sorry Courtney, you were being slow
What is "Bad"
Bad is being poor.
Bad is being inefficient in your mount usage.
Bad is buying things without a goal.
Bad is ignoring drops.
Bad is ignoring
gold drops.
Bad is not planning your builds.
Bad is wasting AP.
Bad is wasting Training.
Bad is ignoring your stats.
Bad is not taking advantage of Duncan's
free skill resets.
What is "Good"
Good is saving dosh.
Good is walking short distances, and summoning your pet rarely.
Good is researching gear on the Wiki.
Good is researching
gear stats from Generation 13 on the Wiki.
Good is using the history function on the wiki.
Good is picking up anything
anyone could use.
Good is being OCD about picking up gold.
Good is paying attention to (all things being equal) the stats per AP you gain from rank ups.
Good is resetting skills with Duncan when you inevitably screw up.
Good is waiting to rank a hard-to-train skill before resetting skills with Duncan.
Good is learning the timings of your combat abilities.
Good is learning the timings of the enemies in the game (They vary infrequently.)
Good is optimizing your stats and gear to improve your overall strength and effectiveness.
How to be "Good"
Take a moment to look at your character sheet. What's your level? Roughly how much EXP do you need to level up? Thousands? Hundreds of Thousands? Millions? Anyone should be able to ask you this at any given time, and you should be able to nigh instantly respond.This gives you a solid idea of the work needed to advance.
Take a look at your skills. What stats are you getting from your skills? Are you focusing on one or more types of stats? Are there skills you have ranked unrelated to those stats? Once you move beyond the utility of your skills themselves, you can get to the real bread and butter of rank ups and their main benefit: stat stacking. While any of the categories of skills can deal damage, you benefit much more from stat scaling and stacking.
Take a moment to look at your equipment. Does your equipment complement your skills? Are you upgrading your weapons? Are you upgrading your armor? Do you have enchantments that complement your stats? If you answered no to any of these questions, you need to determine what gear would change that answer to yes, and work towards it. Set small goals; don't expect to be able to get a Dragon Fang just because you want a 2h, and try to get it with starter gear. While the MabiPro starter gear is pretty good, putting money into your gear even for upgrades can propel you farther than just sitting on or wasting the gold.
and now probably the one everyone wants to read...
Take a look at your wallet. Sad and deflated? Simply put, there are two massive gold generators in this server. Fomor Scrolls and Part Time Jobs. Fomor Scrolls are straight forward. Collect 10 of a type, buy a quest scroll, complete quest, profit. Repeating dungeon runs with high amounts of a single type of mob (Ciar for Goblins, Math for Kobolds, Fiodh for Snakes) is a good way to generate income on top of normal dungeon rewards. If it's not plentiful outside of a dungeon, chances are it's worth anywhere from 6k to 12k gold per stack. Part Time Jobs are silly gold when done right; 20k an ingame day is common among some of my friends. Because of the 4x rewards for EXP and Gold, it's also a good way to level up at low levels, which also makes Elf/Giant Production alts viable, but we'll get to that later. Good PTJs include: Grocery Store, Healers, and Shepherds PTJ in Tir, Healers, Grocery and Church in Dunbarton. PTJs from Malcom and Simon are also viable, but require some upfront skills/materials in Weaving & Tailoring. This is good if you've already got ranks/materials and are looking for training, but for less dedicated players it might be a bit too much.
For the more combat oriented, Daily SMs are always available in Tailtean and Tara, but will require a party to complete at low levels. The rewards are excellent though, and often times can give anywhere from 15-20k a run.
Lastly, the best way to "git gud" is to research strategies (there's a host of information online from 2011, just have to find it), think outside the box, and try new things.
-Maldaris