Please help me not be bored

Secret World Legends General Discussion
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I couldnt think of a better title [sorry…], but as the title says. Let me first explain myself to give some background.

Ive been playing MMO’s since 1999. Ive pretty much played everything there is out there, except some korean MMO’s and archeage/black desert. Few others.

Ive witnessed the fall of the MMO industry and since pretty much have played these games half my life (20 years…), i am desperately trying to find a decent MMO to play and spend money/time on.

World of warcraft is… well…

And the game I actually wanna play is more or less unplayable in its current state, so im basically an MMO Refugee, as it were.

I just started playing this game about a week ago, and already level 41. However it seems exp isnt that hard to come by in this game, it seems the gear and AP/SP grind is where the actual ‘grind’ is.

My wife and I both play this game, we both became patrons, so we’ve already contributed some funds to this game - albeit small.

What I am finding is, in the game - im just doing the quests in Kingsmouth and the zone after it over and over. I can do the story quest, but its sort of boring. What I need is exp for other builds I wanna try - but what im needing the most right now feels like more gear to craft into my own gear making it more powerful.

A little voice in my head is telling I am doing something wrong, but I cant actually put my finger on it. The build I am now is Chaos/Hammer. Its pretty fun so far, but it sort of feels lackluster in the damage its doing. Ive followed a few of Schmidy’s guides on YT and on here, (I am actually 100% his build in the “how to make a solo build” video, but not sure if its still viable.).

Maybe I am just doing what I am supposed to be doing. Have found a few (pink/purple 3 pip) belts that I threw on the AH, but I feel like the community here is so small the AH/economy might be a tad slow right now.

I jumped into a LFM queue earlier, I was dismayed to find that I couldnt farm a lower level dungeon at level 40, I mean just to kind of explore and see what it was all about. As if I am restricted to ONLY running content my level, which sucks - because it gates stuff behind a level wall that if I outlevel it, I cant experience it. Is there any way to at least change my level or something or is it like, if you level past the say - first dungeon, then tough - thats it?

I havent seen anyone recruiting for a guild/cabal, and ive been on the “Playfield/General” tab. People sometimes talk but not very often, and for the most part - this feels largely like a 1 player game. Or like an emulator with a very small playerbase that my wife and I are able to play together on. If thats true, about the community - it worries me. Keep in mind, my wife and I are newcomers, and if I feel this, then we are not the only ones.

I like Funcom, havent dealt with them much in the past as a company, but ive also got an AoC sub and kind of flip/flop between this one and there before throwing the towel in and sealing the coffin in the MMO industry and moving on with my life.

What I am asking the community here is: I am being very honest about my impressions and how I feel about this game, but what can I do to keep from getting bored?

I know this game is purposely geared to having a single-player ‘feel’, and thats not entirely a bad thing. But when the player wants to actually play with more people, where does one begin?

What should I be focusing on? How can I avoid getting bored? How do I make augments for my gear? (the latter can probably be answered via a wiki/YT vid).

The thing ive noticed is, every “lets play” video, guide, or most videos ive seen posted are people playing alone or solo. Maybe my luck is just finding those videos… but meh.

Any way, guess ive rambled on enough. I am glad to be here, the board here/community looks to have lots of good people in it and I am excited to see where this rabbit hole leads…

Thank you for reading.

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Welcome to the game!

Okay, a lot of stuff to respond to here so I’ll try my best. If I am unclear on something or you have other questions, don’t be shy about asking!

First off, due to the small population without a lot of new players at any given time, it can be hard to find groups at low levels.

Lower level areas give much lower XP and not only fewer pieces of gear but also don’t even drop all the types of gear. Egypt and up give all talisman types plus glyphs, and Transylvania and up give a chance of special(dungeon drop or blue level) gear.

Staying in Kingsmouth makes it dramatically harder to make any progress, both because it locks you out of a lot of dungeon and group content but also because the rewards aren’t very good.

Most likely, your lack of glyphs is a major component of that; in solo content there aren’t many builds that won’t work. You will, especially as you fight tougher stuff, need hit rating to avoid missing attacks, and crit rating to both increase your damage and trigger the vast number of crit-based effects(energy gain most notably).

