Vindictus

[Tbone]

A couple of us are trying out Vindictus, the new free MMO from Nexus.

http://vindictus.nexon.net/

We are on the East Server.

The Prologue of the game did a good job of sucking me in. The premise of the game is simple enough (it's pretty much an action RPG based on instanced missions that can be done in groups of 4). What's impressive is how well polished everything is. The UI is pretty intuitive, as well as the controls and graphics. Not sure how much staying power it has, but there's nothing else down the pipes at the moment!

We've got...

TheTbone
Setun
ArchNemesis0
Boombye
Paitryn
Saint (Sanctumeus or something like that)
Broin
Erathaol
TheSorrows (Torrell)

And a few others were installing it as well.

[ArchNemesis]

I was surprised to see others interested in this. I've only played it a few times and never bothered to put much up on it since it's 4 player max for missions =/

Games combat system is pretty fun though.

[Tbone]

Yeah, it's kinda mindless entertainment. I just have a lot of hours to kill and would rather spend it doing a group game than another zombie bashing game.

[Paitryn]

yeah when theres nothing else out there mmo wise worth spending money on, having a game where i can use the environment to kill my enemies is pretty awesome. yeah grouping is 4 player max, but swtor will be too. they do have a raid option, but I dont know what that entails

[ArchNemesis]

yeah when theres nothing else out there mmo wise worth spending money on, having a game where I can use the environment to kill my enemies is pretty awesome. yeah grouping is 4 player max, but swtor will be too. they do have a raid option, but I don't know what that entails

I thought swtor had a higher group max? I guess i'm falling out of touch.

[Ragnarok]

yeah when theres nothing else out there mmo wise worth spending money on, having a game where I can use the environment to kill my enemies is pretty awesome. yeah grouping is 4 player max, but swtor will be too. they do have a raid option, but I don't know what that entails

I don't think they have announced it yet

[Tbone]

So far everything that has been shown for grouping with SWTOR has been 4 people. The only exception is PvP, which they've said so far is 8v8.

[Erathaol]

I just downloaded the game earlier tonight.  The tutorial was good enough to make me want to keep playing, though it is extremely strange and a bit creepy to see "Erathaol" as a little girl.  Curse you, Asian MMOs and your gender-specific characters!

[Tbone]

Make sure you search for the guild in game.

[Strod]

A very decent game I must say. I'm addicted a little bit.

[Tbone]

Double XP tonight, tomorrow, and Friday night from 8-10p.m. FAT. Be there!

(Make sure you patch beforehand!)

[Broin]

I will be getting online to game around 9ish or so FA time

[Tbone]

Vindictus Tips

Well, I've been playing this game for about two weeks now and am learning how to work the system. I thought I would share a few tips for those playing.


Make Quick Gold

Level 21-30

This is how I made almost 500k in two nights. First, make sure you have access to "Dethrone the White Tyrent", which is near the end of Boat 2. Once you have access, buy as many mine bombs as you can (I'll usually get a stack of 100) and equip them. Take all your armor off (so that it doesn't lose condition).

Choose to launch your own boat and make a private "Dethrone" party. Pay your tokens and hit start. In the first room, clear the mobs and destroy ALL the icicles. Mine bomb the two mines in this room and move on to the next room (the polar bear room). Don't bother with the first icicle in this room (it won't break). Hug the wall to the left, breaking icicles as you go, and mine the two mines on that side of the room. After that, trace back the way you came and hug the right side of the wall, breaking icicles, and mine the one mine on that side. DO NOT get too close to the goblins having a feast, as it will screw up your POV and start the polar bear sequence. Once you've cleared the mines and as much icicles as you can in that room, choose to forfeit the party. This will keep you from spending your tokens!

So how does this make you money? Breaking the icicles drops ice crystals, which sell anywhere between 13-40k on the market. Right now they are selling for about 20k. That means it only takes 5 drops to make 100k. Also, the mines drop iron, copper, and silver ore. You'll probably want to keep some of this to make your own armor, but if you sell what you can, the silver ore sells for about 20k right now. Even if you get unlucky with spawns, you'll at least get 10 iron ore a run. Once I get to 100 iron, I sell it on the marketplace for a good chunk of profit.

When selling, I usually put the price at 5 gold below what the lowest one is, unless the lowest one is significantly lower than the other list prices. This will ensure you get your return promptly. Also, icicles are easier to break with Lann. If you are using a different character and find it to be too tedious to break all of them, the icicles in the second room (the polar bear room) break with one hit and still have a chance to drop ice crystals.

Level 31+

You can do the above method with the Blood Prince instance. Clear the first room and head to the first boss fight. Drag the mini-boss and his straggler (the guy keeps spawning after you kill him) into the hallway and around the corner. They get stuck there as you go into where the mini-boss spawned. There are two ore nodes here which are much better than the ones at Dethroning the White Tyrant. One bomb will usually grand you 5 ore drops, which range from iron ore, fine iron ore, copper, and silver. The ratio of getting higher quality seems better here, and it is faster to do than Boat 2's. You don't have the ice crystals, but that also means you don't have to waste time breaking all the icicles. There's also word that gold ore drops here, but I've yet to get one.


