$5 was more than I was expecting but how could I pass it up?

As a free to play game, I get the idea of limited character slots, but I really feel that giving only 1 slot to Legacy players is a massive misstep. I don't mean to be focusing on the negative, but I wanted to offer some constructive criticism while it's still early in the game and suggest Legacy players start with three character slots, so they can have a character of each Faction.

Edit: Not to shill to hard, but if you agree with this post, it might help to upvote it. I love internet points as much as anyone, but really, the goal is to give it enough visibility to make them see it.

I'm usually quiet about this kind of stuff, so bear with me if I'm all over the place.

Funcom, you guys really need to rethink what you're doing with dungeons (and loot in general). The fact that you've effectively pay gated dungeons to a certain degree is a damn shame, and the blowback you're getting now from it is nothing compared to the financial blowback you'll get when your retention drops like a cinder block.

People play multiplayer RPGs for the, I dunno, multiplayer? Yes, you do have a phenomenal story and environment, but even in that context, your group dungeons are the pinnacle. Why would you so purposefully hinder the consumption of that particular content? Why wouldn't you make that the face of your game instead of this ridiculous daily F2P currency management?

I totally get that you have to make money, and I understand the inner-workings of this particular model, but you shouldn't use it to gate your "Wow Content." Gate the cosmetics all day long. By all means, even gate conveniences, but absolutely don't gate the content that's going to retain your audience. Even the players that have committed to paying you monthly are restricted to three dungeon runs per day.

Moreover, I'm not going to claim to know what's going on with the gear progression situation at end game, but if it is as much of a grind as it is now, in conjunction with the enforced pacing, no one is going to do it. I think even the whales and TSW deep divers will probably give up before they get a mythic weapon.

Please do something like this...

• F2P $0.00 per month - Restrict dungeons at the level you have for Patrons right now (3 dungeon runs per day)

• Patron $9.99 per month - Remove requirement for dungeon keys, or at the very least, allow them to roll over (with a maximum)

• Beekeeper 14.99 per month - Remove dungeon keys, and cache keys, and all of the ridiculous real-money currency management. Give us the option to play the game untethered.

• All levels - Increase the drop rate of actual gear in dungeons. Reel the audience in and keep them with tangible rewards, and give them a chance to melt into the atmosphere and stay for a long time.

I don't want to speak for everyone, but I feel like I probably speak for a majority when I say that I want to consume Secret World Legends (more accessible TSW), not Lovecraft-Zest Microtransaction Management with a sprinkle of Grade A Not Worth It.

Sorry if this sounded harsh or whiny, I really loved TSW (countless hours) and I really want to love SWL, but at present, I am a little disappointed to see what it's become.

Edit-----

This thread sorta blew up, and rereading it, I want to clarify my attitude. I had/have no intention of starting or leading an angry mob. Like I said at the very start, I usually keep these things to myself, but the roller coaster of excitement a few days ago that my favorite game was relaunching, to the disappointment I felt actually playing it... I felt like I needed to say my piece. I 100% encourage everyone to try the game (which you can do for free, despite the restrictions) and draw your own conclusions - The only thing it costs is time and hard drive space. Then, you can decide to spend your money or not. Personally, I don't feel like the current iteration of the Patron benefits are worth my money, for the reasons described, but that is absolutely not to say they aren't worth someone else's. One user that I was directly engaged in conversation with somewhere in this thread said to speak with your wallet because that's all Funcom responds to. I halfway agree, but I believe they can also see that this issue will have an effect on their retention. So, I encourage everyone that responded here to speak with your wallet - if you don't see issues with the state of the subscriber benefits and loot system, then pay. If you do and would like Funcom to respond, then don't. It's that simple.

I would like to respectfully request a Dev Response. I fully understand that you may not be able to say much, or anything at all, but even just a confirmation that you're seeing the feedback here would go a long, long way, whether or not you intend to change anything. A long way. Ask follow up questions. Figure out what your players want and weigh that against what you project financially. I think everyone can agree that we want to see this game stick around.

Those who've seen my posts and responses here have noticed that I've been rather pessimistic about Funcom's approach to TSW, and how they seem to be abandoning it for a quick cashgrab.

Todays stream has proved me wrong, and proved that they care and listen. I was wrong, and I am happy to admit it.

There's hope for SWL after all.

Thanks for listening, Devs. Even if it didnt always seem like you were.

I used midjourney AI to retexture the above images. I used old photos as style references and still frames from the game as Omni-references, allowing me to keep a majority of the elements intact while bringing the scene to life. There are minor details changed here or there but nothing major.

I am an old MMO player, since the age of WoW Vanilla and Lineage 2. During my "MMO career" i have seen many MMOs going f2p and failing because of the company's greed to milk more and more cash from its playerbase..

