No news is like a punch in the face

Still nothing to report on the Saga front.

Darktide Beta over while Silverlode gets bought out...

So while I wait for more Beta content, I bring you a girl playing Wii.

Beta level cap = 25? Tried out Ignite Destroyer Skill

So I leveled to 22 today. I am in the final zone now, it looks like enemies cap out at about 25 or so.

Not a lot of loot to capture, no new ships since 18.

I leveled to get the "Ignite" skill. This is a 75 point talent near the bottom of the Destroyer line. It really didn't seem to be working well. Like "Charge" it does not have the range of my long range cannons, and it didn't seem to tick if I shot it by itself. It links I believe to your crew damage, which on my ship I run alot of short range crew, so possibly this is the reason.

Overall I think the talents and spells need some work, they just don't seem to be better then the passive bonus like cannon recharge.

Overall I think this phase of beta is done for me. I like the game, but not a lot left to do in the end-game for Gos.

I will watch the patch notes, as new stuff gets added I will keep writing, but for now, back to other mmo games.

Darktide: PVP Zone added to Open Beta

So I take a couple days off, and the developers add PVP to the Beta servers.

It takes me almost 10 minutes to sail from the 20-25 zone to this PVP area.

I guess the PVP area spawns free loot in the middle of the zone. (Who doesn't like free loot.)

As you can see below, its a very red zone. There isn't anything on the map except a supply hut on the bottom left.



So after exploring the ruins, and sailing around it looks like they have removed all free loot (chests/barrels), thus the reason why the zone is completely empty.

Sadly the duration of the excitement in the PVP zone didn't last but August 13th to the 16th.

Maybe the next patch will put in some more PVP.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 5

• Content past 29 seems a little weak. At 20 I'm basically running out of zones soon. Still grinding along with my level 19 class ship.
• I went the Destroyer route this beta, and it seems to have good damage against specifically flying dragons that have to close to attack. I can eat those for almost no armor loss.
• It's funny I stopped using my spells for normal attack rotation, mostly just hold them back unless I get jumped by several enemy at once.
• Short range crew seem especially powerful. I loaded 50% 50% medium/close. It seems to do the trick.
• Long range cannons I only put on one side of my hull. Mostly because its hella hard to get good long or short range guns. Mostly mediums are the easiest to get.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 4

Only one trick today, (its a weekend).

When you hit 19 you will get your new class based ship. This ship is loaded with more cannon slots, and if you skimp you will hit a wall where you damage is pretty lacking.

One trick with "Saga Credits" is this 19 credit cannon. The Blue version is 150 credits/cannon, the purple 310/cannon, yet the green is 19.

Seems to be a hella good deal for grinding experience.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 3

A couple more tricks:

• Whats the best experience? SPEED. Kill enemy that doesn't hurt you too bad in vast quantity. There is an experience cap for each level. At 15 I was able to kill level 19 mobs while buffed. However, the experience for 19s was the same as 17s + or - a 5% or so.


• I was pretty much able to level 15-19 killing level 16-17 enemies.


• You get your class ship at 19, but you get enough points to use it at 15. This lets you stack points into another line if you like. I personally got the commander heal completely unlocked. Not a great heal, but helpful.


• The Destroyer ship at 19 is kinda lackluster. I really don't know which is the best class to play yet. I have almost the entire Destroyer tree opened, and its seems kinda less useful. I mostly fight at medium range, so it's hard to figure out what is the best class to run in the release game.


• 100 wood is the number to save for to get the ship at 19. It's actually pretty easy, I had 200.


• Everytime you get a BLUE or PURPLE drop, thats a nice crew member, or a decent cannon. I love seeing those drop. By level 19, I had only seen two purples and about 20 blues. However, as I don't mind buying "Saga Credits" I never had a lot of trouble upgrading my ship without those drops. I think for people playing for free, you will definitely need to farm a lot for your upgrades. At 19, I still had a lot of level 7 and 9 cannons and crew on my ship. Theres a HUGE damage upgrade between 19 cannons and 9 cannons. Almost 3 times damage.


• Some crew are just plain better then their alternatives. Orc Snipers seem to have the better stats from when I went to the merchant isles. I assume most of the crew are placeholders now, after all its beta right.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 2

Even more tricks:

• You replace cannons a lot. Sometimes you need the inventory space, and you wonder if you should sell the old cannons to the vendor. Don't. Store them on an old ship in your captain's log for free space. This also works for crew that you don't need.


