Return to "The West"

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Reached 25 now so I'm going to be taking my first extended journey away from Troutville and the surrounding area, heading to the southeast for Indian Village, Outpost, and who knows what else stuff. From what I can tell I think I'll be gone for a good while.

If you can, try to load up on the Mexican Set to help make those travels faster. At level 25, you can get some of those items now and will soon be able to get remainder. Seven of eight items are available by Level 30. For travel, I don't equip the donkey but if I have 4 items equipped that speeds up travel by 36%. Throw on your best horseback riding gear for other spots not claimed by Mexican pieces and you can shorten your riding time even further.

Mexican's set - TW-DB.info

[JAG]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

So you might see some references in the Saloon chat to "friends for Oktoberfest." That is a 3 week promotion (there is one per quarter) where you accumulate some kind of points for jobs, dueling, fort battles, and "gifts" from friends. You can have a max of 100 friends on the world, so if each of them clicks to send you 20 "points" (not right term, but something like that) you would accumulate 2,000 points. An hour of work is worth something like 350-425 points. Winning a duel is worth 80 or so points. Those points can be converted into prizes, with 4 categories of prizes. Better stuff is on the higher levels, which cost more points.

When the event rolls around, I'll be happy to help field questions about how this works. In the near term, if you see someone that is looking for friends for Oktoberfest, it is probably worth looking to add friends to maximize your success in the event. You can shed those friends again after the event is over.

Note: don't use the 15s option for optimal "pretzel collecting".

[hoopsguy]

I'm a sucker for the 15s jobs to push towards leveling. But after our math discussion, I suspect I'll settle in on 10 minute jobs for the majority of this event when I'm online, and set up hour jobs for the times offline.

[hoopsguy]

So hopefully everyone has gotten a chance to check out the Oktoberfest event.

Tip #1: Get as many friends as fast as you can.
- Can have up to 100 friends
- Each friend can send 20 pretzels per 24 hours
- Pretzels are the currency for the next 3 weeks, in terms of obtaining Oktoberfest items
- I like to send friend invites to anyone who is active in the Saloon chat, particularly folks who are asking for friends or pretzels
- If you are not friends with everyone in town, send those invites now

Tip #2: Send your pretzels to people
- There is a pretzel icon on each picture on the friends toolbar (middle of screen, just above bottom)
- You are more likely to get pretzels in return, and remain on friends lists, when you send your pretzels every day

Tip #3: Keep those timers moving
- There are four buckets: Free, 25, 150, and 800 that correspond to the likelihood of getting great loot
- There is plenty of helpful stuff in the "free" bucket, so make sure you pay attention to that one first and foremost
- After collecting your first one, timer moves to 4 hours. Will increment by additional 20 minutes (going from memory) every time you claim a prize
- You can potentially "lose" a showdown; believe that the "bribe" to get 2nd chance is 480 pretzels. Good to keep that amount on hand
- Open up the "25" category when you have 1980 additional pretzels. Category costs 1500, but you'll want to have the 480 in reserve in case you lose
- Every "win" increments your level, and you get bonus items from the Johann set at 5, 10, 20, etc with the last item coming at Level 120. The individual bonuses on these items are valuable right away for us, and they will increase with levels. We want this equipment.

Tip #4 - Keep running jobs
- As JAG notes, the 15s jobs are the least efficient for accumulating pretzels. Each one of those only gets 2-3 pretzels
- 10min are closer to 70 average, while hour are more like 375.
- Dueling wins give you about 70, similar to 10 minute job but costing 12 energy instead of 5 energy for a job
- Consider using bonds or buffs to allow you to run more jobs over the next 3 weeks. Jobs = pretzels = more Oktoberfest items

I'll be happy to trade any dupes I might find with other folks in town. It is pretty hard to land weapons, saddles, or horses without spending nuggets. Pants and clothing are also pretty rare. But I would expect we'll all get hats, neckbands, and a collection of buffs that will be useful in the medium/long run.

If you have any additional questions, I'm happy to address them either here or in town chat. Happy hunting!

[hoopsguy]

In non-Oktoberfest news, Troutville has moved up to #150 in the town rankings. Seemed like a round-ish number worthy of reporting.

[hoopsguy]

Got an alliance offer from one of the big guns. Info posted below, as well as in our town forum.

Hello hoopsguy,

I am Chili Mac, the founder of Waters Settle alliance. I noticed your town is not in an alliance and I was wondering if your town might be intersted in joining our alliance?

We have a great team of players who help everyone out and we are active with alot to offer our members.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Thank you
Chili Mac
Waters Settle Alliance

[JAG]

I feel pretty good about accepting this offer. They appear to have the second-best array of forts in the game, second to a group that appears to be the real old-timers elite group. So I don't suspect we'll get a better offer than this for us just starting out.

[JAG]

Dug into it a bit more and it appears they also have some decent alliance partners in The Claw v2 and The Brotherhood, so if for some reason you think either of those alliances would offer more (more The Claw than The Brotherhood from my quick look), I would be ok with that as well.

I guess the other possibility would be the Independent Forts group that's allied with BattleCry. Not knowing any of the folks involved on either side, I'll leave it to you to sort out our path, but I think an alliance with one of them would probably be helpful.

[Coffee Warlord]

Might be interesting.

[Coffee Warlord]

Johann's set is actually pretty damn good at higher item totals.

+80 points to ALL jobs at 7 items.

Johann's set - TW-DB.info

[PackerFanatic]

I think it's 6, actually.

Either way - I am 3 away from the full set, and it is a really good set already. Hoping I can keep at the same pace and hit 120.

[JAG]

Waters Settle sent us an official alliance invite.

[hoopsguy]

And we've now joined Waters Settle.
There is a small fort in our sector that we could potentially use, but really it is medium and large forts that provide an edge over fully town barracks for recovery.

Pretty active group in alliance chat. I would encourage people to say hi, take advantage of larger community for locating items, etc.