Skills leveling revisited.

[swoodbury]

I have read through the forums and have seen some interesting discussion. The argument about weather or not it's pointless, the benefits at certain levels, and drawbacks to spending multiple hours accomplishing such monumental tasks as reaching level 100.

In my experience, leveling or "grinding" if you prefer, is a staple in most games where adventure and combat take the stage. In order to proceed in a game that progressively becomes more difficult, one must progress as well in every aspect. Gear and weapons are no exception. Sure the differences in damage inflicted or hit points blocked is minuscule and often times unnoticeable until reaching higher levels but improvements are made nonetheless.

Some things I have found to make leveling easier is for bows and crossbows for instance. If you play on normal with enemy aggro on usually, turn that off in world modifiers temporarily and go hit the swamps. Find you a spot where there are body piles and bone piles (usually together) make you a port, then build a wall around the area. Set you up a one wall tall platform and just walk around the area sniping enemies at will. The enemy will not strike your walls, and cannot reach you to attack as you lay them low from a safe height.

I have seen a post where people just strike a rock until levels are reached, but I have tried this to no avail. Not sure if I'm just not doing it right or they fixed that exploit with the Ashlands drop.

For blocking, make you a good quality shield, I chose Carapace, and I punched four enemies in the face. Find a good backdrop, either a tree or a man made structure, and I taped my right mouse button down. Just make sure you have some kind of stamina buff on and are rested. When your shield gets close to broken, port home, rinse and repeat. 40 levels in no time.

Swords and blunt weapons are a bit more time consuming, the above methods work well, but you have to kite the enemies away from the piles for the sake of not destroying the spawn points. Enemies spawn as fast as you kill them, so there really is no down time this way. Same goes for magic leveling, just watch the AOE effect on the spawn points.

Just thought I would share this as an option for I have found it works well.
Happy hunting, and above all, keep the blades sharp and the wits sharper.

[electricdawn]

Wow... I mean... you do you... but this is the most boring waste of time I could ever imagine. And for what? Isn't gaming supposed to be, you know, fun?

Hey, no shade on you. Again, you do what you want to do. It's at least interesting to know what people come up with.

[swoodbury]

I appreciate your reply, this was just something for those who feel the need to make 100% game completion. I agree, as I monitor this post I have been grinding crossbows, and it is a long process, as well as extremely boring. But I got nothing better to do on a Saturday while sitting in my armchair drinking an adult beverage HAHA. Might as well make my viking a bit stronger.

[electricdawn]

That made me grin, because I've been drinking some ale as well on this evening. Cheers to you! :)

[swoodbury]

You as well, *clink*

[blprice61]

On days where the weather blocks what I want to do, I'll sometimes take a level 1 wooden tower shield and go to a pit I've dug and stored a half dozen (living) neckers in. Hop in and block them for awhile till the weather turns, night falls, or your rested buff runs out.

It is about the only skill worth training that way in my opinion. Even then, its not a *must do* thing. Plus side, ever run out of necker meat for meads or foods, you know where to find a few.

Practically every other skill you can just train up as you go; run and jump instead of walk, sneak when hunting, mining, or cutting wood, park your boats off shore and swim to or from them. Otherwise, for weapons, carry a level 1 weapon of the lowest level for the type along and use it to kill trash mobs. With bows, don't draw back, just plink at melee range. For all but bows its not really worth it past the first dozen or so levels.

Bows are a special case - they're the slowest leveling weapon type that I know of. If I feel my skill in bow is too low, I'll sometimes grab an old crude bow, a couple deer antlers, and go plink away at Eithkyr.

It does get boring so making a game of it in someway is preferred. Can chase Hugin around early on with melee weapon, smack him, he'll disappear, but he really doesn't mind since he'll be right back to try and tell you something like the importance of not carrying too much.

[Draconis]

The "hit-the-rock-method" was fixed some time ago, so this kind of dojo does no longer work. I tried that too, I even built a nice looking dojo for this - then I noticed it was totally senseless.

For most of the skills I agree that you don't actually notice much of a difference, but there are some exceptions:
- Bows - the reduced draw time is quite a game changer
- Blood magic - the staff of protection becomes almost useless if that skill is too low. Similar for dead raiser.
- Jump - being able to jump over a 2m wall can save your life.
- Sprint - you'll notice that difference mostly in the mountains.

The skills for Bows and Blood magic have one problem i.m.o.: It is far too tedious to level these up. It actually requires you to build a training site and camp this. And while you actually do something to level your bow skill, you just sit afk with your skeletts running around if you level blood magic...
Okay, if you have an affinity to archery und use bows a lot during your adventures, you can actually get quite a good level while on the way. But for blood magic this just is not the case. This needs a better way to level it up.

[swoodbury]

I can see your point, however I have noticed a significant difference in ease of play with higher weapon levels between playthroughs. Currently on my third, (first since the Ashlands update) ((haven't made ashlands yet so no spoilers please))

Bosses seem to go down faster and blocking is more effective (with parry). Maybe just me or maybe I actually just got better at not dying LOL. Maybe a 20 level difference in pertinent weapons between my first playthrough and now.

