Tutorial For Beginners (Unofficial)

[raven_silverblood]

I figured it might be a good idea to help new-comers to Lichdom, for those who don't want to figure it out on their own and just want some tips to get started. (For those who aren't interested, or think that this might contain spoilers for your enjoyment, you can always read another topic.)

0 - The Game

Step 1: Buy it with Steam (of course).
Step 2: Download it with Steam (yeah, I sound like that Tech Support guy about now).
Step 3: Open the game (I apologize in advance for the head trauma of your forehead on your desk).
Step 4: Adjust settings (well, maybe this isn't that bad) and start a new game (OK, I take it back).

The idea is fairly simple. You're a battlemage, or a spell caster who specialized in offensive/destructive spells. No cooldown times, no mana - but you've got very low health, so be careful.

This game is awesome if you like magic, dungeons, and being a bad-*ss battlemage. By playing this game, you will grow a mustache overnight - every night. You'll be manly enough that you'll win a staring contest with Mt. Rushmore, you'll have so much testosterone that pharmaceutical companies will ask you to be their direct supplier! **

** - Your results may very - by a lot!

1 - The Controls

Now we get into the good stuff. This game has very few controls. But if you want a short way of checking what does what on your system, as soon as your system has a character that can look around with the mouse, press exit to get into the Game Menu screen. Then "Press F1 For Help". I know, sounds really obvious (and it is). But it'll show you the controls you CAN'T re-map (yet), including things like I for Inventory, Shift to toggle on or off Sprint (if only I could do that on my phone - hah!).

But for the most part, here's what you need to know in a nutshell. RMB (Right Mouse Button) activates your Shield (blocks incoming damage if you time it right, but can also regenerate health). LMB (Left Mouse Button) does your targeted spells (firebolt, icebolt, etc).

When you press LMB and RMB together, you get a combo AOE (Area Of Effect) attack that does significantly more damage over a small area.

Holding LMB will "supercharge" an attack, giving it a higher chance of doing that magical school's special effect. For targeted (LMB) Ice spells, that means freezing your oponent in place for a short amount of time.

You've also got space bar, which slows time to a crawl, and allow you to dodge. It also causes you to automatically cast a "Barrier" spell, which is a huge AOE spell around where you dodged to. This can be used offensively if you're a good player with a nice system, and good reflexes. But don't show off in a boss fight, or when surrounded by many foes, or when being attacked b y several ranger enemies.

2- Your Character

Not much to tell (so far). You're a battlemage, who is in a dungeon (for some reason), and who has to fight a bunch of undead (for some reason).

You have a couple of stats (visible when you press I, for Inventory - more on that later), and you start off (as of the Pre-Alpha Stage 1) with two schools of magic (Fire and Ice). You can switch between which school of magic you prefer to use by pressing 1 or 2. There should be a third one coming soon, but so far we've only got Fire and Ice (is that a movie from the 80s I hear no one say?).

You've got three bars of health, on the bottom-left corner. Each time one of the bars goes down, it can't go back up to the next bar until you get one of the glowing/shiny white light orb thingies. They help you stay alive. Mr. Shiny-Light-Ball is your friend (and yes. I just read what I typed and I think I just gave myself an aneurism).

3 - Enemies

Enemies are, for the most part, easily killed. Some will have range, some will dodge, some will have shields, some will block, some will hide behind things, some will retreat. Overall, it's a pretty good mix, a few mini-bosses here and there.

Enemies will drop items, which will float towards you and be auto-looted for you. You can access these items by pressing I (for Inventory) at any time, which also grants you access to the Crafting menu. (More about that later.)

Your enemies (that I've found so far) are a couple of undead opponents (zombies), some witch-doctors characters of some kind, some wraiths/lichs (mini-bosses) - but there's bound to be more I haven't found.

4 - Inventory, Items and Crafting

When you press I (for Inventory), it doesn't just bring up your Inventory. It brings up your entire character menu. When you get on to it, you'll notice that it shows three circles: fire, ice, and a black one (because we can't access it now).

In the center if the Shield, which isn't from any school of magic - it's your RMB without any other button pressed alongside it.

You can go to the Synthesize tab, where you'll find all of your items (and a bit more). But first, let me explain the difference between an Augment and a Shape.