• Most of the white cannons and crew are tradeable to friends. Save them, your friends will love the few gear.


• You can't trade "soulbound" units. Store them instead on your extra ships.


• Docks are buggy in terms of getting stuck. Stay away from the lumber while trading to get from being annoyed.


• If you don't spend skill points on other lines, you can have your first "class" ship at 15. Sadly, it looks like the first ship is buyable at 19.

Anyone want to see what a "Dragon ship" looks like?

Darktide Tricks for the early levels:

Here are some of the tricks I've learned that might help new players:

• Run 1 long range gun on each side of your boat. Even though it isn't the best damage, it sure is nice to pull ships from longer range, so to avoid getting multiple red attackers on you at once.
• The early crew are not too different from each other. Pick any medium range crew member, but don't forget to upgrade them as better crew is available.
• If you have "Saga Credits" to burn, the buffs are the best cheapest way to improve your ship. 30% attack speed, double experience and 40% movement makes the game much easier at early levels. I honestly never let those buffs go down.
• Medium range cannons are the overall best at early levels. Why? Because there are no long range crew. You have to get into medium crew range at the minimum to get them to fire. Most enemies at the low level fire mostly in the medium range.
• If you want a cool looking crew member, get the "Wight". These birdmen fly around the top of your ship and crossbow the enemy. Awesome.
• Don't sell "quest" items. Seriously, you will regret it. You don't need gold, you need quest items...
• Once you leave newby cove, you will find your treasure maps might not be in the first zone. Zoom out and look around.

For more Tricks and Thoughts:

Part 2 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-tricks-for-early-levels-part-2.html
Part 3 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-tricks-for-early-levels-part-3.html
Part 4 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-tricks-for-early-levels-part-4.html
Part 5 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-thoughts-content-past-29.html

Keep watching the blog for Part 4 and on versions of this guide. Stay tuned...

Darktide Thoughts? It's still Saga to me...

So I've been playing the Open Beta of Darktide, and have a couple thoughts.

Well I figure, this is a Saga game, so I'm keeping it Sagathoughts, and so be it.

I knew it all along. Video Gamers are the best employees

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/19/career-leadership-strategy-technology-videogames.html

But there is a growing school of thought
that says game-playing in moderation, and in your free
time, can make you more successful in your career.

We're finding that the younger people coming into the
teams who have had experience playing online games are
the highest-level performers because they are constantly
motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to
performance metrics

Ebon Guards? Signup for Darktide?

http://playdarktide.com

So if you are like me, and are still waiting for your Refer a Friend Ebon Guards, and would like another shot at them: Signup for Beta on Captains of Darktide.

In game we've seen a couple people that are now looking to trade these rare Ebon Guards, so it might make sense to check this out.

Cheatsheet to 35 : The fastest way to level to 35 in Saga

So my first army in 2008 was Light. I leveled 1-22 then stalled.

I know alot of people stall out, so if you are "rich" and want to know the ABSOLUTE best way to level the fastest in Saga, here's the cheatsheet.

Step 1: Pick any Army you like.

All of them are equally fast to level if you follow the rules. If you want to get the best, then pick War or Machine. Both of those armies have specific factional troops that make killing flying mobs easiest. This makes 27-35 faster.

Step 2: Buy Wargs

Honestly I could finish the guide with that statement. I decided to help my friend power through the 20s on his Magic army with my 35 Undead Army. I was opening Blasted Lands, and tanking while he power leveled killing Drakes. It wasn't bad, but I thought I could do better. I mailed him 36 Wargs, created 3 units, added tanks (Daemons), and proceeded to crush every mission with those Wargs. The wargs are so perfect for leveling they basically do your work for you.

Problem with Wargs? You basically have to open Rogue Factional packs to get them. $4 per pack, you need 36 Wargs. Horribly expensive. Sure I have them, like many others, but god, what a horrible price to play this game.

Step 3: Ignore the Economysim

One thing alot of players get all caught up in, is the economy simulation of this game.

