New player needing community input

[Tarlin05]

Hey there, I have spent a few hours reading through the forums as well as the wiki in order to get my head into the game a little better. Just starting out and looking for any last bits of advice that anyone is willing to offer. Right now it seems most forum posts and faq's/wiki posts are geared towards specific topics of combat, shortcuts, tips and tricks (fully allowed within the game mechanics so not "cheats"). I would be very interested in some input on stat building, gaining crafting skills for a new character, starting a deed or a small hobble, useless skills vs necessary skills for a beginner, where to interact with players, best types of locations to look for to start a beginners village.

Thanks in advance,
Tarlin

[Thijssnl]

http://ringofbrodgar.com/wiki/Haven_and_Hearth_Wiki

[Shadow7168]

Sevenless' guide is a good place to start, beyond that the wiki is good for more in-depth mechanics.

[Hasta]

stat building

At the very beginning: Intellect (Blueberries/various fish) > Perception (Elderberry/various fish/green ant larvae) > STR/AGi (for combat, a lot of low-tier forageables for those stats). Don't gorge up on apples and berries just to complete the first quest ("get your energy bar to full" etc), you'll lose valuable 300% hunger level. Eat a few bluberries - eat a few variety foods (berries/forageables 1 of each kind) - receive (hopefully) +1 INT. You should get your Intellect to 20-30 ASAP in order to be able to study all the good curios you find/make. Never stop studying Cone Cows. Learn your way around anthills. Lure slow ants away, rush back and Raid the anthill before they come back. Avoid fast ants, you can't outrun them.

Whether you're making a specialist or an universal, the spread of your stats isn't relevant, until you hit 50+ in difference between your lowest and your highest stats: it's easily fixable with mid-tier foods and some dedication.

gaining crafting skills for a new character

useless skills vs necessary skills for a beginner

Start with things that will partially reimburse you for LP spent. Buy Carpentry - get some LP back for discovering a board, like that. Don't bother with longshots like Silkfarming or Winemaking until you're pretty much settled. Yeomanry (Farming, Hearth Magic and Will to Power are pre-requisites) is what you should aim for, but if costs 4000LP to buy, so take your time, don't hoard the first few thousands just to set up a claim in an inconvenient location.

Get your Exploration to atleast 10 and your Survival to atleast 15 at first. Don't stop exploring until you find a Heartwood tree and grab all the leaves you can gather (perception+farming+cooking gild). Forage all the Stinging Nettle you can find, craft yourself your first gear (2 shirts + 2 pants + a sprucecap) with Tapoot lacing as a first gild, if successfully gilded and the item is still gildable (the chance will be low at first, it relies on your Survival skill with Nettle gear and Taproot lacings) - shove a Heartwood leaf as a second gild. If unsuccessful, forage more Nettle, recycle and repeat until you have yourself a nice 2-gild set for Survival + Perc/farming/cooking (took me ~5 hours of foraging/recycling, but it is very much worth it). That should put your survival to ~30 and your PER*Exploration rating at ~250, which is a huge advantage.

starting a deed or a small hobble

best types of locations to look for to start a beginners village

All terrain biomes have their unique yield in forageables, and some are more valuable than others. Look for nearby mountains. If there are none, look for swamps. If there are nothing of use in the area, settle whenever (i prefer starting first camp in a cave because of somewhat secluded location and no decay for structures underground even if on unclaimed land; but you have to pave the general area of your cave camp ASAP or cave bats will spawn above unpaved cave floor and make your life a living hell). As soon as you get your Survival skill (you should have already figured it's one of the most important for a newbie) to 40+, you can scout the area for higher quality nodes of soil and start your village near that node (sure, you can look for high-q clay and water, too; but those resources you can gather and move to your place; however, you can't change soil tile quality and it's important for farming quality crops, so, yeah, high-q soil = good area to settle if you're going to grow crops and trees).

Avoid settling in the view distance of a waterway: more traffic and bored bypassers. Take extreme caution when settling in a 10-mapgrid radius of a big settlement, no matter how abandoned it may look. Any valuable biome is sure to be well-known and frequently visited by hearthlings living in the area, if you're settling near it - you'll have a lot of visitors. This all is important, because:

where to interact with players

DON'T.

Interacting with players is dangerous unless it's for mutual benefit. The only valuable thing you can provide until mid-game is entertainment. That is, by being attacked, running and dying in a funny way (preferrably, drowning when trying to flee). If people come to your camp, they may be friendly or not, depending on their maturity, mood and abilities. If they're friendly, it's possible just a scouting alt and you can expect an armed toon to appear soon enough and attack you. If they take or break your stuff, there's nothing you can do about it. If you find an active settlement while foraging or looking for an area to settle, you have a very high chance to get attacked on sight, because you'll be perceived as a scouting alt, a spy or at least as a contender to that settlement's hunting/foraging grounds. The highest chance of not being attacked and killed you have when randomly stumbling upon another character in the wilderness.

I may exaggerrate a little but all of the above is general practice. After you have Yeomanry, chosen a place to settle and discovered Leather and Rope, build and claim a palisade. That will ensure your safety from bypassers or random griefers.

[MagicManICT]

A note about the wiki:

Some of the articles are a bit out of date. The basic information is accurate for the most part (building costs, basic functions), but specific information may be out of date. If you, or any other new players reading this, find something, let us know in the wiki thread, please. (Editors are always needed if you have the knowledge to do it.)

[Tarlin05]

stat building

I may exaggerrate a little but all of the above is general practice. After you have Yeomanry, chosen a place to settle and discovered Leather and Rope, build and claim a palisade. That will ensure your safety from bypassers or random griefers.

Hasta,
Thank you GREATLY!!! This more than answered everything that I had not been able to locate yet. Thank you for such an in depth reply and giving your time to answer my questions. I look forward to the game and now have a VERY solid starting point to get me off in the right direction. Hopefully we may pass each other in game at some point, maybe at a distance in the beginning .

**EDIT: Edited for content removing absurdly long quote

[Hasta]

Hint: if a big quote is necessary to be added (it usually isn't), use "hide" tags inside "quote" tags.
Glad I could be of some help.