Difficulty?

[ederra]

I'm having a blast with the free trial and thinking of subscribing. However, I have a few concerns.

I've heard people say that, upon getting to the mainland, the game's difficulty skyrockets and soloing becomes downright impossible. Is this true? Also, while the community is fantastic, how is the population - is it growing, declining, what? The newbie area seems heavily populated to me, but that might be because it's a free trial.

[uruloki]

I'm having a blast with the free trial and thinking of subscribing. However, I have a few concerns.

I've heard people say that, upon getting to the mainland, the game's difficulty skyrockets and soloing becomes downright impossible. Is this true? Also, while the community is fantastic, how is the population - is it growing, declining, what? The newbie area seems heavily populated to me, but that might be because it's a free trial.

I will let you know once I go to the mainland. I am slowly getting to that point.

[gretchen]

I've only just been to the mainland, but the starting area around your main city has critters roughly same level as on Silan.

I do notice some different behaviors...for instance Mektoubs are more social, had one come to assistance of another mektoub yesterday, that was a surprise.

By way of example, as a Zorai, the "region" is Witherings and I started in Zora, in an "area" called Cities of Intuition...there are 4 cities in that "area" and the jungle between them has some aggro but not a lot. Ragus, Javi, the usual suspects. Depending on your alignment, you might find a camp of bandits that is aggro to you. I got a mission to kill 2 and another to kill 1, though they looked very spread out, they were aggro linked and all ran up, but I was able to kill 3 and run away, finishing the missions.

There is plenty to harvest and craft.

At various points around the "area" (not sure the exact terms here hence the quotes) there are gaps that lead to other adjoining areas in the same region, but it is plain to see if you are entering something too high for you (you see something with a menacing sounding name that is Orange con.) Also the mission givers talk about giving out missions for citizens of low, midde or high rank (level) and by looking at the names of the destinations of those missions, you get an idea of what is considered a low, medium or high area in the region.

All told, the mainland is fascinating (don't know if it changed on Silan at the same time but in Witherings, it is not only snowing but the ground is wintery.) Plenty to do, familiar creatures with perhaps some new behaviors, missions to do to raise your fame with your faction or civilization to get niiiice faction items and access to higher stuff. You should almost immediately get a mission to learn about amber cubes.

I would say, get some skills in the 30 range before coming over. I did all the quests on Silan, got my skills all around mid-20s to mid 30s, got the ranger armor from Chiang and the flaming sword and Icy Touch amp and all that, and came over with enough from crafting and selling to buy the lowest level packer (117k dappers, fit for leaving in stable as a "bank.") I'm not experiencing undue difficulty in the new setting. People are nice, Region chat is quieter but perks up if you say something, and Universe is still grumpy but hey, it's Universe. (WTB universal chat channel.)

(EDIT people are more spread out, the world is pretty big. You are unlikely to find yourself in a crowd of blue dots except at an event, or if you join a guild or have a party you regularly get together with. So be prepared to sometimes make your own fun, might be different at medium to higher level when one might be travelling more and meet up with people more readily.)

[acridiel]

Welcome to Atys.

It definetly is not impossible to solo. It just gets a bit harder, because for example the so called sozial MOBs. Kipee, Mektoubs, Bodocs, and akmost all other herbivores become sozial (aggro linked) on the mainland. But only to a certain distance.
So for example if you manage to taunt a Bodoc away a few meters from its herd the rest of them won´t attack you too. And on a sidenote there´ll always be an upper limit of 6 creatures to attack you at once.

In Citys of intuition the Zorai are lucky with a very low aggro population. Other lands like Matis or Fyros are a bit more of a challange in that way.

The best think to avoid being eaten to often is to learn the different aggro ranges of beasts and sneak past them. It definetly IS possible, it just needs patience young padawan

You may like to read up on this, it may help.

CU
Acridiel

[mehanson]

Welcome to our Giant Root Ball!!

<snip>...So for example if you manage to taunt a Bodoc away a few meters from its herd the rest of them won´t attack you too. And on a sidenote there´ll always be an upper limit of 6 creatures to attack you at once.

Well, some species are "cross-species" sociable, such as Rendors, so you have to stay away from them also, and the six creature limit is a "per mob" limit. I have been beset by more than six on a few occasions, having the bad luck to trigger two aggro mobs at the same time.

[zanthar]

Looks like your questions have been answered so welcome to Atys and have fun!

[sehracii]

Well, some species are "cross-species" sociable, such as Rendors, so you have to stay away from them also, and the six creature limit is a "per mob" limit. I have been beset by more than six on a few occasions, having the bad luck to trigger two aggro mobs at the same time.

It's actually a melee limit. You can only have six things attacking you in melee at any given time, regardless of how many creature types there are in the mix. You can have more than six only if there are ranged or magic users involved, those seem to be limitless.

I know sometimes it seems like more, but if you test it, its never more than six at once- some will give up before more join.


And welcome, Ederra!