IGNORE THE DAMN ECONOMY-SIM. Jesus, don't farm lumber raid for 10 days to build out your wooden walls, just level up. If you level, you can farm end game quests for 3-5k per quest, and buy the damn lumber if you want a pretty castle. If you want to play castle builder, I can show you several good free Ipod games to play.

Yes, yes, I know you want to open up your territories and get free stuff, but seriously, don't be that guy. Ignore the damn Economy (for now), and focus on getting to 27 asap.

Step 4: Early Levels - Win Trade

If you are at a point where you need more levels on your troops, then fight yourself on two accounts. If you have concerns about the legality of this: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/rating-means-nothing-pvp-for-fun.html (The linked article lists several posts from the developers that speak to what you can do with your accounts. )

Win trading is helpful. Because you can limit the damage of your new army by moving the troops around, you can level troops that level very slowly. For example, any melee troop.

There are many troops that you would love to use, but you only have a level 2, instead of a level 7. Well, just win trade yourself.

Step 5: Levels 1-20, Win Trade a high level army. (Or level quests).

Fight yourself, if you are killing high level troops, you can get level 1-10 in about 10 fights. If you don't have a high level 2nd army, fight a friend where they let you experience off them. If you don't have a friend, do quests. Low levels go by quickly.

Step 6: Level 20-27: Trial of the Gods quest.

This is a horribly annoying quest. Without Wargs and a normal 20ish army, I can beat it occasionally. With Wargs, you roll it everytime. Why do it? Because the waves are good experience, and doing this quest badly 1 time is faster then doing almost any other quest and winning.

Step 7: 27-35 Blasted Lands. Experience/Loot Farming.

This has been talked about in this blog. Blasted Lands makes solo leveling so fast, you shoot through these levels. Your Army should be 3 Warg packs, 2-3 human archer packs, and "Let Fly" spells. Start it with a heavy cav to run the stairs, or an Undead Knight, then flee him after the "Drakes are coming" step. 200k experience per run, 35 should come quickly.

Army Composition: Levels 1-35

Wargs X 3
Heavy Cav X 2
Human Archers X 3
Drakes X 2
Ice Drakes X 3
Rogue Hero X 1
Let Fly X 3

New fun Fact of this game is you don't really need to play with factional troops anymore. I personally only field Daemons when leveling Magic, and Humongous when leveling Undead.

Best tanking and damaging Armor

Looking over a couple days farming of items, I've been trying to figure out the new Items lottery design.

So far, these are my two favorite prefix/suffixs at this point for Plate:

For Damaging Troops, (ie glass dps cannons.):

"Martyr / of Ultimate Speed"

• This Prefix scales up to 90% damage with a higher level item

The negatives are the following:

• Bad DR - its glass
• Morale - who cares
• Light HP penalty. who cares, it's glass
• Decent Movement bonus
• Light ATR penatly. Not a problem if the weapon makes up for it.

For Tanking style Melee Troops:

"Raider's / of Lion's Pride"

• This item has 3 good stats + stamina
• I really like HP bonus on tanks. I've seen 11,000 hp tank units, and that really helps.
• Speed is important for melee troops, more time on target.
  

Quest: Mithril Mines, Melee Troop Leveling and Strategies

So since I've been back, I've been running lots of leveling quests.

One quest I did alot back in the day was Mithril Mines. Back in 2008 I did this quest differently. I would kill all the archers, then bug out all the mobs by sticking one of my units in a spot that would cause a pathing bug for all the mobs. This would get them all grouped up, then I would Fireball them down. As the fireball had a 1 minute refresh time, (unlike now, where you use it and its gone), I could rotate two sets of Fireballs to kill the mobs with no danger.

I wroteup the quest back in 2008 if you want to see even more info on it: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/who-loves-mithril-mines-everyone.html

So today's post is to talk about the differences, and why this quest is still excellent for leveling.

