Working on my own guide. Thoughts?


Pathfinder Online

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<Tavernhold> Locke wrote:

Hmm, I thought guide was related to freeholder guide.

I am losing it

Would it help if I said that that is what I have slotted on Sspitfire in game right now? So you see, I am a guide writing a guide, and eventually there might even be a section about guides. Who knows!

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

@sspitfire
Can you guide me through your last comment - I feel lost


Yeah, there will be a section in the guide about it- eventually.

Goblin Squad Member

wait ... i thought Guides sold brownies ?

Goblin Squad Member

No. Cookies. You're thinking of Razmiran Guides. They sell brownies, but only to other cannibals.

Goblin Squad Member

No Brownies sell cookies.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

One or more users have been added to the Cookie Raffle


tinyurl.com/PFOguide


More progress on the guide.

Part 1 is done.

Part 2: Feat Advancement is about halfway done.

Part 3: Miscellaneous "Inventory and Encumbrance" is done. Started The Bank, The Vault, and The Auction House section.

Created a TinyURL for easily directing players to the guide in-game (see above post).

Notes: Still recommend downloading the file instead of viewing it in Google's PDF viewer.

Table of Contents Page Number links still work, url links still work, but intra-document links no longer work :(

"More white space" - I know. I will get there. Adding more white space will also mean heavy reformatting of the guide and I don't feel like doing that right now.

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
tinyurl.com/PFOguide

Shows an empty folder right now


Odd. Its there- I can see it while logged in on my Google account. I'll look into it.

EDIT: Google has flagged it as "inappropriate" for some reason. Maybe they see PFO as a threat to their corporate takeover of the internet? Probably not; but I need a new hosting solution now.

Edit2: new hosting solution

Goblin Squad Member

New hosting works.

revisiting this after a long time, i'm impressed by how good it looks. Congrats! I also really liked the introduction and that you put the desynch section up front.

small nitpicks from the updated first impression:

-first paragraph page 17 (21 in the pdf) should be deleted once the pain has subsided.

-headers should show "part 2 - advanced feat training" and not just "part 2". You want this to be as easy to navigate as possible.

..and merry xmas.

Goblin Squad Member

ps: do you want input on content for the yet unwritten combat & crafting sections? Or just comments after you've made your first draft?


My creative process for this guide requires that I have a blank slate in my mind to work with (I literally did not read Ryan's guide for this reason). Its best I use the blank-slate, fill it up, then have people come back over it and tell me what is missing or what needs to be moved, etc.

So later, once I have a draft up :)

And thank you! Merry Christmas to you, too!

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:

EDIT: Google has flagged it as "inappropriate" for some reason. Maybe they see PFO as a threat to their corporate takeover of the internet? Probably not; but I need a new hosting solution now.

lol - the wonders of "the cloud" - anything we do that our corporate overlords disapprove of shall disappear :D

Goblin Squad Member

Add to Signs of Desync’ing:

11. You cast a spell and the spell appears to go off but nothing happens (the heal you were casting on yourself didn't heal, or the damage spell you were casting did no damage) and no stamina was used.

12. You were casting a spell that is chain castable and all of a sudden it greys out (or turns a weird purple instead of grey)

Goblin Squad Member

"This means that, for the most part, commitment to a select group of feats is the most efficient way to increase your ability scores."

This is incorrect. If you run the numbers, for increasing strength for example, you get more strength per experience point for the level 1 feats than the level 3 feats, so if you want to min/max, you want to spread your xp around. And for the most part crafting feats give you more stat point per xp spent than combat feats do.

Edit: And now that I read the next paragraph, you kind of said that. Maybe add that it takes about a week of skill points to get one stat to go from 10 to 11, and that is fastest to use craft 1, alternate craft 1, craft 2, alternate craft 2, craft 3, alternate craft 3, combat 1, combat 1, combat 1... then combat 2 combat 2 combat 2... only training combat 3 if all skills in 2 are done.


Illililili wrote:

"This means that, for the most part, commitment to a select group of feats is the most efficient way to increase your ability scores."

This is incorrect. If you run the numbers, for increasing strength for example, you get more strength per experience point for the level 1 feats than the level 3 feats, so if you want to min/max, you want to spread your xp around. And for the most part crafting feats give you more stat point per xp spent than combat feats do.

