First off, SWL (note the lack of T) is not TSW. It's close, but if you try to compare them too closely, you're just going to get frustrated.
Second, the game is mouselook only. You can't turn it off and go back to tab-targetting. Your mouse movements will change where you look. Instead of using both buttons to move, you can click the mouse wheel. The mouse wheel will change zoom if you hold down Ctrl too, or if you're not in combat view.
Need to use your mouse? Press Alt, it'll bring up the mouse, but you won't be able to click on targets with it. If you want to change chat channel without needing your mouse, hit return, then press tab to bring up the channel list.
Combat
Combat now has a load of new mechanics - every weapon has its own gimmick, which we'll cover in another post in greater detail. There are some things which are common to all weapons though.
For the first time, your choice of which weapon goes in your primary (left) equipment slot matters. Your primary weapon regenerates energy at 1 per second. Your secondary weapon regenerates at 1 per 2 seconds. Almost all of your abilities will have an associated energy cost. Each weapon has 2 "basic" abilities. These can be seen on the weapon page with white names.
Basic abilities have the lowest damage out of all of your attacks - but have no energy cost. That means that if you run out of energy, you can always use your basic. The game forces you to include one basic attack on your ability bar. No ifs, no buts, you have to have one and only one. You can only use the basic abilities from your primary weapon. In most cases, there's a single target basic and an AoE to choose betweeen. For healing weapons, there's an attack basic and a healing one.[/:m]
Power abilties use energy, have red names, and are straight forward damage or healing abilties.[/:m]
Special abilities have purple names, require energy, and cover a range of abilities from short term buffs, stuns and knock-downs to debuffs you put on your target. Specials normally have cooldowns, so you can't just spam them.[/:m]
Elites have yellow names, and as in TSW, you can only have the one elite - they also need energy to activate.
You can move your different attacks to any slots on the ability bar, and don't be afraid to rebind the keys if you aren't fond of the new settings.
Gadgets are now much more common. In fact, you'll be getting one during the tutorial. You can only use the one gadget you have equipped, so no more stims, kickback and curio to manage. You'll get a lot more gadgets once you reach Transylvania. They are a versatile bunch, and it's worth playing around to see what type works best with your playstyle.[/:m][/list:u]
If combat's not going as smoothly as you'd hope, and you need to use a healing potion, you get 3 per day for free, with refills each day. If you're a patron, you'll get double that, but once they're exhausted, you'll have to spend some currency to get more.
Missions
Fair warning, TSW players will find that a load of the stuff that they are used to in TSW is no longer quite how it was. There are plenty of missions which have moved, a few have been removed, and particularly early on, you won't be able to just race off and do whatever you like. Some missions are not available until you've completed other steps in the story mission - you won't even be able to see a padlocked mission, there just won't be anything there. As you level up and complete prerequisite steps, they will become available. Kingsmouth is a lot more noob friendly now, and there are a couple of investigation and sabotage missions which feel like they've been dumbed down. Because they have. On the upside, that's basically just to teach new players what they're doing. Get past KM and it's much more familiar missions, with investigations being as frustrating as always.
For now, don't expect to see any new missions. There aren't any. Some existing missions have been moved so that you don't need to run halfway across the map for a simple delivery, but there's nothing brand new to get excited about.
One thing which is new is the change to rare mobs. The majority of these are now classified as "champions". They will show up on your map as a little skull icon, showing you there's something worth killing. After you've killed them once they won't show on the map again, so be a little careful not to run into them accidentally! Champions drop a reward bag which will give you a talisman or a weapon. You may well notice that most mobs aren't dropping loot. That's one of the big changes - mobs drop a few anima shards, (we'll come to currencies later, but think PAX,) but don't drop regular loot. Once you've reached lvl 15, there is a chance for kills to drop Agarthan Caches. I'll talk about them shortly!
There are now big meta achievements for doing everything in each zone. They give 10 AP, 10 SP and a new outfit costume called guises. Each zone has a different guise, but they're fun, most look good and that AP/SP bonus is pretty damn tasty!
Items
So how do you get items if mobs aren't dropping them? Champions and missions basically. Missions will reward you with weapon and/or talisman bags, and once you reach Egypt, glyph bags will be added to the rewards.
