OK so this is going to be rough and disjointed but maybe I can answer a few common questions for new players. There are some real things quite particular to this game that are not obvious. Most things are pretty straightforward so I am only really going to go into stuff that I have found to be a little less obvious.
New Player Tips
General
In the bottom right corner is a menu with three bars. This menu is context sensitive so you will find different options there depending on what phase you are in.
Land, sea, town etc all can show different options. You will only find ‘My Guild’ which is where you find your guild quests and shop etc while in town. You will only find expeditions while at sea. There are more than a few of these so check carefully.
I recommend getting the permanent monthly value card in the events section if you intend to play a bit. It’s cheap and worth it but only the permanent one. I don’t think the one month one is a great deal. I usually like to buy a little something from free games to support them and if you are like me then this is probably your best choice. It really is a nice little helper and gets more rewarding as you open up more dungeons to sweep.
I don’t recall any of the locations of the items required for quests so don’t ask but I can suggest a few things about them in general.
Often the location you need to find things is in the quest text. It can be obscure. I have had to google landmarks on a map to pin down exactly where some places might be. For example I know roughly where Tibet is but I needed a map to be positive. Some major landmarks that I don’t know at all I also found with google. IIRC some of the quests actually colour/highlight certain key words and these are usually very explicit hints.
If you are after pearls for example then these are found on beaches in towns in the general area but many towns do not have beaches at all so you gotta search.
Some hints are a little more obscure than others but generally it’s in the text somewhere.
Recruiting officers
Some need general favour items and some want one specific item. Most of these items are found if you follow the quest line. Some items I have never found and I think there are a few that are related to certain events. Might never see them again I guess but hopefully they come around with special events. So if you have not discovered something needed to get an officer recruit by following the main story then don’t sweat on it as I have more than a few I have never found and I have finished a huge amount of the content. Just forget about them and move along.
I have no clue what a lot of the bonus they come with even do. There is naff all explanation in game. I don’t do boarding and have never been forced into it so officers with those skills I ignore. Storage doesn’t matter a lot late game but it’s always handy I guess.
Later on your officers can be sent on missions and also assigned to farms to grow crops and tend animals. Go to your ship – menu, houseboat, command room.
Gems
Expensive to combine but they are nice. I just don’t understand what some of the things they do actually mean. Fatal damage? WTF? Some of the others you can infer from the little icon in front of them so I guess damage having the little explosion symbol means explosive damage increased but you would probably want to spec in the explosive damage cannons to use those. You need to drill mounts into your ship and then you can fit these. The first slot is cheap. The second is not bad. The third is expensive.
I picked one cannon type and went with that – Smoothbore. I don’t know if it’s the way to go or not but every type wants a huge investment to improve with research so I picked one and ran with it. I don’t know if I recommend smoothbore but I do suggest you don’t spread yourself over many types as it’s very costly to level them up.
Smoothbore don’t have the best range but it is good and that comes in handy sometimes, especially on the world boss (Lvl 100+ I think to do him.)
Sometimes if you are trying to find an NPC in a town to talk to you can click the quest in the top left and it will take you there, if you do this and it does not then you will have to go into the minimap (click on it) and find them and they should have a ‘talk’ option.
To leave a town quickly select the ‘world’ when you open the minimap. You can set locations to travel to if you are going town to town but if you want to go to a place in the ocean you will need to be at sea first. It’s another of those context sensitive things and annoying.
The ping is bad. I think it is bad for everyone. I can’t hit anything much firing a weapon or cannon at anything at sea. Because of this there are specific skills I focus on so it’s not as important.
- Sea – I use ‘absolute area’ as my go to skill. It locks you in place when you use it but it’s effective and as I use smoothbore this is where having good range on cannons really comes into play. You can see my setup later in screenshots below. Works for me but I have seen other options so go with what you want.
- Land – I use staff. The skills I use primarily are: Greater prophecy, shield and barrier.
Works best if you have all refresh timers up. Shield and run into the enemy or round up a group of them and run into that. Use barrier, greater prophecy and barrier again so you have two barriers at once running. I have the heal skill set as well and be aware that you can’t see your health with a shield up and many enemies have poison that effectively ignores the shield so you can die without knowing you have no hp.
Assume the worst and have heal ready.
Open your main menu while in town (might work at sea too??) and select ‘ship’ and then go to ‘formation’. Place your ships where you want them. Some can chase and some will sit still etc so you can decide who does what here.
If you are looking for new places I can suggest going to the logbook, exploration and if you click on the blueprint or icon there are often co-ords of where they can be found. It’s a roundabout way of potentially discovering new places.
There you go. A few tips for some of the things that I don’t think are very well explained in game. There is so much more but most of it you can figure out for yourself. Most is pretty obvious.
World Bosses (Spoilers)
I don’t know how others do stuff but this might help for newer players.
Neptune Island
This one is down SW in the corner. This is how I do him.
Take your fleet in and park your ships in the bosses backside. With them there they will soak up the freeze. Then go to his 7/8 O’clock and wait till he fires off the beams. Use the ‘absolute area’ skill when you are safe. Pop in and drop a heal on your fleet if you want to but by being down there the beams should miss them so they don’t get hurt much anyway as the beams target you. You just gotta dodge them and since your skill locks you in place it’s all timing.
This is your source of Poseidon Figureheads and although they are exceptionally rare they do drop. I do him daily and I guess one every six weeks is what I get. Hens teeth are more common but they do drop and you want them.
This screenshot is bad. Ignore where I am. It’s there to show you where to park your fleet in his backside. Go there and hit ‘shift’ to move your fleet to you and so long as you don’t move too far they sit there. Towards the end of the fight he gets angry and shoots the beams a lot so taking the time to take a screenshot got me hit. Stay a little lower than where I am if you can so the beams miss your fleet.
You can see my skill setup here, do it in manual combat so your ship and fleet doesn’t do unexpected stuff.
Another is over near Florida? I am not from USA so don’t get bent but I think it’s close.
Eye of Storm
This guy is where I use the range of smoothbore to keep me kind of safe. You can sit in one spot and take him down without taking much damage. You should let your fleet die as getting close triggers defensive fleets which hurt and your fleet just does it’s thing and gets you into trouble. They do minimal damage anyway.
I do most damage with the ‘Absolute area’ skill but I do shoot him up and heal too.
You gotta pick the gap between his shots and it’s tight.
Until you get some real DPS this is a long fight but good rewards even if you do not ‘win’ so it’s worth the attempt.
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