@Halomanstar
Sam is right. Most of us started naked and punching rats in the sewers. That is the intended method of prgression at this time for characters that are born of the sword. You can mine if you like however, but sometime tells me you will soon grow tired of it.
Jonah is also correct in that if you ask for help, someone will help you. Like I said, we\'ve all been there and most agree this game is HARD on new players. Most of us want to succeed on our own. I did, but it took weeks to get out of the sewers.
Here is a quick DIY guide to follow:
General Notes:
Read this guide to it\'s completion for complete understanding before attempting to follow the guide.
NEVER buy a shield, as they are simply pretty things and serve no purpose other than to limit the number of attacks you can perform. (Maybe in the future, they will have a useful purpose, but the devs have lots of other concerns as well.)
NEVER buy a claymore! This is going to sound silly, but daggers are better than claymores. A character trained in daggers can cut you to pieces before you can even begin to swing that beast.
The rule of thumb for speed, lower is faster. Think of it as how many seconds it takes to swing.
Choose a single weapon skill to train in. Do not try to train in multiple weapons as it will take too long to become proficient in them all. If you want to pick up secondary weapon skills, do that after you can loot gladiators.
A note about axes. If you choose axes over swords, you only need a pair of slash 50 battle axes. You don\'t need to sell them to buy longswords in order to kill gladiators. I stand by my recommendation of having the minimum stats for using longswords before attempting to loot gladiators however.
Your results WILL vary. Even I am killed for time to time by a gladiator. If I miss several times in a row and he doesn\'t miss several times in a row... I\'m dead. You may be able to kill gladiators earlier, try and see.
The death realm is your friend. Should you find yourself here, sell your looted items to the guardian. He buys everything! If you can loot it, he\'ll buy it. No other merchant is so diverse. If you get lost down there, ask someone for help.
Quick Start Guide for the Newly Arrived.
1. Go to sewers and kill/loot rats
2. Go to Harnquist and sell looted items (repeat until you can buy weapons)
3. Doesn\'t matter if you choose swords or axes, both are great choices and should fit your characters personality
4. Daggers are also a great choice as they are FAST, but you\'re going to be training mostly in Akkaio which is difficult for the new to get to in most cases. I\'m not going to explain this, just take my word for it.
5. Once you have weapons, go to the arena and attempt to loot clackers. Some will have no trouble, others are going to be clacker food
6. If you die, back to the rats
7. In either case, it is time to buy armor. Ask in game.
8. Did I say loot? Well loot some more.
9. Now you need a pair of real weapons. These Harnquist specials aren\'t going to cut it anymore. Expect to buy or loot two (2) slash 54 broadswords. These swords will have a name of this format: broad sword, ie. dark broad sword or fire broad sword or frosty broad sword. These swords can be looted from Mercenaries (or rogues, but they are tricky for the new). Expect to pay 4500 trias each. Watch for auctions, you can get good deals. Begging sometimes helps.
10. Ok, now start training. You\'ve been getting progression points as you gained experience. These points are spent on training to develop your character.
11. I must now point out the goal of my guide - to loot gladiators - once you can loot them, your problems are solved.
12. With that goal in mind, we look at item 9 in more depth. To the goals end, you need to train STR to 85 min. You need to train light armor to 10 and sword to 10. It also wouldn\'t hurt to have and endurance of 85 min.
13. Why 85 STR? Because once you have it, you\'re going to sell those broads and buy slash 44 longswords.
14. Got your longswords? Good, go loot the Kran Gladiators. Attack from behind. It may not be an actuallity, but it seems to me that I can get a good hit in before they can turn around completely and return fire.
15. Looting gladiators is about speed. You need to lay down as much firepower as you can before they get a chance to hit you. If they hit you, you\'re going to have a long walk ahead of you in most cases.
Good Luck!
Wow, the QSG is longer than I expected. I hope someone finds it useful.
Final thought: This is a role playing game. You are supposed to interact with other players. That is the intention. I think that\'s why you start naked, broke, and unarmed - to force you to interact. You are now an actor, acting out this character. Do what your character would do. Find your motivation and go with it.