lily123 wrote:Really chomping at the bit to see the mainland and see how different it is than newbie island. Have gleaned that I can NOT return however. Level 20 in fight. Can I, should I, pop over? Have only soloed to date. Is it a lot different? Is it suicide? And, are there any real differences in hunting? Or just quantity and more dangerous?
Depends on where you are and what you want to do.
It seems the Trykers are most vocal about how easy it is out of newbie island. Maybe for them. But for others...well, Tryker hunting and mobility is notoriously easier than on Matis, where if you walk 100m out of the gate you can easily encounter a gingo that will tear you up even when you're level 50 and they're level 30. (Welcome to the reality of hunting post-patch 1.) On Tryker, you can always pop into the water if something gets aggro on you - and the cloppers aren't nearly as nasty as the gingos of their level. Zorai has even less aggro than Tryker but no water to jump into if you're in trouble so is slightly tougher, and Fyros is closer to Matis although not quite as bad given that significant aggro isn't quite as close to Pyr.
What's also important to know is that hunting changes dramatically once you hit the mainland as group dynamics change too. Attacking that nice weeny kipee surrounded by 3 others blissfully unaware of their brother's fate works only on newbie island; try that on a vulgar kipee on the mainland and every kipee next to him will go aggro on you. Same goes even more for a mob of herbivores...even 10 suckling yubos attacking at once pack a pretty good wallop. This makes soloing a wee bit harder.
Also keep in mind that there are mob 'zones' on the mainland. Near your spawn town is up to lvl50 mobs...but watch the dotted line! The second you step over one of those lines, you're in a lvl100 or lvl150 zone. For some lands, it takes a long run to get there. For others (Zorai!) it doesn't take any sort of effort to cross a line of death and find yourself on the jaws of something hard. Much different than newbie island, where the hardest mob is mid level 30s and you can run around at will.
My blanket advice is this:
If you're primarily a harvester, come over ASAP. Mats on newbie island are capped at q20. Visible mats on the mainland start at q50 potential and go up from there. Even using a q30 harvest stanza (which gives q30 mats even on a q250 source) gives double the exp that you get from q20 mats, so the experience gain versus newbie island is huge. One tip: there are aboveground q50 nodes containing amber near where you first transport into the mainland, but you're better off prospecting for your own node right next to them - since if you harvest the visible nodes your focus doesn't insta regen. So make sure to have basic prospecting before you come over too, along with the gentle stanzas if you want to harvest solo.
If you're a crafter, stay on newbie island forever, or at least until level 40 when you can get q50 plans. (This is easier to accomplish than you might think if you grind using q20 mats - just make sure you use the highest mat count items, like a heavy armor chest plate, a jewelry diadem, an autolauncher for ranged crafting, and 2h weapons for weapon crafting as exp is directly dependent on how many mats you use.) Unfortunately, crafting advancement solo without support by your higher level harvesting or melee skills got nerfed beyond even fanboi-types ability to defend it post-patch 1.
The only way to get around this is to have a big bank account. Given newbie island players tend to pay a lot for q20 choice items, it is actually pretty easy to get 300-400k dappers if you craft good q20 weapons and heavy armor on newbie island. (Not that 400k is a big account, but its enough to get you started.) What you'll find when you get to the mainland is that the easy ride is over as q50 items are the lowest level most crafters will sell, and second, they tend to be REALLY cheap so you won't make any real money crafting after you get to the mainland until you're able to craft q80-q90 items at a minimum. Thus, I can't really recommend taking up crafting as a newbie, but if you ask, that's my advice.
If you're a fighter, you should at least get up to where you can use q50 armor and weapons - and unlike newbie island, you WILL need heavy armor as a fighter, so save up at least 100k before coming over to buy stuff. This translates to being up to at a bare minimum level 25 in melee, as at level 25 you can train in Constitution/Strength 7, raising your hp/stam to 40 base, at which point you can use q50 armor and weapons. This makes a big difference on the mainland - I remember selling a max dmg q50 sword to some kid who had thought his choice q20 sword would last him forever. He sang my praises on region for a week since he wasn't dying routinely. Otherwise, I would stay to level 40 for the extra hp and stamina. If you for some reason are stupid or crazy enough to level ranged, stay even longer...you'll need those extra skill points for self-heal and melee protect aura. Otherwise, always max out your stats, and increase damage 4 (letting you max out your q50 weapon) and self-heal hp and preferably stam are musts before you come over.
If you're a mage, depends on what you want to do. If you primarily want to heal, get over to the mainland and find yourself a group once you hit level 20, as the defensive magic tree is easiest to level early on by casting heal spells and groups aren't terribly prevalent on newbie island - and good q50 amps tend to be dirt cheap (I sold some supreme ones for 10k per a while back.) Otherwise if you want to nuke or play a balanced mage, stay on newbie island for as long as you can as the acid-cold/fear combo doesn't work as well when you have a group of mobs or certain mobs that aren't affected by fear. Much easier to hunt if you are assured of living, even if the tedium gets huge as you're gaining 300 exp per line per kill.
If you're a combination player - or balanced player that doesn't want to advance too quickly in any given line, like myself - best to level to your 40s in everything you can in everything except harvest. Harvest can be saved for the mainland as the advancement rate is so much quicker there.
I stayed till 40 in all of my skills and while it got very boring at the end, I don't regret it one bit.
Good luck.