Token Management

After Boat 1, running a "boat" costs tokens. You pay the tokens before the mission starts, but they aren't actually taken out until you beat the boss. This prevents loss of tokens if you accidentally get disconnected.

You start with 50 silver tokens. Each boat ride cost 2 tokens. If you do more than 7 boat rides in a single day, the price goes up to 3 tokens. If you do more than 13 rides, the price goes up to 4 tokens.

Your token count refills back to 50 on Thursday, Saturday, and Monday at noon FA time. So the idea is to get the most out of your tokens before they get refilled and without running out. If you know you will be playing every day for one of the chunks of the week, you can plot it out like this:

Mon-Wed: 50 tokens divided by 3 days = 16.6 tokens/day
                       16 tokens = 7 boat rides/day + 1 boat ride (one day only)

Thurs-Fri
Sat-Sun: 50 tokens / 2 days = 25 tokens/day
                  25 tokens = 10 boat rides/day + 1 boat ride (one day only)

There are ways to have more boat rides if you would like them. One method is to get Seals of Dedication. These are obtained by either missioning with someone who is over 5 levels lower than you or by using a Phoenix Feather to rez someone in your party. Once you collect 40 of these, you can turn them in for 10 additional silver tokens.

You can also buy Crimson Tokens off the marketplace for between 25-30k. It only requires 1 of these to partake in a boat ride. You can also buy Crimson/Platinum Tokens with cash. Platinum are like Crimson, but give you +50% combat xp and +10 luck.


AP Management:

AP are the points use to level skills. These are just as important, if not more important, than getting XP to level up. You will always need them and will never have enough. An important thing to know is that you can only collect 100 AP at a time. After you have 100 AP, you will not collect any additional points, so make sure you spend your AP as soon as you get it so you don't find yourself not getting the AP you have earned.

Each time you do a particular boat ride (mission), the number of AP you get from that mission goes down by 5. So if your story quests are at a standstill and you are trying to grind XP, be careful about doing the same ride over and over, as each time you get less and less AP for doing it. Try to mix it up so that you still get decent XP while capitalizing on AP as well.

Every day, certain missions are assigned as the "Daily", which give a good bit of AP regardless of how often you have done that boat ride before. One mission is chosen from each boat. Regardless, you should definitely do the one in Boat 1, as it does not require any tokens. For the others, just judge if it is worth it. If it is giving 50 AP, you should probably do it. Sometimes the daily is just 25 AP, though, and your tokens might be better spent on your story missions that are giving that AP anyway.

Try to look ahead (there are websites about Vindictus) to see what armor/weapons/skills you want to go for, and make sure your putting your AP into the right skills. If you're interested in a cool armor set, but it's a heavy set and you haven't put any AP into that, it'll be too late if you don't start putting AP into it until after you get the set.


What if I run out of tokens?


Most of you guys probably aren't playing as much as I am at the moment, but if you find yourself with a lot of free time, you might find yourself running out of tokens, or being forced to conserve them for the next day. So then how do you still keep playing?

1. Farm for gold using the method I posted above this. If you buy just one crimson token for 25k and keep that as your "free entry", it'll pay for itself almost instantly and you don't have to put that into your silver token equation.

2. Warrior mode (solo) of Decisive Battle. This will net you the most XP for no token cost. You should get about 7k xp per run. That's not a whole lot, but because it is on solo mode, instead of running through 3 map areas and the boss fight, you only run through 1 map area and the boss, so you can knock this mission out pretty quick.

3. Crafting. There are quests you can buy that reward you for completing armor sets. If you have the extra cash, you might want to try to complete a few just to get the xp and titles, which are all pretty good. If you craft them yourself, you can then sell them on the marketplace and not loose too much actual gold. You could also buy the armor pieces directly from the marketplace to complete the quest, but you'll take a much bigger hit to your gold stock pile.

4. Farm Seals or Buy Crimson. You can run Boat 1 quests with lowbies who will be very thankful. You also get a seal for each boat you run. Once you get 40, you can trade those in for 10 silver tokens. It's not quick, but you'll also be getting a little xp and gold as well. Or if you're rich, you can just buy Crimson tokens and keep chugging along. Rarely is this worth it. I bought a few yesterday, but only because it was double XP night and I had already spent most of my silver.

[Tbone]

IGN updated their "What MMO Should I Play?" article and added Vindictus. They had this to say:

Vindictus is, for lack of a better phrase, frickin' sweet. Take Valve's excellent physics engine, very pretty graphics, and throw in some fast-paced action-centric combat, and you get a very fun, free MMO. It's session-based like many of the latest free-to-play games, but the interesting boss fights and fun fighting methods push Vindictus very high up the metaphorical free-to-play quality ladder

[Tbone]

Double xp event tomorrow and Sunday from 1-3 Pm FA. Free boat rides from 8-9 pm.