Trying to adjust to a new character...

[X-Kal]

Hello all!

I'm really not sure where I should post this... the "Newbie" word seems to fit best to my post, so I guess I should start here :razz:

I consider myself relatively new to the whole LotGD scene - I think I started at the beginning of the summer, and have gotten used to the general gameplay feel. However, I was recently given a character with 53 dragonkills! I think that this character will obviously be different in many ways than my primary one, but adjusting to it is... very, very, very, very challenging... just to put it mildly.

The only thing I've been able to figure out with this is balancing what sort of forest fights to pick - when I should "look for something to kill" or "thrillseek" and so on. However... it seems that my character dies alot - I'd say 4-6 times in the last 48 hours.. Alot. I would not be surprised to see "Something Special: You have been roasted and eaten because you are tasty. Go see Ramius again." Heck, today, I lost a battle in the graveyard and had 99 favor left after that. Needless to say, I'm not happy about this at all. However, it seems that my frustrations are due to a lack of knowledge of this new character I have.

Is there any chance that someone might have some advice for me? I'm not looking for "oh, go to this town and perform this action and you will die less and win more fights and see the dragon more often and win more secrets." I guess what I'm wondering is how to approach this scenario. Is this happening to everybody, or is this just a stretch of bad luck? Should I be avoiding risks when I'm so close to a dragonkill? I feel as if I'm using this character improperly - a newbie placed with a character way too far along for someone with so little gaming experience.

[TheOttomancer]

Well, I think that if you've been lucky enough to "find" a 53 Dks character, you'll have to discovedr how it works more than "tell me how should I spent my day".

You have to think that the more DKs you have, the more difficult the game is... probably you'll have the same chances of dying in any of the forest.

The thing I highly recommend you is that you go to see Heidi's and ask him about orange candles and look how to put all your Dragon Points to have a better strathegy that suits with your form of playing :)

[Syrius]

Well...perhaps that's why you normally work your way up to that kind of level!

You are not going to know anything about what has been happening with the character, what it has/doesn't have/can do/etc/etc/etc if you suddenly come into it at that level. I even used to forget where I was up to with my own character if she sat unplayed for a while.

If you are going to keep the character and use it I suggest you start paying very close attention to everything!

Good luck and happy hunting!

[Darcia]

First I suggest you read the Strategy Guide (http://lotgd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344) written by BD and then all of the comments on the thread. That is a fair amount of knowledge, and every little bit of help will come in handy.

I could give you all kinds of advice here, but there is plenty in that thread that will help. And what works for me won't necessarily work for you... I personally get into a routine of doing certain things each new day, because little things can add up fast. I also recommend reading A Beginners Guide (http://lotgd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20), even though it sounds like you might already know a lot of what is there, it wouldn't hurt to skim over it.

I would use this character as your secondary character, and the character you have been playing with as your main. Even once you start doing well with it, you still won't feel the sense of accomplishment with it as you do your own. Good luck!

[JCP]

There are a lot of different ways to answer this question, not all of them polite.

By skipping over most of the game, you've done yourself a great disservice.

As you've found out, you're not prepared to play the game at that level.

You've done more than that, however. You've actually cheated yourself out of experiencing the game. There is a large portion of the game geared towards lower and mid-dk characters. You don't necessarily experience more of the game as you advance - you experience a different game.

My personal feelings about people 'transferring' characters aside, the standard answer for many of the questions about the game is to "do it yourself".

You want to know how to play a high-dk character from those who earned such status legitimately?

Do it yourself.

[Furion]

Hey X-Kal. You are Farglebargle, right? I think it's good his character didn't go to waste, and besides, it was a gift.

I have 8 DK's, so I can't claim to be a high DK character, but I try to heal when I have less than half life when my mount is tired. I also don't thrillseek until I have the maximum weapon and armor. If you are unsure if you will win a battle, do 5 rounds or even just 1 at a time, and don't be afraid to run, just give yourself a couple rounds to do so. Also, look at how your DK points are allocated, and read the description of your mount when it appears in the stable to see if it complements you. If not, you should probably change your mount or re-allocate your DK points. And as others have said, you probably will want to re-allocate your DK points based on your playing style. I hope this helps, and I hope I didn't offend any of the naysayers in the room, I just thought some suggestions would be good. After all, we probably shouldn't flame (however mildly) each other here, right? :wink:

[Darcia]

Hey X-Kal. You are Farglebargle, right? I think it's good his character didn't go to waste, and besides, it was a gift.

