Can anyone give me some guidance with this game?

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YummyTreeSap

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I'll give it to you straight: I'm fucking terrible at this game. Part of it is certainly that it's a mechanically dense game that doesn't like explaining anything it does very much, and the rest is that I'm just a big pile of garbage.

So far, the loop has been something like this for me:

  1. Start doing a quest (which I should mention is still exceptionally early into the game).
  2. Come across some enemies.
  3. Fight them and do fairly well for a bit, not having any real trouble, and then out of nowhere have some punk-ass motherfucker stunlock me to death in one combo.
  4. Lose 20-30 minutes of time because this game doesn't believe in reasonable checkpoints (it doesn't even fucking autosave after recruiting new pawns, which, fine, you can blame me for not manually saving more often, but that's inexcusable).

And that's been, so far, my experience with this game. So, what the hell am I doing wrong? Should I just be grinding out side missions before I tackle the main stuff? Is it one of those games? Is my party composition all jacked up? Grinding seems like the lamest possible option since it's not as though combat is otherwise all that difficult; it's just that every now and then I just unexpectedly get smoked. Leveling up a bunch and trivializing the rest of the combat even more sounds kind of terrible.

For the record, I'm at seriously one of the very first quests. It's that one where you have to find the magic tome or whatever. I'm willing to accept that I'm just garbo at video games, but maybe I'm just missing something.

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YI_Orange

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Fire works well.

But really, what's killing you exactly? I never had any trouble except with the Ogres, and the fuckers in the well if you go in there unprepared. even then it's just a battle of attrition. Granted I never finished the game. I always used 2 mages(at least 1 had heal) and a fighter for pawns with me running one of the "rogue" classes. I found a lot of the bow moves to be very effective, especially for how safe they were. It might take some levels and gear for your damage to not feel underwhelming though.

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rorie

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#3  Edited By rorie

The magic tome quest is going to get you into some serious trouble if you try to do it when you first get it. I would try to do the Lure quest that you get that sends you down into the Everfall; there'll be an Ogre in there but you will hopefully be able to power him down. When that's done, all you need to do is get to the bottom then run like hell back to the top. That'll open up a few more meaty quests that'll lead you to different areas. Just save a bunch and when you start noticing the enemies becoming overweeningly powerful, try exploring a different location (or running; you should be able to run away from most combats if you find yourself in trouble). Or try a walkthrough; I'm sure there are plenty of them by now.

As far as parties go, I usually like having my main character be a sword/shield fighter, with a ranger/knife dude as a sidekick, and two mage/healers early on (I think the heal spell is called Halidon?). You can sometimes lose a bit of combat efficiency when both mages attempt to heal the same character at the same time, but that's better than having someone dead. A lot of early enemies are weak to fire, so Fire Boon is great to have up constantly for your melee characters. Just be sure to replace your two loaned pawns every level or two. When you go to search for them, be sure they're at the same level as your main character, and make sure that they have all six spell slots allocated. (A lot of people will only have one spell allocated for their pawns; these guys aren't going to be very versatile or all that useful in fights.)

It's not the easiest game to get into, so you may want to just fool around a bit and then start over. I did when I first started playing and it made it a bit easier the second time around.

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project343

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@rorie said:

The magic tome quest is going to get you into some serious trouble if you try to do it when you first get it. I would try to do the Lure quest that you get that sends you down into the Everfall; there'll be an Ogre in there but you will hopefully be able to power him down. When that's done, all you need to do is get to the bottom then run like hell back to the top. That'll open up a few more meaty quests that'll lead you to different areas. Just save a bunch and when you start noticing the enemies becoming overweeningly powerful, try exploring a different location (or running; you should be able to run away from most combats if you find yourself in trouble). Or try a walkthrough; I'm sure there are plenty of them by now.

Fighting the Ogre can be a bit of a clumsy nightmare if you're new and just get to Gran Soren. That said, I'll give some additional Ogre advice: keep poking at it, and it'll probably throw itself off the ledge at some point. It's cheese as fuck, but it happens almost every time for me.

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rorie

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@rorie said:

The magic tome quest is going to get you into some serious trouble if you try to do it when you first get it. I would try to do the Lure quest that you get that sends you down into the Everfall; there'll be an Ogre in there but you will hopefully be able to power him down. When that's done, all you need to do is get to the bottom then run like hell back to the top. That'll open up a few more meaty quests that'll lead you to different areas. Just save a bunch and when you start noticing the enemies becoming overweeningly powerful, try exploring a different location (or running; you should be able to run away from most combats if you find yourself in trouble). Or try a walkthrough; I'm sure there are plenty of them by now.

Fighting the Ogre can be a bit of a clumsy nightmare if you're new and just get to Gran Soren. That said, I'll give some additional Ogre advice: keep poking at it, and it'll probably throw itself off the ledge at some point. It's cheese as fuck, but it happens almost every time for me.

I think you fight a cyclops outside of the fort earlier on. Different enemies but they fight somewhat similarly - but yeah, ogres can move in odd ways, especially when they do that backwards drop to nail people climbing on them.

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AlexW00d

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@rorie said:

The magic tome quest is going to get you into some serious trouble if you try to do it when you first get it. I would try to do the Lure quest that you get that sends you down into the Everfall; there'll be an Ogre in there but you will hopefully be able to power him down. When that's done, all you need to do is get to the bottom then run like hell back to the top. That'll open up a few more meaty quests that'll lead you to different areas. Just save a bunch and when you start noticing the enemies becoming overweeningly powerful, try exploring a different location (or running; you should be able to run away from most combats if you find yourself in trouble). Or try a walkthrough; I'm sure there are plenty of them by now.