The passives you gain from SP make a major difference as well, and focusing on hit rating early on makes it much easier to transition into group content once you’ve hit 50.

Schmidy knows his stuff, though it should be noted that some of his builds are pretty old at this point and also assume some things about your gear and level. They should at the very least be a good starting point.

Hammer in particular is a fantastic DPS weapon, and for solo stuff it might be a better mainhand in many cases just for the frontloaded DPS(since a lot of the time in soloing just killing stuff fast is the best solution).

To visit lower level content, you can select ‘private group’ at the bottom of the LFG window. This won’t put you in the queue, but you can form your own group if you need help. This is to prevent people in full 70 reds to enter the story queue and trivialize lower level content for people who might not want that.

Once you reach level 50 and start leveling your gear, five of the dungeons have ‘elite’ versions with multiple difficulty levels that are unlocked based on your gear.

If you spend all of your time in Kingsmouth, you won’t see anything in the chat because general, looking for group, trade, and a few other channels are limited to the zone you are in. Mostly, people post stuff for those channels within Agartha, London, Seoul, or New York.

There are a few global channels, but you need to join those. For instance, you can type:

/chat join sanctuary

This will join the Sanctuary channel, a global channel for general socializing and particularly for helping new players. There is also the channel noobmares for helping newer players get into dungeon groups, and swlrp for finding roleplayers.

You can also get a script to automatically join channels when logging in; I don’t use it but someone in those channels could probably link you.

Okay, I’m going to go into a bit of detail, but it is still scratching the surface. Try not to worry about it all at once; I know it might look daunting, but I’ll try to break it down a bit.

You’ll want to be leveling your gear, sending agents out on missions, and investing your AP and SP in abilities and passives. There are other guides on here available for those things, who explain much better than I can - if you have specific questions, though, feel free to ask.

  • Joining Sanctuary is a good start for finding other humans to talk to. There are also various discord servers devoted to the game, various cabals, and dungeoning groups.

  • I’d suggest getting to level 50 as a good short term goal; this will unlock purple gear, the use of signets, access to elite dungeons and the game’s single raid, and scenarios.

  • After hitting 50, the very first thing I’d do is go to the central hub in Agartha and do the ‘Crossroad of the Worlds’ mission. This unlocks the story mode of the Manhattan Exclusion Zone, aka ‘New York Raid’ or NYR. You can either queue for it or ask for players to run it in Looking for Group. If you get into a group, make sure to announce that this is your first time; otherwise, expect people to run right through without explaining anything because the game doesn’t have a lot of new players.

  • After 50, you will be able to queue for scenarios. These are mini-dungeons where you fight off timed waves of monsters. At the end, you can use a scenario key(patrons get 3/day) to open a chest that usually contains anima shards and glyph/signet distillates and the very occasional agent. Scenarios can be done either solo or duo with a partner.

  1. Seek and Preserve (SP) scenarios last about fifteen minutes, and have you protecting a group of NPCs from attackers. They give better gear for their difficulty level than OD scenarios, but take longer and at high levels have more rigid requirements.

  2. Occult Defense (OD) scenarios happen in 3.5 minute increments, at the end of which you have the choice to increase the difficulty and proceed, or ‘cash out.’ You have to keep monsters out of the center of a stone circle while killing them. They give worse gear than SP scenarios of equivalent difficulty scaling, but have various other benefits such as being faster and giving more loot. Also, they allow you to keep progressing as long as you can keep surviving; this allows a lower level player to do waves much higher level by going in with a stronger partner.

  • Keep an ear open in Looking for Group for high level players who run low level dungeons for fast loot; they will often be perfectly happy to drag you along, kicking and screaming.

  • Also watch for people running ‘lairs.’ These are a more casual sort of group content making use of your daily ‘lair keys’ and mostly yield signets and signet accessories. They are typically done in groups of ten people, and if you join one make sure to let them know that you are new and need explanation.

  • Keep track of people you group with. This is a small game community, and the people you meet are the same people who will be around next time you are looking for people to play with. Make friends.

