Working on my own guide. Thoughts?


Pathfinder Online

1 to 50 of 110 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Sspitfire's No-Brainer guide to PFO: Part 1

Its a work in progress and likely won't be done for a good long while. But I've explained sooooo many different aspects of this game in-game and on the forums to date, that I figured I ought to just write a guide, then I can just tell people, "Look here" for the more complicated stuff.

Anyways, Part 1 is simply a walk-through style introduction to get new players in the door. You can see an outline of what the rest of the guide will contain as well. My goal with Part 1, in particular, is to give the new player a very gentle introduction to the feat training system and a few other aspects of the game. The rest of the guide will be written in a similar fashion.

I don't expect this to replace the wealth of information already out there, but rather to be an alternative source. People have different learning styles, so different sources with different teaching styles will be valuable to the game.

~Sspit

Goblin Squad Member

Part 1 looks good, but you should integrate the last para earlier, when you are visiting the trainers near those commoner npcs with the items.

Goblin Squad Member

more graphics!

The settlement map (with dirt paths!) is brilliant. I suggest at least the paper doll and combat bar should have illustrations as well.

when you get to crafting, i'll have more opinions

Goblin Squad Member

It's good that it's on Google drive as I don't have access to Dropbox at work (I think you have a guide on dropbox).

One thing a guide should do is stop people making the same mistakes I have made. I wish I could remember all the mistakes I have made:

Don't spend xp on anything unless you are sure you can use it when you buy it. e.g. buying a lvl 3 attack feat when you have a +1 sword is not optimal use of xp at that time.

Don't spend 2 weeks gathering materials to make something you get no benefit from. e.g you need armor prof 2 and feat 8 to get the benefit from +3 armor.

Don't be a rogue.

Definitely don't be a rogue and a scout.


<Kabal> Kradlum wrote:

It's good that it's on Google drive as I don't have access to Dropbox at work (I think you have a guide on dropbox).

One thing a guide should do is stop people making the same mistakes I have made. I wish I could remember all the mistakes I have made:

Don't spend xp on anything unless you are sure you can use it when you buy it. e.g. buying a lvl 3 attack feat when you have a +1 sword is not optimal use of xp at that time.

Don't spend 2 weeks gathering materials to make something you get no benefit from. e.g you need armor prof 2 and feat 8 to get the benefit from +3 armor.

Don't be a rogue.

Definitely don't be a rogue and a scout.

I'll try to incorporate some of this wisdom into my guide.


Illililili wrote:
Part 1 looks good, but you should integrate the last para earlier, when you are visiting the trainers near those commoner npcs with the items.

I don't want new players using my guide to get ahold of new weapons until after they have gotten a little practice with the club. Baby steps!


randomwalker wrote:

more graphics!

The settlement map (with dirt paths!) is brilliant. I suggest at least the paper doll and combat bar should have illustrations as well.

when you get to crafting, i'll have more opinions

I take it, then the settlement map was also comprehensible?

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
I take it, then the settlement map was also comprehensible?

Quite. I also find it useful to note that the disk the bank sits in is a nice targeting spot on the enlarged map to help with orientation.

Goblin Squad Member

I like the layout and 'magazine' style formatting. Looks nice!

:D


Are the green "Assignment" bits easy to read?

Grand Lodge PFO Community Manager

How cool!! I think the green looks good! Im saving this for sure!!

Goblin Squad Member

I agree the green is easy to read.

On a side note, I haven't come across a guide yet that covers the coordinate system. Granted I haven't really looked either, but maybe down the road in an advanced section you could include what a person would look for if a comrade tells them meet me in hex 'A' at coordinate 'X'.

Great guide so far though, thanks for the effort :)


Great idea. I'll include that in maybe a general map section? Somewhere, anyways.

Goblin Squad Member

In your settlement map you list the Auction as being the same as the Bank but the Auction House is actually in the Mage quarter.


You are thinking of Crafting Settlements. Also, the AH and the Bank share the same symbol since they are related in function somewhat.

Goblin Squad Member

If you're feeling up to the work, I would suggest citing where to find more information elsewhere in the guide - few people sit down and read through guides in the order it was written. The easier you make it to bounce around the guide chasing a train of thought, the more use the guide will get. (And that means fewer repeated questions in chat!)

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
Are the green "Assignment" bits easy to read?

you could even give the green bits a different background colour (parchment-y light tan?) to separate even clearer from the main text body. This is addition to fonts and potentially tabbing (though probably not all at the same time - just saying there are options to try).

For some yet unwritten sections:

-XP budgeting. Make sure people understand xp is the ultimate limited resource in this game, that costs increase (pseudo-)exponentially, and there are no refunds. Dabbling and trying out stuff at lvl 1 is great, but going deep without a plan is not recommended.