1. First of all this is not the experience farm the "Blasted Lands" quest is. Blasted is much better for leveling your Army from 27-35.
2. The problem with Blasted Lands, is it doesn't do a good job of leveling all your troops to troop level 10. It is best to run with Human Archers, or any troop that kills Drake easily.
3. If you need to level non-ranged troops, Mithril is better.
4. Blasted Lands runs faster, Mithril has a pause in the middle between waves, so if you are loot farming, Blasted is better

Strategies for Mithril Mines:

1. First of all, make sure you farm Blasted Lands first to get a good set of items for your troops in Mithril Mines. I personally like DR, hitpoints, movement for my melee that I level in Mithril Mines. This seems to make them survive long enough to get good experience.
2. I like to run mostly Melee troops in Mithril. Then, I stick them in Ranged Defense formation, and don't change that the entire fight. (Ranged of course increases their defense vs ranged attackers and gives a speed bonus, but penalizes them vs melee mobs.)
3. I hand select the target, and make all my units focus fire. Many of the mobs in Mithril have need 8000 hitpoints, so if you let your 400dps units attack them individually, it will take 20 secs to kill each unit, and you will get swamped.
4. The kill order is Melee troops, then ranged. Because you are running around in ranged Defense, the ranged archers shooting you are not doing very good damage. Kill those melee troops, they can hurt you the most. Fire your use abilities anytime you get to a pack of melee to quickly own them.

Overall this troop experience isn't great, but you end up leveling 6 troops at once. This is useful for getting your army to 10. In my last army, I ended up with alot of certain troops at 10, and alot at 5. I would rather take longer, and have a better balanced army at the end.

Quest: Blasted Lands - drakes and loot everywhere

So since I've been back, I've had numerous people tell me that the new loot farming quest is Blasted Lands.

I've run this quest from Army level 27-30, I have to admit, this is a great TV quest. Most of the time my army fights by itself, then I loot at the end.




A couple tricks I found out:

• Human Archers
• Let Fly X 3
• For starting the mission, a heavy cav unit with movement items. After it starts it, just flee the unit.
• To start the mission, just run up the hill. Its a bad pathing nightmare.

Rewards:

• 200,000 experience
• around 3000 gold
• 4-6 items, all end game.
  
  

Quest: Trial of the Gods - Good item farming and leveling 25-30

Trial of the Gods is the newest quest. It starts out as a way to get the new Rogue Hero Olvir Jezrek.

However, after you get the hero, the quest randomizes a map with different armies to fight, and different item loot to gain. This quest is very useful for folks leveling in what I believe is the most hard levels to finish; ie 25-30.

Overview at the "Gold" level:

1. At Gold this quest gives about 1100 gold and 80,000 experience.
2. The troops you fight are about level 8.
3. I was consistently beating this at level 22+
4. Sometimes the map spawns as all flyers, so be ready to counterspawn your drakes and ice drakes.
5. They come in from 3 directions, so you need about 3 tanks to hold them.
6. The CP cap allows for about 6 troops. Sometimes they spawn buildings you can grab for more CP.
7. Don't spawn your army until you know what you are fighting. I would prespawn an archer troop, then hold the rest until I see the matchup.
8. Normally my setup was 3 archer troops in the middle, then tanks in three directions.
9. If it gets out of control, just try to hold on, often it would end before I got overwhelmed.

In terms of comparison with other great exp quests like Mithril Mines, its right up there in terms of rewards. The best thing is the loot is USEABLE at the level you are farming this quest, so it might now be end-game, but it will make your last ten - fifteen levels way easier

From my latest run:

Loot distribution changes everytime, but this is a sample

This is the number of troops that spawn, as you can tell its around 20ish.

Territories and Free Super Cards:

So I was searching my blog for answers from back in the day. I forgot how to open up the territories on my new undead army. Well, it turns out I never posted the how/to on this, so here's the answers if you have the same question as a new, or returning player:

Territories:

Open at 6,13,17,20 level. You get only four total, even though your interface will show 8. (Room for future growth.)

The 17th level territory requires you finishing a certain number of quests. 20 Quests finished at the Silver level, with the color of gold. You don't have to beat them at the gold level, just the silver level.

Free Super Cards:

If you get high enough to open these up, you get a number of free cards:

- Rogue Olvir Jezrek (hero): Seriously good overpowered hero card. The 15% AR bonus is amazing for doign quests. He also has sick base stats for tanking. Wait, there's more... He grows everytime you use his ability. Grows HUGE. lol

- Ice Drake: Excellent as a Flyer tank. Just excellent for many missions. Requires 25,000 food to open.

- Armored Behemoth. Great for missions where you hit alot of Machine armies to fight. Requires 15,000 gold to open.

