[X] My Assistant

Hm, so the all in All Friday does include even the melee "elements". Interesting.

this question should be here I guess

Hi, I'm a somewhat newbie (@~120lv) atm, playing HV again because I'm semi-bored and likes the stat-heavy grindy feel of the game. My main concern is the gameflow and power curve. Mostly item building and market value in general.

The first question is related to level pacing:
+ If my understandings are correct, HV follows the Borderland-ish weapon progression system, where level is simply another parameter to affect final item stat and possible variance.
+ But this would lead to meta-stat, where everyone gets their (few) meta weapon and binds it for actual usage. This would mean sub-par weapon are essentially worthless (for MMOs), other than collector items. The current HV market does not feel this way, with many sub-par weapons being sold and bought, is there a particular reason for this, or something wrong about my assumptions?

Related to the first question:
+ In many MMOs, the level cap is simply a short term goal to achieve, which is followed by the gear grind. Most weapons in the market is around ~450 level range, while the level cap is 500. Does the level becomes progressively much slower, and due to soul binding, level and gear grinding are unified?

A more general question about gearing/leveling (I apologize if this is a too common question and I should've just searched):
+ In general, how often would the gear improve (in terms of variance) and outscale a soul-bind equivalent?
+ How rare are good gears (usable gears that you'd want to invest some time into)?
+ What are some important level checkpoints?
+ What weapons are normally considered collector's ?

Finally:
+ What are the few things that I should do but tend to overlook/don't know about?

Hi, I'm a somewhat newbie (@~120lv) atm, playing HV again because I'm semi-bored and likes the stat-heavy grindy feel of the game. My main concern is the gameflow and power curve. Mostly item building and market value in general.

The first question is related to level pacing:
+ If my understandings are correct, HV follows the Borderland-ish weapon progression system, where level is simply another parameter to affect final item stat and possible variance.
+ But this would lead to meta-stat, where everyone gets their (few) meta weapon and binds it for actual usage. This would mean sub-par weapon are essentially worthless (for MMOs), other than collector items. The current HV market does not feel this way, with many sub-par weapons being sold and bought, is there a particular reason for this, or something wrong about my assumptions?

people could get end game equip at lvl 1 and be done with it. Some people never get anything good even after reaching lvl 450+ from self drop, and if they can't get the money to buy a good one, weapons with sub-par roll are their only choice (other than changing fighting style).

Related to the first question:
+ In many MMOs, the level cap is simply a short term goal to achieve, which is followed by the gear grind. Most weapons in the market is around ~450 level range, while the level cap is 500. Does the level becomes progressively much slower, and due to soul binding, level and gear grinding are unified?

define "market", if you meant the equipment shop, the level fluctuates depend on who just dump equipments there.
though 400-ish is what expected for any good weapon to shows up, at least mid 300-ish. That's because that's where good stuff expected to start dropping as you consistently play on highest difficulty possible.

and idk how you "grind gear" in borderland or how borderland waepon mechanic/roll works as I never play it, yet. but here each weapon have it's base stats (lvl 0 stats to oversimplify it) which is rolled based on quality ranges (from average to peerless) and then scaled by it's level (when soulbound weapon level = your level). and you could get gears from wherever you grind level/credits/crystal, other than arena clear bonus afaik they're the same.

A more general question about gearing/leveling (I apologize if this is a too common question and I should've just searched):
+ In general, how often would the gear improve (in terms of variance) and outscale a soul-bind equivalent?
+ How rare are good gears (usable gears that you'd want to invest some time into)?
+ What are some important level checkpoints?
+ What weapons are normally considered collector's ?

- depend on your currently owned gear, if it's a fully forged soulbound peerless there's technically no chance that any equipment with same type, suffix and prefix to be better than it for you. but if you still wearing exq/mag gears, you could get better gear easily. Though, by easy I never meant self-drop. If you only depend on self-drop it could go from mere minutes to ... never.
- about one out of a hundred legendary drop?
- 310, the time you unlock no cooldown imperil. that is I guess.
- peerless and ancient obsoletes.

Finally:
+ What are the few things that I should do but tend to overlook/don't know about?

use WTS/WTB thread instead of in game shop.

This post has been edited by Fudo Masamune: Jan 18 2019, 14:50

Thanks @Fudo, that was really informative

One last question that skipped my mind earlier, is when to up your difficulty level (or when I would be able to handle higher difficulty)?

