Unsure of where to start

[Breidr]

I originally bought this game for NW, but seeing as that Mod crashes on me on a regular basis and Native works fine, I ended up playing it more often.  Still terrible at the melee system, but it works I suppose.  After watching a streams and such it was actually recommended that I try the cRPG mod because of the persistence of equipment.  I got my character and account set up, but I haven't done anything yet.  I've looked at some of the guides for recommended builds and all it is to me is a bunch of numbers right now, hoping to make sense of it soon.

I guess the natural starting point is to determine a "class" to shoot for.  Part of me wants to continue living out the Fantasy I've realized in the SCA and poke things with a stick, but without mechanics to back up hiding behind a shield wall, I really want to take it in one of two directions: Sword and Board or Pole-arm.  Most of me is leaning towards sword and board for safety reasons, but I also fancy myself charging field with a Dane Axe and a round shield strapped to my back, but I'm not sure I could pull it off.  I was originally thinking archery, but after some time in Native.... accuracy and me don't mix, it's worse than my melee.

One thing I noted in the guides is that equipment cost is talked about a lot.  I know I'm going to die, and die a lot, for a long time.  Does this factor in at all.  with all that I've read I see myself breaking a lot of stuff and not making much to show for it.  Not sure if I should factor cost into choosing a class or not.  Frankly it's a little much to take in and I feel like I'm drowning a bit.

[Fluffy_Muffin]

Shielder would be a wise choice for your first generation, you should get a good weapon and a good shield first. If you are worried about upkeep wear light to medium armor, something in the range of mail shirt, byrnja or mail hauberk should work fine for protecting you and should be easy to upkeep. For gloves take mail mittens for now and take some cheap boots like leather boots. For head gear pick something from 1.3 to 1.7 weight.

Imo you should be able to upkeep this gear, even earn some cash. Then if you want heavier stuff you should build up a buffer of around 50k gold. A shielder is good for the first gen because you wont die that much and you will be able to get a sense of timing your strikes and battle awearness. You might even like it enough to stick with it.

Another advice for you would be to sell your first loompoint. When you hit lvl 31 you can retire and upgrade a weapon i suggest you cash in and you will never have to worry about upkeep again. You will probably get around 600k gold or more for it so you can try various weapons and armor and see what fits you best. The 1st generation is the toughest and just stick it out. From then on you can choose a different build or just stick with being a shielder (i suggest you try out diferent things so you know what fits your playstyle)

Also you should join a clan, check out the faction halls part of the forum. If you dont intend to join a clan, get a banner of one of the bigger clans so you can get a multiplyer by being on their team. Dieing doesent matter, just winning or loosing rounds.

As for builds i can give you some standard shielder ones:

(click to show/hide)

This is a good balanced build where you will be reasonably quick and still hit hard enough not to glance on all but the most heavily armed oponents:

Strength: 18
Agility: 18
Hit points: 63
Skills to attributes: 2
Ironflesh: 5
Power Strike: 6
Shield: 6
Athletics: 6
Weapon Master: 6
One Handed: 156

Another good build and my personal favourite for a shielder, you will be more tough and hit harder but you will move slower, that is why if you choose this build you should use
a longer weapon (like a nordic champion, elite scimmi or knightly arming)

Strength: 21
Agility: 15
Hit points: 70
Skills to attributes: 2
Ironflesh: 7
Power Strike: 7
Shield: 5
Athletics: 5
Weapon Master: 5
One Handed: 148

This build is a more agility based build, your shield will be hard to break and you will be quick but you wont hit as hard, you should probably get a pierce or blunt weapon
with this build so your hits wont glance off ( you can play with the points here if you want more wpf or keep it like this if you want to max out your ironflesh)

Strength: 15
Agility: 21
Hit points: 60
Skills to attributes: 2
Ironflesh: 5
Power Strike: 5
Shield: 7
Athletics: 7
Weapon Master: 5

I hope i helped you, its a great game you just need some figthing experience and you will be fine

[zagibu]

No, shielder is NOT a wise choice for first gen. Go polearm. You can actually kill things with long axe spam, even if you suck. It's much harder to kill things with 1h weapons. Sure, you also won't die as fast, but does that matter when you also don't kill anything?

2h or polearm are the best "classes" to start with as a newbie. Also make sure you visit the duel server from time to time and ask around for people to do some sparring with wooden weapons with you.

[Lord_Panos]

My only suggestion regarding parrying it will be that you skip the fun and make a char with 33 str and 11 if buy a wooden sword,join eu 3 and learn to parry.

[Breidr]

I did some reading up and looked at standard builds.  I thought I'd give a Polearm build a try and forgo the shield.  From what I've ben able to gather I want to maximize certain skills, so that's what I did, and came up with this:

Strength: 21
Agility: 18
Hit points: 70

Skills to attributes: 8

Ironflesh: 7
Power Strike: 7
Shield: 0
Athletics: 6
Riding: 0
Horse Archery: 0
Power Draw: 0
Power Throw: 0
Weapon Master: 3
One Handed: 1
Two Handed: 1
Polearm: 133
Archery: 1
Crossbow: 1
Throwing: 1

Now I don't know if it's ideal, but I tried to focus on maxing the three skills at the top, spending the remainder in Weapons Master.

