Biped observations

Being as this is my first biped, I'm truly a new player here - so what follows are a few observations I've made in the first ten levels...

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I wandered into the character creation mall looking for a new body - one of those fancy two-legger models with all the class options, and after a bit of browsing; checking out the important things like hair styles and stuff, I settled on a brand new Satyr.

A few minutes later I was learning my first levels of cleric, being as one of the loading screen tips mentioned that having a heal spell was handy and I thought this was wise.

I don't spend any of my skill points at this stage as I'm still trying to figure out where to put them and something tells me that nothing the cleric has available will be useful to the mage class.

Once that was done I picked up the mage class and re-ran all of the quests on the starter island - blowing up pigs, melting spiders, torching beetles; it was a blast, literally. :D

Here's where I start to spend training points - no where does the trainer tell you anything about what stats would be good for the class you've joined, so I ask in NPA what is a good point choice for a mage and get nothing for several minutes, followed by "Sorry, I'm a Dragon, I don't know".

Thanks, I'm a Dragon too, and I don't know either! :)

So I minimize the client and bring up the Wiki to glean some kind of guidance as I have 48 points and about 48 things I can put them into.

Which brings up another potential issue - I'm pretty sure I can't run Istaria full-screen and alt-tab out to get information (if this has been fixed, I haven't heard about it), so I run in windowed mode which allows me to go to a web site I know about (Istaria Wiki) to get info...

This is not something a new player is going to have much luck with as the client installs full screen and you kinda have to know the Wiki is there to use it.

Additionally, on this recent install the client still didn't have a clue about my monitor and it really looks bad when it's full screen and 1024x768... This might need to be looked at as it's trivial to get the desktop resolution on runtime in Windows and I'd assume this can be appended to the resolutions in the config file just as easy. That way at least the correct option would be available when a new player made it into the options menu. :)

While at the Wiki I discover that the Wizard prestige class sounds like fun, so I evenly split my points in 'fire' and 'energy' to hit the minimum in energy to join the school - eventually - and still boost my fire skills so I can do some damage... In theory? It's hard to say but I need to do something, so it's what I do.

Well, the trainer mentioned that most mages pick up the scholar crafting class in order to make their own spells, and this too sounded wise. So off I went to quarry sandstone, make spell shards, and craft spells.

This was easy!

All too soon Ryson is voting me off the island and I wash up in New Trismus to start my new life.

So, here I am in the big, wide world...

I speak with the consigner as Ryson suggested and while standing there see Jerimiah Trueheart has something for me too. So I head up the hill to speak with him, and this leads me to speaking with Pratt who sends me on a tour of the area where I get to meet the locals and go for a nice run...

Next I meet my new trainer; a cranky old Gnome who has a lot of people issues, and within moments I'm the new intern and am again running all over the island on various errands to exterminate this, deliver that, talk to so-and-so, etcetera.

Through all of this the critters I'm sent after are difficult enough to keep the fights close and as a mage if I slip up, I die - which is to be expected; glass cannon and all. I've played mages before so this isn't unexpected.

Eventually I hit level 9 and do the 'Gifted' quests. I note that the quest line has changed a bit from the last time I ran it as now I'm expected to start by heading to Tazoon...

Did you know you can't get to Tazoon from New Trismus?

Knowing how the portals work I jump over to Kion (and spend the next ten minutes loading land), then to Tazoon (more land loading) and finish up the knowledge part of the gifted quest line though very slow responses from the NPCs - slow enough you wonder if they're actually working...

So I recall back to New Trismus and next I get to run to the other side of the island, then it's off to pick up something extremely heavy...

I deliver the weight of the world to the assistant, and even though the weight is gone from my inventory, the slow remains, and it really makes me wonder about the next part of this quest...

See, this next quest is infamous in the world of MMOs - the assessment of wit; a legendary bit of running around that has you run a few minutes out to a location to pick up a riddle, recall back, buy an item, and run back out to the middle of nowhere not once, but three times!

Apparently someone decided that the first leg of this epic jog needed to be done at walking speed because, you know, running out here several more times just wasn't tedious enough. :D

As an added bonus you normally get to avoid the wolves in the area around the assessor as you zip though quick enough they don't bother with you - not anymore.

I died on the first trip out to a level 8 wolf that killed me in five hits... So I got to walk back out there again.

Here's where I began to wonder about the difficulty scaling. To this point the game certainly wasn't easy, but now all of a sudden at level ten I'm being driven like a tent peg.

Red Tusks the level 8 pig kills me in three blows - about the time I get my dots ticking on him, random level 8 wolves take 5-6 shots to kill me and I can get them to about 50%, and the undead leading to Urgat that I need to kill for Barack don't even show up completely before I'm dead...

Prior to this I killed the reanimator and two of his buddies without breaking a sweat, and he's level 8 as well.

I eventually kill the darned pig by running around like a crazy person and I got a couple lucky roots that actually stuck him long enough to get off an extra bolt - I beat him with 11 hit-points to spare.

And here I thought being a hatchling was tough! :D

I plan to revisit my skills to see if I'm doing something wrong (most likely) - things hit me for 30-50, and I hit them for 15-20; something ain't right. And it looks like I'll have to take up tailoring(?) as well to make myself some decent cloth as the conny has nothing useful for a mage my level...

I'm hopeful I can turn the tables back in my favor - but as it sits right now I'm certainly not going to Kion yet. :)

After piddling around with the skills on the mage I decided that it was a simple case of needing more armor to increase my survivability... I was just getting hit too hard.

So a quick trip the the body mall again and I started out with a new warrior and retraced my steps.

Through all of the questing to get back to level ten I only put skill points in 2-hand slash, so I have a heap of skill points unused through the entire process. I'm also single classed - no healer spells. Things would be even easier if I had a level or two of cleric. ;)

I'm in refurbished armor and have a bronze battleaxe. I had 4 levels in Blacksmith for most of the fighting and gained 2 levels via crystals dropped while killing the reanimator.

The speed and ease allowed me to accelerate the questing a bit and for most of the fighting I was a level lower than the mage was on the same content - meaning I killed things like Red Tusks at level 9 versus 10.

• Random wildlife? Instagib. Not even a challenge.
• The reanimator? Him and two of his buddies at the same time - no sweat.
• Those brown wolf alphas that killed the mage so handily? No contest My health pool is so much bigger that the bleed isn't a worry.
• Red Tusks? Cakewalk. I think it got me to almost half health before taking a dirt nap.
• The undead leading to Urgat? Easy. Even being super-social isn't a worry - though picking up a scout while fighting something else can make things dicey.

So, long story short - I recommend anyone starting out a biped for the first time, start with warrior... Much like playing a Dragon; spell casting appears to be aimed at advanced players and should be avoided the first time through. :D

That was a nice read, thank you :)