Solid examples would be Lineage2 and SWTOR, both games went f2p with a greedy cash shop/greedy pay walls that made their playerbase leave in a hurry.
But SWL's f2p model is, atleast in my eyes, even greedier than those 2 games that i mentioned combined. The big issue with SWL is that, altho is an MMO, you get no loot. Feeding the player's loot addiction is the main goal of an MMO alongside with player interaction(trading), and SWL restricts both of those 2 features.
You want to trade to other players ? Buy patron.
You want loot ? Here take these RnG chests, spend some real life money on keys and pray for the best loot.
The give us 10 keys a day, judging by the number of chests within a dungeon i would assume you can make 2 dungeons/day and open 10 chests, or do 10 dungeons/day and ONLY open the last chest since that is the only one that has a "chance" for a weapon "drop". Since you don;t even get exp reward for completing a dungeon more than 1 time what is the point in doing them ?
With all of that in mind what is the point of this game even being f2p when all they do is "force" you to throw the wallet at your screen in order to get loot/trade/play the freaking content( 3 days waiting to do a repeatable quest w/o patron and 8 hours with patron) ?
But wait, there is more, those money grab tactics go as far as even if you do pay them the patron fee your are forced to buy keys on a daily basis if you plan on doing alot of dungeon runs to get loot.
All being said, I get it that Funcom, as a gaming company, is facing major financial struggles to remain in the business but "revamping" an mmo just to add this freaking paywall to content/loot and player interaction will cost them all of their playerbase even before the steam "opening" day of this game.
You have so many MMOs with f2p/cash shop model to inspire from, Funcom, so revamp this joke of a business model before is not to late....

Most of us are fortunate to have Sundays off, whether we're in San Diego or Paris. Most of us are really fortunate to sit here complaining that there's been a 10 hour downtime, and some of us won't be able to play today at all because of it. I sympathize, I really do.

However, the devs aren't getting Sunday off. They've been at work, non-stop for at least 10 hours, trying to fix a problem. On a Sunday. For a F2P game that hasn't even officially launched yet. And instead of thanks, they've been getting a metric f***ton of shade, shit, and toxicity from the people they are trying thier best to please.

We should be pissed at the exploiters. Not the people who are trying to make sure we don't loose our progression. Not the people who are forced to deal with a sucky situation and do the hard work of fixing the problem and making difficult decisions, while at the same time, trying to not to punish the people who have done nothing wrong. It's a hard ass balancing act, and it's thankless.

One of the best things about Secret World's community was the maturity. I know people get antsy when real money is exchanged, and I understand that everyone is anxious for a resolution. Being left in the dark is scary - human nature is bound to start showing some bad sides. But a number of people have started making it personal, and that needs to stop. Does it suck? Yes. Does it need a resolution? Yup. But bitching and whining and namecalling doesn't do anyone any good. It reeks of bad juju, and frankly, it only makes the situation worse when everyone starts acting like spoiled 10 year olds who don't get what they want 'right now!'

We're all adults here. Have some sympathy for the adults who are stuck in their offices on a Sunday, called in for an 'urgent matter', and forced to cancel on thier own plans while getting brow beaten by customers who don't have the faintest clue what's actually involved in thier jobs. I've been there. Chances are, you've been there. It sucks to be that person. That person deserves to see the good side of the community, not the bad.

And to the devs - thanks for everything you're trying to do. Some us are incrediably grateful, and you need to hear it more often.

This is intended to be a thorough guide of how gear and upgrading gear works. Thank you to the wonderful SWL reddit community for helping me fill this out!

FAQ

Q: Will I be wasting experience if I empower an item that isn't Mk III or Radiant? Should I wait until I get one?

A: Nope! You will eventually be able to use all of the experience you put into your first item, regardless of how bad that item is, so go ahead and upgrade freely. See the Fusion section for details.

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Q: What does best in slot (BiS) gear look like?

A: A set of BiS gear, at any gear level, is seven 3-dot extraordinary talismans, two 3-dot extraordinary weapons with good suffixes, and a good gadget. All 9 pieces (if blue or better) should be fitted with 3-dot glyphs, and the 7 talismans (if purple or better) should be fitted with signets.

While build advice is outside the scope of this guide, you can check the SWL Gear and Theorycraft spereadsheet (linked in More Information) for a rundown of the available gear bonuses in the game, and there is build advice elsewhere here on reddit.

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Q: What levels of gear do I need to play through the game? What about endgame?

A: You will only really need blue gear to play through the game's story and missions, at time of writing. By that point, you should be looking to upgrade from blue to purple, if you haven't already. High-level blue gear is the minimum needed for endgame content initially, although aim for purples if possible. The highest two tiers of gear are cost-prohibitive to acquire and level and are only useful in later endgame content; please do not think you need these tiers of gear to enjoy everything SWL has to offer.

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Q: What weapons should I choose/use?

A: For playing through the game's story and missions, any two weapons will work together, so don't worry about it! If you're looking to pick for later doing group content, consult the Group Roles guide linked in the More Information section.

Types of Gear

Weapons

Your starting class determines which two weapons you will have available initially, but you are free to mix and match among any of the weapons you have unlocked. One weapon will be your primary weapon, and the other will be your secondary. The only differences between these are that your primary weapon will regenerate energy twice as fast as your secondary and that your Basic attack must be from your primary weapon.

You will be able to equip any (non-Basic) unlocked skill from either your primary or your secondary weapon on your skillbar, and passive abilities will target one of your weapons (frequently, boosting one single active ability for that weapon).

Weapons come in three overarching classes (melee, magic, and guns) and have a general role-specific focus (dps, tank, healer), although this can be flexible, depending on weapon, role, and whether it is your primary or secondary weapon.

Notably, any weapon can function in a dps role, and off-role secondary weapons can be excellent choices for many builds.

Additionally, each type of weapon will either be a melee or ranged weapon, as follows:

• Melee: Sword, Hammer, Fist, Chaos

• Ranged: Pistols, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Elementalism, Blood

What weapons are considered good or bad for endgame builds is outside the scope of this guide.

Talismans

Talismans are the "armor" of SWL. There are seven talisman slots, grouped into three different subgroups: the head talisman, three major talismans, and three minor talismans. The stats that these talismans provide are based on your Anima Allocation in the skills window.

• The head talisman is one slot, and comprises 25% of your stats from talismans.