[Thomek]

Thats on ok build.

But you have to learn2block lol noob etc.. This is something you must learn sooner or later.

Go out there and level up, mind you it is very very difficult when you start out. The noobiest servers are the siege servers btw.. So perhaps easier to get kills there, but maybe grab a shorter polearm, or it will get stuck in walls everywhere.

If you want to try out classes you can also make an STF character (skip the fun, insta level 30) but mind you, he cannot retire (get better weps) and don't gain any xp.

Starting from lvl1 and peasant stage is something we have all done and (sometimes) cherish.

[Grumbs]

Thats a good build. Just try to learn some manual blocking and get a selection of weapons. There are different roles you can play with polearmer, long range support, shield breaker etc. Just stay with your team mates and try not to get in a position were you're 1 vs many, try to outnumber the enemies when possible and just stay alive as long as you can. Its better to even just be a distraction than to be sitting dead in spectator. If you do die early try to spectate the better players and see what they do

When levelling up don't forget to convert some skill points to stats, that way its like you get free level ups to lift the cap on some skills. The way you level is up to you, either go for balanced 15/15 or a mix..you want some PS 6+ really but also you need the movement speed. Use this to plan the build : http://infinitum.dyndns.org/crpg/calc.htm

[Malevolent_Warlord]

A few hints:
- If u suck at melee go to native and train against bots on the training grounds. Those bots will help u with the basic of blocking and attacking. Or go to dueling server and get ur ass kicked, but still learn.
- If u want learn vs human players I suggest siege servers. There u get to play more and don't have to wait too for rounds to end.

Most noobs in CRPG community suck at the basics of combat while good players own.
- Noobs dont know how and when to fight nor do they know how to defend themselves. They often end up in a bad position and die.
- Pro players look around. They are hard to kill, because they block/shield and don't get in to a cluster fucks and die.
- Noobs don't pay attention and chase kills which they won't get and die.
- Keep ur defence up and don't fight when u can't win, run instead. Dead people don't swing and are useless to the team.

If u can't get a positive kill / death ratio u have things to learn. In siege server for example many noobs just run only to hit someones shield/block once and die when they are attacked or overwhelmed.
Staying alive in melee is ur first priority. Not getting one kill or one hit. Dead people don't swing. Dead people don't learn or play.

As a polearmer if u are running low on money I suggest u get long spear + light/medium armor and act as a supporting player for others and stab from a distance. Easy money. Battle servers give u more money and xp  than siege.

[SoA_Sir_ODHarry]

best way too learn melee is duel server...
everytime u play go first too duel for 1 or 2h
back in the days everybody did but that tradition seemd too died since the generally level of the community raised
also u will suck till u find the style fits most too u but that will take time...so ur first mission should be too test every class for once...

[Phazey]

Some good advice in this thread.

I would go shielder at first, because you don't need to be a master of manual blocking to do well. So basicly what Fluffy Muffin said.
Going pole or 2h does make you able to get kills more easily (especially if you run with the 'mob' and pick out kills with overheads), but without being able to properly block it can be a frustrating experience. As a shielder you can deal with multiple opponents better and are able to support your teammates by shielding them a bit, but you'll lack the killing power and therefore it's much more important to get headshots, which requires some accuracy with the mouse (and footwork!).

Seeing as you seem to have already decided to go with the polearm build (fine build btw), take a look at this (very old) blocking tutorial. It explains the basics of manual blocking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jHcZjWw9U

Good luck out there!

[MaidenMadness]

I can offer you my POV, from a different perspective, a n00b one.
I have been playing M&B for a decent amount of time in single player, but in multiplayer I don't even have a week behind me. Not just in cRPG, but in any form.

When I first started cRPG I been trying out different things shield + 1handed, shield + polearm, polearm, 2handed, and while they all were with crappy equipment and at a low level, perhaps I got the wrong picture I think that it gave me at least a chance to feel out different things and how they work. Eventually I respeced to pure shielder build from the solid builds threads because I found shielder to suit me the best. Archery I didn't try because I tried it a bit in native and single player found that I'm retarded for archery. Cavalry - same thing.

Pure polearm - one has to rely on manual blocking which an experienced player will get around easily if manual blocking is not your second nature. One does get into problems when two people gang up on you because one goes for the head you manual block overhead and while you're blocking overhead the 2nd one hits your body. When using a shield and using polearm one handed I found the ability to only to thrusts to be very limiting in terms of damage it does. If the other guy has a shield I found it to be nothing but simply poking at a shield and not actually doing anything useful. Good thing is the range. You get to keep enemies at a fair distance from you. Perhaps ideal combination would be polearm + shield when facing multiple enemies.

