A few question before i start with the game

[Panca21]

I tried to gather some informations before i start to play but i got a little confused on a few things.

 

1) Is it possible to buy character slot tickets from ingame with ingame money without using real money? I read something like trading ingame gold for NC money and other people saying that its only possible by trading with some other player who used real money....opposite opinons...who is right?

 

1.5) and in the case that gold way is possible, how hard is to farm enought to buy a ticket? If possible im planing to go up to the 8 possible slots.

 

2) Mailing items to alt characters. Someone say its possible, someone say it impossible untill you use NC money, someone say its more luck the else cause they still cant after using NC money. Again, too many different opinions.

 

3) Is there some things that a newcomer must know before starting the game to avoid regretting some early choice? I ve read of lot of different item that could be usefull later on and quest that have to be farmed daily to start save the rewards for future, as example.

 

4) Till now im using all the leftover weapons on my hongmoon and used keys (random ones, not the class specific) and talisman only to get the staff required for the breacktrough.

Im around lvl 12 and i just moved to the place where dark skinned zombie walk around a village...and waiting to go to the place where i can drop the weapon for the "thing after breacktrough" (weap lvl 10). I hope to be doing fine cause the weap required is in a place that i still havent visited.

 

5) And dailies...where i can find them? I read everywhere "do your dailies" but i cant see any...

tried to wear the faction outfit but no quest appeared on the map; pressed f9 to see the pvp thing cause some ppl wrote about pvp dailies, but nothing happened...

its there a level limit to start the dailies maybe?

 

6) One other thing that i cant see is where actually is the marketplace...i found an npc at the cemitery with written something like storage/action house and 1 more thing but when i go to him i only find my own storage (vault) with the 2 pages.

If im not wrong this game work on an action house system...but...its also possible to set up player market like in many other mmo? How and where (i mean, there is always a famous place to use as market in every mmo :D ) ?

Thanks in advance :D

 

7) Those things that people call chests, are the chests like the one with the blue weapon that i got as reward from Stalker Jiangshi wheel of fortune or are some chests on the map? Casue i keep see some chest on the ground in some maps but thye always look like not usable items.

 

8) crafting and gathering guilds.

i ve read a suggestion that say to enter in all of them (2 afer 2 after 2.....) to make the basic quests inside (and i dont know atm how many and what they are) for faster exp and then let as last the 4 im interested in. Is this a normal way to do or only for people that want to lvl to max lvl in a few days? ( the suggestion was in a "lvl to 45 in 20 hours" guide). Im not interested in fast exp atm, being on the first toon i think a normal way to go is better, to avoid to be too strong compared to the mobs im going to find.

 

9) So i finally finished the lvl 20 dungeon for the blight weapon, used the class specific key and pimped my hongmoon weapon to blight one...but now im ended up with 3 of those blight weapon chests, that i actually dont need. What should i do with all those (same goes for all those boss chest that got nothing special, or not useful anymore, inside), open wasting a key or selling for 1 copper to npc? Or there is some secret use?^^

 

10) What are those HMx things near the character level and whats the difference at 45 and 50?

 

11) Is it really possible to "bid" untradeable items? How eventually this thing work and more important...its safe?

 

12) How does guilds work?

I read a lot of "invites" in the chat and all talks of level requirement (easy and obvious), a number with a + (that i think is the attack power), discord (that from what i know is reddit internal chat), outfit (this is unknow...all wear the same? and always? does it cost?) and someone also said "no tax" (people have to actually pay to join one?).

Accepting any other important info about guilds anyway, always better to know before picking the wrong one.

 

PS : im quite sure i ll have more questions, but atm nothing jumping to my mind...

 

EDIT : Added al the question to the first topic for faster check from newcomers

[dualistique]

Long post, but figured I'd dump as much as I can to help you get started if you decide to give the game a whirl.

 

1.  There's a currency exchange within the game where you can sell your gold for HM coins.  You can then use HM coins to buy items from the HM store.  Keep in mind you do get taxed a certain percentage (can't remember the exact #) from the conversion.  So selling your gold for 10 Ncoin will net you 9 HM coin.  And yes there's a difference between Ncoin and HM coin.  Ncoins come from real money while HM coin comes from selling gold or getting "Venture Tokens" from reward chests that will convert you HM coins by buying some item from the Dragon Express tab in your inventory screen.  To answer the question, yes, it's possible to buy extra character slots without using real money.