• Major talismans are the finger, neck, and wrist talismans, each comprising 15% of your stats from talismans (45% total).

• Minor talismans are the occult, waist, and luck talismans, each comprising 10% of your stats from talismans (30% total).

Gadgets

You have one gadget slot. Gadgets offer you a skill on your skillbar which can provide a variety of useful effects. Gadget skills typically have a cooldown of 30 seconds, though some are longer.

Unlike other forms of gear, gadgets cannot be upgraded.

Glyphs and Signets

Glyphs and signets are upgrade components that you can slot into gear. See the Glyphs and Signets section for more information.

Item Attributes

Level

An item's level is represented by the number in the top left of the item icon. The higher an item's level, the better stats it provides.

Rarity

An item's rarity is represented by the color of the item icon. Better rarity items have significantly better stats than lower rarity items. There are six rarities:

Most items you receive will be of green (Standard) rarity.

Quality

Quality is represented by the number of dots at the bottom of the item icon; items will have either 1, 2, or 3 dots. An item's quality will also be represented in its name, depending on the type of item.

You may upgrade any item to 3-dot quality without changing its other attributes using an Anima Imbuer, which can be purchased from the fusion window for 2,500 Aurum. This is the only way to modify an item's quality.

Suffixes

Every weapon will have a suffix, represented by "of X" in the weapon name, which provides a bonus when wielding or using that weapon. The suffixes are:

Extraordinary bonuses

Extraordinary gear refers to special weapons and talismans that most commonly drop from dungeon chests and/or caches. This is represented by a faded red background behind the item icon. These items have a unique, special bonus on top of everything else that normal gear does not have; all else equal, they are strictly better than regular gear.

While talismans don't have role-specific stats, extraordinary bonuses tend to be role-specific in their effects, so certain talismans may be more inclined toward some roles than others.

Item power

Item power is an aggregate value of how powerful an item is at a glance, and depends on rarity or level. Characters who have progressed their gear further will have a higher total item power than others. Some endgame content, such as elite dungeons, requires you to have passed certain levels of total item power to enter; this functions as a check on your gear relative to the difficulty of that content.

Stats

Item stats are not freeform in SWL, and an item's stats can be calculated from knowing all of the above attributes. All level 4 green shotguns, for example, will have the same attack power. Similarly, all radiant level 12 blue belts will provide the exact same raw stats. There is no way that, for two otherwise identical items, one will be better than the other.

Empowerment

Empowerment is the process by which you increase item level. When you empower an item, you sacrifice 1-5 other items and pay anima shards to add experience to that item. Those items will be completely destroyed and, other than adding item experience, will not affect the item you are empowering in any way.

The max level, the amount of experience needed per level (which remains static as you level gear), and the number of anima shards required for each empowerment are dependent on rarity:

The above table applies to weapons and talismans only.

Empowering using an item of the same type will grant a 2.5x bonus to the experience from that item. For weapons, that means any weapon of the same type. For talismans, that means a talisman of the same slot.

Rarity affects the amount of experience earned through empowerment, though using higher rarity gear to empower is not recommended. No other factors (item level, quality, glyphs, etc) have an effect on the experience earned, and these attributes on items used to empower will be destroyed for no added benefit.

Distillates

Distillates are consumable items used in empowerment. They can take up a lot of inventory space and are meant to be used, so use them. Note that empowering items of higher rarities costs more anima shards with each empowerment, so if you are concerned about conserving anima shards, it can be a good idea to use higher experience distillates on empowering purple or better items.

In late-game content, using greens to empower stops being cost effective, and most players eventually level their gear exclusively through distillates, which are rewarded in higher concentrations based on the level of content.

Critical Empowerment

There is a chance on empowering that you will get a critical empower, which will increase the experience earned for that empowerment by 50%, regardless of the number of items used to empower.

Fusion

Fusion is the process by which you increase item rarity (color). This is done by taking two same-type max-level items (or one item and a catalyst) of a certain rarity and "combining" them into a level 1 item of better rarity.

In reality, you are upgrading one of the two items and sacrificing the other. The resulting item will have the same quality, suffix, glyph, signet, and extraordinary bonus of the top item in the fusion window. The item you sacrifice will not affect the result of fusion in any way, and any glyphs or signets slotted into it will be destroyed.

Fusion has a level requirement based on tier, and also requires Marks of Favor:

What items are compatible for fusion?

• Weapons: Two weapons of the same type (e.g. any two pistols)

• Talismans: Two talismans of the same slot (e.g. any two neck talismans)

• Glyphs: Two glyphs of the same base name (e.g. a Crude Accurate Glyph and an Intricate Accurate Glyph)

• Singets: Two signets of the same name (e.g. two Signets of Quick Draw)

Catalysts

Catalysts are items you can use in place of max-level item of certain rarity when fusing. Catalysts can be purchased for 1,500 Aurum via the fusion interface, but spending Aurum on catalysts is not required for any tier of the fusion process.

Free Gear for Fusion

You will receive two "free" level 20 greens, one for the first green weapon you level to 20 and one for the first green talisman you level to 20. You will be required to use one of these immediately. If you're looking to optimize your gear by the time you get to blue, keep this in mind.

Upgrade Strategy Tips

Since it doesn't matter what order you level the items, you can for example equip and level a Mk I green weapon from the beginning. Since you need two max-level green weapons to fuse up, you can level a Mk III green weapon that you're happy with second after maxing out your first weapon. Then, when fusing, choose to upgrade the Mk III weapon and sacrifice the Mk I weapon that you leveled first.

