NeoQuest Tips and Outline
written by scriptfox
So, what is this game that's been threatening the NeoPets servers with extinction and has been driving a significant number of people crazy? Well, for the beginning NeoQuester (someone who stays at home during the day, up late at night, or early in the morning), here are a few things to look out for:The first thing you have to do as you start your game is decide on skills. Read the documentation and you'll see that the five areas each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Two are offensive (fire and ice), two are defensive (spectral and life) and one is a roughly even mix (shock). The main thing you want to do is concentrate your points in one or two areas. This means choosing two of the five areas to "major" in. The most popular combinations seem to be fire/life or shock/life. Also, concentrate your points on the lower abilities at first, and get the higher ones a little later in the game.
Life is a great ability to have--I love lifesteal! The lowest life ability increases the number of points a healing potion gives you by the number of points you have in that skill. E.G. an ability of 3 makes a healing potion heal 13 instead of 10. Field Medic gives you random occurrences which heal roughly half of your ability points--a 5 level Field medic gives you random 2 point heals, a 6 level Field Medic 3 points. Lifesteal randomly increases your health when you hit your enemy, the amount being anywhere from one to the number of points that skill has. None of these happen every time you get a hit, but often enough to be very useful, particularly in the lower levels. I've found that in the upper levels the stakes grow faster than the benefits of investing, so more offensive measures are needed there.
Shock's main ability is to stun your opponents--two of the abilities do that, the Shockwave one includes damage with the stun. The other ability lowers your opponent's defense (which no doubt helps, though less noticeably). Fortitude increases your ability to shrug off flame and ice, and THAT is a VERY good thing. Your worst losses will come at the hands of fire and ice enemies--you can lose 100 points and maybe more in one blow. The only worse thing are those enemies that drain you of points and take them for themselves.
I haven't played much with the other abilities, so can't give details on what they do.
Playing the game, you will be in one of five main "modes":
TRAVEL:
will show a map of where you are at, and will have arrows pointing the eight directions that you can possibly go--as long as you aren't blocked by walls, mountains, or water. Clicking on an arrow will move you that direction if it is possible to go there.Entrances/exits will be available when you step on top of them--the option to use them shows up in the lower right corner.
TALK:
Sometimes you'll see a notice in the lower right-hand corner saying "you see so and so--click here to talk to them" Doing this will take you to a screen that lets you have a "conversation" with that character. Since the only way you talk is by clicking on preselected responses, it's really an equivalent to one of those touch-tone phone menus. "click here to ask this. Click here to ask the other". At any time you also have the option to give that character an item (or items).Characters serve two purposes. One is to give information, and the other is to create tools. Tools consist of armour, weapons, or sometimes "restoring" a magical item that you have so that it can be used somehow. One major tip is to talk to all of the characters, starting in Neopian City, and write down what they need and what they can make for that... making a checklist lets you make sure you get those items so that when you return you can get better equipment. The information that characters give lets you know where to get things and where to go and what to look for next.
FIGHT:
When you click to go someplace on the map, you may have a "challenge" screen pop up instead. You have been attacked by an enemy! It tells you which enemy, but you have no choice at that point other than joining battle. Clicking there starts the fight. Conducting a fight is relatively simple. You have three basic option: attack, flee, or do nothing. If you have healing potions, you also have the option of using one of them. Conducting a battle is usually a case of clicking attack, attack, attack, with an occasional heal in order to keep from getting killed. Who wins a battle is mostly determined by level: if your opponent has a higher level than you they are likely to win. Opponents lower than you should lose. The number of points you get is roughly one hundred points for an opponent at or close to your strength, a bit more for stronger opponents, and a lot less if your opponents are much weaker. If they are too weak, you get no points--that usually occurs at roughly eight to ten levels below you. Your best opponents to fight are those about two or three levels lower than you, low enough to be fairly easily killed, high enough to provide decent points.ITEM LIST:
Shows you what you're carrying--notice that it also tells you how many items you CAN carry of that type. For instance, 3/20 means you have three and you can't carry more than twenty. You can also "use" some items--namely, healing potions! It's best to use them here if you can, you can get their full effect without losing a turn in battle. Weaker potions can be a liability in higher--level battles--you lose more points in damage from your enemy's hit than you get out of spending your turn taking the potion. Taking them straight from the item list eliminates that problem.