  • A cabal is not required, and many patrons create ‘personal cabals’ simply to give themselves a second bank. That said, there are several excellent cabals available; once you run group content a bit you’ll start recognizing a few names. I’ll keep the advertising to a minimum but the cabal I am part of, Omne Datum Optimum, is one of the founding cabals from the original game, with a mix of raiding, lairs, and other activities. We currently have a small handful of members in their late 40s, though the majority of us are fairly high leveled.

  • You will get introduction missions for the Museum of the Occult and Dark Agartha at some point. I suggest looking at guides for those before investing in them; the Museum is a massive endgame investment, and Dark Agartha is a way to use up AP and SP once you have completed all of your capstones and passives. The intro missions for each give a single ‘free’ bonus to start you off, and the first completion of Dark Agartha grants an upgrade item that will add an extra pip to a glyph. So that is very worth doing, but only if you can actually complete it. :skull_and_crossbones:

Whew. That ended up longer than planned, despite barely scratching the surface.

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Welcome to the secret world :smiley:

XP isn’t hard to come by, but it remains a sink for a fair while, as there are loads of passive and active abilities to buy. The zones give better xp as you advance, and at level 41 you’re pretty seriously over level if you’re only running around KM and SC :slight_smile: Completing more of the story mission will unlock more zones, which should help add a bit of variety for you both, (plus the story’s really good).

Gearwise, you’re right, upgrading your stuff to increase your power is the key. The item drops are almost all green lvl 1 that you then upgrade or use as fodder for item xp/fusion. Dungeons drop distillate items, which give you the fastest path for upgrades, and the higher the dungeon the better. The activity finder level limit can be bypassed by ticking “Private Group”, but then you won’t have anyone else added to your party. It’s not really a problem if you’re going back to look at stuff, (specially if there’s two of you!) but if you were hoping to meet people and possibly aid someone lower level in the process, then you’ll need to find someone through chat.

Once you reach level 50, you should find it easier to get groups for dungeons. Cabals tend to advertise in the social window (shift C), as well as callouts in Agartha. There’s often little chatter in the play zones though, I guess because people are focusing on killing stuff!
There’s a thread here with a cabal directory. Most established cabals don’t really push on the recruiting though, so you’ll probably need to have a look rather than expecting them to come to you.

If you’re looking for a wider social base, there are also custom channels available, like Sanctuary. You can type /chat join Sanctuary to join the channel, but your custom channels won’t be remembered by the game when you log out, so you’ll need to rejoin the channel whenever you log in.

Items on the Auction House are a bit hit and miss. There’s been quite a lot of community number crunching to work out the optimal items, which is great in terms of finding out what to use, but it also means that those talis/weapons sell for a lot, and everything else has comparatively little value (even when it looks like it’s high quality).

The “lets play” videos tend to focus on one person because it’s easier to co-ordinate just one person running around and explaining stuff. Plus, most non-instanced parts of the game are balanced around a single player, so if you tend to run with company, you will chew through stuff pretty fast unless you’re doing a specific group activity

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Damage compared to or against what? At level 41 you should be well into Egypt, not mucking around Solomon Island. Have you been upgrading your gear at all? If you don’t understand how gearing works in SWL, perhaps take a few minutes to read the Beginner Guide at TSWDB.

As far as the story is concerned, you don’t really have a choice. If you don’t follow it you lock yourself out of the majority of the game’s zones and quests. There’s no shortcut.

There’s also not a huge trove of end-game content at the end of the rainbow. So if you genuinely don’t care for the stories the game has to tell even the first time you experience it (e.g. you skip through the cinematics, don’t want to read the quest journal, don’t listen to what the NPCs have to tell, etc), SWL might not be the best game for you.

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" I can do the story quest, but its sort of boring".

Well if the games strongest feature isn’t doing much for you then I’m not sure there’s much I can say or do to help.

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What @Drenneth said.

Then SWL endgame is a mindnumbingly boring grind even by mindnumbingly boring MMO grind standards, so if the journey of getting there - the story - isn’t doing much for you, I don’t think you will ever not be bored.

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They relaunched this game with the “Story” as it’s main focus.
That was supposed to be it’s strongest feature they said…

It’s strongest feature is actually the community.

