Ryzom

Hi there!

I've been enjoying Ryzom very much for the past few days. I've been considering a full subscription. My friend played it for quite awhile about a year and a half ago, though, and she has some pretty strong opinions about it. Some of what she said has me a little worried so I wanted to run it by the community as a whole to see if it's still applicable in the current game.

1. The grind becomes incredibly, achingly arduous. Now, I have three level 60s in WoW, and a level 202 in Anarchy Online. I know a grind and I don't mind it. But if I kill monster after monster and never see any progress I'm liable to get somewhat frustrated, especially if this happens early (like at skill 50 rather than skill 230).

2. At higher levels, XP can only be gained in groups. This is a problem because I won't be able to group constantly, but will still want to log in and get something accomplished. If I wanted to log in and just feel frustrated and impotent I'd go back to WoW.

3. You won't be able to specialize at all. I wanted to get my offensive spellcasting very very high: though I intend to level my other attributes too, I hoped to mostly be a spellcaster. However I hear I'll always have to have at least some healing in order to rez people.

4. Death becomes a humongous burden later, such that accepting the rez penalty is really quite annoying. I intend to RP most of the time so I don't want to use the Region channel if I don't have to; spamming it to beg for a rez wouldn't be my idea of a good time.

5. The only good way to make money later is to become a Gatherer. If I want to be able to buy tickets and so on and so forth I'll need to Gather at least a little bit since it's the best way to make money.

Those are all the nightmare scenarios I had painted for me. Please, someone tell me it's not true!

Atmus

atmus wrote:1. The grind becomes incredibly, achingly arduous. Now, I have three level 60s in WoW, and a level 202 in Anarchy Online. ... especially if this happens early (like at skill 50 rather than skill 230).

Grind doesn't really get back until level 200. The 200-250 range is annoying IMO, but before that, not really

2. At higher levels, XP can only be gained in groups. This is a problem because I won't be able to group constantly, but will still want to log in and get something accomplished. If I wanted to log in and just feel frustrated and impotent I'd go back to WoW.

Nothing is "only", but the rate of progress is so much better in groups at the higher levels that you won't want to solo at those levels. By then, you should have met enough people that you'll be able to find groups with reasonable ease.

3. You won't be able to specialize at all. I wanted to get my offensive spellcasting very very high: though I intend to level my other attributes too, I hoped to mostly be a spellcaster. However I hear I'll always have to have at least some healing in order to rez people.

You can specialize, but most recommend that you have a certain minimum healing skill to go with your main skill. It'll just make you that much more valuable to a team.

4. Death becomes a humongous burden later, such that accepting the rez penalty is really quite annoying.

DP is harder at higher levels, but it's not that unreasonable. If you gather multiple DP's in one night, just buy a "Kiss of Jena" before you log and take a break for the night. You're DP will be mostly gone by the next day.

5. The only good way to make money later is to become a Gatherer. If I want to be able to buy tickets and so on and so forth I'll need to Gather at least a little bit since it's the best way to make money.

Agreed if you want to make a lot of dappers. If you just want enough to cover TP tickets, loot everything you hunt and sell it and you'll be fine. I didn't start digging until well after I hit level 200 in my fight combat skill. I subsisted solely on loot sales just fine.

Hi and welcome!


1. There's many more things to do then grind. If it starts to get arduous, drop it and do something else. RP, boss hunt, trek, explore, craft (stuff to be used, not grind crafts) etc. Really I never was bothered by grind until lvl 200+ approximately. Under that you can really feel progress. Also to keep it interesting you can hunt something more difficult like carnivores or kitin instead of something easy like plants.

2. Well, teaming is just a faster way to level. You can solo pretty easily to lvl 200 I'd say, if you put some time in to find the appropriate prey. You can't just go out and poke anything and expect to make good progress solo. You *can* solo to 250, but it will get progressively slower when you get that high.

3. Here "specialize" means to excel in one particular area, not that you can't do anything else at all. Healing abilities are highly reccommended. Its pretty easy to get a base level though and concentrate on what you really want to do. However, leaving yourself a few options open is a great way to keep interest and not get bored with any particular skill.

4. I've heard people complain about death penalty before, but I see it as really quite minor. I can work off one penalty, even at lvl 250, in 10 minutes or less. The lower your lvl the faster it goes. Building up max DP (10 deaths) could of course take a lot of time to work off. In those cases I like to buy a removal pact and sleep a nice chunk of it off.
Also, most RPers here use region channel as an IC channel. You will find many people call for rez IC, so I wouldn't worry about doing it yourself.

5. Harvesting is the best way to make money, but its far formt he only way. I know plenty of people who don't harvest at all and made all their dapper from hunting. You won't be as rich as the master crafters, but you'll get by just fine.