This is one of the big changes in the game. The gear system as we know it has been changed a fair bit. You'll still get the same talismans and weapons that you're used to, but almost every drop will be a green level 1. If you're lucky, you might get a blue, but only if you are truly blessed by the great RNG gods.
So if all the drops are green lvl 1s, how do you lay your hands on those sweet epics? Enter the empowerment and fusion systems. Item crafting is gone now, so if you open the assembly window, you'll instead find the Item Upgrade window, all shiny and new!
To upgrade an item, you (shockingly) put it into the top window (right click works). You then pick other talismans or weapons to sacrifice to empower the item in the top window. Weapons need weapons, talismans need talismans to provide item xp. Once you fill the item xp bar at the top of the window, the item levels up. You can sacrifice any talisman or weapon to empower your item, but if you use matching items you will get 250% item xp. That'll normally mean 100 xp vs 250xp. What do I mean by matching though? Weapons are easier - a shotgun matches a shotgun, not a chaos focus etc. For talismans, you need to match slot and role - so a DPS neck would gain extra xp from another DPS neck, but not from a healing neck or a DPS ring. This becomes more important as you start getting better quality (colour) items.
You can use any colour item to empower any other. Blues give more xp than greens do, but they're also harder to come by, so it's normally a bit of a waste to use them as empowering fuel. A green lvl 20 will give the same item xp as a green lvl 1, so don't bother levelling up stuff you intend to sacrifice for empowerment as you won't gain anything.
Greens go up to lvl 20, blues go up to lvl 25, purples go to lvl 30, golds go to 35 and reds will eventually go up to 75 (we think). Now, the observant amongst you may well have spotted that we now have golds and reds. These are the new Mythic and Legendary item qualities.
Item power increases with each quality jump, so a blue lvl 1 is better than a green lvl 20. Unfortunately, the cost you pay with each item empowerment will also increase with each quality increase - greens cost 200 anima shards per item, blues cost 400, purples cost 600, gold 800 and red 1k anima shards per item used to empower. At lower qualities, you're not likely to find that too restraining, but your wallet takes a real pounding as you start to use Fusion more and more.
Fusion is how you go from green to blue to purple etc. You will get your first fusion upgrade for free as soon as an item hits lvl 20 for the first time. This is a once only deal to show you how it works. After that, you will need a second max level item to sacrifice in the fusion. The item will need to match the weapon type, - so shotgun to shotgun again. For talismans you only need to match the slot, not the role - you could fuse a tank neck to a DPS neck for example. Fusing them will keep any glyph on the item in the top window (the one you use for empowering,) and the other is destroyed, including any glyph it contains.
Sound complicated enough? No? Let's pretend you said no, because we've got one more mechanic to think about: pips. AKA dots, which you can see on the item icon. As we hopefully all know, moar dots is good. For weapons, this represents the Mk of the suffix. So for example, you'll get Shotgun of Havoc Mk I/II/III. The higher the Mk, the better, with greater proc chance or greater effect. You can increase the Mk of a weapon using the cash shop, but early on at least, it's best to wait and see what else drops.
For talismans, instead of Mks, there is brightness. The three levels are Faded, Luminous and Radiant. Radiant talismans (3 dots) will have more stats than an item of the same level which is Luminous, which will have more than a Faded one.
Early on, you'll find very very few Radiants. You may go through several zones without seeing any at all indeed. However, because of the way that fusion works, you can level up a Luminous or Faded while waiting for a Radiant to drop, and then sacrifice the dimmer talisman in Fusion once you have your Radiant.
As a side note, you'll also need to be level 50 (cap) before you can use purple gear. To avoid making stuff you can't use, you won't be able to fuse blues to purple until you are at 50.
So eventually, (hopefully,) you'll have a load of lvl 75 Legendary (red) Radiant talismans. That will take a long time, but nothing good is ever quick is it?
Getting back to weapons, you'll see lots of different suffixes: of Alacrity, of Restoration, of Havoc to name a few. So far, the testing is suggesting that the strongest weapon suffix to get is "of Energy Mk III". These reduce the amount of energy your power abilities use, which means you get to use more of them. Honestly, they're so good they may get nerfed or even removed, but grab them while you can!
