Things to do (and NOT to do) as a new player in PotBS Legacy to avoid ruining your later game experience.
From most to least important (in our view).
¶ Nation commitment
Remember that when you choose a Nation before making a character on Legacy, you are committing to that Nation for the entire RvR/PvP map cycle. You will not be able to change your Nation again on that account until the next map end / cease-fire (or you reach out to customer service and it's within the first 14/30 days of using the account).
But if you are brand-new to PotBS, and have not already been playing on the Live Servers, are not a member of a Society that is going to be charging forth strongly on Legacy, the above warning will naturally lead to the question of HOW to choose the right Nation for you. The best bet would be to follow your friends and play the same Nation as they are going to play. The official game Discord Server is filled with fellow players who are happy to opine and provide insight.
The general consensus right now seems to be that Pirates are expected to have a strong edge early on while everyone is still starting out fresh on this new Server, since Pirates can Capture defeated ships but Nationals need to build them.
¶ No posting of links
Do NOT post any web links or obscene material in game chat or you may get banned. READ THE GAME RULES BEFORE PLAYING.
Also note that you are not allowed to have more than 2 accounts online at any time for any reason and both logged in accounts must be on the same Nation, or both must be on land and not in PvP bubbles/PvP flagged if different Nations.
¶ Faction reputation
Reputation with the different game factions matters. Hitting NPCs from one faction (any faction that is not yellow or red pirate gangs) will decrease reputation with that faction and potentially increase it with the rival factions.
For Trade Unions (Smugglers Union for Pirates, British/French/Spanish Trade Union for Nations) attacking said trade Union until your reputation goes to or below -500 will complicate your access to said foreign Nation’s port’s Auction Houses.
You will then need to remotely purchase everything that you want from said port, from a different port whose Nation you do not have a bad reputation with.We recommend you do not attack Trade Union ships without thinking about this beforehand, especially if you are a pirate and want to PvP in the endgame, as you will likely be buying things from the Nations.
DO NOT think that you can simply attack the other three factions later on to ‘balance out’ the damage you have done to one faction’s reputation as you gain much less reputation with the other three factions than you lose with the faction you are attacking.
You must spend Marks of Trade, do missions or hunt pirate gangs to repair your reputation without incident.British/French/Spanish Navy and straight Brethren of the Coast ships are usually considered OK to attack because there are not really any good rewards from them or any other benefits to keeping a high reputation with them.
Keeping British East India Company reputation (at least Indifferent) is important for the end-game Lucky Albatross ‘clicky’ item.
Don’t attack their ships and raise your reputation with them safely by attacking Merrymen Pirates that spawn between Port Royal and Guanica.Dutch West India Company reputation is somewhat important if you want certain items like the Dutch Warrantee that gives damage reduction in the endgame.
We recommend not attacking Dutch ships until you have made up your mind about this.
¶ Unique items and outfitting
NEVER throw away unique Usable Items or General Outfitting from missions. You will never! be able to recover them and some are useful in the endgame.
Typically if an item has green, teal/turquoise or purple text in its name you should keep it unless instructed otherwise by a reputable player (or if it is an item that has a higher tier/higher numbered counterpart).Remember there are many places to store unwanted loot (free warehouses in starter ports and capitals) rather than throwing it away. In addition, be on the look out for the ‘Weatherworn Codex’ and ‘Scraps of a Chemistry Manual’ recipe books for end game repairs and gunpowder items.
¶ Player to player trading
Generally, try and avoid direct player-to player trades with Captains of a different Nation as this lowers your reputation with your own faction (the game explicitly warns you by default when attempting this). If you do too many of these trades, you will end up 'traitor flagged' preventing you from grouping up with players(grouping is only possible with players of your own nation)!
¶ Pirate_local.ini
You may wish to edit your pirates_local.ini file to show enemy Players (default colour Purple) more prominently and de-emphasise NPCs. Tutorial on how-to can be found here
¶ Graphics settings
Turn down your graphics settings to Balanced/Medium or tweak the game files (search up pirates_local.ini in the PotBS discord) and use the 4GB game patch from here. This may prevent game crashes that you may experience.
¶ Side with Professor Cray
When doing the story missions (the ones marked with the book starting with ‘A Man/Woman of Wealth and Taste’), side with Professor Cray (mission: Prometheus Unbound) when doing the Jacob’s Clock (Pirate)/Santa Catalina (Britain)/Pensacola (France)/Cape de Vela (Spain) missions.
