So, since there are likely to be new players making their way into the thread thanks to Black Friday/Christmas deals and gifts, I thought I'd put my inordinate amount of time in the game to use and whip up some tips for them. It got a little out of hand. Anyway, without further ado...
Loot:
* Loot territory supplies before burning them. They are an excellent source of materials.
* You'll get plenty of loot just playing through the game so you don't really need to buy any pieces.
* Pay attention to the bonuses on your gear. Either pick the gear that matches your playstyle or change your playstyle to match your gear. If you want to play as a stealthy assassin, use gear with Assassin damage bonuses for example.
* You can see your detailed stats at any time in the inventory menu. Check the bottom right of the screen for the platform-specific button to bring it up.
* Legendary gear (the gold stuff) comes with a Legendary engraving. Once you get a Legendary weapon or the entire set for armor, you'll unlock that engraving for use with anything.
* Somewhat related to that last point, the Engravings screen will tell you how to obtain or upgrade your various engravings. This includes giving hints to the whereabouts of Legendary gear.
* Engravings are relatively cheap and can be a big help. You can add one engraving to any piece of non-common gear, though you can swap out that engraving at any time.
* You'll probably gain more than enough money just by completing missions, so it's usually best to dismantle unwanted gear instead of selling it.
* With a recent update, you can make any piece of gear look like any other piece of that same type. Love the stats on a certain helmet, for instance, but wish it looked like a different one you have? You can do that! When hovering over a piece of gear, look for the eye symbol on the bottom right of the info card. And don't feel the need to hold on to gear just for looks. Having a piece at any point permanently unlocks its look for use in this system. Feel free to sell or dismantle it.
Abilities:
* Second Wind should be the first ability you get. It restores some of your health and is invaluable.
* You can respec your abilities at any time for a small amount of drachmae. The bottom right of the Abilities screen will show you how, and for how much.
* While the description for Hero Strike doesn't sound that impressive, it really is. Take note of your Assassin damage at the bottom of the Inventory screen. It's much higher than any other damage. So dealing even 60% of it in open combat is a big deal.
* Taking the Stealth Master ability to level 3 increases your damage at night. Combined with your inherent ability to fast forward time by holding the map button means you become a nightmare to enemies after the sun goes down.
* The abilities that give you passive buffs to your various damage types and armor are all worthwhile.
* Rush Assassination can be chained back to an enemy you've already used it on. So you can go Elite -> Thug -> Elite again if the first go around didn't kill the Elite.
* Every time you use an active ability (the ones you can put on the ability wheels), you'll regain a little bit of health.
* The Multi-Shot ability in the Hunter tree has auto-aim. It's so powerful, especially in Conquest battles, that it almost feels broken.
Quests:
* As soon as you can, start picking up Contracts from the Message Boards found in towns. They are missions that ask you to eliminate a certain number of specific enemies. You'll undoubtedly do this just through playing the game normally which means these contracts will give you lots of XP and drachmae essentially for free.
* Don't worry about any quests marked by grey icons. They're randomly generated, very bare bones, and won't reward you with much.
* The quests denoted by the gold exclamation points, however, are pretty much all worth your time. Some of them get very in depth and they offer great XP. And most have interesting stories.
* There are essentially 3 main questlines: Family, First Civilization/Modern Day, and Cultists. You can complete them in any order, but I'd suggest doing them in the order listed above because the Cultists ending contains a spoiler for the First Civilization ending.
* The Cultist and First Civilization questlines don't really involve player choice that much, but the Family one, and several side quest lines, do. Your decisions will meaningfully impact how they play out.
* For dialogue choices, the symbols mean the following: the scale means you're lying, the heart means your flirting, the crossed swords means you're getting ready to fight, and the arrow pointing out the door means you're leaving that portion of the conversation.
* Dialogue lines in yellow move the conversation along while ones in white will stop it for questions. If there are multiple choices in white, you'll be able to go through all of them. Only the choice in yellow will move you out of that part of the conversation.
* After you finish some quests, you'll be able to check in with some of the main people from it if you go back to their locations.
* Every week (beginning Tuesdays), two new quests become available at mission boards for everyone. They reward 40 Orichalcum a piece, a currency that can only be used with the vendor Sargon in Phocis (he's the blue swirl icon on the map). He has a rotating selection of high-level gear and also offers loot boxes for chances at that gear, including stuff that would otherwise require a purchase with actual cash. There's no ability to buy the loot boxes with cash.
* There's also a new quest every day that rewards 10 Orichalcum is usually very easy.
* For Cultists, if their entry in the menu says something like "Help people nearby to discover clues," that means do gold exclamation point quests in that area to learn where they are.
Misc:
* Mercenaries and Polemarchs are your best bets for ship lieutenant recruits so check them out with your eagle Ikaros before deciding to kill them. You might be better off knocking them out and recruiting them instead of killing them. You'll still get their loot too.
* I recommend playing as Kassandra. Her voice actress is fantastic.
* Each Mercenary Tier you go up unlocks a new perk. These can be really helpful, like 50% off stuff from blacksmiths, or 50% off upgrades for your ship. Consider holding off on upgrades or purchases from those until you unlock the perk. It will make stuff much cheaper.
* If you come across a Tomb location, complete it! Each one gets you an ability point.
* A female ship's crew means a women's choir singing the sea shanties.