I have 8 DK's, so I can't claim to be a high DK character, but I try to heal when I have less than half life when my mount is tired. I also don't thrillseek until I have the maximum weapon and armor. If you are unsure if you will win a battle, do 5 rounds or even just 1 at a time, and don't be afraid to run, just give yourself a couple rounds to do so. Also, look at how your DK points are allocated, and read the description of your mount when it appears in the stable to see if it complements you. If not, you should probably change your mount or re-allocate your DK points. And as others have said, you probably will want to re-allocate your DK points based on your playing style. I hope this helps, and I hope I didn't offend any of the naysayers in the room, I just thought some suggestions would be good. After all, we probably shouldn't flame (however mildly) each other here, right? :wink:I agree. I think Furion gave you some great advice to chew on and to add on something he said. Visit the gym and see where that takes you.

[X-Kal]

There are a couple points in here that've been most helpful - I agree, there's simply no pride in using this new character as my primary. The strategy guide's nice, too.

However... first, in response to TheOttomancer: Nah, I don't want people to tell me how to spend my day - reducing *any* game, no matter how complex, to a simple itenerary just seems to spoil it.

Second, in response to JCP: It's pretty clear that you believe that character transferring - especially ones involving strong characters being sent to newbies - robs the player of proper gameplay experience. It's already against the rules to discuss game secrets for that reason, as well. If you feel that it's a disservice for character transfers to take place, I would strongly reccomend that transfers should be banned altogether. If you strongly feel that I shouldn't be playing as this character... you could either go and delete the character, or I'll converse with the person who gave it to me and decide on my own based on the results of the conversation.

However, I do believe that the person who gave me this character did so with the faith that I would be able to play with it with reasonable success, given the minimal gaming experience I've had (I have three DKs with my primary character). Since the rules do still allow the use of multiple characters, I've still been playing with my own - I cosider my first to be my "real" character, where the other is my alt. This is just my opinion here, but I don't really feel too much loss. From what I can tell, I haven't encountered any spoilers yet. Perhaps I know too little of the game to tell yet for certain, but it doesn't feel like I went and started reading the end of Harry Potter 6 before starting the book.

Anyways... I'll think about what you all said and discuss this with my friend. Now that my questions have been answered, and new ones posed... I would ask that a mod please close the thread, if you would be so kind.

[Furion]

You got it. :)

[SaucyWench]

Second, in response to JCP: It's pretty clear that you believe that character transferring - especially ones involving strong characters being sent to newbies - robs the player of proper gameplay experience. It's already against the rules to discuss game secrets for that reason, as well. If you feel that it's a disservice for character transfers to take place, I would strongly reccomend that transfers should be banned altogether.

You'd be correct. JCP put it eloquently, but I'm known for being blunt so I will just say it - The only reason we do not ban this is because there is no way to stop it. We do not like character transfers and feel it is wrong.

There are a few reasons, one of which jcp detailed. Another one is, we staff cannot see who is sitting at the keyboard of ANY player thus we must assume that the character itself is the person - in other words, you have inherited the character and its previous warnings for swearing, or being a pain in the backside, or whatever else it had (Fargle is not known for these things, but I can assure you we would not wipe its history clean either way).

We have had players mail us and say, oh, so-and-so gave me his character, can you please change its name (to some new name i prefer) so nobody thinks it is him? We have done that in the past but the new official answer is: "Get Stuffed." No, I am not trying to be insulting here to anyone :) I am simply saying... anyone who has done this is doing something we don't want you to do, so they can forget about asking for favours to help you play a character level you did not earn fairly like the others did.

Also, it screws up character history and our methods of detecting multi-character interaction. Suddenly all of YOUR alts and all of the old player's alts will be assumed to possibly belong to you, so watch your backside. Cheating makes me a cranky wench, and you take the risk of looking like a cheat if you've ever attacked or placed bounties on that character or on its alts. And you might pay the price. And there's no escape clause. If you take the character on you take it as is and you inherit its history.