Thanks very much for your replies and helpfulness! I think I'll go ahead and subscribe and find out how I like the mainland personally.

I've been on Atys for about a weekn and the game as a total for perhaps a month...but I will try to answer from my own experiences. Here goes

atmus wrote:Hi there!

I've been enjoying Ryzom very much for the past few days. I've been considering a full subscription. My friend played it for quite awhile about a year and a half ago, though, and she has some pretty strong opinions about it. Some of what she said has me a little worried so I wanted to run it by the community as a whole to see if it's still applicable in the current game.
Atmus

1. The grind becomes incredibly, achingly arduous. Now, I have three level 60s in WoW, and a level 202 in Anarchy Online. I know a grind and I don't mind it. But if I kill monster after monster and never see any progress I'm liable to get somewhat frustrated, especially if this happens early (like at skill 50 rather than skill 230).


From what I've found of the grind, it does tend to go faster in a group. But there are also (though usually you have to be in a guild from what I can tell) these crystals that help you to double experience for a short time. Now they are addictive...but it does help the grind to go a bit faster. From your experience with WoW though, I can tell you will have the patience to do this.

atmus wrote: 2. At higher levels, XP can only be gained in groups. This is a problem because I won't be able to group constantly, but will still want to log in and get something accomplished. If I wanted to log in and just feel frustrated and impotent I'd go back to WoW.
Atmus

Granted this is only coming from a level 51...so let me preface that. I have had very little trouble soloing. Granted it does get a little lonesome, and that's why I would prefer a group...but you can solo.

atmus wrote: 3. You won't be able to specialize at all. I wanted to get my offensive spellcasting very very high: though I intend to level my other attributes too, I hoped to mostly be a spellcaster. However I hear I'll always have to have at least some healing in order to rez people.
Atmus

Speciallizing...well I'm speciallizing in one of the hardest skills I've found in the game so far...which is Defensive magic. The reason why is unless you are healing someone else, fearing every mob, stunning every mob, or sleeping every mob...this skill goes up soooo slow. But I've reached 61 with the help of the friends I've made, inside the game itself...I knew no one starting out on this game...and have made many wonderful friends.

atmus wrote: 4. Death becomes a humongous burden later, such that accepting the rez penalty is really quite annoying. I intend to RP most of the time so I don't want to use the Region channel if I don't have to; spamming it to beg for a rez wouldn't be my idea of a good time.
Atmus

Though there is a death penalty...believe it or not it goes faster than any debt recovery I've done in such games as WoW, EQ1 & 2, and various other games. The experience when you kill the mob doesn't work on the standard of if you were getting experience...kinda hard to explain...but easy to understand it once you see it in action.

atmus wrote: 5. The only good way to make money later is to become a Gatherer. If I want to be able to buy tickets and so on and so forth I'll need to Gather at least a little bit since it's the best way to make money.
Atmus

Now money I can't really answer as I am addicted to ports. (would be why I was a druid once in a game long ago) But usually, if I sell what I don't need, I have enough money to get by...and I believe it gets better as you progress.

Well that's really about it. Now there's lots of experienced players that truly can answer these better than I. But this is from one newbie to another in truth

Have fun in Atys, and if you ever need any help, just drop me a line..and I will see if I can answer it.

Thanks for the reply, Suryi!

I have one last question if anyone is reading this thread: do weaponskills become very diversified as you skill up each weapon individually? Like, does two-handed sword skill have different abilities and skills associated with it from one-handed sword skill?

From what I've seen at lvl 51, its not diversified from instead of just melee, to one handed, two handed, blunt....and so forth...so from what I would think from what I've seen thus far...yes..


though I'm sure an more experienced player can say for sure, as I've only gotten to lvl 52


Also, if I haven't already said, if you have a question, and I'm about, I don't mind helping out.

atmus wrote:I have one last question if anyone is reading this thread: do weaponskills become very diversified as you skill up each weapon individually? Like, does two-handed sword skill have different abilities and skills associated with it from one-handed sword skill?

most of the stanza's that you put in your melee actions are common across weapon types, but there are specialist ones for slash, smash and pierce. Worth considering is that the combat system is deeper than it seems as to be truly effective you need to match your weapon to the mob (and thus learn multiple weapon types), try hitting a kipucka with a sword and you'll see what i mean

skills eventually split into individual weapons, so if you doing 2h axe for example your tree's would split something like this (something like that, it's late and i'm too lazy to check )

fight (lv1)
-->melee fight (lv21)
---->2h (lv51)
------>slashing
------>smashing (lv101)
-------->axe (lv151)
---------->expert axe (lv201)
------------>master axe (lv250)
-------->mace
------>piercing
---->1h
-->ranged