On a side note, borderland system is (almost) exactly as you described, they have *parts* (thus limiting the outcome rather than a random integer) which affect certain traits, and scaled via item levels.

Thanks @Fudo, that was really informative

One last question that skipped my mind earlier, is when to up your difficulty level (or when I would be able to handle higher difficulty)?

whenever you could.
depend on your fighting style.

1h-shield+heavy is the current meta bread and butter, it could reach highest difficulty faster than most other playstyle and a tested and true playstyle even for high level content, it's your defense oriented build so it could be said to be one of the slowest. using this style you should be able to clear PFUDOR random encounter and arena consistently on early 300 or even late 200 (or even earlier if you have good equip or wear light armor instead of heavy). I believe you could even do PFUDOR RE on mid 100 albeit occasional dead when pitted against 10 monster at the same time.

mage generally the one which bloom late, though, it's the fastest to clear content compared to other fighting style, it's your glass canon build
Idk about now, but I can't play this style on pfudor at least until late 300, but it's more of a investment matter than actual possibility. As I clearly know people who play mage on early 300, but be advised that they spent A LOT of credit for the equipment.

2h/dual wield/niten/1h mage is somewhere between them

This post has been edited by Fudo Masamune: Jan 18 2019, 16:39

The lack of ability boost got to haunt me sooner than I believed. Do I bother with Imperil > Weaken > Haste? Or I got the priority wrong for my build? Actualy I think I should not bother with Imperil for know since the level gap in between is huge.

The lack of ability boost got to haunt me sooner than I believed. Do I bother with Imperil > Weaken > Haste? Or I got the priority wrong for my build? Actualy I think I should not bother with Imperil for know since the level gap in between is huge.

you're doing it backward, on low level survivability > attack. basically as long as you could survive you could play higher difficulty. you could boost your potential damage as high as you want but if you can't survive it count as nothing.

haste is still useful even for 1h-heavy
just because some people here saying haste = bad for 1h, doesn't meant that it's ALWAYS true, moreover on low level, it's a solid way to increase your defense and survivability.
on the other hand imperil is only useful if your enemy have high enough mitigation that lowering it means something, and on low difficulty moreover low level, that's not the case. enemies around your level is still considered squishy that any weapon even non-PA one would work without imperil.

Using what my Credit allowed me to and Help from friends that's what I've got to my level, I can clear IWBTH RE to no death till now, it was hard against A-I monsters but manageable, didn't test against Arena, anything more than 20 rounds could kill me for sure If I got some cooldown wrong or many of them crit.

So I should not bother with Imperil in fights, and go for Haste. Thx.

Using what my Credit allowed me to and Help from friends that's what I've got to my level, I can clear IWBTH RE to no death till now, it was hard against A-I monsters but manageable, didn't test against Arena, anything more than 20 rounds could kill me for sure If I got some cooldown wrong or many of them crit.

So I should not bother with Imperil in fights, and go for Haste. Thx.

for now, I believe yes. But you'll need imperil later, particularly on SG arena, so somewhere around 225 (unlocking first SG arena) should be a good time to reconsider it again.

This would mean sub-par weapon are essentially worthless, other than collector items. The current HV market does not feel this way, with many sub-par weapons being sold and bought, is there a particular reason for this, or something wrong about my assumptions?

In many MMOs, the level cap is simply a short term goal to achieve, which is followed by the gear grind. Most weapons in the market is around ~450 level range, while the level cap is 500. Does the level becomes progressively much slower, and due to soul binding, level and gear grinding are unified?

How rare are good gears?

Gear grinding in this game is not related to the level of the gear in the current version of the game (it used to be) which is somewhat easily achieved via soulbinding. Rather, gear grinding is a combination of doing Item World, and forging up your weapon. Most costly of all is obtaining good gear worthy of forging up.

Good gears are rare enough that some people would spend $1000 real money to get it, and it's partially unknown how many people actually own the gear, but estimated in single digits. Complete sets of the best gears, likewise very few people own them. The few that do must be very rich, because while you can be ultra lucky to get the best equipment, to get a fully clothed set of the best equipment mandates you get it from other lucky players via your vast wealth.

The reason sub-par weapons are bought and sold is an innate disparity in wealth in this game, by factors of 100 to 1000+ between richest and poorest. It's something I'm not that fond of, but a lot of collector style games are this way. The good thing is that you can still play and win without being the best, you'll just be a tiny bit slower at killing monsters and making money. This game is not like Magic the Gathering, where if you own no Black Lotus and Moxes which can be worth $100,000+ you stand no chance to win in that particular format. Likewise, in this game just slightly sub-par weapons will sell for factors of 100 to 1000 less than the best ones.