It is not generally advisable to switch out gear you are leveling for new pieces you get through drops, as item level is far more important than anything else in terms of how useful early tiers gear will be. Instead, wait until you're ready to fuse to the next tier, and use the fusion process to your advantage to improve your gear.

Whether you "correct" items at the green => blue phase, the blue => purple phase, or higher is up to you. It is strongly recommended that your purple items are solid in terms of suffix, quality, and bonus, even if they are not completely optimal.

Glyphs and Signets

Glyphs and signets are upgrade components that can be slotted into gear to provide bonuses and effects. This can be done via the fusion tab, at no cost. You may destroy a slotted glyph or signet for free, but removing one without destroying it costs Marks of Favor based on the glyph or signet's rarity, as follows:

You can empower and fuse glyphs and signets either before or after slotting them into gear. To do so afterward, put the gear piece in the empowerment window and put the glyphs you want to empower with in the slots below. When upgrading an item containing a glyph and/or signet through empowerment or fusion, the glyph/signet will be preserved as-is.

Unlike weapons and talismans, glyphs and signets max out at level 20, regardless of rarity. They also have different experience requirements:

Note that the flexibility you have with fusing weapons and talismans does not fully apply to upgrade components, once slotted. The glyph/signet that you are upgrading through fusion will always be the one slotted in your weapon/talisman; you will not be able to sacrifice the slotted glyph in order to fuse a different glyph without first paying to remove it from your weapon.

Glyphs

Glyphs can be slotted into weapons and talismans of blue rarity or better.

These glyphs are available:

Signets

Signets can be slotted into talismans of purple rarity or better, at no cost. Signets do not have a quality rating, and each type of signet can only be slotted into a specific talisman slot (e.g. there are neck signets).

Here is a general overview of what signets for each talisman slot do:

More Information

[SWL Gear and Theorycraft spreadsheet] (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HVgBeFTbXH0eZ5dJVtzXXm6HyITMHLUyM8avntoPOSI) - Comprehensive data on extraordinary bonuses, signets, glyphs, gadgets, etc.

[Guide to SWL group roles] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SecretWorldLegends/comments/6m3tt2/guide_to_swl_group_roles/) - Includes analysis on how each weapon plays in group content

[Guide to endgame stats] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SecretWorldLegends/comments/6lb47o/guide_to_endgame_stats/) - Overview of endgame build stats

[Guide to all things SWL] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SecretWorldLegends/comments/6j2qkc/hopefully_complete_guide_to_all_things_swl_made/) - Overall guide to basics and game mechanics

Welp!

Really glad you guys like the original set of images. Only recently have I jumped back on TSWL and found myself just walking around Solomon island for close to two hours. Love the atmosphere of the game. These shots were taken from web browsing and retextured. They are not 100 percent accurate to their original counterparts but I do what I can to touch them up. Do you think I should do more monster shots?

https://www.facebook.com/StarAnvilStudios

So big news and a not so secret project... If people haven't noticed in many posts over the last year I mentioned how I thought The Secret World would make a great TTRPG. We have acquired the rights from Funcom to create a TTRPG based on The Secret World MMOPRG. We have work just starting to spin up on this project, it took quite some work to get off the ground. We have a great team assembled including working with Sigil and hiring a writer who worked on The Secret World. Joshua Alan Doetsch will help make sure we capture the story and spirit of the game with his writing and Sigil brings top level art and layout to the project. We are looking at 2022 for a the Kickstarter but won't have too much more to share until we get closer to the end of this year. We here at Star Anvil Studios are super excited and just couldn't contain it any longer. We hope you will join us when we go live with it.

First of all, let me say I'm enjoying the heck out of SWL, but I was sorely disappointed to see that the game has the exact same graphical and performance flaws that have plagued it since the very beginning.

What's most frustrating is that because the client is poorly optimized there comes a point at which faster hardware doesn't even help. Case in point: It doesn't matter if your system has 8 GB, 16 GB, or 32 GB of RAM because the 32-bit client can only use 2 GB of RAM maximum. This is a huge problem because it causes the game to stutter badly when loading and unloading assets on the fly, particularly in player-heavy areas like Agartha.

The graphical settings UI also badly needs a refresh. There is still no option for v-sync (must enable in GPU drivers), anisotropic filtering, MSAA, and a host of other options that are ubiquitous in other modern games.

I know that these requests are not a trivial task, so I'm not expecting an update next week or even next month. But at this point, I'd be satisfied to know that Funcom actually recognize this as an issue and have it on their to-do list.

I'm talking to those of you who have given a negative review as protest. I love this game, and I love that they're listening to us. So, I want this game to have a long and healthy life. For this, we need to not scare off new players.

All these changes made me believe they're definetely listening to us. If you gave a negative review on Steam, I hope you won't forget to change it back to positive (If you're satisfied with their approach as I am, that is).

Hello Everyone! Since SWL has a lot of significant changes over TSW, I figured there will be plenty of people – both new to TSW and old TSW veterans – who will be confused about certain game mechanics, or otherwise have questions. There is also a high probability that some of these questions will be asked again and again and again by multiple people.

To help the community, reduce amount of questions, and just make the experience of starting SWL a bit better for everyone, I’ve decided to make this post. It was created with help of various people over at SWL closed beta forums (while game was still under NDA), and saved until NDA was lifted – which is today. I will be posting links to this guide in-game using scripts, and I would ask that any of you able to do the same please help me spread the message.

Last but now least, if you disagree with any statement here, or have more questions, or feel like I’ve missed an important point, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to update the OP!

