Albion Online is an MMORPG first released in 2017. Set in a medieval fantasy setting, Albion Online might strike a familiarity with World of Warcraft and Runescape. However, if you’re an old-school MMORPG player, it’s not a guarantee this game will make you feel at home. But, worry not! In this post, we have some Albion Online beginner tips to help you understand the game.
With the release of the new European server in late April, Albion Online’s player base reached a new all-time height. Albion Online first came out in 2017. However, this MMORPG is doing quite well and keeps funnelling new players. At this point, you might get tempted to try the game yourself. But, hold on a second, before jumping into the action, there are several tips you have to know.
You see, Albion Online focuses a lot on full-loot PvP (player versus player) activities, and it can be daunting even for MMORPG experts, let alone new gamers. To add to that, the economy of the game is completely player-driven. Meaning, that every piece of armour, bow, sword, and horse you ride around is crafted by another player. So, when the more experienced players decide to go after newer players, they outgun the newbies who have nothing to bring them back on their feet.
Beginner Tips To Tackle The Economy In Albion Online
So first things first, this might be the most neat thing from Albion Online. The producers of items in this world are the players themselves. This means you can’t get stuff from the NPCs and the price of everything keeps fluctuating. Don’t be surprised when certain weapons get buffed or nerfed, the price at the auction house will go accordingly.
Also, when you eventually (inevitably) die from fighting another player, you actually lose every gear you have on and what’s in your inventory. Thankfully though, the silver (the in-game currency) remains unaffected. When players lose their last set of gears, it’s common to see them begging around the cities.
Now, we don’t want you to end up like this, do we? Let’s go through some Albion Online beginner tips to secure your silver stash.
Solo Silver Making By Gathering
Let’s go through with the most basic and simple silver maker in the game. And, most importantly, these are the activities you can do solo, without discord groups or a guild backing you up. We’ll start from the most menial ones to the ones that get you an adrenaline rush.
First of all, gathering. Simply gathering raw resources in the game like stones, metal ores, animal hides, wood, and even fish can jumpstart your personal economy in Albion Online. Try gathering one of these resources for an hour and sell the result of your labour to the auction house.
Albion released the foundation update on April 15th, with new features like fortification and new crystal weapons. So, there likely won’t ever be a shortage of demand for raw resources. Don’t get discouraged when you only earn a measly 100k per hour from gathering. After all, this is the most accessible thing a newbie can do in the safe zones. Gathering in the red and black zones can be extremely profitable, we’ll get to that later.
Understanding Personal Island As Albion Online Beginner
Here is another tip to make silver as a beginner in Albion Online. When you are first starting out, Albion will give you a free three days of premium status. What is that, you ask? A premium status simply gives you a boost on the earned “fame” or the game’s EXP, less tax at the auction house, and more loot in treasure chests.
To be frank, there isn’t much difference between a free-to-play account. Albion Online is quite free-to-play friendly, so there won’t be much advantage a premium player would have. However, there is one thing that’s exclusive for a premium player, access to purchase your own island.
Is Premium A Pay-To-Win?
Purchasing a personal island requires a week-long premium at minimum. So, the free three-day premium won’t cut it. Don’t worry, it is pretty affordable at $5. Premium status does give you advantages other than access to a personal island. Namely, bonus fame (EXP), more loot, and discount on taxes at the auction house.
But, it doesn’t automatically make you invincible against other players. Moreover, Albion Online allows players to buy premium status with the in-game silver. So, if you don’t mind grinding for a few more hours, it’s pricey but definitely achievable.
Using Your Personal Island To Gain Silver
Back to island management. After you buy your island, you’ll need to develop it before making some products. It’s a good plot of land and there is merit in searching what the market demands. Remember to look up the sell volume of the item you want to make. We don’t want to end up with stacks of items that hardly sell, do we?
Personally, I tried breeding tier-three horses and then saddling them up before selling them to the auction house. At first, one tier three riding horse sounds so cheap at around 10k silver each. Veterans and newbies alike don’t typically venture into the lethal zones on a million-worth mount, making low-tier horses a high-demand item.
Moreover, if you gathered the leather needed for saddling you’ll get more profit than I did. And, I always bought other resources and still ended up with around a million silver profit. But, this is a game where PvP thrives, isn’t it? If menial tasks aren’t your thing, there are more ways of making silver.
Some Beginner Tips For Faction Warfare
For solo beginners, faction warfare is a highly recommended activity, especially if you’re still learning the game’s top-down, point-and-click mechanics. You can align yourself with one of the royal cities. For each captured enemy’s outpost and knocked downed rival faction players, you get some faction points.
The best thing about faction warfare is you don’t have to do it in the lethal zones! So, you can go risk-free and only worry about the cheap gear maintenance fee. Plus, every week, Albion Online gives you bonus points depending on how much you contributed to your chosen city. More points equal more silver.
Trading Faction Points For Faction Hearts
At any given time, you can trade those faction points for faction hearts at the corresponding NPC. You can opt for the chest which will give you some loot, and tomes for easy level up. So, faction warfare is a very versatile activity that provides you with quick progression or silver, depending on what you want at the time.