 

1.5  This is dependent on the current rate of the currency exchange.  I'm sorry, I don't know the exact pricing of the slot voucher.  I will guess it's about 30g-50g.  It's not hard to farm gold in the game depending on what you do, but it definitely takes time.  When you have a good geared character, you can probably make 20-30g easily a day and even more if you farm dungeons constantly and get rare drops to sell.

 

2.  You should be able to mail things to your alt without the purchase of ncoins as long as your alt is on the same account.  If there is a problem, just contact support.  I've heard people had problems, and they just had to send in a ticket.  You need ncoins for the ability to send mail to other players.

 

3.  There are a few things, that I'll try to hint out.  There are new changes with the rewards from surveys and quests, and so I'll try to point out the obvious ones.

 

 - Keep your Hongmoon weapon/accessories.  These are your end-game gear.  All you have to do is level and evolve them.  Use other drops as fodder to level them up.  Only until lvl 45-50 will you get certain accessories like Breeze Bracelet, Python Necklace, that can be better, but if you are always updating your Hongmoon accessories, then they will turn out better in the long run.

 

- You will get special keys from surveys and quests.

 -- Hongmoon Viridian Coast Key x1 - to open Blight Weapon Chest from Blackram Narrows dungeon (lvl 20~)

 -- Hongmoon Cinderlands Coast Key x2 - to open Corrupted Weapon Chest from Darkglimpse and Infernal Weapon Chest from Tomb of Exiles (lvl 36~)

 -- Hongmoon Moonwater Coast Key x1 - to open Forgotten Brightstone Weapon Chest from Brightstone Ruins (lvl 45~)

 

You'll want to save these keys for certain weapon breakthroughs to save your time from farming dungeons.  At the time of writing this, I'm just guessing how much you get based on others findings, but I can be wrong.  But I listed the best times you use these keys cause the other weapons can either A) be bought on the Auction Marketplace (F5) or B) can be easily farmed since they are open world bosses that people farm multiple times every day.

 

You'll probably be asking about soul shields, so here's a general progression guide that I use to save time from farming and money from unsealing.  I won't get into the end game stuff, since there's tons of info on what to do for that.

 

Easy Route

Lvl 8 - Stalker Soul Shields (obtainable from the Foshi Pyres Wheel of Fate)

Lvl 20 - Change up to Viridian Soul Shields (obtained from merchant in Jadestone Village.  Trade Viridian Valor Stones for it)

Lvl 36 - Cinderlands Renowned Soul Shield (obtained from merchant in Yehara's Mirage.  Trade Cinderlands Valor Stones for it)

Lvl 45 - Moonwater Soul Shield (obtained from merchant in Hogshead Pastures.  Trade Moonwater Valor stones for it)

Lvl 45+ - You'll be now running dungeons for soul shields.  Typically people get a mix Blackram/Bloodshade/Naryu Labryinth until they are geared to do lvl 50 dungeons.

 

As far as questing goes, if you do all the quests, you will do pretty well on exp and gold.  I believe going from lvl 45-50 in questing will net you about 30-50g just from questing.

 

Hope that helps. 

 

If you're in Master Hong, Gunma, Taywong server group, feel free to give me a whisper if you need help.  IGN: DatPanda

[lawrenceloke]

wow so specific:3 finally some good advise for us who are new and returning playa

[Panca21]

agree with the poster over here, wonderfull and complete answer, very helpfull, THANKS ;D

 

one little thing i maybe got wrong, when you say "save the keys" do you mean keep them (without selling) and literally use them on the weapon or keep them to open the chests? Still have to actually enter in the game so i still dont know all the mechanics about rewards/chests and weapon upgrading.

[Slyce]

You can't sell the free keys you get from surveys.
What he meant was to use the keys on the weapon chests to get your weapon.

 

If you don't know how weapon chests work, opening them will give you a random class weapon.
Purple "heroic" weapons are not tradable so you have to open chests yourself until you get the weapon for your class which has a 1 in 9 chance. While you could be lucky to get your weapon from one of the first 5 chests or so, it can easily take 30 chests (3% of players need 30+ chests). 
Using the brilliant key will give you your weapon with 100%.