-gathering and invetory management. Make sure people understand limited carrying capacity and items (potentially) destroyed on death. Make sure people understand local storage (and meaningful travel times). Tell them there are ways to increase carrying capacity, but the simplest is to store non-essentials in the bank.

-refining and crafting. Teach the basics, but I would not recommend people to go deep into crafting without a plan and a network.


Thanks Random. Those are great ideas!

Keign, that is exactly the plan for exactly that reason. I'm already in the habbit of bookmarking important sections for creating links to them later.

Edit: I was also planing on putting my Bombur picture next to all of the Assignments :)

Goblin Squad Member

By any chance did you read this article Ryan linked on Facebook?

7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Part 1)

PS - It's behaving weirdly for me in Chrome right now, not scrolling the picture when it ought to.


Nihimon wrote:

By any chance did you read this article Ryan linked on Facebook?

7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Part 1)

PS - It's behaving weirdly for me in Chrome right now, not scrolling the picture when it ought to.

Very helpful. Thank you!

Dark Archive Goblin Squad Member

Somewhere you should state that once XP is spent there is no way to get it back. As far as I know, no respecs are planned so once spent it has gone.
Also it should say that you should only spend XP on something you are 100% sure that you will need.
These are important points to stress otherwise there is going to be a lot of complaining by the new players.


Swiss Mercenary wrote:

Somewhere you should state that once XP is spent there is no way to get it back. As far as I know, no respecs are planned so once spent it has gone.

Also it should say that you should only spend XP on something you are 100% sure that you will need.
These are important points to stress otherwise there is going to be a lot of complaining by the new players.
Sspitfire's No-Brainer Guide to PFO wrote:

So before we get started, there is one very important thing you need to know about PFO. Its complicated. I’ve been immersed in it for months now and am still discovering new mechanics to the game. The up-shot of this is that you will not be bored with learning this game for some months to come. The down-shot is that you can forget about having an “optimized” character straight out of the gate. But that is fine! You don’t need to have one!

That brings us to point number two. PFO has no experience cap. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Or rather, infinity. What this means for you right now is this: Don’t be afraid to play around. Worried that feat you are about to buy isn’t worth it? No biggie! Buy it; try it out; and if you don’t like it, go train something else. The only thing it cost you is time- 1 hour per 100 experience points, to be precise. And no, that is not 1 hour of in-game time. That is 1 hour of time. The only requirement to gain experience is an account with its monthly subscription fee up-to-date (which, by the way, means you are basically paying $15 per month for 73,000 experience points per month).

Goblin Squad Member

Swiss Mercenary wrote:
Also it should say that you should only spend XP on something you are 100% sure that you will need.

That's so not true. Since there is no cap to the amount of xp you can get there isn't really a problem if you spend a days worth of xp on something you don't need at the moment. It may end up coming in handy later.

Goblin Squad Member

Swiss Mercenary wrote:

Somewhere you should state that once XP is spent there is no way to get it back. As far as I know, no respecs are planned so once spent it has gone.

Also it should say that you should only spend XP on something you are 100% sure that you will need.
These are important points to stress otherwise there is going to be a lot of complaining by the new players.

I'd agree with the sentiment, if not the actual verbiage. I don't think someone has to be 100% certain, but I think a warning box would be helpful, something like: [ CAUTION: Once XP is spent there you have the feat and there is no way to reverse XP expenditures. Be careful not to double-tap buttons and know what you are buying! ]

Let's just do a quick gut check: how many of us here would want to go into EE, having our xp allocated like we spent it on our first character in Alpha?

My first character, frankly, was a hot mess. I didn't know what I was doing for probably a week.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Urman wrote:
My first character, frankly, was a hot mess. I didn't know what I was doing for probably a week.

Yupp, sure, but some of my mess that I ignores was due to getting like a zillion XP dumped on me in the start.

Misspending a couple of thousands of XP hardly matters in the long run and perhaps just increase the diversity and personality of the character.

But a warning is indeed good to put in.

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I have seen with XP two extremes:

a) someone new starting with a lot - going to the trainer and clicking everything
b) someone trying to plan out XP 2 month in advance to optimize every single XP spend

both should be discouraged/warned against as they will frustrate players

The first will end up with someone having loads of skills level 1 and only then realizing that the week XP he/she had now is wasted as he/she actually wanted to do something useful.
The biggest danger of this behaviour is for players logged in the very first time. It doesn't matter if they do it with the 1000 XP - after all - that is just 10 hours - so next day you have twice as much.
But it is an issue if they amass a few weeks because they don't start on day 1 and then just 'waste' most of it to discover now is a lot harder.

The second one is a more subtle problem. The game is still changing. So all planning is moot if it changes and a new feat gets introduced / some XP costs are changed etc. Players who overoptimize will feel cheated because their grand plan just got thwarted. This is unhealthy at the current state of the game.