A Shape is the type of spell you're using. Shields are to block attacks with RMB and to regenerate. Targeted Attacks are your LMB, and it works best on a single target. Barriers are your Space Bar dodge+AOE combo. And the AOE itself is LMB+RMB.

Basically, the Shape of a spell tells you what it does...

...and the Augment are buffs, to give your spell some more stats (like condition duration, damage, speed of projectile, etc). And Augment is a passive upgrade, but only to ONE spell. It is NOT a passive upgrade to your character (sorry).

When you're going to craft a spell, you need to first select what type of school of magic you want - Ice, Fire, or the other one? (That other one will only allow you to use the Shield Shape, so don't worry.)

After you've selected the school of magic you're going to use, you need to select the Shape you're going to use. There will be a list, but if you're using Fire or Ice (and most of you will be), you'll find that you can only use Targeted, Barriers and AOE.

5 - Synthesizing

Here's where this game's ingenuity shines more than anywhere else. When you defeat a monster, or destroy one of those orange egg/nest/swarm things, you'll be rewarded with an item. You can also be rewarded for finding scrolls, checking out those weird-looking rifts (the long purple and black things, that cause you to see purple holograms and wonder "is this real life?"), or going to those pinkish-red areas with bones or the remains of less-fortunate characters (or NPCs).

When you're going to Synthesize an item, you have three main types of Shapes (plus the Shield shape), and three main types of Augments.

Shapes - Targeted, AOE, Barrier, Shield (Barrier is NOT the same as shield)
Augments - Control, Mastery and Destruction

Items also come in several rarity levels. You've got Common (white), uncommon (green), rare (blue), legendary (purple), and epic (color unknown to me so far). These indicate how valuable or powerful an item is.

When synthesizing, try to synthesize three items of the same rarity type, and of the same sub-type. Example: If you synthesize 3x Control Augment (common rarity), you can get either an Uncommon Shape (random) or an Uncommon Control Augment.

However, you can also synthesize three different Augments of the same rarity, in which case you'll get either a random Augment or a random Shape of one rarity level above. Example: If you Synthesize 2x Uncommon Targeted Shape and 1x Uncommon Barrier Shape, you can get either a Rare Shape or a Rare Augment.

You can also synthesize a Spell (that's been crafted), an Augment and a Shape - but you'll get a random item.

You can also get a Legendary Item, and synthesize it with two rares of the same type, to get a new Legendary Item. That could be helpful if, for example, you wanted a different Shape than the one you have. (Note: I haven't done this myself, only seen the previews.)

Overall, save up your items, and synthesize items so you can get the items you want. Saving Destruction Augments and Targeted Shapes can be one of the more awesome things you do, especially if you can get a really nice Homing Targeted Shape (which allows you to be less precise when aiming, and can help you even if you enemy moves out of the way from where the spell was going).

6 - Strategy

This may be a bit of an unfair thing, to help you guys. So for those who don't want the temptation, there are plenty of links that can take you elsewhere - and you can click any of them!

Personally, I find that holding the Targeted (LMB) spell button works well. I prefer Ice, because if I charge it, I can freeze enemies in place, and when I hit them with charged attacks over and over I get a nice combo that stacks well, and can hold enemies at bay. It also allows me to use AOE (LMB+RMB) more easily (since they're nice and still, since I put them on ice - you could say I "iced" them... HA!).

I also found that early on, you're better off saving your items. Make a throwaway character to get a "feel" of the same, and then make your "real" character later on.

Once you get to your first mini-boss (initiated by casting a targeted spell at that weird-green-machine-thingy), you should start synthesizing and crafting away.

Personally, investing in Homing Targeted Shapes and Destruction Augments was really helpful, and crafting them into Ice Spells was epic. Having a good Shield Spell was better for recharge after some careful retreating. I found that dodge (Barrier) wasn't really that helpful for attack or defense, mostly for dodging. I also found that the AOE was pretty much useless on moving targets. It was most useful when I was preparing to hit an enemy barely behind a wall (who didn't figure out how to get to me - bad AI, no donut for you!). or when I has used a charged Targeted Ice Spell (hold LMB until your character's hand shines brighter and you hear a noise in-game) to freeze an enemy in place.