Dungeon Loot and Agarthan caches
A new system is that each day you will get 12 dungeon keys. Each key opens a loot chest after a boss kill in a dungeon. The chest will show you the potential drops available, and you can then choose to use a key to open it, or to save them for another time.
The vast majority of dungeon drops are item upgrades called Distillates. You get weapon distillates, talisman distillates, glyph distillates (from scenarios) and even signet distillates (signets come from lairs, which are now end game content). These provide different amounts of xp for empowerments, and are good ways to level up items. Agarthan caches also drop distillates, but cache drops are free to use in empowering.
There is a small chance that named items will drop from dungeon chests. These also have the brightness/Mk system, which can be a bit of a pain, but have secondary effects which are situaitonally very useful.
Caches may drop blue or purple weapons which are pretty good at higher levels. The secondary effects often scale according to level, so it's worth keeping an eye out for interesting drops you might get. If you use a named item to empower or fuse another, sadly the effect is lost. You can empower named items as normal though.
Currency
This is another big change. We now have 3 currencies:
Anima shards[/:m]
Marks of Favour[/:m]
Aurum[/:m][/list:u]
Anima shards are the easiest to obtain, and have probably the least uses. They drop in small amounts from mob kills and dungeon clears. Vendoring items will give you Anima Shards.
They are used to pay for item empowerments, museum exhibits and to clear the death penalty debuff (essentially it's a repair mechanic, but much cheaper than repairs were). Once item upgrades start getting expensive, it's best to keep any matching items for empowerment, (yay for bonus item xp,) and vendor trash the rest. Early on, it may feel like you are sitting on a massive hoard of anima shards, Smaug-style. Once you get some epic items, that hoard will dwindle fast. Get some mythic items and you'll wish you saved some shards for your retirement!
If you find yourself with a big fat stack of Agarthan caches, be aware that the more you have, the fewer drop. That means that unless you intend to have a big blowout, it's better to regularly sell off excess to the vendor for Anima Shards - they have designed the system to encourage that behaviour.
Marks of Favour are a bit of a weird one. You can get 10k MoF each day by doing challenges (shift-J to see them once you've reached KM). After that, you can't grind more MoF on your character - you can make another account and grind on an alt if you like, but grinding wise, 10k per day is the limit.
Where it gets a bit tricky is the number of places that MoF can be used. MoF are used for many cosmetic items in the Dressing Room (shift-i). They can be used to buy more dungeon keys as mentioned earlier. They are used to unlock sprint speeds (shift-p), add inventory slots, bank slots, weapon pages (if you don't link your tsw account), potion refills cost MoF and possibly most importantly, the Auction House uses MoF as the trading currency.
Now, on the upside, that means that if you have something that'll sell well on the AH - a weapon of energy Mk III which you don't want for example, then you can probably get a good chunk of MoF for it. Remember that early on, people won't have had time to stockpile many though, so putting stuff up in the first week for 100k MoF is likely to just cost you your deposit (again in MoF).
Aurum is the currency that you can buy for cash in the store. They are used for some cosmetic items; top sprint levels; AP/SP; top bank and inventory upgrades; and to buy keys for Agarthan caches.
Now, I can imagine that sitting there, reading this, you may feel a trifle outraged at this, because it means that the top stuff (like the boar masks,) are only available for RL cash, and that's feeling a lot like the dreaded Pay to Win. Where it all gets a bit complicated is that you can use the AH Exchange, (open the AH using H and its got its own tab,) to buy and sell Aurum for MoF. That means that if you're happy to pay the cash, you can just buy some aurum and then sell it for MoF. Alternatively though, if you don't want to pay cash but want some sweet Aurum upgrades, then you can buy some from the MoF you got from the challenges or AH trading. Is it going to work? That remains to be seen. The prices are capped though, with the most anyone can charge for one Aurum being 300 MoF. The exchange asks you to name the price you are willing to pay per Aurum, so don't get caught out and accidentally buy one aurum for silly prices! The price is likely to vary depending on how many people are purchasing aurum to sell, and just how many people have enough MoF to be able to actually buy them. It'll be interesting to see how much the price fluctuates.
