What's a small, maybe even silly piece of advice you'd give a newer player?

myles08807 · April 2023

I'll go first. You know Biggrin's Tomb, a weekly AD-reward dungeon in the Icewind Pass zone, available as soon as you finish the opening quests of the Icewind Dale campaign? After you kill him, run up and down his body. His bulk can easily conceal the glow of coins or magical treasure. I cannot count the number of times I might've missed treasure if I hadn't realized this.

plasticbat · April 2023

myles08807 said:
I'll go first. You know Biggrin's Tomb, a weekly AD-reward dungeon in the Icewind Pass zone, available as soon as you finish the opening quests of the Icewind Dale campaign? After you kill him, run up and down his body. His bulk can easily conceal the glow of coins or magical treasure. I cannot count the number of times I might've missed treasure if I hadn't realized this.

Since it is a weekly AD run, you probably will figure out a more efficient way to run it.

I personally jump through the gap close to the entrance and skip the first group of mob.
Then, just go straight to the bone gate without bother to fight anyone.
Kill the last 5 before the bone gate so that the bone gate will open up.

Then, run all the way down to Biggrin's room. Stay on the right side so that you won't wake up the giant sleeping there. One less to fight. When you reach the last area, kill that 3 enemies before they summon more.
Biggrin wakes up. Kill Biggrin and then kill the late coming mobs.
When you finish the late coming mobs, Biggrin's body will disappear. Then, you pick up everything dropped by everyone in one area.

fritz · April 2023

Level 50 toons to level 5. Invoke every day.

rikitaki · April 2023

Do not pay any attention to Aragon's videos. Most of his guidance apply to endgame only and is actually harmful to beginners - you end up spending too much on things you do not need yet, things that do not even work with your build yet, or are just marginally better. And you actually fail a lot of runs because you have unrealistic expectation of what an average player can or even should do, while not realizing that adapting your own build in the process can make the necessary difference.

Otherwise:
+HP bonuses help a lot if you are in low IL areas
Do not underestimate the impact of insignia bonuses. A small bonus is still a bonus - and 3 green insignias in a discount mount are really cheap.
Purple mount collars are the way - because the purple mount collar choice packs are extremely cheep on AH.
When buying anything on AH, try to check if the item is not a part of some choice pack - as those are often cheaper.
Prefer reaching one mythic companion and mount prior even thinking about the respective bolster bonuses.
Most campaigns have weekly quests and weekly cap. Do not be afraid to work on more campaigns at the same time - and if you do not like one, just do the most valued quests and do not bother with filling the quota, or skip completely.
Do not rush to endgame, try enjoying what you do. Leveling 50 toons to level 5 and invoking every day will surely help a ton to improve your main char, but it is still utter nonsense.

fritz · April 2023

rikitaki said:
Leveling 50 toons to level 5 and invoking every day will surely help a ton to improve your main char, but it is still utter nonsense.

Unfortunately, it's not. There's a plateau around 50k - 55k where progression is defined by the amount of Coalescent Wards, Insignia Powder, and Mount / Companion Upgrade Tokens you can farm. You literally need to get off your main and build an alt army to progress after doing most campaigns and Dragon Hunts. I would cap refining every day, but what would you describe as best option to advance your character? ToS, GR are still months away and it might even be difficult to get into a VoS group. And you don't even need VoS rings and can build around Dragon gear.

That's why it's fair to refer to Neverwinter as pay-2-play game. Because you need to invest at least $30 to max character slots during a 50% sale. Neverdeath takes 30-40 minutes. With 4-5 hours playtime you can do it within a week and will thank me later. Once you've regained Stamina do it again for Vellosk and unlock the next endgame farm called Professions.

rikitaki said:
Most of his guidance apply to endgame only and is actually harmful to beginners - you end up spending too much on things you do not need yet, things that do not even work with your build yet, or are just marginally better.

I agree somewhat. The game does not offer a great gear progression. Pieces are often HAMSTER -> only works in Underdark -> HAMSTER -> bis. You rarely get a lower item level version that's also easier to obtain and let's you work towards your final build without reshuffling all slots all the time. You basically have to decide early what item level is reasonable to achieve and then gradually work towards a final build. Otherwise you're just wasting time. I would love guides for viable builds at 50k, 60k, 70k though.

mintmark · April 2023

I'd offer two general things

Look for ways to achieve several things at once. Like doing Sybella legacy quests in an area when it's 2x rewards.
Always have something interruptible to do, if you are waiting for a queue to pop.