* There's really no overarching system for Conquest Battles, which is a little disappointing, but they do reward a bunch of XP.
Loot:
* Loot territory supplies before burning them. They are an excellent source of materials.
* You'll get plenty of loot just playing through the game so you don't really need to buy any pieces.
* Pay attention to the bonuses on your gear. Either pick the gear that matches your playstyle or change your playstyle to match your gear. If you want to play as a stealthy assassin, use gear with Assassin damage bonuses for example.
* You can see your detailed stats at any time in the inventory menu. Check the bottom right of the screen for the platform-specific button to bring it up.
* Legendary gear (the gold stuff) comes with a Legendary engraving. Once you get a Legendary weapon or the entire set for armor, you'll unlock that engraving for use with anything.
* Somewhat related to that last point, the Engravings screen will tell you how to obtain or upgrade your various engravings. This includes giving hints to the whereabouts of Legendary gear.
* Engravings are relatively cheap and can be a big help. You can add one engraving to any piece of non-common gear, though you can swap out that engraving at any time.
* You'll probably gain more than enough money just by completing missions, so it's usually best to dismantle unwanted gear instead of selling it.
* With a recent update, you can make any piece of gear look like any other piece of that same type. Love the stats on a certain helmet, for instance, but wish it looked like a different one you have? You can do that! When hovering over a piece of gear, look for the eye symbol on the bottom right of the info card. And don't feel the need to hold on to gear just for looks. Having a piece at any point permanently unlocks its look for use in this system. Feel free to sell or dismantle it.
Abilities:
* Second Wind should be the first ability you get. It restores some of your health and is invaluable.
* You can respec your abilities at any time for a small amount of drachmae. The bottom right of the Abilities screen will show you how, and for how much.
* While the description for Hero Strike doesn't sound that impressive, it really is. Take note of your Assassin damage at the bottom of the Inventory screen. It's much higher than any other damage. So dealing even 60% of it in open combat is a big deal.
* Taking the Stealth Master ability to level 3 increases your damage at night. Combined with your inherent ability to fast forward time by holding the map button means you become a nightmare to enemies after the sun goes down.
* The abilities that give you passive buffs to your various damage types and armor are all worthwhile.
* Rush Assassination can be chained back to an enemy you've already used it on. So you can go Elite -> Thug -> Elite again if the first go around didn't kill the Elite.
* Every time you use an active ability (the ones you can put on the ability wheels), you'll regain a little bit of health.
* The Multi-Shot ability in the Hunter tree has auto-aim. It's so powerful, especially in Conquest battles, that it almost feels broken.
Quests:
* As soon as you can, start picking up Contracts from the Message Boards found in towns. They are missions that ask you to eliminate a certain number of specific enemies. You'll undoubtedly do this just through playing the game normally which means these contracts will give you lots of XP and drachmae essentially for free.
* Don't worry about any quests marked by grey icons. They're randomly generated, very bare bones, and won't reward you with much.
* The quests denoted by the gold exclamation points, however, are pretty much all worth your time. Some of them get very in depth and they offer great XP. And most have interesting stories.
* There are essentially 3 main questlines: Family, First Civilization/Modern Day, and Cultists. You can complete them in any order, but I'd suggest doing them in the order listed above because the Cultists ending contains a spoiler for the First Civilization ending.
* The Cultist and First Civilization questlines don't really involve player choice that much, but the Family one, and several side quest lines, do. Your decisions will meaningfully impact how they play out.
* For dialogue choices, the symbols mean the following: the scale means you're lying, the heart means your flirting, the crossed swords means you're getting ready to fight, and the arrow pointing out the door means you're leaving that portion of the conversation.
* Dialogue lines in yellow move the conversation along while ones in white will stop it for questions. If there are multiple choices in white, you'll be able to go through all of them. Only the choice in yellow will move you out of that part of the conversation.
* After you finish some quests, you'll be able to check in with some of the main people from it if you go back to their locations.
* Every week (beginning Tuesdays), two new quests become available at mission boards for everyone. They reward 40 Orichalcum a piece, a currency that can only be used with the vendor Sargon in Phocis (he's the blue swirl icon on the map). He has a rotating selection of high-level gear and also offers loot boxes for chances at that gear, including stuff that would otherwise require a purchase with actual cash. There's no ability to buy the loot boxes with cash.
* There's also a new quest every day that rewards 10 Orichalcum is usually very easy.
* For Cultists, if their entry in the menu says something like "Help people nearby to discover clues," that means do gold exclamation point quests in that area to learn where they are.
Misc:
* Mercenaries and Polemarchs are your best bets for ship lieutenant recruits so check them out with your eagle Ikaros before deciding to kill them. You might be better off knocking them out and recruiting them instead of killing them. You'll still get their loot too.
* I recommend playing as Kassandra. Her voice actress is fantastic.
* Each Mercenary Tier you go up unlocks a new perk. These can be really helpful, like 50% off stuff from blacksmiths, or 50% off upgrades for your ship. Consider holding off on upgrades or purchases from those until you unlock the perk. It will make stuff much cheaper.
* If you come across a Tomb location, complete it! Each one gets you an ability point.
* A female ship's crew means a women's choir singing the sea shanties.
* There's really no overarching system for Conquest Battles, which is a little disappointing, but they do reward a bunch of XP.