go to top SPEND SKILL POINTS
Every time you gain a level you get another skill point to spend... you can spend them at any time from the Travel mode. The instructions in it are pretty complete as to what it's all about, just remember the tips mentioned earlier about how to concentrate your abilities.GENERAL STRATEGY:
NeoQuest is based on a simple "hack and slash using items and skills" approach. The key is to know what items are available, using the best, and knowing where to go and who to fight. You can usually tell if you're going in the right direction by the strength of your enemies... too strong, and back off... too weak and you're likely wasting your time with that area. There are a lot of "mini quests" in the game, and at the end of each you have a stronger opponent (called a 'boss') that you have to fight. They'll have more hit points than their underlings and are much more formidable to fight. Be sure to have plenty of potions on hand and if at all possible be a level or two ahead of them. This means being about two levels ahead of their strongest underlings.Be sure to pay attention to what characters tell you--they'll usually direct you to the next area, or areas in which you need to fight and tell you what you're looking for.
If you are in an area with opponents that are your level, don't go further until you fight enough to gain more levels and points. The points required to gain a level increase the higher you go. The first few levels come quickly, higher levels require two thousand points each, and level 35 up requires three thousand each--more for the last few. Since you'll get maybe a hundred points per fight, and you need 117,000 points to be level fifty, this means that a full game of NeoQuest will include roughly one to two thousand battles, and very likely more.
If you are in an area with opponents that are too hard then leave.
If you are in an area with opponents that are too weak that give you little or no points, then SNEAK! Don't waste your time on them.
If you are in an area with opponents that are just below you (in other words, just right for fighting) go to HUNTING mode. This gives you more battles and lets you gain levels quicker, and the quicker you gain them, the easier to fight the really hard stuff a little later on.
If you are hunting opponents of the right strength and you are slowly losing healing potions to them, consider going back to easier areas and battling weaker creatures to get more potions before coming back to try that area again.
Once you are level fifty, there is no reason to fight for level's sake, so SNEAK unless you are confident enough in your abilities to spend time fighting enemies for possible healing potions, or just to get a higher score.
If you get killed you lose points... the number of points increase the more times it happens, or the higher levels that you are on. Don't lose too often or you'll wind up losing out on everything! Flee if your opponent is too tough, and you can judge that by the level. If they're your level or above you'll likely want to run. Don't give up if they block your way the first time, trying two or three times should get you out.
Many of the places that you go to are mazes, of varying complexity. The trick that I use is to follow walls... pick a wall and follow it around. You'll eventually cover the whole area, usually. Some areas are hard to see as a maze since they feature wide open spaces, but following a wall (or equivalent) will likely get you through those as well. The one exception to this is the teleporter maze in the jungle ruins. It would work there as well, but jumping around the maze by teleporter gets you confused as to which wall is which, so you'll probably have to map that one out.
EQUIPMENT:
Looking in your items will show you your equipment as well as other miscellaneous stuff. You use two items: one for offense, to attack, and one for defence to help stop the other opponent's attack. UPGRADING THESE AS YOU GO IS CRUCIAL!The effectiveness of each item can be seen in the list of items--after the name of each one, it has a 'damage' level in parentheses. Higher points = stronger offense/defence. A brief listing of levels for offense is as follows:
Basic Wand (damage 3)... you get one free when you start the game, more are available if you have the right items in the northeast corner of Neopia City.
Advanced Wands (damage 6)----available in the center part of Neopia City, you'll need to go through the Dank Caves to get the materials.
Gaia Wands (damage 10) ----available in the Jungle Ruins, you'll need to complete two of the levels below ground to get all of the materials for them.