 

Blight is the only untradable weapon in Viridian Coast so using the key there is advised, as you can't use it on any later weapon.

 

Corrupted is tradable but the dungeon is very unpopular because it's a 10 minute defense battle. Corrupted Weapons are sold for a very high price (more than a new player will have at the time he needs it) because they are bought by twinks. 

Infernal is the last weapon you can use a cinderland key on, so if you still have one, use it there.

 

In Moonwater there a a few options to use the key. Brightstone is the last weapon you can use the key on but Hujikar and Profane weapons can be hard to get als well.
Actually running Brightstone Ruins a few times is much more rewarding than farming the other two weapons and you always have a chance that your weapon drops from the boss.

Hujikar weapon comes from a box within a box so you'll need almost twice as many normal keys per try. If you are unlucky you'll run out of keys soon.

Profane weapon comes from a wheel of fortune boss where you don't get a guaranteed chest per kill.

While I did not have problems getting a group for Brightstone Ruins recently, Hujikar and Profane Jiangshi bosses were not farmed as regularly.

[Shuchin]

some additional remarks:

 

1) both are right. The currency exchange is actually a 3-way exchange:

Player A gives gold receives HM coin
Player B gives NCoin receives gold
NCSoft takes NCoin gives HMcoin (minus tax)

Importantly, this allows NCsoft to deal RL to gold transactions with the community deciding the conversion rates by supply and demand, while still keeping control of the transactions (which is also beneficial for the players since it's safe and official compared to 3rd party traders)

1.5) There are 9 possible slots now, you missed the two free slot expansions when Warlock and Soulfighter came out, so you will need to buy 7 vouchers for maximum. Each Voucher is 400 HM coin, that's about 50 gold at current conversion rates (in EU). Beware of too much optimism about high gold income as a new player. Yes, as an experienced player I could make 10 gold a day just fomr playing the market with a lvl 15 char. Yes, I could level up to 50 in a few days and run endgame dungeons in 6 man groups and earn even more gold. But as a new player, you will probably progress much more slowly, and need to learn how to earn money with trading too.
So it might be worth considering to reach a high level with 1 char first before trying to safe up for alt slots.

3) Try to be conservative with keys (even the normal kind) and especially unsealing charms. The tradeable ones you can sell on the marketplace for over 10 silver each, that's crazy riches for a newbie. The untradeable ones you should still value as much, because each one you can save up for later is one less you will need to buy. Basically do not unseal things unless it says "Breakthrough" or "Evolution" in the description, or is a purple soul shield that you are pretty sure you need.

 

Additional tips for new players:

 

- Do not worry overly about cleaning out your inventory. Most things in low level areas are very easy to get. This even goes for your hongmoon weapon, within limits. Also do not worry about crafting much at the start. Only unsealing charms are really worth crafting early on.

 

- Campaign quests reward crazy EXP, which was even doubled recently (permanently!). So if you want to rise quickly, stick to golden coloured quest arrows. If you want to go slow, do blue quests and low level dailies. Doing low level dailies is _not_ a fast way to level. It's good to enjoy the low level areas, though, if you are a casual player who enjoys the eye candy and immersion. ^_^

 

- Do not try arena PvP or you will end up like Best Blademaster NA! XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4p8ewFhvWo

PvP has a very steep learning curve in Blade and Soul, you will want to practice in friendly sparring matches first.

 

- Player classes are all equally strong, useful, competitive and interesting. They have different learning curves though, with the higher difficulty classes needing a longer time until you feel your learning pays off

 

- Try to get critical rate on your soulshields, improve your hongmoon jewellery to increase critical damage and get a life drain amethyst gem for your weapon. This will increase damage, survivability and save you lots of dumplings and healing potions which you can even sell for some profit. Also a high priority from lvl 40 onwards is an Attack power diamond gem.

 

Feel free to ask more stuff!

You did not say if you will play on NA or EU, if EU please feel free to contact me in game, I am playing on Windrest (group 1)

[Panca21]

4) Till now im using all the leftover weapons on my hongmoon and used keys (random ones, not the class specific) and talisman only to get the staff required for the breacktrough.