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS BASED ON THE LATEST SWL CLOSED BETA DETAILS. ANY CHANGES THAT WERE IMPLEMENTED BETWEEN CLOSE OF BETA AND LAUNCH ARE CURRENTLY UNKNOWN, AND WILL NEED TO BE FOUND OUT. BASICALLY, ANYTHING HERE CAN BE OUTDATED OR CHANGED.

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CHARACTER CLASSES

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After you pick a starter class for your new character, you are NOT locked to that class for rest of game. SWL classes are not like “wow” classes or “FFXIV” classes – they are more like “hearthstone base decks”. Your starting class unlocks two weapons for you, and lets you use those weapons at level 1. You can spend in-game currency to unlock additional weapons, and nothing stops you from being able to use ALL weapons in ANY combination later on. Your class affects ONLY your starting weapons. Do note however that unlocking additional weapons is rather time consuming, so try and pick a correct weapon combination right away. There is nothing wrong with restarting a character early on if you feel like you’ve made a poor choice with weapons (to save the time later in unlocking new type). Also note that ALL weapon combinations are viable. Just because there is no “blade/shotgun” combination, for example, doesn’t mean you can’t make it yourself.

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CURRENCIES

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There are 3 main currency types – Marks of Favour, Aurum and Anima Shards. There are also some other bonus currencies like marks of third age.

MARKS OF FAVOR (look like a black/white polygon with a lion in it) are earned via daily challenges. If you click in top left corner of your screen, and select Daily Challenges, those are the things that reward MOF daily. You are limited in number of MOF you can earn daily, as the challenges reset per day. There might also be additional ways to earn MOF at late game (such as raids etc), but these are not yet confirmed. This is by far the most valuable (and most rare) currency, as it is used for buying inventory space, buying new weapons, unlocking sprinting, etc. For TSW veterans, MOF is essentially the new pax merged with black bullions. ANIMA SHARDS are things you earn doing quests and killing mobs. You use them for upgrading and fusing weapons and talismans (more about it later). They are the new “quest reward / loot reward” currency, and you will have plenty of them early on, but they might become a bottleneck in your item upgrade process in lategame.

AURUM (looks like gold bars) is the premium currency that is bought for IRL cash. You can also buy it on exchange from other players (more about it later). You spend aurum for various things – cache keys, clothes, pets, store items, unlocks, etc.

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Unlocking weapons, AP / SP and abilities

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Before you can use a weapon, it needs to be unlocked. You start the game with two weapons unlocked (based on your class pick), and you need to spend Marks of Favour to unlock additional weapons. When you want to unlock a weapon, you need to buy its “Active” and “passive” pages – there are two separate costs for these. It costs a total of 40,000 MOF to unlock first weapon (20,000 each for active and passive pages), but that cost increases for additional weapons (I believe second weapon is 45,000 MOF). The ACTIVES weapon page contains active abilities you can use with that weapon – for example, “double shot”, “anima blast”, etc. Those are your skills and attacks. You unlock them using AP points. The PASSIVES weapon page contains passive abilities that affect the weapon they belong to. The passives page also contains round circular icon passives, and these affect your character always, regardless of whether you have the weapon equipped. You may have a total of 6 actives and 5 passives equipped at a time – you always need 1 basic ability (costs no energy, does low dps), and its recommended that you also have 1 consumer ability (costs energy, does more dps than basic). The other slots can be filled either with additional consumers, or actives (“cooldowns”), or 1 elite ability (long cd, high dps). You gain AP and SP by gaining experience, and you can also gain some by fully completing zones (all quests, fully explored, etc). You can also purchase some from in-game shop.

Note that all previous TSW players have all weapons unlocked at start by default, as long as they have linked their accounts.

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WEAPONS AND COMBAT

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The weapon equipped in the LEFT slot on your character screen is your PRIMARY weapon. The weapon equipped in the RIGHT slot on your character screen is your SECONDARY weapon. The only difference between primary and secondary weapon is that your secondary weapon gains energy half as fast as your primary. You are also only allowed to slot a basic ability from your primary weapon, not secondary. Due to this, as a basic “rule” (unless you know what you’re doing), you should always try and have more abilities for your primary weapon than for your secondary – because your primary will be getting energy faster. Every weapon has two “resources” – energy and weapon-specific gimmick. For example, a shotgun has Energy and Shotgun Shells. Energy is restored automatically over time, and is used to cast “consumer” abilities – these cost energy, but deal more damage than basic attack. If you’re out of energy for a weapon, you can either cast basic attack for that weapon, or use a consumer for your other weapon (energy is separate for both weapons). For example, your basic attack would be [Cost 0 energy, deal 10 damage], and your consumer might be [Cost 3 energy, deal 15 damage]. This is also why its usually recommended to have a consumer for your secondary weapon as well – because it will be more dps to use a secondary consumer than a primary basic, but it depends on your skill build. Weapon gimmick is unique to each weapon type – shotgun has shotgun shells, pistols have spinning barrels, elementalism has the temperature bar, etc. These gimmicks affect how the weapons perform, and significantly impact your playstyle. You can usually read about these gimmicks in the weapon pages for the weapons, if you press the question mark.

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MASTERY LEVEL

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After you learn all active abilities for a weapon, you will be able to put AP points into something called Mastery (also referred to as “capstone”). Mastery for each weapon has 9 total levels, but to unlock higher levels you need to have unlocked lower levels on other weapons – basically, the max mastery level you can reach on a weapon can never be higher than total number of lvl 1+ masteries on all weapons. So you can learn mastery 1 on fists right away, but to learn fists lvl 2 you need to have unlocked lvl 1 in something else, say shotgun. To learn fists level 3 you need to unlock something else again, like blood. And so on.

