Explain about the skills.

[Last_in_line]

Guys, explain it to me. Do skills only work if they have a dot inside the diamond? It's just that some buffs, as I understand it, work without that dot.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3475938326

[Last_in_line]

I just see that some cards have skills that work without these dots. For example...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3475945678
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3475947646

[WWDiver]

WWhat you have there are the traits, those you need to activate in the troops menu with traitstones.
So yes if the diamonds on the bottom of the card are open the traits aren't active.

[Last_in_line]

Originally posted by WWDiver:

What do the two plates on the left side of the screen mean, on the last screenshot with the green inscription ("Knight Commander") and characteristics? At first I thought that these were buffs from the card and its skills, because I recruited a lot of knights into the squad.

[Jerry]

Originally posted by Last_in_line:

At first I thought that these were buffs from the card and its skills, because I recruited a lot of knights into the squad.

That is almost correct. If you use two or more troops with the same characteristic (kingdom, type, colour) in a team, you get a status bonus on your team. The more you have in the team, the stronger the bonus becomes. Duplicates do not count. This bonus can be increased if you have certain pets.

[Last_in_line]

And where does the mechanics of this buff come from, I have not seen a description of it in the game. At first I thought that this bonus is a consequence of the Skills in the card (there are similar bonuses that give health, armor, if you have Knights or Humans in your squad). But, as I later found out - active Skills are only those with a dot inside the rhombus. And for me, those skills that give health, armor - did not work. I am writing through a translator, so I apologize in advance if something is a little unclear.

[Jerry]

Originally posted by Last_in_line:

And where does the mechanics of this buff come from

From what I can barely make out on your third screenshot (the second one is marked private), your team consists of the following:


Axe of Fire

Eleanor (Swords Edge, Human/Knight)

Nosferatu (Ghulvania, Undead)

Luther (Broken Spire, Human/Knight)


Your hero is not using any class.

That means, you have two troops in your team, that belong to the Human class, and another two that belong to the Knight class (Eleanor and Luther in both cases), while there are no troops of the same kingdom, and only two troops use the same colour (this bonus only becomes active, when the whole team has a shared colour).

Should you, for example, choose the Plaguelord class for your hero, you will have three Humans in your team, increasing this bonus further, while picking the Warlord class would mean, that you have two troops from Broken Spire, adding a third bonus.

If you own the pets Toy Soldier or Shrunken Head, your team bonus for Knights or Humans will increase (by the way, a pet does not need to be equiped to have its effect).


You can see all your team boni under the "bonusses" section of the team screen.


Again, traits (the "diamonds" on a card) are a completely different mechanic. Team boni are a default increase on the team, while traits are activated at the start of a fight. And, as you will learn later, those traits that have an active effect, like for example immunities or things that happen when matching specific gems, can be deactivated through the stun status.

[Jerry]

Also I should tell you, that I only really write this for explanation. You are extremely early in the game, where those small numbers still matter. Later, other things will become much, much more important.

[Last_in_line]

Originally posted by Jerry:

Okay. Let's leave it at that. I actually never got an answer to my question. You wrote about different combinations of "cards" that give different buffs. That's what I was asking, where do you get this knowledge from? That a knight buffs other knights, or that "cards" of the same color buff the entire squad. Or are these mechanics that you just know about, that appeared at the dawn of the game's creation and are perceived by everyone as obvious? I don't think I've ever seen this mentioned in the game itself, so at first I mistakenly thought that the buffs came from the "card" Skills.

...if you're too lazy, you don't have to answer, and in any case, thanks for the explanation.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Last_in_line:

Originally posted by Jerry:

Okay. Let's leave it at that. I actually never got an answer to my question. You wrote about different combinations of "cards" that give different buffs. That's what I was asking, where do you get this knowledge from? That a knight buffs other knights, or that "cards" of the same color buff the entire squad. Or are these mechanics that you just know about, that appeared at the dawn of the game's creation and are perceived by everyone as obvious? I don't think I've ever seen this mentioned in the game itself, so at first I mistakenly thought that the buffs came from the "card" Skills.

...if you're too lazy, you don't have to answer, and in any case, thanks for the explanation.

It's stuff you just learn by playing the game. Or being there when they get introduced by reading the patchnotes. Or asking fellow players.

You could have figured it out on your own eventually by noticing the bonus tab on the team screen, far to the right, getting curious and notice it changing based on the changes you make to your team. Or getting curious once you get a pet with "increases team bonus for Knights".

You could also put your google skills to the test and eventually find
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=543764158
Bit outdated but enough to figure out what it is.

Weird thing to get worked up about. There is no secret vault of knowledge other players have access to but experience.

[Last_in_line]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Okay, okay, thanks.

[Jerry]

It is not my fault, that the game is getting less and less accessable to new players with every year. You are into a ten year old game, that is getting minor additions every week and large ones every few months to keep the endgamers moving. And you have not even seen 10% of the features yet.

I just counted through my inventory - there are 141 different ressource types, and I did not even include shiny tokens and artifacts.

There are 1602 different troops.

638 weapons.

378 pets.

And it keeps getting more every week.

