Saturday, August 18, 2012

Tips for a new player in PK ( Karmadragon )


 When I first started playing this game, I was intrigued by the concept, and the depth this game had to offer. I was also frustrated by the very basic tutorial, missing mentor, noob-unfriendly environment and overall lack of direction when starting as a new player. Since this game is a lot like EVE Online and POTOBS (both good and bad), playing Parallel Kingdoms was in some ways familiar to me, and so I took a liking to it. However, I expect most other new players simply get frustrated and quit (my girlfriend tried this game, too >_<), and this isn't a good thing.

I would like to share my experiences with the game and what I have learned. Once you get enough momentum, this game does become fun (and addicting). I hope a new player reading this information will have a much better time starting in this game than I did, and achieve that momentum. Here are things I have learned as a noob:

Getting Started

  • When starting a new character, always make sure you have a referral code handy. It's a free 1,000 gold when you do, and your only chance to put one in is during the tutorial. It also gives 40 food to the person who referred you, each time you level up (until level 8, I think). Last I checked, 40 food equals about 15,000 gold, so the person who referred you is getting the better end of the deal. Still, even 1,000 gold is useful at the start of the game, but try to use a referral code from someone who deserves it!
  • Food is a very valuable resource in this game. You need to spend 80 food each time you level up your character, or else you are stuck at that level. 80 food costs about 30k gold, which is a lot. This game gives you a starting amount of food, and it also gives you an extra 2 food every now and then, but it's not much. Try to be responsible with how you spend your food. You can also sell items for food at a Trade Hub.
  • Chopping wood gives you a lot of food and/or gold. If you ever need either, go chop some wood. Being a part of a large city or kingdom makes this much easier. Chopping trees is also a great way to harvest sap and berries. If trolls come out to bother you, just kill them and continue chopping. They will get angry and refuse to sell you Roc feathers, but only for (at most) a day, so make sure you have enough feathers before attacking them
  • If you have questions about something and want to learn more, make sure you check out the Official Guide (actually, it's more like a wiki). You can also access this guide in-game, by going into the game menu and clicking on the "?" icon in the top-right.
Skills & Equipment

  • Combat Training is the most important skill to max out, so much that I maxed it out from the very start. It offers the biggest improvement for any new player, and allows you to do cool things like tank damage from an entire flag full of enemies, or kill dragons with spears at level 1.
  • Taunt and Cleave are also important skills to have. Taunt will cause most enemies to fight you in a group, and Cleave will damage multiple enemies at once. This combination allows you to quickly kill multiple enemies and clear entire flags. I've only ever needed to put two points into Taunt, but Cleave is very weak until you max it at level 3. Cleave also doesn't work well against tougher enemies. This is why Hunter's Eye is another important skill, because it multiplies damage dealt by up to 2x (at level 3).
  • There are different player classes unlocked at level 10. The different classes are: Legion, Knight, Warrior, Ranger, Militia, Ninja, Assassin, Druid, Thief, Mercenary, and Oiyoy Master. These classes give bonuses to specific weapons and armor, so you should plan ahead before buying any expensive equipment. You don't want to buy a +20 breastplate for your Ninja, only to find out they only wear tunics. There are also other, non-combat classes that you might want to plan ahead for. These classes are: Merchant, Crafter, and Explorer.
  • It’s much cheaper to buy upgraded equipment, than upgrade it yourself. I have gotten +7-10 equipment for as little as 1.5k per item. I'd also suggest saving up for level 20+ equipment and buying that as well. For the best prices (and availability) on items and equipment, get an invite to one of the major Trade Hubs. These hubs are where most players shop, and they usually have the best prices for everything. Happy Valley(Oregon), Commerce(Texas), and New York(New York) are the few I have heard of. Ask in trade chat for the best hub relative to your location, and a friendly person might even invite you there for free!
  • If you really feel like upgrading your equipment, wait until the durability drops below 10%. I've been told that upgrade costs are based upon durability, so lower the rating, the cheaper the cost.
  • Don't spend gold repairing your equipment. Halvar's Resin is much cheaper and you can easily craft it or buy it from a Trade Hub.
  • It's always nice to keep a stockpile of important things in your house. Try to keep an emergency stash of food, berries, roc feathers, halvar's resin, wood, and leather. Learn to buy in bulk: it's not only cheaper, but it allows you to resupply at your house instead of travelling farther away to a trade hub.
  • Buy a regular pair of gloves and boots as soon as you can afford it. They make life so much easier. Chopping wood wears out gloves quickly, usually after 100 chops. Since gloves and boots cannot be repaired, you should keep that in mind. You need a city house or country manor in order to equip gloves or boots.
  • Purses help protect you from losing gold when you die, but they are also very expensive. You don't need a purse if you are a) careful and b) keep most of your wealth in food and items. You will want to get a purse eventually, but you can put it off for a while.
Hunting & Leveling