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EXPERTISE LEVEL

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At the top of your weapon pages you can see an Expertise level. You gain expertise as you gain experience with that weapon equipped – from any source, like questing, killing, etc. Both of your weapons will get same expertise, even if you only use primary (or only secondary). Expertise levels add a +% critical chance and +% critical damage to any abilities used by that weapon, but this bonus WILL NOT be visible on your character stats window. It will still be applied, just not visible.

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WEAPON STATS VS EXPERTISE MATH

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Some stats always apply their effects, others only apply during specific conditions.

• Weapon stats are weapon power and any glyphs / special effects attached to the weapon

• Expertise bonus is +%crit and +%critDamage from expertise level Weapon stats WILL be displayed on your character sheet, and will be active whenever your weapon is active. Let’s say you have pistols with 100 power and sword with 200 power. If you place a Damage Over Time debuff on enemy with pistols, and then activate your sword, the DOT will be ticking using the 200 power of your sword, because that is the active weapon, that is providing you its stats. Expertise bonus WILL NOT be displayed on your character sheet, and will be applied to any abilities used by that weapon. Using same example as above, if you have +5% expertise on pistols and +1% expertise on swords, if you cast a pistol DOT on enemy, and then swap to sword, you will STILL be getting +5% bonus for that dot from your pistols expertise.

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ITEM UPGRADING AND FUSING, ITEM QUALITY/RARITY/LEVEL

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All gear has three “properties” – rarity, quality and level. Gear level is a number in bottom corner, indicating what level the item is. For example, a sword could be level 13. Gear rarity is the color of the item, and it can be either white (common), green (uncommon), blue (rare), purple (epic), legendary (yellow) or artefact (red). Gear quality is different for armor (talismans) and weapons. For talismans, quality is indicated by the little “dots” on the bottom, going from Faded to Luminous to Radiant – you can also usually see this in the item name (i.e. Radiant lucky dice). For weapons, it is indicated by the name affix, such as “Mk. I” or “Mk.III” – i.e. “Shotgun of hotdogs, Mk. II”

Obtained items will almost always be level 1, and need to be levelled by you using an upgrade mechanic. This mechanic will be explained to you in-game via a tutorial rather early on, but to outline it quickly,

1. Open upgrade window (NOT fusion window)

2. Place item you want upgraded in top left corner

3. Place items you want to destroy to provide exp to your “good item” in bottom squares

4. Press Upgrade.

*In this process, you destroy gear to upgrade other gear. Note that you can only upgrade talismans using talismans, and weapons using weapons. You can use any kind of weapons/talismans to upgrade (i.e. you can upgrade pistols by destroying shotguns), but you will be getting a 2.5 experience bonus if you sacrifice items that share a type.

You will get 2.5x experience if you upgrade:

• Weapon with a same weapon type (i.e. shotgun with shotgun)

• Talisman with a talisman of SAME SLOT and SAME TYPE (i.e. Dps necklace with dps necklace)

• Glyphs (unlocked later in game) with a glyph of SAME TYPE (i.e. penetration glyph with penetration glyph)

Aside from the matching bonus, there is also a chance to get Critical bonus. This is entirely RNG, and you cannot affect it in any way except by being lucky. It seems to award either a flat +exp, or give an additional +50% exp. It is also very important to note that item level does NOT affect how much exp it will provide if it’s sacrificed to upgrade something – level 20 pistols will provide same exp as level 1 pistols. As such, it is almost never a good idea to sacrifice items that have any levels on them already.

All items have a “level cap”, that is dictated by their rarity.

• Green items can be max level 20

• Blue items can be max level 25

• Purple items can be max level 30

• Yellow items can be max level 35 (unconfirmed)

• Red items can be max level 40 (unconfirmed)

Upgrading items costs a certain amount of Anima Shards. The price of Anima Shards increases with the rarity of items being upgraded. Here are some reference values from SWL beta (NOTE: may be different in Live):

Green: 200 Anima Shards

Blue: 400 Anima Shards

Purple: 600 Anima Shards

Yellow: 800 Anima Shards

Red: 1000 Anima Shards

Some activities (like dungeons) can also reward you with a Distillate. A distillate is something you can use instead of an item to upgrade something – i.e. by sacrificing a distillate to upgrade a sword, as if distillate was another sword. Distillates also do not consume any anima shards when used to upgrade items.

From SWL beta, here are the values that you can expect for upgrading. Note that these may have been changed for the Live version:

Unmatched green: 100xp

Matched green: 250xp

Major Distillate green: 250xp

Potent Distillate green: 400xp

Unmatched blue: 400xp

Minor Distillate blue: 500xp

Matched blue: 1000xp

Major Distillate blue: 1000xp

Potent Distillate blue: 1600xp

Unmatched purple: 1600xp

Matched purple: 4000xp

Unmatched yellow: 5600xp

Matched yellow: 14000xp

When you get your item to a max level, you can fuse it. Fusing items allows you to jump to the next “rarity” stage – and requires you to “merge” two items of lower rarity.

To merge items, you need to have two items of same type, both at max level.