Im around lvl 12 and i just moved to the place where dark skinned zombie walk around a village...and waiting to go to the place where i can drop the weapon for the "thing after breacktrough" (weap lvl 10). I hope to be doing fine cause the weap required is in a place that i still havent visited.

 

5) And dailies...where i can find them? I read everywhere "do your dailies" but i cant see any...

tried to wear the faction outfit but no quest appeared on the map; pressed f9 to see the pvp thing cause some ppl wrote about pvp dailies, but nothing happened...

its there a level limit to start the dailies maybe?

 

6) One other thing that i cant see is where actually is the marketplace...i found an npc at the cemitery with written something like storage/action house and 1 more thing but when i go to him i only find my own storage (vault) with the 2 pages.

If im not wrong this game work on an action house system...but...its also possible to set up player market like in many other mmo? How and where (i mean, there is always a famous place to use as market in every mmo :D ) ?

 

I knew that starting to play even a little in some spare time would have started my mind to the question-mode :D

Thanks again i advance :)

 

 

[Shuchin]

4) the weapon for evolution is the Blight weapon and you get it in the final dungeon of the Viridian region, the Blackram Narrows. Still a while off  for you, it's level 20. But don't worry, your weapon will work fine even until 25ish. That's the one where you should use your viridian sparkling key.

 

5) dailies will only pop up once you have finished the campaign stuff in an area. Like you can go back to the Jiangshi area and have a 400 exp quest to kill the Stalker Jiangshi once every day. Further dailies will pop up with the coal mines and the forest spirit place. But as said, they are not very important. People who talk about doing their dailies usually mean daily challenge stuff, so lvl 50 dungeons. ^_^

 

6) You can access marketplace from almost anywhere over F5, but only for buying and the actual delivery would then cost a small fee. Fee-less buying and selling you can do at your vault NPCs, but the button might be missing because I think you need lvl 15 to use marketplace. I guess that restriction is to hinder marketplace bots maybe. Other than marketplace you can only use 1 to 1 person trade, this you can access by clicking on them when you are in front of them.

[Rappel]

Mailing was bugged like a months ago or something but it was fixed and imo he should use moonwater key on hujikar weapon cos noone really do that D: @dualistique

Also if you don't have good ping you gonna regret making a meele, the game likes rangeds more anyway cos you avoid most attacks when you are 16m away

You should check out which faction is dominating on the server you wanna pick if you wanna have better time in open world pvp ; you can check it on: bntree.com/character , it makes gearing easier cos you get more soulstones and moonstones.

 

4) You gonna get to the first purple dungeon for your weapon evolve around lv20-22
5) Dailies - the blue quests with that fancy white thing on them are the daily quests but they will matter later when you hit 50 and you do the purple dungeons in Zaiwei

6)When you open your bank , at the bottom you can pick what you wanna open vault / marketplace / mail , also if you haven't noticed you got 2 tab in your bank so you got more space than that 2 free row in there

 

Can't thing of anything else so gl and hf

[Panca21]

i ve tried to join the crimson legion on winderest but the npc say its full so i had to join the other one.

 

I ve noticed the 2 pages on the vault, one with 1 row only and one with 2 rows, and already storing things there cause i still have to see how fast the inventory get full.

Look like my problem was to go up till 15 to unlock the rest :D

 

and...

7) Those things that people call chests, are the chests like the one with the blue weapon that i got as reward from Stalker Jiangshi wheel of fortune or are some chests on the map? Casue i keep see some chest on the ground in some maps but thye always look like not usable items.

[Shuchin]

7) if people talk about chests they will mean the dropped items that you have to use keys on to get the actual, maybe class random reward. The chests you see in dungeon are more of a relic. In previous game versions they held valuable things, like random gem boxes.

But nowadays they are mostly switched off, though sometimes you can open one (I think they might refresh once per day, and you must be in a non-campaign instance for it to work), but they always just contain a healing pot or a dumpling anyway. :P

 

Since you are on windrest you are welcome to contact me if you need in game help with anything. My in game name is Shuchin too. ^_^

[Panca21]

Well im more the "solo untill i can" kind of player, i tend to try to solve my ingame problems (hard boss and so i mean) alone without asking to higher level to kill something for me. But if  ill ever happen to need something not killing realated ill accept the help, thanks :D

 

and

8) crafting and gathering guilds.

i ve read a suggestion that say to enter in all of them (2 afer 2 after 2.....) to make the basic quests inside (and i dont know atm how many and what they are) for faster exp and then let as last the 4 im interested in. Is this a normal way to do or only for people that want to lvl to max lvl in a few days? ( the suggestion was in a "lvl to 45 in 20 hours" guide). Im not interested in fast exp atm, being on the first toon i think a normal way to go is better, to avoid to be too strong compared to the mobs im going to find.

