Rogues, Rewards, and other stuff

[Mer`Zikain]

Okay, so I started playing and my first character choice was a drow rogue I was looking forward to trying out online. I'm not sure if there have been other people comment on this or not but rogues seem completely worthless right now. Sure I can break into people's houses but what's the point? The meager container selections are invariably empty. I don't know if someone is beating me to them (doubtful) or if they just aren't populating treasure consistently but I have yet to break into anyone's abode and find anything of value. This leads me to believe the people of Blackstone Keep are a poor lot.

So I go out to make my name in the world by taking on some wolves. Wolf pelts were decently lucrative in the first BSK, but I guess an over abundance of them have saturated the market and thus reduced their going price. Seriously? 5gp? And they don't always drop?

But before I was even able to get any pelts I learned that the wolves are insanely dangerous to a rogue. I was mauled nearly to death 5 times in a short time. With only 6hp one crit from a wolf nearly one-shot's me. And I rarely hit them when I attacked. Either I'm very unlucky or the wolves are decidedly tougher. I'd hate to try playing a mage.

So that little experiment failed and I created a new character. A wood elf ranger. This worked much better but I still had to be very careful and fight from a distance with a longbow. Up close those wolves are vicious. Finally I got to level 2 and decided to attempt some zombie bashing. And the zombies did bash quiet efficiently causing me to run away to keep from dying. Back to the bow and arrow, only now crits were worthless. Luckily the zombies are slow moving, but so was my level progression. I now have a level 4 ranger (who got totally pwned by kobolds at level 2) and not a lot to show for it.

Out of all that time I have received 3 loot drops, two from zombies and one from kobolds.

In the original BSK server I could take a level 1 character up to level 6 in the kobold caves and end up with a slue of awesome weaponry, several forge stones and socket gems, and 300k from selling drops on average (had one end up with 10 forge stones and 600+k).

Now I can't even afford to buy healing items to keep myself alive long enough to run away when I get swarmed, not to mention being unable to buy better equipment to handle the increasingly difficult monsters.

Well, after a while I decided to just do some quests and level up a little more so the zombies wouldn't eat me quite so easily. Den Mother wasn't so bad at level 4, the kobold commander or whatever wasn't too bad either. But Gareth? My god, talk about a swarm. I barely got out of the warehouse alive, and I mean that, 1hp left by the time I got to the door. That quest was always a bit difficult to solo, at least they weren't all mages blasting me with magic missiles like before, heh.

So, bitching aside, here are the things I've noticed so far:

Treasures in houses don't seem to exist.
Wolves are extremely dangerous to first level characters not playing a fighter class.
Pelts are barely worth the effort.
Loot is rare and rarely substantial.
Overall difficulty seems to be prohibitive of solo play.
Gareth is a punk. heh.

I'm thinking of trying a warlock next. That might be a better type of character for solo. Ranged attack that can become considerabily stronger as they level keeping up with increasingly difficult enemies. Plus don't have to worry about non-critable creatures as much.

Also I'd like to point out that all of this is from the perspective of a player who plays casually. I log in, go kill some stuff, and log out. Sometimes if someone interesting is online I'll RP instead of level grind. But usually I just wanna kill some stuff and build my own little treasure horde. I rarely travel with a group (usually because there are rarely any other players online or at my low level).

And I hope you don't take this post as a massive complaint. I'm not saying "change this stuff or I'm not coming back!" Just presenting it for your consideration. If something is done to address my concerns, great. If not, no big deal, I realize you have your vision of what the server should be like a painter has their vision of what they're going to put on the canvas. I doubt the mona lisa turned out like it did because someone told da vinci "she's smiling too much, tone it down." heh.

[tlantl]

How about them pixies? More fun than dogs and they drop boxes (loot) Too. The problem with them is the spells they use. confusion is deadly if you are with someone or not.

I play bards and I find using a missile weapon from afar is the best tactic. The healing capability helps offset the lack of funds for healing, but a rogue with his use magic device maxed out can use the cure minor wounds scrolls which you can get two for every wolf pelt you bring back.

if you bring up all of your ability scores you can have a +1 in all of your abilities giving bonuses to every situation, with your racial bonuses giving another +1 bonus. As a bard I have no dump stat and halflings suffer a strength penalty but hey you get a good ac from it and a good ac accounts for a lot here.

You are right though, it is hard to keep going without help.

[StarChild]

Yeah the pixies are good at low lvl but there's a deeper problem here that i wont discuss yet. Its true. I broke in like at every house around and found zero loot in all the chest i unlocked. which made me wonder. Why go rogue if you cant use your skills. I promise you until there are more modifications this server will be full of cleric stormlords. And the occasiona bard crafter

[Mer`Zikain]

Well I started a Warlock and reached level 6 pretty easily. Still not satisfied with loot drops but I did get more than I had with the other characters I used. Most likely due to being able to attack zombies and wittle them down from afar.

Now I'm at the point where I have to take on Orcs to get a decent amount of xp. Not really a problem except they attack from afar too! Should have taken the entropic warding invocation... Oh and Devil Sight and See the Unseen don't do crap for normal darkness. What's up with that? I still have to use some kind of light giving item to see in caves and such. I assume the See the Unseen invocation will work on invisible creatures but I haven't found any to test that theory. Otherwise the description LIES! heh.

I farmed some pixies a while back with my ranger but never had any drop loot so I assumed they didn't. I'll have to give it another shot. Either way you go, seems like the best choice for a solo character class is a warlock. Ranged attack that gets stronger as you level up = teh goodness Just fear mobs...