Edit: And now that I read the next paragraph, you kind of said that. Maybe add that it takes about a week of skill points to get one stat to go from 10 to 11, and that is fastest to use craft 1, alternate craft 1, craft 2, alternate craft 2, craft 3, alternate craft 3, combat 1, combat 1, combat 1... then combat 2 combat 2 combat 2... only training combat 3 if all skills in 2 are done.

Thanks for the feedback, Illililili. When I write the EXP budgeting part of this guide in the next week, I will hopefully clarify how I would use the information you pointed out. Basically, it will be "get your primary stats as far as they can go with the feats that are important to your role, then use some of these tricks to get the extra bumps you need." It will probably look a lot like what you've said here.


http://sspitfire1.wix.com/nobrainer-pfo-guide

*balks* Wow... Feat Types alone was 10 pages. Is that too much??? Gut reactions are welcome, reading all of it is not necessary.


sspitfire1 wrote:

http://sspitfire1.wix.com/nobrainer-pfo-guide

*balks* Wow... Feat Types alone was 10 pages. Is that too much??? Gut reactions are welcome, reading all of it is not necessary.

@Sspitfire: Yes, it is.

@Sspitfire: Ok. I have no idea how I am going to shorten it, but thanks for your help1

Goblin Squad Member

Impressive work! Very educational. To answer your question above, 10 pages of feats is fine to explain such a complicated and confusing topic. It is labled as "advanced" information after all.

The workflow of topics feels "off". I would recommend 1,3,4,5,2,6 instead.

Can I examine each topic in detail and provide feedback here, or via PM?


Giorgo wrote:


Impressive work! Very educational. To answer your question above, 10 pages of feats is fine to explain such a complicated and confusing topic. It is labled as "advanced" information after all.

The workflow of topics feels "off". I would recommend 1,3,4,5,2,6 instead.

Can I examine each topic in detail and provide feedback here, or via PM?

Here is easiest. I think I see what you are seeing about the order of topics. I'll think about it. What are your thoughts?


Ok, New Pages offers me a really cool solution to part of my internal document navigation issues (which makes up for them taking away bookmarks). I can create a Table of Contents for each Part, but then also include listings (& links!) to each of the other Parts. So when you reach the end of Part 1 and start Part 2, you get a Table of Contents listing everything in Part 2, plus links for Parts 1, 3,4,5 & 6. Its not ideal, but hopefully it will help with navigating a document that is already 50 pages long.

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
I think I see what you are seeing about the order of topics. I'll think about it. What are your thoughts?

Start with the basics, work your way up in complexity. Don't duplicate effort found elsewhere, concentrate on teaching and guiding people wanting to learn more.

Overview Parts:
1- Starts with intro, icons and feats
3- Introduces Inventory and Encumbrance

I would combine both sections, as they both form part of the "basic package" of info you need to start playing the game. I would additionally include a "basic primer" on feats and ability scores (as the full section will be place next to last in topics)and highlight the "4 pillars" of PFO just to round things up.

I work with the baseline that anyone READING THIS GUIDE is doing so voluntarily because he/she wants to understand the game and get better at it. Lets assume they already read the basic manual/quick start and are not afraid of big words. As it stands, you combine a "newbie walkthrough" with a "learn to play and understand what it all means" approach, and its a bit jarring the transition from one to the other.

Either make the guide more separate by complexity level(A Basic Newbie Guide, An Intermediate Terms and Math Stuff Guide, and an Advance What Things Mean and DO Guide)or make the transition less jarring. Information overload is a dangerous thing...

Ryan's PFO Quickstart manual already covers the TLDR basic stuff, I would recommend focusing more on the "guide" part; teaching and instructing in further detail than what the quick start manual covers.

4-Combat
5-Crafting

They follow each other naturally, but KEY parts are missing. The social and exploration aspects of the game. Yes you do mention some points in part 6, but its not given the same "weight" as the other two components who got their own sections! As it stands, "Combat" & "Crafting" are being given prime time slots, and "Social" and "Exploration" are an afterthought. A new player will pick up on this subconsciously or directly. Not the kind of thing I would like to see here, considering the thought and work you have put in all the sections already.

6- Explanations

Solid stuff, only thing I can add is links to PFO Wiki Reference and Glossary page for further reading.

2- Feats, Advance

This is where the "heavy" stuff comes in, and is a lot of info to absorb. For that reason alone I would leave it for last.