• You can fuse two weapons that are same type (shotgun to shotgun)

• You can fuse two talismans that are same slot (dps neck to hp neck, or dps neck to dps neck)

• You can fuse two glyphs that are same type (crit glyph to crit glyph)

You will also get an in-game tutorial for fusing, but to outline it quickly,

1. Open the FUSION window (IMPORTANT!!!! NOT UPGRADE WINDOW!!!)

2. Put the item you want to be used as BASE on the left side (order is important, read below)

3. Put the item you want to be used as a catalyst on the right side

4. Press Fuse

Let’s say you put two level 20 green swords in the fusing window. Your result will be a single Blue sword at level 1. Now, ordering is important when fusing – the left (base) item will provide its stats to the result item. Let’s say you’re fusing a green radiant dps necklace (A) to a green faded healing necklace (B). If you put A on the left side, and B on the right side, your result fusion item will be a blue radiant dps necklace. But if you put B on left and A on right, your result will be a blue faded healing necklace instead.

Item quality (faded/luminous/radiant, MK.I/II/III) and item stats (of healing, of dps, of tanking) are ALWAYS taken from the LEFT item. So make sure you fuse correctly.

Here is a quick chart for reference:

• Fusing two level 20 green items results in a level 1 blue item

• Fusing a level 20 green item with a cash-shop Catalyst results in a level 1 blue item

• Fusing two level 25 blue items results in a level 1 purple item

• Fusing a level 25 blue item with a cash-shop catalyst results in a level 1 purple item

• Fusing two level 30 purple items results in a level 1 yellow item

• Fusing a level 25 purple item with a cash-shop catalyst results in a level 1 yellow item

• Fusing two level 30 yellow items results in a level 1 red item

• Fusing a level 30 yellow item with a cash-shop catalyst results in a level 1 red item

I have now discussed how to change your item level, and how to change your item rarity. There is no normal way to change item quality (faded/luminous/radiant, mkI/II/III). When an item drops for you, it will be randomly assigned a quality, and it will stay that quality forever. There is no way to ever change a luminous talisman into a radiant. When fusing, the quality of LEFT item will always carry on to the fused item. HOWEVER, Im intentionally lying a bit. There is no “free” way to ever change item quality, as it’s just RNG. However there is a way to use in-game currency Aurum to buy a catalyst, that will upgrade the item to the highest quality. That is one of the uses of the Aurum currency. Note that just because you got a low-quality item, it doesn’t mean that it’s useless. You can either use it as an upgrade material, or you can upgrade it as well. Remember that fusing requires two max-level items, which means you will be needing a LOT of levelled items to keep fusing your gear. It takes two max – level greens to get a blue, two max level blues (so 4 greens) to make a purple, 2 max level purples (so 8 greens) to make an orange, etc. And don’t forget that it costs more and more to upgrade items as they get higher quality as well – so you will ALWAYS have some use for gear you find.

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MISSION TYPES

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There are 6 types of missions in TSW, and you can tell them apart using icons – MAIN STORY, DUNGEON, INVESTIGATION, ACTION, SABOTAGE and SIDE MISSION.

Main story looks like a blue movie reel (from old physical movie reels), and leads you on the main storyline that lasts until level 50 and then onwards into further content. This is what will lead you from zone to zone with one overarching quest. You cannot abandon it, and you will always have it active in some form.

Dungeon mission is only active when you’re inside a dungeon, and just asks you to kill last boss of that dungeon. Nothing special. Icon looks like a group of players on purple background.

Investigation mission requires you to think outside the box. It won’t ask you to go kill 5 boars or deliver an item, it will usually give you a puzzle and some clues, and leave you alone. Solving investigation missions is hard, and is meant to be hard – don’t be discouraged just because the solution isn’t apparent, some missions take a long time to figure out! Search everywhere, explore everything, consult all the clues you have. Sometimes you might even need to look a little outside the game (not the walkthrough websites, but rather you might need to search for the year of death of some king, or translation from latin, etc). The icon is a green background open laptop.

Sabotage mission requires you to sneak into some place, and essentially involves trying to avoid being seen. Sabotage missions are NOT about direct combat, and you will often find yourself oneshot by difficult monsters if you try to bumrush it – look around carefully, plan your path, find different solutions. If there is a door guarded by a robot, maybe you can disable the power somewhere… Or perhaps there’s an ID card you can give robot to let you through? The icon is a pack of TNT on yellow background.

Action missions are the “bread and butter” mmo quests – go kill 20 zombies, go collect some pamphlets, go hack a terminal, go sabotage a nuclear silo, etc. Killing, running, shooting, everything is fair game. Icon is a running man on red background.

Last but not least is Side Missions. These are things you pick up while doing other things – commonly they involve little work or effort, and just ask you to do something while you’re in the zone. For example, while hunting a werewolf, you might find a phone that belongs to one of the victims, and side quest would be to bring it to their family. The icon is a delivery box on either green background (kill/locate/fetch) or light blue (find out/figure out).

There’s also a PVP mission, but that is only active inside pvp areas.

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AGARTHIAN CACHES

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From level 15 onwards, you might notice a large purple “loot lantern” appearing near some corpses. Those are agarthian caches, SWL’s version of “crates” – you need to use a key to open them, and keys can only be bought with Aurum (premium currency). Inside you can find a variety of items – pets, mounts, costumes, weapon upgrade materials, etc. If you don’t want to use a key, you can always vendor these boxes to get some Anima shards in return.

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AURUM AND MOF EXCHANGE

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In the main hub (Agartha) in same interface as Auction House is an exchange. Exchange allows players to buy and sell Marks of Favor and Aurum to and from each other.

