The West (as of 3/09, Bat Country will be on World 8)

[Kageru]

Giving it a try as Kageru, will drop by and visit your little home on the prairie.

As I understand it I don't want an invite because I'm a poor noob, spaces are limited that would make me a target for duels.

Is it possible to be competitive at duels with melee weapons or are they just a step on the path to guns? Any hints on levelling a character up to where they might win duels would be welcome too. Then again looking at the f13 saloon most of you seem to be duelling with rocks 

[gryeyes]

What is the difference between getting KO'd and getting killed?

I died and lost all my energy and money.  I assume this isn't what you're talking about.

It is the same thing. Wait until you are about to sleep anyway and don't have any cash on hand. Shouldn't carry cash about regardless. It almost assures getting dueled repeatedly.

Is it possible to be competitive at duels with melee weapons or are they just a step on the path to guns? Any hints on levelling a character up to where they might win duels would be welcome too.

Just as effective but uses vigor to determine damage instead of shooting. You can win duels against opponents 5-6 levels above you pretty easily just focus on the stats that involve fighting. Biggest advantage with firearms is the damage stat (shooting) and aiming both use dex. So investing points in dex gives a bonus to them both.

[schild]

The green necklace is the one for that quest? If so, I just got one from digging graves (my activity of choice when building is too low on the productivity meter).

(also, yellow clothing@tailor, awesome)

[Sutro]

Can we get an updated build order? Just curious so we don't flail about with 50 percent everything.

My thoughts:

Tailor 4
Gen Store 4
Gunsmith 3
Bank 3
Town Hall 5
Town Hall 6
Tailor 5
Gen Store 5
Gunsmith 4

[gryeyes]

Gunsmith needs to be a higher priority.

[Kageru]

So to be a good little defending soldier you'd invest in aiming, tactics, dodge, shooting and reflex (appearance if you want to attack) meaning focus stat points in either mobility or dexterity and level by doing jobs that use shooty type skills. And buy a rock ASAP so you're not using the default melee fist. Other than that just invest lots of time. Corrections welcome if there's something I missed or if some of the skills are better for duels / working.

[gryeyes]

If you were a soldier you would want to be melee. Tactics is the defend bonus for dueling and gets a boost by being a soldier. Reflex/toughness is defense against ranged/melee. Soldiers bonus for health meshes well with melee. Stats also have a level cap so i was forced to invest in other places. You exp MUCH faster dueling than jobs so don't even worry about them. Pumping strength will give you all sorts of higher end options for money later (im assuming).

[Musashi]

I went 10-1 vs dudes from copper creek and little romania.  Only one I lost was because they attacked me with a better gun.  I especially liked the dude who said not to attack him if he didn't have the right gear on.  He got shot in the face anyway.

[Aez]

I'm not sure i'd recommend a strength based soldier.  Here's a couple of reason :

Most duelers/soldiers are based on strength, you can gain an advantage by heavily investing in toughness/shooting.  You'll be specialized in defeating the most common type of opponent.

The high lvl soldier quests are based on dex job. I know it's possible to live with out them but I still think it's nice to eventually finish all the quest lines.

The health point synergy isn't really valuable. As a subscriber soldier, my defense is so good with the 100% bonus to tactic that I never went below 75% of my health with minimal investment in the health skill.

[Viin]

I haven't been dueled recently - are we still getting attacked by those towns?

[gryeyes]

Largest benefit for the solder is the weapon level bonus. Being a subscriber without a weapon 6 levels higher is wasting the goodness. Health isnt a big issue but at least provides an immediate benefit as opposed to a duelist bonus. If you are not going to make use of any of a soldiers bonus's better off being an adventurer. The benefit of finding additional weapons/cash is at least valuable. Defense is nice but a majority of the combat characters seem stick to fights they know they can win.

[Kageru]

It seems from the documentation that they may be adding forts and shootouts (and sherifs) at some point in the future. It sounds like that's going to be heavily firearms dependent so I'll go dex focused and buy myself a rock. I can see quite a bit of throwing rocks at birds in my immediate future. I also need to train myself not to watch the timer tick down, this game is the polar opposite of twitch.

Hm, does this logic seem sound?

Each of the attributes has two combat related skills attached to it. Strength gets an innate advantage in that points into strength generate health as well, though health is only useful if it helps you avoid losing due to KO (taking a lot of damage in one duel or getting duelled a lot) and does go up via levelling. Charisma has one skill only usable on offence and one on defence and these are modifiers on aiming. So it looks like for a defensive soldier you'd want to balance stats between mobility and dexterity (so you can work more jobs, do more quests) and use the skill points to boost dueling skills and tactics, with the occasional point in toughness and health.

I can see why strength based melee soldiers are attractive, and why workers could be quite deadly with a good melee weapon... but then rifles aren't in the game and that would be more a soldiers weapon. For a balanced town soldiers focusing on ranged since the builders will be heavily focused on strength seems logical.

Of course this assumes all the skills are balanced. If getting the hit is more important than taking the hit then reflex, toughness and health are a lower priority. I assume this is the case (hits hurt) and aiming followed by dodge, tactics / appearance are the focus. Obviously I'm too low to actually have actually duelled so it's pure theory-craft on my part.