 

 

[dualistique]

lol, all these numbers are funny.

 

@Panca21 - When you first reach Jadestone, there will be crafting and gathering guilds.  When you first join a gathering guild, the npc next to the representative will have a blue quest to go 'find' the first gathering item.  You will notice that when you open you Crafting/Gathering menu (L) that there are few items that need to be found in the Open World before you can contract the gathering guild to collect them for you.  In the beginning, these do give good exp, but please note that the guide you saw this in is a bit outdated, and technically you probably wouldn't need that exp because of the increase to the story quest exp chart.  Eventually, you will settle to 2 crafting and 2 gathering guilds, and you will need to take some time to find the items/recipes to max it out.

 

@Rappel - True.  Hujikar is less farmed, but Brightstone is just damn annoying as well since the last boss phases are % capped D;.  It really depends on the server, and where a person may be at in the game.  I find most people tend to ask for help on Hujikar in faction chat and people generally help them out.  For my clan, I always give a stack of 50-100x to members farm the weapon chest.  So far only have one person that had to do 30 boxes lol >o>.  So perhaps joining a clan will help with the farming as well :)

 

And as far as inventory management, that was always the pain point when I first started because A) I didn't know what to keep and B) I want to keep all the costumes \o/.  But here's a little chart to kind of help:

 

 

 

[Panca21]

What are the advantages of salvaging (weap and access) and breaking gems?

Of course its better then selling to npc if people suggest it :) but dunno what i gain from it and how to use the item obtained.

[LunaticAzure]

I don't remember the exact names off the top of my head but breaking things will give:

 

Weapons -> Element Powder, makes Elements which gives large amounts of exp for weapon stages.

Accessories -> Jewel Powder, makes Jewels which gives large amounts of exp for accesory stages.

Soul Shields -> Fusion Powder, needed for soul shield stat fusion.

Gems -> Shape specific Gem Fragments, you need gem fragments to make blue and purple gems.

Costumes -> Fabrics, but you can only really break cash shop costumes, so you can ignore this.

 

Most of the time low level items will only give scrap, around lvl 36+ is when things will consistently give the powder with blue and purple items giving more. To make Element, Jewels and Gems, there's a "Transmute" button on the bottom of your inventory. There's also a Diamond gem but you can't transmute them, you have to join the Radiant Ring crafting guild to make them. Some Diamonds will give pure Attack Power, which will greatly boost your damage. You can also buy Gems from the market but the good ones are quite expensive. Ideally you'd want "Sparkling Pentagonal Gems", they're the best bang for your buck. Currently there's an event to get two different "Flawless Sparkling Hexagonal Gems". Flawless gems have both attack power and a secondary effect based on the gems color, making them the best gems in the game. It's a very simple event that everyone can do, just spin the daily dash everyday. Every time you complete the board, you'll get a Loyalty Insignia. You can trade them in through the shop button on the bottom of your inventory, click through the tabs on the top to find this event's specific shop.

[Panca21]

9) So i finally finished the lvl 20 dungeon for the blight weapon, used the class specific key and pimped my hongmoon weapon to blight one...but now im ended up with 3 of those blight weapon chests, that i actually dont need. What should i do with all those (same goes for all those boss chest that got nothing special, or not useful anymore, inside), open wasting a key or selling for 1 copper to npc? Or there is some secret use?^^

[Shuchin]

don't worry Panca I respect that you do not want a high level rushing in to carry you. I can join you with a low level alt for fun too, or just help with advice. ^_^

 

As for the blight weapon chests, I would throw them unless you would like to keep one appropriate weapon as a template for remodelling (i.e. transfer its look onto a weapon with a look you do not like). Same for all boss chests and what have you. Some things like Viridian poison you can use for crafting, but if you throw it away that won't hurt you much either. ^_^

[dualistique]

@Panca21 - Unless the chest is used for your breakthrough or evolution, you can safely sell to the NPC for 1c instead of wasting a key (later on, if you're bored, you could start farming some blue weapons for some classes and sell them on the market for some gold).  But in respect to what @Shuchin pointed out, if you are into aesthetics, it's more beneficial to change your glamour at early weapon levels than later.  Less gold cost to transform appearance when your weapon is at its lowest point :).