The reason you’re bored is because the game is a watered down version of it’s predecessor.
In hopes to make it more “Accessible” to a wider audience. (with as much fluff you can shake your mommas credit card at) In fact it was aimed at a very select audience only.

In truth - you are playing the wrong version of the game.

If it’s builds and gear and augments and stuff you want with tons of XP raining down on you (OMG ALL THE STUFFS) then you want her far better looking sister game TSW. (The Secret World) - being an MMO player of many games over the past 20 years then it shouldn’t be that hard for you to find how to get into TSW.

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The Secret World (at Meta-Moth) stated - best game. Legends (or Secret World Lite) is an easier, grindier (IMHO) game.

You should continue on at your level into Egypt though. The story even in SWL is really good. How to alleviate your boredom past that, no idea.

Love the original game and even SWL is fun, but the promises of new content that doesn’t come and lack of communication (the whole transparency promises again and again), I don’t even play anymore, repeating the exact same thing since 2012, it’s just a bit mind numbing. Now I only check the forum about once a week to see if just maybe FC is going to add something or pull the plug.

Too bad as it is one of the best MMO’s I’ve played ever. Like you MMO’s since WoW/EQ2 release. Potato PC’s before that couldn’t handle EQ.

Finish up the Sol Islands and the story - it’s worthy it to play through at least once.

Great community (best thing about the game other than the story!) and you have some solid advice here.

Enjoy the game - it’s worth at least one play through.

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I actually was in the original secret world for about a couple weeks back when it first released. Wasn’t really my cup of tea - I am older now so my disposition has changed a bit. I actually sat in chat/forums and doing the pre-closed beta contests trying to get in, however I had a life and couldnt dedicate the time needed to be online at the right time, and never got in.

I might give the original TSW a second look, but im not really looking for the “(OMG ALL THE STUFFS)” with tons of XP raining down on me.

What I am looking for is to “be engaged”.

I feel like most MMO companies in the entire market have lost sight over this ever since the MMO bubble burst. I feel like THIS game (the secret world franchise) gets the closest to that mark (keeping the player engaged).

It would seem that with my origianl OP I ruffled some feathers, and a couple responses here actually offended me. As I said, I was just being truthful and honest, it seems that you cant do that all the time on forums.

Having said that, I think I need to clarify what I meant by that.
The story in this game is awesome. It is not only awesome, it is superb. A perfect 10.
Before I talked my wife into diving into this game, I actually made that point, that this game has the best story for the main quests and the other quests than any other game I ever played (in 20 years!)

Thats saying a lot.

Thats also coming from my experience from playing TSW (original one) for two weeks like 7 or so years ago!

So to those who might be a tad sensitive that I am putting this game now, I am not!
What I meant when I was saying “its getting boring” was that it felt like I was reading a novel or watching a movie more than playing a game, and yes that did/does get boring after a while.

Sometimes I just wanna blow @$*! up, you know?

The puzzles are awesome, the dialogue is awesome, the quests ARE engaging, but it sort of feels like “something is missing” sometimes.

And it could just be me. This game could be perfect and these “flaws” that people think I am pointing out could just be my own.

I mean, total honesty - this game isnt for everyone. Otherwise everyone would be playing it. BUT IT DOES HAVE ITS PLACE. And right now, I feel like my place is here.

I just dont want to get bored/burned out and that feeling to change is all.

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Thank you for this response, it was helpful and had lots of good info in it.

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Thank you for this response, I actually did do a little digging and found out that you COULD do the “private group” thing and go back to instances lower level to explore them…etc.

It was in a reddit post I read last night. That post was very informative and also brought me to the TSWDB page called: The Ultimate Beginner Guide.

Wow what a godsend! lol

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My apologies I was clearly lost in translating what you meant. The statement that you found the main story quest boring really wasn’t something I expected to see a deeper meaning in.

However, If what you really meant is that you love the story and think its the most amazing story you have experienced in 20 years then Welcome! This might be the game for you. As for finding ways to become engaged with the community look into joining a cabal in game. Though its possible to be a sort of drifter and join random groups it is very challenging and the wait times can be tremendous. Being that the community is very small most group content is done routinely within cabals. And most cabals will pick up those in the cabal before looking for randoms. They also offer a wealth of game play knowledge and advice to steer you on the right path for builds and gear should you want.

