f13.net

Here's a pretty helpful and informational FAQ.   

http://yokaiblog.wikidot.com/guides:tswfaq

It answers most of the repeated questions I see from new players.  Plus I learned plenty about game mechanics as well that I didn't know before. 

I'll use this thread to post an interesting post from Martin Bruusgaard I just found, talking about Dungeons, Lairs, Pocket Bosses and Raids (or the lack of) (http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?p=721577#post721577).




Later:

      

The closest thing we have to wowhead I can find right now is the cry gaia (http://wiki.crygaia.com/index.php?title=Main_Page) wiki but since the game is new and doesn't have ten million people playing it the articles are sparse.

Edit: This wiki/blog (http://yokaiblog.wikidot.com/) is also very good, it has a lot more detailed information and does a good job explaining the complicted systems.  It is written by the two people who wrote most of the stickied explanation threads on the official forums.

In terms of "I wish I had known that" type things I could pass on to new players:

- Many inner sections of a wheel you complete will reward you with a piece of clothing but there is no notice of this.
- London seems to be the main hub regardless of your faction because it has more stores and services.
- There is a clothing store north of the Agartha portal in London, you can buy clothes there for pax romana.
- You can also buy clothing from the in game store but they cost "Funcom points", it is a micro transaction type thing.
- There is a bank in London to the west of the clothing store.
- If you are switching between abilities or have a set tank/dps type layout you like use the gear manager and save it to easily switch between them.  It is called gear manager but it also saves your ability bars (check that it works when switching though, mine always drops a passive slot).
- Pressing V will AoE autoloot without having to click on anything.
- There are blue quality QL5 and QL6 weapons for sale in savage coast and blue mountain, I would suggest saving for the QL6 because the price is the same.  The price is in signets which you gain by doing quests.  You will need a glyph to put in the weapon, they also sell blue quality glyphs but you can use something found in your journeys too.
- Since the enemies don't ramp up as fast as other games if you play with just one other person you can easily handle a zone above what you could solo.
- If you replace a quest it "Pauses" on the tier you were at, so you can pick up where you left off.  You "Unpause" by going back to the quest giver.
- Before you run off after getting a quest make sure to read the next step, a lot of quests have the first step as picking up something where it begins.  You don't want to fight your way halfway across the map and then find out you forgot to pick up the whatchamacallit.
- The most useful double tap to perform a roll isn't left or right, it is forward.  Many mobs have a large fast moving circle so you have to turn around and get out of the way fast.
- If you get a phone call from your faction giving you a mission just accept it and pause your current one.  It is a pain in the ass trying to regain that quest since it just comes as a phone call and there is no quest giver.  I have heard you might be able to pick it back up by going to your faction leader area but I don't know.
- Some solo dungeons seem a little flaky if you are in a group, I would suggest dropping group before going in.  It only matters in the ones where you have to fight.
- As you gain xp you will be rewarded with faction ranks.  At a certain rank (I'm not sure what) you can buy a slightly faster sprint, I would recommend doing so (especially since there isn't much to spend money on right now anyways).
- Buying enough inventory slots to go from the starting 50 to 100 costs about 100,000 pax romana and is very worth doing if you are crafting/disassembling.
- If you would like to have a potion/anima/quest item clickable bar bring up your inventory, create a new bag, size the bag as a 1x5 row or whatever you like, then click the lock button so that it remains on screen.  Now just position it where you like and you have easy access to potions.
- If you are trying to jump somewhere sprint really does matter.  If you need to bridge a large gap make sure it's on, if you are trying to do a delicate hop turn it off.
- Map your autorun button to something close by, you will be using it a lot.
- If you want to preview how clothing looks on you both in game and item store have preview buttons but it shows on your actual character, not a separate window.  Move to undo it.
- If you want to just completely remove a piece of clothing select it in the dressing room and the button will change to "Unwear" or something like that.  It won't let you do this if it would make you naked (thankfully).
- You should complete the inner circles for two weapons before further specializing in one.  It is important to use two complimentary weapons.
- If you want to tank one of the small green "Misc" wheel slices is dedicated to that.  Another seems good for PvP and the last seems like it would be needed for dps in high level dungeons to manage their aggro.
- If you are dropping things from a stack in the crafting window just click it and then right click each square you want to split the items into, it will let you drop one at a time without going through the split stack ui window.
- To add a glyph to your weapon you put them both in the crafting window and click assemble.
- Most quests which involve giving something to an npc just need you to be near them to trigger but for some you have to select them with the mouse.
- Doing all of the first zone even after you have outlevelled it is a fast way to rack up sp and ap.
- You can add your own markers to the map, if you plan on repeating quests put down a marker where you find each start.

I'm sure there are more but that is all I could think of off the top of my head.

To be exact, there's a "jacket/coat" type of clothing reward for completing both inner sections of each weapon type skillset.

TSW Deck builder link. Pretty simple but effective

http://thesecretsandbox.com/Deck/

Edit: Also, the bank has a mailbox. I don't know if it works I just remember seeing a mailbox type system

Going back a stage - you can sprint in this game. By default, you press the X button to do so.

You can upgrade your sprint in the headquarters by the way.

The bank also functions as auction house.

Basically it is in your main faction contact's room. So for Templar's Richard Sonnac's office. For Illuminati, it's the Hip Hop chick. Geary? Basically there will be a letter in their office that let's you start the quest.

Complete 5 investigation quests and the reward is a townie hat.   :awesome_for_real:

Don't be belittle Kirsten.   :heart:

www.orochigroup.net  - Might help for a certain quest.