Staffs of Power (damage 15) ----available in the Temple of Roo after defeating the Archmagus there... and completing errands in a few other places to gather all of the materials. The life staff is really nice, it gives you 100 point heals during battle as an option: free healing potions!!
Staffs of Brilliance (damage 20)----available in a special mountain fortress south of the Techo Caves, one for every type gained by defeating the elemental of that type. These elemental are level 40 and have 320 hit points (except for the life one, he has 450), but if you have been fighting all of the underlings as you go you should have no problem. Just don't be under level 40 when you go into battle!
Defence items are also available, two levels in southeast and southwest Neopia City, another level in the Techo Caves, and the highest level available as booty in the Mountain Fortress that holds the Staffs of Brilliance.
There may well be other places to obtain items, but those are the ones that I have personally used. Just remember that good equipment is half the battle--the other half is a high level. Healing potions are last-ditch emergency use, unless you're fighting a boss, in which case they're vital.
go to top GAME OUTLINE:
Consider the following steps a checklist to guide you through the game. Note that they aren't all that detailed about HOW to do these things, just WHERE you go and what major things you're looking for.Talk to the characters in Neopia City and find out what they offer and what they need.
Go into hunt mode and head east, and immediately around the city. Fight fire and ice imps, coming back for healing, until you reach level 2 or 3.
Head northwest to the Hills of Jub. Fight a few animals there (you'll need some of the materials) and then head into the Dank Caves.
After fighting your way through the Dank Caves, return to Neopia City and outfit yourself with a more powerful wand and more powerful shielding--if you did your homework and were thorough, you should have what you need.
Head south to the Jungle Ruins. Once inside, go straight north and take the stairs up. Find Denethir the Scholar and talk with him about the Gaia wands--make your lists as to what you need. Go back down, the entrance to underground is in a corridor off the southeast corner.
Go down ONE level and clear it out. There will be a "boss" there.
The teleporter sends you back... make sure you are one level lower than before and clean it out. The second one is hard to find, you'll need to go north and east from the stairs, and there will be a little entrance to a long corridor that eventually opens up into the teleporter maze.
After defeating Gors (the second level) you can go back up and get a gaia wand, assuming you've done your homework and gotten everything you need.
Go back down and fight your way through more fire and ice lizards than you care to think about and finish the third jungle ruins level.
Go up through the tower and at the top you'll find the guy who made the place. He doesn't do much besides tell you the tale behind it, along with directing you back to Eleus in Neopian City.
Go back to Neopia City and talk to Eleus... he clues you in to your next step.
Head west through the haunted woods, north around some mountains, then south and west through the Great Swamp. There is a city on the western edge with a couple of characters. I never completed their quests, apparently didn't need them.
Go south into the desert of Roo. The Temple of Roo is on the south side of the mountain range in the middle of the desert.
Fight your way through the Temple of Roo. Warning: the Archmagus of Roo at the end is a VERY formidable opponent!
If you've talked with Erick, you know about the Staffs of Power. Get some made, again depending on your available materials. You'll need to take a few side errands to get everything.
Head south into the Techo Caves. There is a Jetsam in the first cave that will give you a more powerful shield item for materials available within the cave. Get it!
Head south and west through the Caves. You'll go through three separate caves, with increasing difficulty opponents.
You should come out to Sunny Town. Talk to the lady there and she tells you the general outline of the rest of the game.
Back into the caves, coming out farther south after a few more to get into the Mountain Fortress
Defeat the elementals there and you'll have all five staffs of power!
Back into the caves, heading west to come out into a large open area of plains, with tundra to the south and the Eastern Glades on the east end. Go into the glades and find the city of Kal Panning.
Fight your way through the undead enemies there. Note: the boss here is going to be either very HARD to beat, or very EASY, depending on your quickness of thought and ability to think a bit unconventionally.
Head back west, skirt the mountains and go through the first cave you see there. This leads you into the first of the Two Rings. Fight the monsters in the valley until you're level 45 at least and then enter the palace on the north side.
Jahbal is on the third floor, waiting for you. Be as prepared as you can, because that's the final end of the game or maybe of you!