On some days, you are required to do more than 10 different game modes, if you want to get all rewards. It is not unusual for players to be using spreadsheets.

Once you enter midgame, you will notice, that there are troops and weapons, that you absolutely MUST have to stay competitive. And it will take you at least three years, or a lot of money (talking thousand dollar upwards here) to get all of them.

If you have troubles this early into the game, I honestly suggest that you leave, before you get too invested. I only stay, because I have been in since almost the beginning.


If you intend to stay, enter a guild. Usually that is an easier way to get someone to explain things to you.

[Last_in_line]

Originally posted by Jerry:

Let me remind you once again that I am writing through a translator, so there may be a slight misunderstanding...

I am not blaming anyone. I do not really bother with the game. Initially, my question arose because in all the games that I played before, if I encountered some kind of buff, its source was described, all possible potential buffs of this type were written about.

I played POE1 without any third-party information with practically 0 questions about the game, because the training there is smooth and the content is presented gradually. And here I even had such a thing that I mastered some function, and the next day the "training grandfather" pops up and tells me about it, although I myself had already mastered it earlier =) Somehow backwards.

It's just that from my point of view, some things in the game, even despite the large amount of content, could have been made more optimal. Why, for example, was it not possible to make a hero in the form of the same card as the cards of other units? Simply by clicking on the hero card - more functions for upgrading skills, for armor, etc. would appear, unlike regular units. Or they could at least associate everything related to the hero with one icon. And now, for example, to install armor - I need to click on the hero's portrait in the upper left corner, and everything else - at the bottom right, where the rest of the troops are. And what's funny is that to open the hero at the bottom I need to click on the weapon. That is, instead of the hero: an axe, a bow. The hero of my squad is an axe! =))
Why are there two stores in the game? Well, and all that. The point here is not even that there is a lot of content, but that it is unsystematic. As if each time a new developer took on the game and he "tied" something of his own to it. Not embedded "in", but simply tied it on with duct tape.

In general, the game is pretty cool in appearance. Very good art and music, a lot of content.

And yes, I sincerely wrote that if you are too lazy to answer - you don't have to write such long messages. I understand that if a person has been in the game for a long time, especially in a game that is quite old and has little activity - he may not want to explain something to someone from scratch.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Last_in_line:

Well, and all that. The point here is not even that there is a lot of content, but that it is unsystematic. As if each time a new developer took on the game and he "tied" something of his own to it. Not embedded "in", but simply tied it on with duct tape.

You have no idea how close you are ... :P

Some systems have had several iterations. The classes for example were not part of the team, but part of the "hero" and you only could change it once a day (or for gems). And they themselves were introduced only after the start.
So back in the olden times, you hero was just a bunch of stats and you were able to select a weapon for it in the seperate menu. The weapons only had their spell-effect. The stats bonus and tempering also was introduced way later.
Back then things were more logical because they worked differently.

Hell, way way back in the dawn of time your troops were just a card scroll on the bottom, divided by kingdoms.

The game has gone through three or four major UI overhauls. It is also mainly developed for mobiles and has to take consoles in mind for the controls. So screen estate is a premium and menu navigation must be easy, which leads to lots of stupid and unintuitiv decissions.
My personal gripes are putting "Soulforge" under "Games" and "Disenchant" in the troop's upgrade menu.

There is also a big problem that the game uses an external site for help. You can usually find it via the question mark on the top left hand corner. But it lacks an in-game glossary. There are like a dozen Hero Gems for example. Don'T ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ask me what Decay Gems, Dragon Gems, Blue Lightning gems, Yellow Lightning gems, three kind of skulls, Wildcards, ... all do. It's explained once when you first encounter them by Luthor and then it's good luck remembering it.

--
You are more than welcome to ask if you don't understand something. But expect people to tell you "how" things work. Not "why" they work the way they currently are. A lot of things also simply are. Like the account recovery system, that regularly have people scratching their heads.
And don't expect to ever fully understand the game. Or - god help you - the developers.

[Last_in_line]

Originally posted by cinedine:

I see. I read it all with some interest. I won't comment in any way. I'll just write so you know that I read it and you didn't write into the void.

Originally posted by cinedine:

There is also a big problem that the game uses an external site for help. You can usually find it via the question mark on the top left hand corner.

...I'll add it anyway. Yes, I've seen these question marks in the game, but when I click on them, I don't get anywhere. Probably, some internet filter doesn't let me. It loads for a minute, then an error message appears. Well, whatever.

[Crash [LV]]

Originally posted by Last_in_line:

Originally posted by cinedine:

I see. I read it all with some interest. I won't comment in any way. I'll just write so you know that I read it and you didn't write into the void.

Originally posted by cinedine:

There is also a big problem that the game uses an external site for help. You can usually find it via the question mark on the top left hand corner.

...I'll add it anyway. Yes, I've seen these question marks in the game, but when I click on them, I don't get anywhere. Probably, some internet filter doesn't let me. It loads for a minute, then an error message appears. Well, whatever.

No big loss, that's just the official page. Some third party GoW pages are also super useful. If you are still figuring the combos, it will be helpful for you to get the table with all classes and their effects listed, so you can plan what classes you want to level for your teams. I don't have the link on this device though.