[Xanthippe]

What is the difference between getting KO'd and getting killed?

I died and lost all my energy and money.  I assume this isn't what you're talking about.

It is the same thing. Wait until you are about to sleep anyway and don't have any cash on hand. Shouldn't carry cash about regardless. It almost assures getting dueled repeatedly.

I don't carry cash, but when I died it was before I was a resident, so I couldn't deposit to town.  I lost all my donkey money.

[Kageru]

I have to say they've come up with a really great way to encourage you to level. The initial character portraits are disturbingly goofy. Almost got level 5 before the blue bar ran out of steam.

Well armed with my trusty Pebble I fear no evil and will mosey my way across the map. I do like the game mechanic that joining a town PvP enables you but at the same time allows you to protect yourself from PvP thanks to the bank and free hotel stays, that's reasonably balanced. Being charged 4x the cost for buying stuff plus restricted range if you're not a town member is somewhat punitive.

[Mrbloodworth]

Did someone say "Festering dung heap" was a satellite town? If this is true, we may wish to start developing it, that and i am not sure how high residences go per town..

Also, what the hell is going on in the north west of us? its like some kind of migration!

[Der Helm]

Bah. Bad Luck on the Gunsmith upgrade... nothing for me. 

[Polysorbate80]

Did someone say "Festering dung heap" was a satellite town? If this is true, we may wish to start developing it, that and i am not sure how high residences go per town..

Also, what the hell is going on in the north west of us? its like some kind of migration!

It's my own personal town (because I'm antisocial and I smell bad or something).  I plan on finishing my Mortician (at 20% currently) and then may never upgrade anything again 

[Xerapis]

I'm in as Xerapis, hanging out in your town, using your hotel.

It's ironic that the gunsmith HAS NO GUNS.

Oh well, I find a nice broken wine bottle! lol

Probably going to go adventurer or soldier, unless we really need something else, in which case I'll be respeccing later. ~shrug~

[gryeyes]

I dont believe you can respec. It warns you like 3 times spec is permanent when choosing one.

[Samwise]

Yeah, you can respec your skills (at $50 per skill point), but not your class choice.  So pick that one carefully.

[Xerapis]

Yeah, I haven't selected a class yet, level not high enough.

Was referring to skill respec. Which would be annoying to do after class selection, but not completely impossible?

Anyway...I'll go back to fishing.

[Kageru]

Did someone say "Festering dung heap" was a satellite town? If this is true, we may wish to start developing it, that and i am not sure how high residences go per town..

Also, what the hell is going on in the north west of us? its like some kind of migration!

Residences are 10 levels at 5 people per level, though no idea if there's some initial capacity.

That swarm of people confused me too. It looks like most of them are low level and there's no way I can see to manually park yourself out in the grasslands... so maybe thats the game distributing inactive players over the map?

[Viin]

Bah. Bad Luck on the Gunsmith upgrade... nothing for me. 

Gah, what a waste. All I want is a shotgun!

[Kageru]

I think the first shotguns are the next level.

Residences finished, three invites sent.  We have room for three more; who else isn't currently in the town that should be?

I'm not sure what the criteria for "should be" is but I'd certainly welcome an invite if / when there's space (Kageru in game, only level 6).

Fascinating watching the map evolve. There's already some really big towns and a whole bunch of alliances and feuds. In addition an increasing number of ghost towns where someone's founded a town and then realised just how much work is involved.

[Mrbloodworth]

Did someone say "Festering dung heap" was a satellite town? If this is true, we may wish to start developing it, that and i am not sure how high residences go per town..

Also, what the hell is going on in the north west of us? its like some kind of migration!

Residences are 10 levels at 5 people per level, though no idea if there's some initial capacity.

That swarm of people confused me too. It looks like most of them are low level and there's no way I can see to manually park yourself out in the grasslands... so maybe thats the game distributing inactive players over the map?

[Samwise]

Motherfucker.  Two assholes from Copper Springs just dueled me within 5 minutes of each other.  Are they teaming up to try to KO us now?  That would be annoying.

[Pezzle]

The Copper people have 4 in our town right now (2x duelers 2x soldiers I think).  Yeah they are trying to knock people out.  I was already back and sleeping safe.

[Samwise]

All right, which one of you monkey men decided to go rile up the biggest crowd of PvPers in our area?

[schild]

I attacked a few of them a couple of times.

[Der Helm]

Made a post on the town forum, if we don't attack their builders, they promise to stop. Personally I don't like to be bullied. 

[schild]

guys guys

what is this

are we pussying out?

[Aez]

I posted in the town forum.  We really need a better gunsmith...

[Mrbloodworth]

You punk bitches need to get out there and camp their dam town, yah yellow bellies!

[Samwise]

Since I suck at PvP I'm going to leave the town long enough to burn all my energy.  Then I'll rejoin so they can KO me and give me 48 hours of protection without costing me any productivity.     Please to be sending me a re-invite.

[Musashi]

I did it.  They're on the go kill em list.  So I did.