I also found that dodging was a very common thing. Health is *very* low, and you'll be dieing often. This game is *brutal* when it comes to that. Dodge *everything( you see coming towards you, especially ranged attacks (green arrows).

Also, getting your enemies to bottleneck themselves in a long hallway is the way to go. It's so much easier. Just make sure you remember which way you came in, and align yourself so you can pull back if/when needed without being blocked by an annoying wall (sometimes a mini-boss isn't half as bad as a wall that won't let you dodge). It helps.

Also, if none of your enemies can do ranged attacks, prefer to pull back only at the last moment so your Barrier Spell can do some extra damage. If you are being attacked by ranged enemies, than make sure to dodge diagonally as well, and to stay further away from them. This allows you to see their attack coming, so you can dodge it - the space bar is going to be your closest friend and ally (unintentional "The Hobbit" quote?). Using Homing Targeted Shapes for your spells, you'll also notice that enemies will have a much harder time dodging from your attacks. Few enemies can dodge like your character can, except Mini-Bosses.

_____

Anyways, that's it for now, guys. I hope this was helpful. If there's anything I missed, or anything you'd like me to add, let me know.

(And maybe this might get someone to make an official tutorial thread on Steam?)

[Nemo]

Nice guide!! I can't wait to get my client issue fixed to actually put this tutorial to use haha.

[raven_silverblood]

Thanks, Nemophilist. (I may have added a bit too much rambling,sarcasm and snark to my unofficial tutorial, though. Guess it's my style, though.)

I don't really want credit for making this tutorial, though. I just want the Developers to have some kind of tutorial, but if there is no one willing to write one better, mine will do in a pinch.

I'd love to maybe see the developers make a Wiki for Lichdom on their website, maybe with a couple of YouTube videos explaining what each thing does.

Also, maybe if they can give us some of the images (and allow them to be used freely, using CreativeCommons 4.0 or something similar) to be used in some fan-made wikis, that'd be awesome. =)

I'd also love to see more official explanation of the stats, and so forth. That way we'll be able to give much more detailed feedback on what information they provide (officially).

Anyways, I hope this explains some things. Also, here's a bit more:

On the bottom-right corner of the screen, you'll find three icons within a circle. The bottom-left of that is the symbol for the Targeted Shape (long-range, single-target). The top one is for the long-range high-damage AOE attack. And the bottom-right one is for the Barrier (Dodge+AOE attack).

That'll help you at first.

Augments use colors and letters. Here's how they read:

Destruction = Red
Mastery = Green
Control = Blue

Destruction gives more damage in most spells. I haven't really checked what Mastery and Control do, I'll share more as I find out. =)

[missed]

Thanks so much for the work you did on this guide. Please feel free to cross-post it in the Community Hub's Guides page :)

[raven_silverblood]

Originally posted by xavmissed:

Thanks so much for the work you did on this guide. Please feel free to cross-post it in the Community Hub's Guides page :)

Thanks. I just did.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=241547970

You can check it out there. (Suggestion: you might consider adding "nerves of steel" and "mad skills" to the Minimum Requirements of the game. =P )

[yelvemaster]

Thanks, raven_silverblood. I was muddling about, but your combat instructions were quicker than trial and error. However, I've got to say that "Shapes" is not an intuitive term.

[raven_silverblood]

Originally posted by yelvemaster:

Thanks, raven_silverblood. I was muddling about, but your combat instructions were quicker than trial and error. Barrier just wasn't coming to me.

No problem. =) You know, I kinda feel like making a "Pupper Master's Tutorial" video for Lichdom, and post it on YouTube. I'd basically control the character, and speak to him, and give him bad advice. And I'd nod or shake my head by moving the mouse.

An example is when I load up the game and make my voice sound like the narrator, I'd say "don't worry, this game is Lichdom and you're an undead lich - that zombie wants to heal you with death energy from that mace, so let it hit you, he's your ally". And then I'd laugh hysterically in the sadistic narrator voice when my character gets hit. (Basically, imagine the Snarky Edition tutorial, but if it's the older brother giving terrible advice to his younger brother playing the game, who can only speak by nodding or shaking his head.) I think it could be hilarious. =3