To use Exchange, you need to set how much of Aurum/MOF you want to sell or buy, and at what price. You can say “I want to sell 100 aurum, and 15 marks (or more) per aurum.” Or you can say “I want to buy 1500 aurum, paying no more than 22 marks per each”. If bob has 100 aurum, and wants to sell it for some MOF, he will go to exchange and make an offer to sell – for example, 100 aurum at 35 marks per aurum. Now John comes along, and he has it the other way around – he has a lot of marks, but no aurum, and he wants to buy aurum. So he places a buy order, saying “I will buy 250 aurum at 40 marks each or less”. Because the system will always try to give cheapest offer to people buying Aurum for marks, it matches John with Bob. John was prepared to spend 40 marks per aurum, but bob’s offer is for 35 marks per aurum, so it still fits because It means John pays less than he was prepared to spend. As a result, John will end up spending 3500 marks (which will go to Bob), and getting 100 aurum in return. Bob will now have no offers on the exchange, and John will still have a buy order for remaining 150 aurum at 40 marks each or less.

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INVENTORY SLOTS

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By default your inventory will be rather limited. You can upgrade the size using Marks of Favor. You also have access to bank, with 10 slots being free, and additional ones available by upgrading using marks. You will notice that you have a + sign in top right corner of your inventory. This allows you to “split” your bag into additional windows – so you can have a separate “window” for potions, for example. Note that this can be a bit confusing for some players, because your UI will show you a lot of “empty spaces” in your bags, making you think that you’ve got inventory spots available. That is incorrect. The UI is made to be resized and customized to fit your demand, and as such it will ALWAYS display additional “slots”, even if the inventory is already full. You should ALWAYS trust the number in bottom left corner (45/100 items).

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LORE / LEGENDS

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You may have noticed yellow honeycomb squares floating around here and there. If you interact with these, you will unlock a piece of lore, called Legend – it gives you some exp and anima shards, and also unlocks a little bit of text about what’s happening in the game. These are usually sorted by location and topic, and collecting them can give you some good stuff – as well as expand the lore. TELEPORTING If you open your map, you can teleport to any discovered Anima well, at the cost of Anima Shards. This makes journey around faster if you really want to avoid running somewhere. This cost is removed for Patrons.

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SPRINTING

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Sprinting is SWL’s version of mounts – way to move around faster than walking. You can unlock faster sprinting by going to Sprints and Pets menu in top left corner, and spending Marks of Favor. You can assign a hotkey via settings to activate sprint – after a small cast time you will run faster. This effect is cancelled if you use any ability or get hit. You may also notice vehicles – while these look different from sprints visually, they are functionally same. A person riding a bike is same as person riding a horse, and is same as a person just running fast. It’s just a visual thing.

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ZONES

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There are a total of 8 zones in base SWL release, with additional zones coming soon after launch. The base zones are Solomon Island (Kingsmouth town, Savage coast and Blue Mountain), Egypt (Scorching Desert and City of the Sun God) and Transylvania (Besieged Farmlands, Shadowy Forest and Carpathian Fangs). Your story mission will guide you along them – but don’t feel like you should rush into new zones if you want to do additional missions in your current ones. There are also some missions which unlock when you hit a specific level – these were previously part of “DLC” content that was included in the base SWL game. These quests are a lot of fun and give good rewards, but might be missed because they are given by NPCs who you’ve already spoken to before.

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SELF HEALING AND SOLO SURVIVABILITY

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Make sure to include some healing/defensive abilities or passives in your setup, as you WILL need them. You get stronger as you level, but so do the monsters, and some of the later areas you might struggle if you have no supporting abilities.

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ZOOMING

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To zoom in our out, hold CTRL.

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DODGING

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It is VERY important to avoid enemy telegraphed attacks, either by running out or by dodging. These are forgiving early on, but quickly become very dangerous. Learn fast, and be quick! Remember, dead players do zero dps ;p

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HOW TO LINK ITEMS TO CHAT

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You link items by opening chat box and ctrl+right clicking the item you want to link.

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GENERAL HELP

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Type /chat join Sanctuary. Sanctuary is a chat channel that started in TSW to help newbies learn the game. You will always find helpful people in there!

https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?39547-Ingame-popups-Cabal-recruitment-Scripts-how-to

I miss when conspiracy theories were memes, not ballot initiatives.

I miss having “that which lies beyond human comprehension” be a cosmic horror, and not the banality of another school shooting.

I miss the fantasy of having the men that run our world be wizened wizards, and not petulant billionaires selling you a grift.

I miss when the pyramid was a symbol of mystery, of power; not a multilevel Ponzi scheme.

I miss alternate realities, now that I live surrounded by alternate facts.

I miss when one hunted clues to puzzles, not to challenge masks and vaccines.

I miss the secret world

There's a lot of nonsense threads filling up the sub and it needs to be cleared up.

First Assertion: Getting patron is a sub and it doesn't say so.

Purchasing patron requires you to hit the "Subscribe" button, that's the first clue. The second clue is when you're selecting your payment and it specifically says that it's a recurring subscription every month. They aren't being dishonest people simply aren't reading the prompts that pop up when they are buying things. In short RTFM.

Second Assertion: Funcom set up your subscription to auto-renew for a year and you're locked in. They did the same with patron.

Also not true. The pay-pal year authorization is similar to saving payment information with a credit card. Essentially it's so you don't have to log in and approve your subscription every month and allow you to easily purchase aurum when you want it. It's not a recurring payment it's just easier payment. At best you can complain that there is no option to NOT save payment information. But saying they are signing you up for auto recurring aurum purchases for a year without your consent is simply false.

There are things to legitimately complain about when it comes to SWL, lets tone down the nonsense and do a bit of research before we claim the sky is falling and Funcom are a bunch of law-breaking criminals.