As for being truthful and honest on the forums please continue to do so! I personally take no insult to this provided the honestly and truthfulness we provide in return using the interpretations (or re-interpretations) of what we have been provided are accepted also.

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Thanks man.

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“The reason you’re bored is because the game is a watered down version of it’s predecessor.
In hopes to make it more “Accessible” to a wider audience. (with as much fluff you can shake your mommas credit card at) In fact it was aimed at a very select audience only.”

What do you mean with the bolded/italicized text?

Can you be a bit specific as to how TSW is so different than Legends?

Furthermore, how long is original “TSW” able to be played before it gets shut down and its only “Legends”?

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Be aware, you may be at the start of a rabbit hole here. There are some TSW players who never liked the idea of rebooting the ip to make SWL, specially as it’s meant that TSW no longer gets new or seasonal content. There’s quite a bit of saltiness about it, with the fact that the relaunch was a shock surprise being another fairly big culprit.

The main thing is that the combat and gear systems for the two titles are based on using different mechanics, so things like TSW uses tab-targetting, SWL uses the mouse linked reticle.
TSW’s gear progression system is much quicker to max out, but there’s not really any content aimed at challenging players with good gear, except for the nightmare raids, (which are locked behind a grind wall). TSW does have more dungeons and more raids though, even if they end up being easier due to the gear system.

TSW has lots more potential for different builds, (it has a huge variety to choose from,) but it’s also a lot easier to make a build which underperforms badly, which many new players found to be a stumbling block. TSW has a much better PVP setup, with more battlegrounds available, and greater build diversity allowing people to really punch harder/weaker based on their ability selection.

Funcom have said that the TSW servers will stay online and have no plans to stop them, but they won’t get any new content or updates, only SWL will.

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This answers it in a nutshell nicely. Quite simply put - TSW has a lot more to offer even now.
I’m still having hours of fun daily sticking with TSW - both games can be played however.
SWL - if and when they add a lil bit of story - and TSW for all the rest of the good stuff that isn’t in SWL…
Like PVP, more dungeons, more raids etc - this alone makes it a fantastic standalone game alongside SWL - Even the store still works to buy DLC’s for those who are new.

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To be fair, I gave SWL a good chance. I played it for the best part of a year before I decided I preferred the original.

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Cthulhu forgive me for what i am about to do…
For i meant it with all of my heart …

Unfortunately i must refrain from giving you my honest answer.
Which surely tells you - all you need to know.

Your other question tho…

You can still buy keys for TSW and if you still have your old account details for TSW then it should still work also. I hear the GM’s of Funcom are still very helpful in getting people who had accounts previous back into them again.

You can download TSW from the account login page of TSW not SWL.
Takes a bit of digging but you eventually find it.

Funcom provide another file to use when you download the TSW client.
This LocalConfig file must used to replace the one that comes with the client patcher
failure to do so - will result in the TSW patcher automatically turning itself into… SWL

The original will still be able to be played for as long as FC decides to keep the server open.
I don’t think they have ever shut one down before, who knows i may be wrong.
But Anarchy Online is still open and they are in maintenance mode too and still get sometimes an update i think? AND - they have their own place on the forums here, TSW - does not.
it’s like it doesn’t exist - but it does.

The community are the best.
Always have been & always will be.
We are glad you are here, in either game - more than Funcom are…
That’s a truth.

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For links on how to play using the tsw client instead of SWL, check out this forum post.

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I had found a post earlier that was older that a dev/community mod person told me about the xml file.
I am playing TSW (original) now, and I have to admit, the old version seems better, maybe spicier. However, in kingsmouth there are not near as many anima wells around as in TSW:L, and there seems to be less quests (maybe not, just my perception). The UI is a little different and the combat abilities are different also, but so far its pretty cool. Definitely the community here is awesome though.
I DID actually make a separate folder to TSW and legends, so I have the option to play both now (which I will cause I paid for patron and speed run boost on legends already xD).

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