Saga could learn alot from Free Apple Ipod games

So I tried the Silverlode Ipod free game, "Saga Catapult". - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/saga-catapult/id319957016?mt=8

It kinda lead me down the road, that Saga the MMORTS should learn lessons from the Ipod market successes:

1. Give away ALOT for free, to get the players addicted.
2. MICRO-TRANACTIONS are key. Get them buying
3. Make sure you have a BIG playerbase of free players. Without them, you can buildup enough player mass.
4. Get the economy solid so the players are creating addiction.

Saga right now makes it too hard for the free player.

I think Silverlode should 10X the gold drops. Let the players build up giant armies of bought units.

Also 2X or 5X the experience gains. Why should it take a month to level 1-35 when in reality, most players when they cap out, buy a NEW ARMY to rollup.

Just my 2 cents.

Quest: Red Dragon Roost - trivialized by new units.

So this mission starts at level 17, so the gold mission is something like level 27. Always a hard mission in the past, as a clump of 10 Red Dragons would kick my ass solo.


Now using the new Ice Drakes (50% Attack rating, 125% Defense rating, 25% damage vs flyers) and Drakes (+50% Attack rating, Defence rating, and 100% damage vs "special" units) wow this becomes a farm quest.


Sadly not as profitable as Mithril Mines, but still pretty fun to do.


My setup the first time I beat it on gold:

- 2 troops of 8 Drakes (starting level was around 3)
- 2 troops of 1 Ice Drakes (starting level war around 3)
- 2 troops of 2 Rogue Giant Redeemer (healer for between rounds, starting level 2)
- 2 sets of the 5 stack spell "Horror" which debuffs and area by 90% Attack rating. (Use any debuff in this slot.)
- 1 set of the spell "Regeneration" which was an area heal (use any heal you like)


Mission Step:


- First Wave 5 or so Dragons, kill easy. Pop a Redeemer at the break, and heal up.
- Second Wave 10 or so Dragons, kite them until they bunch up, cast the debuff spell. Pop a Redeemer at the break and heal up.
- Third Wave 20+ Dragons plus occasionally other archers. A little more kiting here to keep the other archers from killing the Drake tanks. Depending on the group that is spawned I would either Fireball them down, or kill them with a unit. Debuff the Dragons as before then kill them quickly.
- Profit.

Rogue Warg Riders - Is this the new Overpowered Unit?

So Rogue Warg Riders might be the new PvP chase card.

• Ranged
• Can trigger the use ability to charge, or to tank something, tower, unit etc.
• Good for reacting vs a unit.
• Good stats

For PvE this troop unit is good too. Not many ranged units can survive an accidental attack as well as the Wargs.

Alot of people are looking for these to finish their sets.

If you do buy boosters, make sure you pick up the "Rogue Faction Packs". Every other booster, except maybe a free one, is much less useful.

Additionally, the card distribution in the Rogue packs is excellent. It seems to have many times better cards in it as well as the Rogue units.


Heading back to the Warg. Is it a required card if you prefer PvE? No, no, no. There are better cards. Unlike the Redeemer, which I feel is REQUIRED for easymode PvE.

Use it as a chase card to grab units you like.

So I'm back...

Logged in Saga yesterday on my two accounts.

I'm not going to say it was my first time back since I stopped writing this daily blog. I've been back before, but this is the first time I really felt like playing.

If you as a reader read back some of the history on tis blog, you will find that I bought a stack load of undead factional boosters before they released that army. Strangely now playing, I find that the undead have a lot of PVE promise now, similar to machine.

If you add the new rogue troops to the undead army, it really makes leveling fun. I leveled my undead army to 20 without a lot of the normal nonsense, I still have my 35 nature army, but undead seem better.

Anyhow, why am I writing again?

I never really stopped. I wrote a wow blog for awhile on Gameriot. I write a paintball blog here on blogspot. Sorry saga thoughts just didn't hold me after 120+ posts.

What do I want to do here?

Well, I think there's a lot of metagame still left to do in the PVE side of the game. As much as I thought pvp would be golden here, honestly saga is a great relaxing persistent pve daily game.

I plan, to write more about pve, maximizing and minimizing to setup the most rewarding pve process. Whether I'm successful, we will see, but hopefully I will at least entertain my number one reader - ed - who still subscribed to a dead blog for two years.