Posted January 01, 2013
high rated
I thought it might be useful for new players of Darklands to get some random hints from veterans of the game. So I'll start:
1) Your local rep in a city is very important. You can stay at an Inn indefinitely if you clean up a few thugs periodically. The benefit you gain from killing the bad guys will offset the annoyance factor of you staying there a long time.
2) You can tell how your local rep is going by two factors: the price of a day's stay at the Inn, and the number of hours of penance you are assigned after confession. The latter starts out at 11 hours and drops hour by hour as your local rep increases. I've gotten it down to 6 hours, maybe 4 (it's been a long time since I've played). The price of a room at the inn will drop 6 pfennige for each increase in local rep, too. Which is important if you want to hang out in a big city and take courses or whatnot.
3) Don't waste time hanging out in the grove, especially in a new town. Go to church, take mass and confession. There is a small but measurable chance that mass and confession will increase a character's virtue, and that is very important. In new towns, your penance after confession will start out at 11 hours, so by the time you've finished, it will be dark and you can go hunt thugs. Rinse and repeat.
4) Do not ignore the possibility of making some money while staying at an inn to heal or learn stuff. Depending upon your local rep and skills, you can possibly break even or actually make a small profit doing so. Every pfennig counts, especially if you're crazy like me and prefer to start with inexperienced parties.
5) There is a time limit on completing quests for merchants and other townies. I believe it is six months, although it might possibly vary.
6) There is an annoying bug concerning armor quality about which you should be aware. It is useful to have a backup set of armor, because you will encounter alchemists on the road who will use potions to degrade your armor quality, and the damage is permanent. The bug is that if you have more than one piece of the same armor (say, vChain) that you are wearing, and if those pieces are the same quality, then when the alchemist ruins your armor he will ruin not just the piece you are wearing, but ALL pieces you are carrying of the same type/quality. Given how expensive, say, 38q plate is, you can see how this is a major problem. One work-around is to have somebody else carry the backup armor for everybody, so long as he is not also wearing the same stuff! Even a difference of one quality point will avoid this annoying bug. Since there is effectively no weight limit on stuff carried but not equipped (apparently, everyone has a Bag of Holding), one party member could carry 50 full sets of plate armor with no problem. Not that you'd ever really need 50 sets of plate armor.
7) It is possible to succeed with a party of all 20 year olds, but you must have LOTS of patience. It's really only fun for masochists.:)
-- Mal
1) Your local rep in a city is very important. You can stay at an Inn indefinitely if you clean up a few thugs periodically. The benefit you gain from killing the bad guys will offset the annoyance factor of you staying there a long time.
2) You can tell how your local rep is going by two factors: the price of a day's stay at the Inn, and the number of hours of penance you are assigned after confession. The latter starts out at 11 hours and drops hour by hour as your local rep increases. I've gotten it down to 6 hours, maybe 4 (it's been a long time since I've played). The price of a room at the inn will drop 6 pfennige for each increase in local rep, too. Which is important if you want to hang out in a big city and take courses or whatnot.
3) Don't waste time hanging out in the grove, especially in a new town. Go to church, take mass and confession. There is a small but measurable chance that mass and confession will increase a character's virtue, and that is very important. In new towns, your penance after confession will start out at 11 hours, so by the time you've finished, it will be dark and you can go hunt thugs. Rinse and repeat.
4) Do not ignore the possibility of making some money while staying at an inn to heal or learn stuff. Depending upon your local rep and skills, you can possibly break even or actually make a small profit doing so. Every pfennig counts, especially if you're crazy like me and prefer to start with inexperienced parties.
5) There is a time limit on completing quests for merchants and other townies. I believe it is six months, although it might possibly vary.
6) There is an annoying bug concerning armor quality about which you should be aware. It is useful to have a backup set of armor, because you will encounter alchemists on the road who will use potions to degrade your armor quality, and the damage is permanent. The bug is that if you have more than one piece of the same armor (say, vChain) that you are wearing, and if those pieces are the same quality, then when the alchemist ruins your armor he will ruin not just the piece you are wearing, but ALL pieces you are carrying of the same type/quality. Given how expensive, say, 38q plate is, you can see how this is a major problem. One work-around is to have somebody else carry the backup armor for everybody, so long as he is not also wearing the same stuff! Even a difference of one quality point will avoid this annoying bug. Since there is effectively no weight limit on stuff carried but not equipped (apparently, everyone has a Bag of Holding), one party member could carry 50 full sets of plate armor with no problem. Not that you'd ever really need 50 sets of plate armor.
7) It is possible to succeed with a party of all 20 year olds, but you must have LOTS of patience. It's really only fun for masochists.:)
-- Mal
Post edited January 01, 2013 by malthaussen