These are good links for what the faction decks look like in game, they can be fairly different from the artwork:

Templars (http://imgur.com/a/Zzq2H#0)

Illuminati (http://imgur.com/a/9Xnp9#0)

Dragon (http://imgur.com/a/RhVi7#0)


I have also found some of the info/builds on this site useful: http://tswguides.blogspot.ca/p/builds.html

Wow. Some of those outfits are much better than I though they could be.

The Goon needs a giant sword to complete the look.

Deckbuilder  (http://thesecretsandbox.com/Deck/)with highlighting for other abilities that work off an effect.

Sephora's Closet (http://sephorassecretcloset.wordpress.com/) -- Pretty complete fashion link

Dulfy Healer (http://dulfy.net/) (a la Rift & SWTOR) with fashion guide, quest and dungeon walkthroughs.

At the council of venice weapon vendors you can buy an item that changes the appearance of one weapon to another, the cost is in tokens (30 iirc).  So if you get a cool looking QL3 hammer in a dungeon you can make your QL6 hammer look like it.  It destroys the cool looking weapon in the process so be sure not to use it on the wrong thing.

Macro commands
http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2012/07/secret-world-chat-commands-and-gui.html

This will also provide functional gear management through macro commands that actually work (or so I've read)

Ability picker - this allows filtering of abilities. Useful if you're doing something like trying to build a Strike, or Impair build and want things that are associated with a given effect/damage/buff/etc

http://www.nine-swords.com/directives.php?d=60

Dulfy has added an Agartha map (http://dulfy.net/2012/07/16/agartha-map-and-portal-locations/). If you are directionally challenged as I am, this may be helpful. It also has some short cuts that involve jumping between branches.

Another offline deck-builder which seems a bit better (looking) than the other one.  (http://www.drakkashi.com/secretworld/wheel.php)

That's not just better looking it also works way better.

Here's a question, what do you think it means if a passive makes something "more effective"?  As in all weapons have a passive which grant a straight 10% damage buff but Hammers also has "Improved Strikes" which says "All your STRIKE abilities are 7.5% more effective."  I don't know if that means more damage or if special effects last longer or what.  Because obviously 7.5% is less than 10% but it is an outer while passive so it must have some sort of advantage.

Hmmm there's an ability in pistols which increases all consumer damage by 7.5% and one in assault rifle that gives up to 10% more damage until you glance and lose all the stacks.

That site is nice because I don't like inspecting the wheel in game, I'd rather be questing.  I'm in low level ql10s and have gained a fair bit of ap which I've just dumped evenly into hammer/shotgun because I didn't know what I wanted to do, I'm still using almost all inner ring abilities (which have frankly been working just fine so far).

But now I think I'll give this a go (http://www.drakkashi.com/secretworld/wheel.php?10=0&12=2&13=2&12=6&50=2&52=2&14=3&55=3&54=2&60=5&11=4&8=5&48=3&14=6) as my first outer ring build.  I don't like to rely on effects like crits or penetrates, I just like straighforward damage increases.  Replaced my self heal with a passive that will heal 40% and was able to add a ranged pull ability which I've always wanted.  One of my consumers now has a four second cool down which might take some getting used to, if an enemy is near dead I will often blow consumers at two stacks just to finish but that might happen in less than four seconds.  Oh well, time to put on my big boy outfit and give it a try.

One thing I can tell you, one thing that the Devs stated over and over. Outer rings skills are NOT supposed to be better than inner rings ones. They are just "more" skills, and they cost more because of the TCG logic so more cards you have and the more you have to spend to get the ones you are missing (converesely, the noober you are, the easier it is to get useful cards since literally everything is useful). So it's entirely possible for a 27AP outer ring skill to be less "powerful" than an inner ring 5 AP one. But usually it's not really about more or less powerful, it's a thing about slight differences which can fit different specific roles in different decks. Their intention, save for Elite Skills, was to make every single skill equally useful, given a specific deck. For example, one skill has more damage but maybe a longer recast, or a casting time, or it can glance, and so on. Outside of Elite Skills, no skill "should" be outright better than a similar one.

At least, that is what they stated repeatedly.

Oh yes I understand that, it's just an order of magnitude more difficult to put together a good outer ring deck because now you have to look for very specific things.  If you find those things they will work well together and do more damage as a deck but the individual abilities aren't any more powerful.  My build revolves around the strike attack with weakened state now.  I still have one builder, two single target closers, two AoE closers (one for each weapon) but they should all work on a more nuanced level now when combined with the passives I chose.

Yeah, I'm having to retrain my mind around the idea that just because an outer ring ability costs 3 times as much AP to get as an inner one, that doesn't mean it'll be better to use. That's so not like MMOG's.

I was never good at making 60 card decks in magic.

For those of you whom want to get just that particular skin on your weapons there's:

This site (http://tempest-at-tr.guildlaunch.com/gwiki/index.php?page_name=TSW_Weapons&gid=201507) has screenshots of most crafted weapons,

TSW-Loot (http://tsw-loot.com/Home) as the name suggest only lists dungeon loots but has screenies on many of them.

Important things I have learned that were not obvious to me:
- you can combine lower QL material (metal, etc) to make higher QL material (5:1)
- your passive skills can come from *any* part of the skill wheel, they're not limited to the equipped weapons
- if right-clicking on items stops working (and just always pastes to chat), tapping the CTRL key fixes this

EDIT: If the Achievements/Lore window is making you go blind from trying to read the tiny text, F10/Interface/Advanced and crank up the achievement window scale slider.

Good info on glyphs and how many stat points the combinations can give
https://sites.google.com/site/tswnotes/home/glyphs