  • When attacked by multiple enemies, they will only attack you one at a time, so don’t worry about fighting too many. This is why taunt is such a great skill to have. The more enemies you can get within a flag (to taunt them), the better. This also means harder-hitting enemies do less damage when you fight them with weaker enemies, because they attack less often.
  • Remember that flags sometimes overlap, so if you clear a flag, you might also clear about 30% off the flags right next to you. Make sure you put enough distance between flag jumps to maximize the amount of enemies per flag.
  • Learn how to berry-tank. It's when you heal yourself during combat using a Mourning Berry, and use the health regeneration to "tank" the damage dealt by multiple enemies. You can also use the healing aura from Mourning Trees, but be careful: Enemies within the aura will also get healed. Try to always keep your health above 30%, so if your tank ever breaks (i.e you're taking more damage than you can heal) you have time to run away.
  • When a monster is killed, you get experience based on the damage dealt, not the killing blow. So if someone else does 90% of the damage, they will get 90% of the experience, even if you killed the monster. This is also true for monsters that attack each other. Even though it's cool to watch monsters duke it out, you are losing potential experience for killing that monster.
  • When you jump to a flag, enemies are spawned based on your average *equipment* level, not your player level, so always keep that in mind. While there are 26 equipment levels, there are only 5 tiers of enemies: Timid, Normal, Strong, Vicious, and Epic. Because of this, enemy difficulty is not distributed evenly. At certain equipment levels, you might spawn enemies too strong for you, making leveling difficult. You might also run into difficult enemies that were spawned by a previous, higher-level player. Try to avoid these tougher enemies, at least until you are strong enough to tank their damage.
  • I have found the “sweet spot” for leveling to be around equipment level 10, because you will spawn at most Strong-tier enemies, which should be easy to kill. Vicious and Epic tier enemies are usually much more difficult and not worth the effort until you get 20+ equipment.
  • Water hunting(a.k.a hunting in the ocean), when done properly, is an amazing source of gold and experience. So much experience, in fact, that you can easily outpace your gold (and food) income and get stuck not being able to afford to level up (it costs 80 food, or under 30k gold). Be careful of that. When water hunting, don't be afraid to skip monsters that are too much effort to kill. I regularly skip Sirens, Corrupted Ones, and Stone Hunters. Speed and efficiency is key.
Building & Exploration

  • Owning land, at least in the beginning, is overrated. It's better to find someone with a lot of flags (in a good location) and ask them for passage rights. Cities and Kingdoms can also give you access to lots of free land. You want one that is quiet and peaceful, preferably near a body of water (for water hunting). Being in a city also let's you build a City House. I'd suggest building your own city house right away (use the gold from the referral code), because they let you drop items on the ground for storage and they also let you equip gloves/boots.
  • Upgrading your Log Cabin to a Country Manor gives you the ability to upgrade certain flags so you can jump to them from the travel menu. This becomes extremely useful later in the game when building flags in remote locations, or marking Troll Huts, claimed Caves/Mines, dungeons, etc. for easy access.
  • When you decide to settle down and build your Country Manor, make sure you build it in a remote location that other players can't easily get to. This will protect you from retaliation by enemy players, who will want to burn down your territory. Usually, you can find a remote location by walking your dog, but this will not really work for players who live in a heavily populated area. Remember: Your dog will always walk you to open territory relative to your current position. If you relocate yourself to a less populated region, your dog will have a much better chance of walking you to a remote area.
  • If you ever find yourself stranded without any Roc feathers, use your City Ticket! This is a ticket in your inventory for the city nearest to you when you first created your character. You can always use this ticket to travel back to this city for zero Roc feathers. You can also use the "Relocate" option in the travel menu, which is also free. If you join a Kingdom, you will always be able to travel to your Kingdom's castle for free.
  • Oil wells, Crystal Huts and Research Labs are all cumulative. The sooner you build them, the more they will pay off in the long run. I've only ever needed 1 of each. You should also build an Armory and start training Axemen Golems right away, because they are extremely beneficial to have later on, and a single +5 upgraded axeman golem takes 4-5 days to make. Might as well start now!
Other Tips

  • Some skills require you to collect Troodont scales, Roc eggs, or other items from a Dungeon in order to unlock them. Since it costs Refined Oil (a.k.a food) every time you enter a dungeon, it's usually much easier (and cheaper) to buy these items off the market and turn them in the first time.
  • If you ever find yourself with a lot of gold, and you need a safe place to store it (so you don't lose any on death), you can use Trade Hubs like a rudimentary bank. Place the gold in a sell order for some ridiculous price, and the gold will remain safely in the Trade Hub until the sell order expires, which is two weeks.
  • If you're having trouble redeeming your 100 free food through PK's Facebook offer, try using Internet Explorer on a computer (instead of your mobile device). That is what finally worked for me.