Those are my thoughts on the matter, hope some of it is useful.

I can go section by section of your guide and give feedback if your receptive to the idea. :)

Goblin Squad Member

I agree with Giorgio that separating the basics from the advanced.

Basic combat and crafting in the noob part - advanced combat and crafting in separate sections.

By advanced combat i mean stuff like damage calculation formula, effect scaling, different channels, etc. Lots of this is in Ryan's guide and you don't need to know it to go out and kill ogres - but you'll want it for optimizing a pvp build (not to mention for coordinating pvp builds in a group).

By advanced crafting i mean recipe optimization(*), +4/+5 chance, etc. Unless you got high skill and lots of recipes or are trying to coordinate a group of crafters, this is not worth the effort of reading (but for the dedicated crafters it is gold).

(*) recipe optimization as in: there are different ways to make the same +2 item, and one of them is the cheapest (for given set of values for components).

Goblin Squad Member

Thanks for the nice guide again! :)

Also: As I now fumbled on again in EE, I noticed that the guide says that Tailor teaches Scavenger feat. Seems like it's actually Weaver who teaches that feat. Cheers!


Yeah I need to fix that. That seem to have restircted gathering feats to Refiners.

Goblin Squad Member

Giorgo wrote:
I can go section by section of your guide and give feedback if your receptive to the idea. :)

From the lack of reply, I guess that is a "not receptive". :(


Oh, sorry, no, I just have not being doing anything with this for the past few days. I got a little burnt out after my last big push to "finish" the Feat Advancement section. I'll come back to it when I am ready.


OK, new stuff!

1. New TinyURL: tinyurl.com/PFOguide2

2. NEW: More white space! Yay! Still probably a little too cluttered, but it is the best I can do.

3. NEW: Hyperlink Quick Reference pages after the Table of Contents for the whole document and for each Part in the document- let me know if I missed yours! I do not intend for the list to be comprehensive, however.

4. Updated: Cleaned up and updated Parts 1 and 2.

5. Updated: Since I can't have my internal document links (damn you, Apple marketing jerkwads!), I have set up the document such that Page 1 is the cover page. Simply inputting the page number given in a Table of Contents into your PDF viewer should take you straight to the correct page.

6. Placeholder text for Part 6. Actually, I might just wipe out Part 6 and roll it into Parts 1 and 3 later; but we shall see.

@Giorgo, I read ya! I might try to put some basic combat stuff in Part 1; but mostly I think I will need to try to make the transitions less jarring. One option is to have a 2nd version of the guide that leaves out all of the Assignments. That said, are the Assignments, with their green italics text, easy for the eyes to skip over? "Social" should probably be a dedicated section in Part 1. "Exploration" is more up to the player- some players are explorers, others are not.


randomwalker wrote:

I agree with Giorgio that separating the basics from the advanced.

Basic combat and crafting in the noob part - advanced combat and crafting in separate sections.

By advanced combat i mean stuff like damage calculation formula, effect scaling, different channels, etc. Lots of this is in Ryan's guide and you don't need to know it to go out and kill ogres - but you'll want it for optimizing a pvp build (not to mention for coordinating pvp builds in a group).

By advanced crafting i mean recipe optimization(*), +4/+5 chance, etc. Unless you got high skill and lots of recipes or are trying to coordinate a group of crafters, this is not worth the effort of reading (but for the dedicated crafters it is gold).

(*) recipe optimization as in: there are different ways to make the same +2 item, and one of them is the cheapest (for given set of values for components).

I think there is a lot of merit to me basically re-writing the combat and crafting guides in my own form. Not that Ryan's work is bad; but I found it leaves a lot of room for improvement in the way it presents information.

The basic sections of the Crafting and Combat parts will introduce the player to the interfaces and a few key terms. Basic crafting will also cover basic feat training.

The intermediate sections of the Combat and Crafting parts go more in depth with the mechanics underlying things- introducing the math, effects, keywords, etc.

The advanced section of Combat will get into explaining what the math underlying the combat system actually means, along with digging deeper into what the math is. The Advanced section of Crafting is YTBD.


Bumping this only because I have updated it (2 posts up)

Goblin Squad Member

Will take a look at it in detail on my next day off from work (I find out my schedule for next week every Friday night). :)


@Giorgo: I am still working on the next iteration; but I think I figured out how to fix some of the "jarring" sensation you mentioned before. I'm going to slightly rewrite assignments that are not in Part 1 so that they sound less like they are geared towards a complete newb and more like they are geared towards the general reader.