At medium and higher levels, eventually this game becomes about money. Money is power in this game. In many other games like fighting games, money has no power, and your power comes from yourself. In single player RPGs, power usually comes from the grinding time you invest into the game, and money likewise is meaningless. To a significant extent, by investing a lot of time in this game, you can similarly convert your dedication into money. But it's limited and won't be able to make as much as the rich players.

The next question to ask then is why are some people so rich and so poor in this game? I'll save that for a future post, or others to answer.

Using what my Credit allowed me to and Help from friends that's what I've got to my level, I can clear IWBTH RE to no death till now, it was hard against A-I monsters but manageable, didn't test against Arena, anything more than 20 rounds could kill me for sure If I got some cooldown wrong or many of them crit.

So I should not bother with Imperil in fights, and go for Haste. Thx.

I play 1H/Light on Nintendo/IWBTH and I don't personally use Haste at all. But for 1H/Heavy it's probably more useful.

Fudo is correct saying low-level survivabilty is more important than attack, at least until you can get Innate Arcana I and be able to auto-cast Spark of Life. Once you have Auto-Spark survivability will be much easier and you can focus more on attack and clearing speed.

I play 1H/Light on Nintendo/IWBTH and I don't personally use Haste at all. But for 1H/Heavy it's probably more useful.

Not really, no matter what style you use it gives you the same flat bonus ranging from 25% without better haste up to 50% with full better haste.

As I'm far from being an expert by now, I'm not sure if I understand the full extent on how haste works, but if I'm correct I think it's rather powerful.

I mean I don't really get the feeling of being faster as I still need the same amounts of clicks to get through one round. It's more like it slows everything aroud me, which means that:
- monster strike less often
- it's more likely that I get a chance to react between their strikes
- all my spells actually last longer (I can hit two times before the timer goes down one round) wich means that I have to recast less often (big win as it takes "real" time to do so) and I actually save mana.

Just my thougths - no real proof. But so I nearly always use it. Just for RE I normally don't bother.
I would always prefer it instead of imperil - which I only use against monster with a bunch of hitpoints (aka. boss monster)

Regards
-hopkar

No, you are right, and because of all those points haste is great for nearly all playstyles. But, monster strike less often means also, no as much chances for a counterattack while playing 1H. And that is the reason why i really recommend to use it only when it actually helps you survive what otherwhise would kill you when you play 1H.

This post has been edited by Uncle Stu: Jan 19 2019, 11:36

So, you speed things up by letting the monster run into your blade? Nice way of thinking! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
I should try this!

(Long) ago I've made the (mistake?) of soul binding this: Exquisite Longsword of Balance

So far it works (?) and I'm clearing content with appropriate difficulty levels (Hell Arena / IWBTH RE), and it saves me the trouble of changing my weapon.

I'm wondering if it's still appropriate for my current level, and how long should I keep using it for, before a weapon upgrade would be a reasonable choice.

So, you speed things up by letting the monster run into your blade? Nice way of thinking! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
I should try this!

Well, sort of, but counter attacks also give you overcharge, they are what makes it so easy to stay in spirit stance nearly all the time. While using the OFC on a regular basis in the same time. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

(Long) ago I've made the (mistake?) of soul binding this: Exquisite Longsword of Balance

So far it works (?) and I'm clearing content with appropriate difficulty levels (Hell Arena / IWBTH RE), and it saves me the trouble of changing my weapon.

I'm wondering if it's still appropriate for my current level, and how long should I keep using it for, before a weapon upgrade would be a reasonable choice.

It's too bad that it has no prefix, but I'm no one who should be talking as I was (not to long ago) still using a superior ethereal axe of slaughter.
What I would however strongly recommend is that, if you soulfused it and want to keep it for another while, go all the way up to item level 10 asap as it will get you the hollowforged potency. This not only convert your damage to void, but also adds an additional void strike.

I'm wondering if it's still appropriate for my current level, and how long should I keep using it for, before a weapon upgrade would be a reasonable choice.

I would say right the moment you get your hands on a Longsword of Slaughter.

I unlocked the Innate Arcana perk, yet my setting said I don't have any slot, is it simply the server not updating yet, or should I be worried I tripped some kind of bug?