Keep in mind this information is based on my experience, and is partly my opinion. I will try to add to this post as I learn more things. I'm also open to suggestions from other players! Feel free to critique my post below, or offer additional tips! If you found the above information useful, feel free to use my referral code: YFNCFX. In return, I'll also try to be your (unofficial) mentor in-game. I think the devs should make it work like this by default, but that's another discussion.

http://forum.parallelkingdom.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15064

Monday, July 23, 2012

One Million Bricks



Some stats on achieving a small milestone:

1 million bricks (bricks baker badge)

Time Taken: c. 50 days
Biggest day: 50,000 bricks
Lowest day: 0 bricks
Average bricks per day: 20,000

The main tactic I used was to have a single player kingdom with silk spinner spawns.  Whenever I found a spawn I would build a level 3 obelisk.  Occasionally it was necessary to disconnect flags to find new spots.  Walking the dog was helpful too!

Can anyone beat 1 million bricks?

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Druidic Growth

Druidic Growth is obtained once you have unlocked your first kingdom perk.

The documentation is not that clear on what it does.

"Druidic Growth - +3 Healing for Members when on Connected Kingdom Land"

Connected land basically means kingdom flags or obelisks

So far I have noticed two effects:

+3 healing when you are eating a berry
+3 healing to trodent doctrine

Sorry folks, it does not give you +3 healing while just standing around.  Nevertheless it's a useful feature, imho.   It's a tossup between this and private hunting for your first perk, if you do a lot of KD hunting.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

The Ultimate Guide To Killing Silk Burrowers

Introduction

For those that are unaware, Silk Burrowers (aka silkies), are probably parallel kingdom's best kept secret.  The reason is that as you kill them they sometimes 'split' and allow the creation of more and more.  In this way you can gain more gold, mats, pages and more.

Spawns

Silkies are found only in asia, so try and find cities that are on that continent.  The more secluded the spot, the better the return as you will have to share less.  It is a good tactic to put shrines (up to 12) on a silkie spawn.  You can also use your war camp, cabins and kd war camps to increase your jump points.

Silkies respawn every 6 hours but can very inconsistent.  The best way to ensure a return is to clear out the whole circle.  Some spots are very good at respawning.  These should be shrined.

General Strategy

Generally you want to get silkies as high as possible in level.  Epic / Epic is by far the best yielding around 30 gold per second raw.  This means getting your effective level up as high as you can.  Effective level is the average of your best weapon and best armor rounded UP.   So try and cap something and get to effective level 26.

You'll need a good shield, and maybe even a shield ring.  Legion and knight are good with shields.  Generally you will unequip your weapon to generate maximum number of spawns which will be just under 200 if you do it right.

You may use a low level honed weapon, but no poison.  You may lay into the silkies a bit from time to time with a weapon, especially at the start.  In truth it makes little difference.

You may need a few berries to heal but by the end you'll be generating HP back using trodent.  You may also want to use a HP ring for that extra 15 HP but it's not really needed.  Note that you dont need any BP or armor at all other than your shield.

Try to find 12 spawns then keep cycling them as long as you need gold.  Boring but highly effective.


Running the numbers

Epic / Epic will give you roughly 30 gold per second, Epic / Vic roughly 25 and Vic / Vic roughly 20.  You get a higher return due to mats (especially with scavenge), and bricks or coins.  Good silkie hunting can make you consistently 100k an hour.

Hunter monoliths help a lot, if you have that skill too.

Skills

Scavenge is essential, as is trodent.  Taunt isnt really that helpful.  Hunter's eye is better removed.  Dragon master 2 is nice for those extra hitpoints.


Group Hunting

Doing this in a group will yield you about 50% more gold but you'll need many more spawns.  However warden 3 will help with healing (dont forget to move).  If you are legion then you will get a shield bonus too, which is very nice.

Conclusion

Silkies can be hard to find, but once you have enough consistent spawns, can make you 2 million+ gold a day  a whole bunch of mats and coins and bricks.  I dont know if they will ever be nerfed by perblue but for the moment they are probably the lowest intensity way to make a ton of money in the game.  If you employ some of the tips above hopefully it will see you rise up the gold lists!  Good luck!


Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Skill Allocations for level 40

I recommend the following skill point allocations for level 40 players

Essential Skills

Combat 3 -- Simply a must

Taunt 3 -- Great to maximize your kills

Trodent Doctrine 3 -- Essential for hunting

Cleave 3 -- Also essential for hunting

Dragon Master 2 -- 20 Extra HP invaluable for non warriors and warriors alike


Very Important Skills

Shield Charge 3 -- Great for hunting

Serenity 3 -- Saves those valuable seconds, good for groups

Blacksmithing 3 -- Save gold and halvar keeping your weapons in trim

Scavenge 3 -- Extra gold especially from silkies


Important Skills

Troll lore 2 -- if you chop trees a lot

Aquarian 1 -- for pearls and whirlpools if you water hunt

Monolith 3 -- My absolute favourite if you can get it unlocked

Warden 3 -- Great in a group

Archery 1 -- In case you need to use a bow


Unessential skills

Hunter's eye -- yes you can live without it and it hinders your silkie runs

All crafting -- get them with your gold and connections

Cartography -- Use gold


These make up my rough pyramid of skills.  Different classes will have different priorities, but I'm basing mine on Legion.  Militia will want archery and Ninja will want Oiyoi, for example.  But I think the mix above is a great template.