I think the healthy way is somewhere inbetween. Have some plans and know what you want - but don't sweat it if a few XP turn out to be in a skill / feat you decide later that you don't want to follow up.


yeah I posted in Ryans guide thread that I will be addig a warning about the irrevisibilty of expenditures and the fact that there is no intention to allow respecing as new classes come available.

Goblin Squad Member

A matrix of what level armour feat and what armour proficiency you need to fully utilise a given level of armour would be useful I think. That bit is certainly not intuitive.


Already planned.


Progress, not Perfection.

Edit: I recommend downloading it and opening with a PDF viewer. For some reason Google's viewer doesn't recognize the document links.

Goblin Squad Member

Just wanted to drop in and say: awesome work with the guide sspitfire :) I find your work to be more valuable as a learning resource than the official New Player Guide (so maybe secretly incorporate the official guide and _become_ the official one).

As for feedback; a little more white-space might make it easier to skim and indentations might add focus-points for the eyes.
Otherwise, stellar stuff.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

I just used your training guide for a 1,000 point character for the mass player death test in Rotter's Hole. That's a well-chosen set of feats. I particularly liked the idea of training Mage to get some benefit from the Peasant's Outfit.


Thank you! @Karlbob, I appreciate the acknowledgement on that. I am actually going to use that set up as a teaching tool when I get to the combat guide- sort of walk the player through the why's of choosing those particular feats. Also, I figured they'd increase newbie survival rates :)

Goblin Squad Member

You should add /p to the Chat me up section.


/p ?

Goblin Squad Member

/p to begin typing in party chat ;)

I didn't think it worked at first, so I kept clicking on the Party tab, hitting enter, then typing my message, then clicking back to Chat tab.

But you can just stay in the Chat tab, type /p and then your message to the party.

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
/p ?

I had the same thought at first, but figured it was pretty unlikely he was trying to say "/r" and accidentally used the Russian "r".

@Dazyk, I like the new avatar, but I'm really going to miss that little wind-up axe guy...

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
sspitfire1 wrote:
/p ?

I had the same thought at first, but figured it was pretty unlikely he was trying to say "/r" and accidentally used the Russian "r".

@Dazyk, I like the new avatar, but I'm really going to miss that little wind-up axe guy...

I think the new one is quite fitting. :)


just typing /p changes to party chat. I suppose if I were in a party when I tested it, then /p <message> would have posted to party chat

Goblin Squad Member

if you type /p <message> when NOT in a party, you should get the message "there is no party" (or some-such).

@Nihimon; don't worry! I'm still the same wound-up guy! ;P now with 150% more gold armour!

@Saiph; thank you :)


Oh dear goodness. My old Mac started running *really* slowly, so I shut it down. Now it won't reboot. I had about 2 or 3 hours of intense work put into describing the different Feat Types that was saved on the hard-drive but not backed up to Google... :(

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I feel your pain.

Unfortunately, as a technician, I am required by my union to stop caring as soon as you use the words "not backed up."

Good luck.

Goblin Squad Member

But.. but.. I was waiting for the next iteration :<
Maybe you can remove the hard drive and attach it to another computer and recover things from there? Also, nowadays I tend save directly in my dropbox or google drive folders for instant sync :)


I think I had the same problem with my original Mac about the same time I bought the Mac that just went down on me. I'll try doing what I did then: hook that Mac up to my new Mac and basically treat the hard drive on the old Mac as an "External" harddrive on this Mac, recover the pertinent files, then do a system reinstall.

In the mean time, I am installing In Design on my shiny new fast Mac and will try out Ryan's work flow: write in Word, layout in In Design.

@Cal- I'll have you know that after every session of edits I email the latest version to myself so that it is safely stored on the interwebs and accessible from any computer. The computer decided to go kaput in the middle of me doing my work, thus no chance of backing it up. Does that earn some sympathy?

Plop, the next update will not be for a little while. I am trying to get Part 2: Advanced Feat Training completely "done."

Goblin Squad Member

AS long as you lost no more than you are content to re-do, you can have all the sympathy you like ;-P


Aw hell, out of all the files on the hard drive, that is the one that is corrupted. Can't even copy it off of the hard drive! :( Time to do a system reinstall.

Goblin Squad Member

:-(


After an extended bit of downtime to work on job applications, I am working on this again. Hopefully will have Part 2: Feat Training around the weekend.

Goblin Squad Member

As an ex-Apple employee and technician ...

M@cs R teh 3v1L

... just saying

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Hmm, I thought guide was related to freeholder guide.

I am losing it

1 to 50 of 110 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Paizo / Licensed Products / Digital Games / Pathfinder Online / Working on my own guide. Thoughts? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.