Fighting the Ogre can be a bit of a clumsy nightmare if you're new and just get to Gran Soren. That said, I'll give some additional Ogre advice: keep poking at it, and it'll probably throw itself off the ledge at some point. It's cheese as fuck, but it happens almost every time for me.

I was like level 14 on both when I tried this, and my attacks weren't even moving his health bar, so I decided to run, and then yeah, idiot must have jumped off the ledge cause I got the xp popup after running most of the way to the top.

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Redhotchilimist

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#7  Edited By Redhotchilimist

Rorie has some good tips! Seems like your biggest problem is just wandering into quests or areas that are too high level for you, and that's their fault for not marking that stuff. If I remember correctly, I think the bandits that have that magic tome are some of the strongest enemies you can run into in that area, and taking them on is gonna be impossible if you just started out. Doing the Everfall quest gets you a questgiver that lets you choose between several quests(though you can do all of them), so it's a better way to get some guidance on where to go.

Besides that, maybe check out some quests in Cassardis. There will be some stuff there that's easier to deal with than what's in the main town. But like you mention, sidequests in general help. Very few quests are required to just progress the game, but the first time through, you're not gonna be powerful enough to ditch all of them. And if you're playing a ranger type class, it's best to hang way back. I love them for the mobility, but they can't take hits.

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rubberluffy

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#8  Edited By rubberluffy

You shouldn't really have to grind. If you accept the notice board kill quests, just random traveling or exploring should finish those off, giving decent exp and gold. But really your equipment is gonna be a bigger help. Enhance it. if can be a pretty significant boost even for early equipment. Make sure you're using your DP to learn and upgrade your skills at the inn.

For good healing items you can buy a few empty flasks and North/Northwest of Gran Soren is a glowing rock with a small pool of water. Fill the flasks with water from there, it's one of the best healing items in the game. I like putting a portcrystal here for easy restocking.

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OurSin_360

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Dont go out at night.

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Seinenfeld

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So I'm also new and was trying to do the tome quest today after some random exploration yesterday. I came across a Chimera that was being a real pain and refused to let me run away from it, as whenever I ran into more enemies it would catch up. Then night time eventually hit as I was getting near the quest marker, and I survived a surprisingly long time but eventually got smoked (there was a Chimera, some Black Knight looking motherfucker, and like a million bandits on me). I'd saved at the chapel that's near where the Chimera was, so when I reloaded I NOPED the fuck outta there and back to Gran Soren with the quickness.

I'm not too bothered about losing like half an hour but it is pretty shitty how there is no indication what quests are appropriate, because that one definitely isn't at this stage. But thank you for all the tips in here, I'm sure they'll be helpful to plenty of folks just starting out.

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Marz

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manual save every 5 mins

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Christoffer

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#12  Edited By Christoffer

I bought this game when it was released on PC and I also struggled a lot to wrap my head around the mechanics and the quest designs. The game seemed like a weird mix between Dark Souls and Dragon Age and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Like you, I tried to find the Tome early on... but nope. Then I tried Everfall way to early... dead.

I decided to restart the game as a Fighter and was surprised by how much I had missed (or couldn't put in context) in the early areas. I also realized that there's no point in saving your money in the early game. Get the best stuff, upgrade your gear, chosen skills and support pawns as furiously as you can.

I'm finally at a point where I enjoy the game and catching up to where I was on the first run was a breeze. I'm sure it will get a lot harder soon but at least I understand the basics now.

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Teddie

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it doesn't even fucking autosave after recruiting new pawns, which, fine, you can blame me for not manually saving more often, but that's inexcusable

It totally saves after you recruit new pawns (to be specific, it makes one every time you enter the rift to recruit pawns or rest at an inn), but it's listed as "Checkpoint" saves. That's basically your hard save you can go back to if you fuck up a quest, because there's a separate "Retry/load from checkpoint" option in the game over/save menus.

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sickthrads

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@yummytreesap:

i too found this game extremely frustrating in the first few hours. thankfully the wikia community sorts a lot of this crap out, because its basically an oldschool jrpg reskinned, telling you little about the dull world they created, no sensibly designed zoning, fast travel or other modern hand holdy type stuff i prefer. so some tips i guess.

im about where austin started in the QL (took way too long), playing as a sorcerer. hit up the quest boards in cariss..-ville, the encampment, and the inn and the pawn guild in grand soren, so that travelling the roads (walking sim tbh) will net you xp needed to advance to more difficult quests. unfortunately, yes, it is one of those games. Find the Black cat market in the venery in gran soren and buy dumb amounts of ferrystones and don't forget to spend discipline points on your main pawn (and yourself). youll get hella gil on the road so dont sweat dumping booty on the armorsmith and fast travel peddler.

There's no shame in fleeing from an overpowering foe. no shame in scumming ur inv during battles either. pick everything up and eat it before it goes rotten! loot free sell high! the .wikia.com interface of this game sorta sucks but it helps with strategy, items locations, and the convoluted to fuck quest-stages system which is fucked. the game should tell you if youre about to waste half an our walking to BFE only to find that this pack of rogues took angel dust and are ready to disembowel you on sight. but it dont

here's some pre-lvl30 quest order: fournival quests / reapers scorn > lure of the abyss > water god's altar > seeking salvation / chasing shadows > cypher > merchants and monsters > a fortress beseiged > go to court. forget about the tome it was a bastard for me too.

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