 

And I hope this won't be too confusing for you, but knowing that you're the 'solo' type of guy, then you might find this useful - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U0cqRIxNefzkd30VmVI-zFhe3fpBHgq7aIy3vHO6ZTQ/htmlview#

 

It's a chart that lists out materials and pricing of upgrades for both weapon and accessories.  I use it to plan ahead and making sure I don't accidentally sell materials that I may need or use it as a guide to start farming materials I need for upgrades.

[Panca21]

Well for now its a little confusing cause i dont know what are the different things, but im little by little discovering new parts.

 

On the other hand i think all the best looking weapons are probably high level ones, so i dont think any of the one i can have now will be the "final" look for my weapon.

On the same topic, what happen if i change a weapon look and then evolve it? does the lok stay the same forever or it change again following the chart in the spreadsheet?

[dualistique]

@Panca21 - the skin will remain the same until you revert it back.  It costs money to change and to revert back :).  The more your progress in the story, you'll see these new items from dailies and reward chests, so you'll figure it out :p.

[Shuchin]

You can have a look at bnsfashion, they have a good list of weapon skins (and costumes of course). I would not necessarily say the most popular skins are high level ones.

 

For example one skin very popular with KFM is the Silva Deva gauntlet, which you can get from Mushin floor 2. Also very popular are Oathbreaker skins, which though not high level, are quite expensive as you have to level a 2nd Hongmoon weapon.

 

Personally, I use a lvl 7 weapon skin on my main and a lvl 36 weapon skin on my blade master.

 

The variety is huge and everyone has different tastes, so it's really great that in this game you can choose your weapon look absolutely freely without any impact on your stats. ^_^

[dualistique]

@Shuchin - The only bad thing is if you change it up, then you'll need to re-farm/buy that old skin again if you want it back :<

[Shuchin]

hmm true. Though I must say the fee feels very small, especially with premium discount, compared to what you have to pay to improve stats just a little bit. And being hard to gain is one attraction of some costumes / weapon skins.

 

Or are you saying you would like to see a kind of wardrobe for weapon skins, where you can pick and chose whichever you like once you have obtained it once?

 

It would sort of make sense, then you can have a weapon matching your costume without stat problems.

 

I sort of do something like that when I switch to my arena costume. Since stats do not matter in arena I exchange my gauntlets for lvl 36 ones because the colour fits better to my Dark Sandstorm costume. ^_^

[Panca21]

Slowly moving to higher levels and i noticed some people with the HMx (where x is a number^^) in their level...and i though it was something endgame...but then i found some people with 50 HMx...so

 

10) What are those HMx things and whats the difference at 45 and 50? Cause i only saw those level, never a 48 HMx for example. Searched the forum for HM but got nothing...search broken?

[Slyce]

1 hour ago, Panca21 said:

Slowly moving to higher levels and i noticed some people with the HMx (where x is a number^^) in their level...and i though it was something endgame...but then i found some people with 50 HMx...so

 

10) What are those HMx things and whats the difference at 45 and 50? Cause i only saw those level, never a 48 HMx for example. Searched the forum for HM but got nothing...search broken?

When you reach max "normal" level, you'll start getting HM (Hongmoon) levels.
When this system was implemented, max level was 45 so some ppl got to 45 HM5 at that time. Later the normal levels went up to 50 and since then you can only get HM levels after you hit level 50. If you see someone with 45-49 HM1-5 this character was leveled to that point some months ago and will now get exp for normal levels again until he hits 50.
The diifference between normal and HM levels is the amount of skill points and the kind of stats you get for each level.

HM 1 gives 5 skillpoints, every even level adds 1 and every odd level adds 2.
You get HP, attack, defense, block and evasion for HM levels while normal levels give you different stats for each class.