DO NOT side with Captain Ruenzi (mission: Red Dragon’s Lair) or you will NEVER be able to get Professor Cray’s Astrolabe (Open Sea speed +10%) on that character.
You will instead get a level 20 pistol that will be well and truly useless in the endgame.
¶ Citation of Conquest and Marks
Marks of Victory(MoV) and Marks of trade(MoT) are gained from PvP.
You gain Citation of Conquest(CoC) at the end of a map. Do not exhange your CoCs for marks.
We recommend saving them for the following permanent outfitting (in that order):
- Victor’s Armor 2, (Checkout Discordant Reinforcement 3 first)
- Prototype Cannons 3
aswell as the following consumables:
- Insignia of Valor
- Insignia of Swiftness
They are found in the 'Citation of Conquest Exhange' and 'Mark of Victory/Trade Exchange' respectively in your capital. These are very useful endgame damage, armor and structure mods.
¶ Pre-Conquest Bible
After you receive the Pre-Conquest Bible from the mission 'Crazy Like A Fox', it is recommended you find a full group of players that have also completed said mission to group with in an avcom skirmish or in the same port.
Group together, and when everyone is standing next to each other and has accepted their group invites, only then use the Bibles.
Each group member should then use the Bible, and each group member will benefit from each other's use of it reputation-wise.This will give every member far more Templar reputation than would otherwise be achievable.
¶ Side with the Templars
When doing the Templar missions beginning with ‘Santiago Ahoy’, side with the Templars, NOT the Inquisition. The Inquisition rewards are generally considered far inferior to the Templars’ Crusader Sword if you spec Fencing in the endgame. Otherwise it will be a very heavy grind to regain the Templar rep that you have lost.
- Side with the Templars so you can get Prince Henry’s Compass (Open Sea speed +9.75%) from Port-de-Paix.
¶ Economy crafting
If you can, avoid creating economy structures and doing econ work on Cutthroat, Naval Officer and Privateer. Use Buccaneer or Freetrader for this; they can use more structures and haul larger amounts of materials around the map.
¶ Choose Draughtsman's Office
In the early days of Legacy as Freetrader or Buccaneer, choose Draughtsman’s Office as your reward from the Economy tutorial. This structure creates the deeds for other structures that are important for the economy.
¶ A free warehouse
Talk to the Auctioneer in the port you start at to unlock a free warehouse to keep things in. You can also do this at your National capital and at other Nations’ National capitals and starter ports.
¶ Select skills carefully
Think carefully about what skills you spec for in avatar combat (land combat) and career (ship combat) when starting Legacy in its early days.
To change what skills you have after the fact requires a respec item. Respec items are available in your careers private meeting house. You will need commendations(requires lvl 5), these can be gained via the Claim Prize Ship / Scavenge skill (requires lvl 5).
However, you get one free respec from a mission and one free respec from Captain’s Club which the subscription will presumably put you in.
¶ Mission to level up
It may be advisable to mission up rather than fleet up to learn basic skills handling and sailing mechanics.
This is so you do not get to level 50 with no idea of how to handle your ship in combat.
¶ Extra toolbars
When you gain more skills than you can place on the first toolbar the game gives you, you can enable extra toolbars in the settings:
- Start by pressing Esc (or click the bottom right hand icon in the Menu bar)
- Select Preferences
- Select Interface
- Enable Enable Manual UI Adjustment and Enable Manual UI placement
- Then click on Additional Horizontal Toolbar 1 and 2 and Additional Vertical Toolbar 1 and 2
¶ Unstick
If you are stuck in a battle, the ‘Disentangle Rigging’ skill is useful to teleport away. If you are on the Open Sea, use ‘Unstick’.
¶ In closing
Congratulations on joining Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS)! PotBS is a game with a deep history, and one that requires attention to detail to succeed in both its PvE and PvP content, but it is all the more rewarding and satisfying to master for that.
There are some important things you should be aware of to ensure you have the best possible game experience, and in addition to the advice here, it is best to always be on the lookout for advice, tips and tricks from Veteran players both in game and on the official Discord Server!
Otherwise, have fun exploring, fighting and making friends in the game, whichever Nation you choose to play! We'll see you out there!
This is our 'how not to screw yourself over as a new player' guide.
By: Cebrián Cabrero, Joe Nogill, Mohag Moocow, Archer.