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
@Giorgo: I am still working on the next iteration; but I think I figured out how to fix some of the "jarring" sensation you mentioned before. I'm going to slightly rewrite assignments that are not in Part 1 so that they sound less like they are geared towards a complete newb and more like they are geared towards the general reader.

I look forward to it, how can I help?

Goblin Squad Member

@Sspitfire1,

I have some active posts on the subjects of Reactive Feats and
Defensive Feats; even though I am an active reader in PFO material, I still struggle with understanding them. If you can include some new user friendly sections on these two topics on your next update I would appreciate it. :)


Updated!

tinyurl.com/PFOguide2

"Completed" Part 2, Feat Advancement. In particular, the final sections about increasing ability scores are now in. If you are using them, please provide feedback on if anything is missing or not well explained.

Also added a brief thank you section on the second page.

Also added a link to Harad Navar's Unofficial PFO Atlas.

@Giorgo, what questions do you have, in particular? It would help if I knew how you *think* they work. Also, the Feat Types section in Part 2 has a brief explanation of both of these.

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
@Giorgo, what questions do you have, in particular? It would help if I knew how you *think* they work. Also, the Feat Types section in Part 2 has a brief explanation of both of these.

Going to read the guide again and take notes...

Goblin Squad Member

I stopped at page 10; I need to clarify something from the introduction; do you assume that the reader has already read the Pathfinder Online New Player Guide or not?

Depending on your reply, is how I will analyze the rest of the document.

Goblin Squad Member

Formatting Error on Page 19:

Assignment: Still want to be a Rogue? This is the place to train your Rogue Feature
#19
[Goat Image with * explaintion: 1 Technically Rangers don’t exist in the game right now, but we all know what they look like: Rogue’ish Fighters and wannabe Clerics with Pets.]
Part 1 - New Player Walkthrough
and Armor Feats. Train Rogue Kit Implement Proficiency 1. You have Achieved Rogue Role 1!!


Don't read the whole thing! Just the last part of Part 2 is all that got updated.

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
Don't read the whole thing! Just the last part of Part 2 is all that got updated.

To late, already up to page 31 with notes. (Grin)

I forgot what the guide is about and what it says; just going to the updated section doesn't work for me; its like a reading a book, taking a month long pause, then coming back to where I left off and finding myself lost.

My question on page 10 still stands. :)

Goblin Squad Member

Done reading threw every page; after I get your reply to my question about page 10; I can write up my notes; do you prefer here or via PM?

Goblin Squad Member

On page 15, for your minimap, your text says #6 is another player, but there is no number 6 on the displayed minimap.

Goblin Squad Member

On page 33:

Cleric: @ Temple, train Glory Domain

It is generally more useful for new Clerics to train either Luck domain or Protection domain(not right now, but when Domain/Enhancement is implemented).

Luck will help with Buffs, and your biggest low level Direct Damage spell (lesser Inflict); when trained to level 3 it will add to Heals. Luck also increases your offensive punch with every ability you use.

Protection will help with Heals and Buffs right at level 1, and will help a little bit protecting you slightly from enemy casters.

Glory does not help with heals or low level damage spells, but it does help with buffing spells and general defense; at level 3 it adds punch to Holy Light. So it isn't bad, but it should not be the choice of a new player.

Goblin Squad Member

Bottom of page 33 you have:

Assignment:
Go train the following, according to your role.

Modify:
Assignment:
Go train the following to level 1, according to your role.

Goblin Squad Member

Top of page 35 you have:
Primary - Fire Bolt, Agile Feet

Modify to:
Primary - Lightning Arc (or Holy Lance), Agile Feet

Lightning Arc does the most damage of the low level Cleric Orisons. Holy Lance does less, but does Holy damage, which is less likely to be resisted. The fire and cold spells do much less damage.

Goblin Squad Member

Page 41 top:

Crafting and Refining start at 456 experience points

Should be 382 points now.

Goblin Squad Member

Page 61, 2nd last para:

you loose items in the bin for good.

change to "lose"

Goblin Squad Member

Page 61, last para:

as well a Freeholder

change "a" to "as"

Stongback needs to be slotted as a Defensive.

change spelling to "Strongback"

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