[swoodbury]

Originally posted by Draconis:

The "hit-the-rock-method" was fixed some time ago, so this kind of dojo does no longer work. I tried that too, I even built a nice looking dojo for this - then I noticed it was totally senseless.

For most of the skills I agree that you don't actually notice much of a difference, but there are some exceptions:
- Bows - the reduced draw time is quite a game changer
- Blood magic - the staff of protection becomes almost useless if that skill is too low. Similar for dead raiser.
- Jump - being able to jump over a 2m wall can save your life.
- Sprint - you'll notice that difference mostly in the mountains.

The skills for Bows and Blood magic have one problem i.m.o.: It is far too tedious to level these up. It actually requires you to build a training site and camp this. And while you actually do something to level your bow skill, you just sit afk with your skeletts running around if you level blood magic...
Okay, if you have an affinity to archery und use bows a lot during your adventures, you can actually get quite a good level while on the way. But for blood magic this just is not the case. This needs a better way to level it up.

I haven't really messed with magic levels too much. I have made the gear and upgraded but I've always been a sword and shield man. I played around with the protection staff a bit but it does seem to be quite a grind.

[Draconis]

Originally posted by swoodbury:

I can see your point, however I have noticed a significant difference in ease of play with higher weapon levels between playthroughs. Currently on my third, (first since the Ashlands update) ((haven't made ashlands yet so no spoilers please))

Bosses seem to go down faster and blocking is more effective (with parry). Maybe just me or maybe I actually just got better at not dying LOL. Maybe a 20 level difference in pertinent weapons between my first playthrough and now.

You are right, higher weapon skills make a difference. But usually it is not much of a problem to pick up a new weapon, because your skill rises quite quickly. I tend to change from axes to mace after black forest and from mace to sword after the swamp and this works quite good actually.
Bow is the exception, because with a low bow skill bows are almost useless later in the game, and the lower your skill is, the slower you train it (though I did not try doing half-drawn shots for training yet)

[swoodbury]

Originally posted by Draconis:

Originally posted by swoodbury:

I can see your point, however I have noticed a significant difference in ease of play with higher weapon levels between playthroughs. Currently on my third, (first since the Ashlands update) ((haven't made ashlands yet so no spoilers please))

Bosses seem to go down faster and blocking is more effective (with parry). Maybe just me or maybe I actually just got better at not dying LOL. Maybe a 20 level difference in pertinent weapons between my first playthrough and now.

You are right, higher weapon skills make a difference. But usually it is not much of a problem to pick up a new weapon, because your skill rises quite quickly. I tend to change from axes to mace after black forest and from mace to sword after the swamp and this works quite good actually.
Bow is the exception, because with a low bow skill bows are almost useless later in the game, and the lower your skill is, the slower you train it (though I did not try doing half-drawn shots for training yet)

Neither have I. to tell you the truth I have been neglecting my bow since I made the Arbalest. Although the reload time is frustrating and I'm wondering if that improves with leveling. Currently on 32 and not seeing much difference.

[blprice61]

There is one mode of play where training becomes a bit more important. Fortunately it also offers you more opportunities. That is Immersive mode. It is worth putting a bit more effort into raising skills since you can't just dash to a nearby portal and escape; nor (if you aren't doing permadeath also) easily return your gravestone.

[swoodbury]

Originally posted by blprice61:

There is one mode of play where training becomes a bit more important. Fortunately it also offers you more opportunities. That is Immersive mode. It is worth putting a bit more effort into raising skills since you can't just dash to a nearby portal and escape; nor (if you aren't doing permadeath also) easily return your gravestone.

Haven't tried immersive mode. I'm afraid I'll have an anxiety attack if I died HAHA. I may bring up the courage in the future and play with no map as well. I have heard that can be fun. Can't see how being that the game doesn't give you a compass.

[blprice61]

It does give you a compass, well sort of. The place you first spawn is a compass. Look for the trident with 3 crossbars on the stone wheel you're standing on. That points north. Once you get a hammer, pick the ladder from the build menu and align it with that north marker having the lowest part of the ladder pointing towards north (it also means that when you get the Karve, the bow of the Karve will point that same direction you can use while sailing.

Before using the hammer to actually build anything, put down a cooking station (it will be aligned east-west I believe), drop something on the north side to mark north so you can easily realign your 'compass' after building whatever.

Also, the Yggdrasil tree starts from the east, the sun rises in the east, at noon the sun is to the south and in the middle of the night the moon is also to the south.

When you use a Vesgir for a boss direction, your camera will automatically turn to the direction of the nearest boss of that type. Check your hammer 'compass' (don't rotate it) and make a note of what the bearing to the boss is. I find the old N, NNE, NE, ENE, E, etc abbreviations to be accurate enough generally.

[swoodbury]

WOW that was quite informative. Did you figure this stuff out or is it in a guide somewhere? I can easily see this being a lot of fun if done properly and adding a new level of difficulty to the game. Makes ya think and pay attention. I like that.

[swoodbury]

Crossbow is currently 36. I messed up and killed my evil bone pile, so either I find another spot or ammo is going to be a problem LOL.