And I agree with rikitaki... one character and some patience is enough.

froger · April 2023

"you will pay for the game with time and/or money"
Consider anything you pay in to be the cost of entertainment.

fritz · April 2023

If you really want to play DPS, start with a class that offers an additional heal or tank paragon (DC, GF, SW). It's that much easier to find groups compared to TR / CW / HR.

stryker80 · April 2023

Your "Daily" power can be used more than once per day.

rockster · April 2023

I give this advice to every brand new player I ever come across... When you get the quest to pick your first free artifact, choose the catalogue (Aurora's) for the reason when you start out and bag space is limited, you can sell to it on the go and clear your bag out without having to travel back to a main hub repeatedly to find a vendor or being forced into discarding things you may want to keep. At green rank you can still sell anything you want to it, if you don't mind waiting the extra time for the cooldown, when you're out on a map hitting mobs and grinding quests and your bag is almost full, just go to a quiet corner away from enemies where you're safe and equip the artifact to ur belt and trigger it and then clear ur bag out, wait til coolodown and swap back your main arti again. So either choose this artifact at the quest which offers it, or buy it cheap from the Auction House from the get-go and use it from the start. Not everyone has VIP so summoning a vendor is not an option, but this gives you the equivalent of a vip vendor wherever you are so you can clear your bags out and never have to waste an item by discarding it.

Second advice: Before you discard or sell an item of gear, check in preview mode to see if you like the look of it and if so don't discard it, convert it to your appearance library so you have it forever to use, a lot of the earlier items are some of the nicest in the game and it may be hard to get it again once you get rid of it.

Third advice: Try different classes and see how they feel before settling on one, they all have different feels and if you're having trouble with the game or not enjoying it or having too much trouble, it might just be you need to try a different class which suits your playstyle and preference better. -Don't give up on the game and decide it's not for you until you've tried at least a few different classes.

Fourth advice: You get a free appearance change during one chapter in the Cloaked Ascendancy campaign, so if you make a mistake with your character at creation and don't like it, don't stress, you can change it for free when you do that quest (Chapter 3).

Fifth advice: For Boon points, start with Dread Ring and Icewind Dale, they're nice and fast to complete.

Sixth advice: It's your game, your time, your money, you play to relax and have some recreation and enjoyment, don't let anyone spoil it for you or pressure you to do things you don't want to do. This also goes for guilds, if a guild you join is giving you pressure to do more than you are comfortable with, change guilds, it's not worth the headache and there are other guilds who will be a better fit for you anyway who will be happy to have you.

Seventh advice: When asking for a guild in chat and you really want to find a lvl 20 guild with max boons, of course you do, who doesn't, but do NOT ask for this openly in chat in the main body of your sentence. People who recruit for guilds generally will ignore anyone asking specifically for a guild with maxed boons in their request because it indicates that's all the person wants and as soon as they find another guild with something better they will immediately leave anyway. Guilds are more interested in whether or not that person is a good fit for their guild and if they'll enjoy it there and therefore stay. Just ask the recruiter about the guild (is it busy, do they do a lot of group content, are solo players welcome etc etc) and casually ask what level it is and find out that way if it's lvl 20 and has maxed boons or not, but don't ask directly if they have boons or you will appear grabby and selfish and start off on the wrong foot. You can check the boons after you join anyway and decide from there.

Eighth advice: Do your daily random queues every day and make as much rough AD as you can, well over and above the 100k daily refining limit. Try and get a healthy balance of rough AD sitting there, this way if you have a day or two where you just don't feel like doing randoms, you can still refine your daily 100k and your income is guaranteed and you can budget for things you want to buy with more certainty and still take days off from grinding.

Ninth advice: Take tooltips with a grain of salt. They are often wrong and misleading.

Tenth advice: If you ever rage quit and decide you want to leave the game, do not delete anything or give anything away to other players, just leave it all there because chances are high you will come back later, be it months or even years later, we've all done it (many times) and you will be grateful you left things how they were to pick back up again.

irene · April 2023

Understand the trade town language to prevent confusion.

LFM = Lets find money.
e.g. LF1M = Looking for 1 million dollars.

WTS = Wrap Travel Service
e.g. WTS 1 coal = will teleport you to 1 coal mining place.

WTB = Want To Bargain.
e.g. WTB one bag for 500k AD. Actual cost of the bag is 900k AD.

RADQ = Random Amateur Dangerous Queue
e.g. Looking for 1 player to join RADQ. If you join this team you'd get all amateur players.

+RC Before
The player has never play before and needs help.

jana · May 2023

I think the best thing is to not get discouraged and quit. A lot of people here on the forum probably don't really remember what is was like when your new. Fighters seem easier in the beginning but Wizards really get easier in the end after a long time of feeling weak. I think Aragon has some pretty good advice about which character do you want depending on what you want to do. He has advice for beginners occasionaly, like how to get the most out of events that most end gamers don't even look at anymore. And what companions are good or worth it. But remember everyone is different. I tried his build for a wizard- the powers part and it didn't work for me, went back to my old settings. If you put in what you play with the most you will get more advice than you can use (like rogue fighter or dragonborn healer). Really the daily random dungeons will get you some coin and improve your skills, play in that training room at the adventurers hall really helps decide how you want your powers! And just ask here if you want help, it's not always pertinent but sometimes its really good.

What's a small, maybe even silly piece of advice you'd give a newer player?

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