Quests.

And that brings us up to about today. I ran around for a good 8 hours doing trades, quests to buy lodgings for workers and houses to craft tools so that I can sell. I had to get the trade routes unlocked so I can work my way toward logging nodes with trees so that I can harvest wood that I can use to make tools to sell on the AH. I don't harvest it myself, I have slave giants/goblins/humans to do that for me If you want me to do a write up of how any particular portion of the game functions, and I have done it, please let me know.

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goblins build faster but when upgraden items you want humans with luck. so you will need a high lvl on both them ^.^ (high grade).

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I have Giants with Luck and Goblins with Luck, but haven't seen any humans come up yet. 5 Workers in.

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In the final day of CBT1
I wanted to see a human, so I saved up all my energy, and it took me 30 energy to get 1 human worker ;s but ya, 10 luck vs 2 or 5... way better. But Giants are beasts.