2handed - same thing as pure polearm. One thing I forgot to mention there but which also applies to pure polearm - archers. You're exposed and if you don't zig zag you'll die easily by someone you most likely haven't even seen. And one easily forgets how to zig zag to confuse archers you don't even see, when you're in a fight with an opponent you can clearly see.

Shielder - offers best protection against multiple enemies, offers protection from archers. Also I found it that shield + pick or a sword gives me more versatility offensively because I have serveral attacking moves, and not just thurst that shield + polearm gives me. But I chose it because I found out that I stay alive the longest with a shield. You don't have to worry about blocking, about chosing which side to block etc.

Problem with two handed and polearm is at a start you die a lot. You have a low level character, you have crappy equipment and also in my case you have 0 experience and you're going out against guys who have better equipment, better characters and more experience. You die a lot and you die fast, so most of the battles you sit majority of time there watching other players and you always watch the guys who have best K/D ratios. Sometimes, they're cav, sometimes they're archers, sometimes they're twohanded or polearm but rarely (perhaps never) is it a shielder, at best it's something like an archer who uses shield + 1hand for melee. But you're sitting there watching a guy tear through opponents with a greatsword or a maul and you're thinking to yourself that's easy and he can do it because he has good equipment. If I had equipment like that I could do it just as easily, so you get better equipment and you learn that it's not all down to equipment. Point is that sitting there watching better guys do it easily you think it's easy, but as you don't see shielders go out and dominate the battlefield when you play as a shielder you follow around guys who actually do and you mostly go there just to help him, be a support guy that will at least distract an enemy or shield him from enemy archer. Sometimes you even steal a hit or a kill(which I still feel bad about doing because some other guy does all the work and I just get in there for a final hit and I get credited for a kill, it doesn't feel right). The biggest advantage of that is that you watch that better guy play, and it's different then watching him when you're dead because now you're there somewhat involved and you watch what he does and you learn and you get better. I think I learned more playing as a shielder then going out with a maul trying to emulate those guys when I lacked the basic knowhow. Sure shielder has some problems like short range which forces you to get close which can be a problem against polearm, a good 2hander or an archer with top equipment will destroy your shield in a couple of swings, but every class has weaknesses and one has to find out what weaknesses he can overcome the easiest.

[zagibu]

Okay, it's probably true, that if you want to play battle mode, you are better off as a shielder, because otherwise you will mostly sit around spectating other players.

But if you want to play siege, shielder is not the best choice as a new player.

[Jarlek]

Lots of good stuff in here.

I'll also recommend using your "Skip The Fun" character on making a "duelist" build to practice with. Any balanced build works fine for that.

[ArchonAlarion]

What kingdom, Scadian? I'm from the East

[WITCHCRAFT]

I think polearms are a versatile group of weapons and a good choice as you get a feel for the game. That build is solid, but I would recommend putting a few points from ironflesh and maybe one from weapon master into shield. Until you really get the hang of manual blocking, playing with no shield will lead to a lot of frustrating deaths. You won't be gimping yourself by putting points into shield, and even if you level it up you don't have to equip one every round you play.

As far as paying for items goes, look at your character's inventory on the website. See the number 'upkeep (max)'? Try to keep your default gear under 1,500 max upkeep. If your team loses every single round you should still be able to maintain or slowly build gold with that much upkeep. Every time your team wins, your multiplier goes up. At 2x you can "support" 3,000 upkeep, 4,500 at 3x, etc. If you keep your default gear at higher multipliers, you will quickly build a stash of gold.

As you level up and gain more gold, expand your inventory. Have a basic cheap weapon (boar spear or plain old spear), then pick up a few more specialized ones like a pike or, long axe, or swiss halberd. The red tassel and war spears are great direct upgrades of the short/boar/regular spear.

You don't have to do this, but when I start a character from level 1 the first thing I level up is strength/power strike before anything else. Convert skill points to attributes and get your strength up to 15-18 with PS level 5-6 before you level up anything else. You get a big pool of hitpoints from the strength, and will be able to use pretty much any weapon or armor you want very early on.

In battle, don't rush off by yourself. Even if you are skilled and have the best gear in the game, you won't win a fight against 15 people by yourself. Hang back and watch your team's movement. Stay in a group. As a polearm user, you can probably hang behind 1h/shield teamates and land spear thrusts on the enemy they are fighting.

Most of the mechanics are very similar to default M&B, with tweaked numbers. If you keep playing, you'll get a feel for almost everything. The only major difference I can think of is being able to make a shield wall. If you and your teamates hold up your shields near each other, you gain a temporary bonus to your shield skill. As long as you stay together in formation, your shield will be able to absorb a LOT more punishment, and have an increased radius.

Have fun, and good luck. Try out plenty of stuff on your way to level 31, it will take longer than you think! 

edit: keep an eye out for polearm weapons that dead people drop. Find a masterwork awlpike or glaive on the ground and you've got a 1,200,000 gold item in your hands (till you die or the map changes)!