However, there are three things I can say as Albion Online beginner tips when it comes to faction hearts. First, you can sell them immediately at the auction house, each faction heart will give you around 50k silver and the price is pretty stable. So, imagine if you hoard those points before trading them.
Smuggling Missions
Second, there is an option to do the smuggling mission. Basically, the NPC will ask you to trade the faction hearts for a mysterious package, which you’ll need to transport deep into a rival city’s territory. Then, after trading with the smuggler NPC, you’ll need to go back to your city safely without being knocked down by another player.
This mission will always reward you with more faction hearts than what you initially started with. However, the reward is some faction hearts of the rival city. So, the price will likely be more expensive than your city’s faction hearts if you sell them.
Quick And Simple Faction Cape Crafting
However, there is a third way that, in my opinion, rewards you with the most silver and requires the least hustle, it’s cape crafting. Faction hearts are essential ingredients in crafting some items, including faction capes which give players a lot of utility like defense buff, invisibility, and more overall damage.
This is, by far, the most useful Albion Online beginner tip I experienced as a newbie. We can get the faction crests and hearts by trading with the faction NPC. At low tiers, like tier 4 and 5, faction capes sell easily and can give you around 60k silver profit per cape, or more. At higher tiers, the price can reach millions, although with less demand.
Solo PvP In Corrupted Dungeons
Maybe gathering, grinding for faction points, and crafting still aren’t your thing. You want more action with more rewards. Of course, there is still a way, especially if you’re experienced with MOBA games like Mobile Legends or DOTA 2. But, don’t get cocky and venture into the lethal open world alone.
This is where newbies often experience their first bankruptcy. The open world is teemed with groups of players aiming solely to jump on vulnerable and unaware solo beginners. Albion Online player base calls them “gankers”. No matter how good at the game you are, if you’re outnumbered, it’s a pretty high risk to go after a group of five or more coordinated gankers.
Luckily, there are PvP options for solo players. First, there is, the totally for solo players, corrupted dungeons. The premise of these dungeons is a pretty cookie-cutter of your typical RPG dungeon. You defeat some demons, and the game gives you a couple of treasure chests at the end. After a few times of venturing deep into the dungeons, you will earn enough “infamy” to unlock the lethal version of corrupted dungeons in the red and black zones.
The Real Loot In Albion Online
This is where the fun begins. In corrupted dungeons, other players can choose to invade your dungeon, or maybe it’s you who choose to disrupt the others. This is true even in the safe zones. However, you’ll simply get kicked out of the dungeon and lose nothing in the beginner-friendly zones. Here’s a tip for dwelling in corrupted dungeons as an Albion Online beginner, go cheap!
In Albion Online, the real loot isn’t the dungeon loot, it’s the other players you fight and their inventory. And, at the highest infamy level of corrupted dungeons, there is no level cap on how strong your gears can be. So, when you keep your gear cost low, you’ll find learning the PvP mechanic less punishing. However, If you know how to fight from a top-down perspective or in MOBA games, you’ll be racking up lots and lots of boon doing this.
The More Group-Oriented Hellgates
Let’s say you aren’t alone in the bustling world of Albion Online. Maybe you have a friend to play with, but it’s just the two of you. It’s certainly not enough to run a guild, is it? There is a similar activity you and your best buddy can do together, it’s hellgates!
The overall setting is almost the same as corrupted dungeons. In fact, this content came out earlier and corrupted dungeons were something Albion Online came up with later to cater to solo players. But, something as little as adding a partner gives more nuance to the PvP experience in Albion Online.
Unlike most games where a certain class has to equip certain gears, Albion Online gives you total freedom in making a character build. But, you’ll need more than Albion Online beginner tips to master the PvP aspect of the game. Know the popular builds by checking out Albion Online’s character builder!
For example, it’s extremely common to see a duo consisting of a healer and a DPS, wielding a potent healing holy staff and a high-damage burst dagger. Furthermore, things will vary a lot more in 5v5 hellgates where crowd control and stunning the enemies become more influential. Go with whatever flow with your groups the most.
There is no limit to experimenting and working out the dynamics of your group, making your strategy more niche and unpredictable to the enemy. Of course, you can still opt for the more meta builds. But, Albion Online’s complete freedom in experimenting opens a door to more creative builds.
Tips For Fighting In The Mist As An Albion Online Beginner
Okay, at this point, you might crave more action, more players to slay, and thus, more loot to gain. If fighting against a set number of enemies has become boring to you, enter the mist. The mist is sort of an alternate open-world roaming realm in Albion Online. It’s accessible by entering mysterious wisps out in the open world, or simply by entering a portal in the city of Brecilien.
What’s unique about the mist is there are sets of objectives you can do and unique monsters you can defeat which drop rare crafting ingredients. But, those are not the main dish Albion Online is offering. The biggest complaint among the small-scale and solo players in the open world of Albion is that there are too many gankers groups who rely on numbers. So, the mist is the exact solution for players looking for small-scale fights.
However, unlike corrupted dungeons and hellgates, there is no exact number of enemies you might encounter. Some days are quiet where you get to roam freely, and sometimes there might be player after player looking to challenge you into intense fights.
The Mist Is Where Spontaneous Fights Go Down
The unpredictable nature of the mist is added when we consider this place is all for anonymity. In the regular open world, you can turn on the player’s name visibility, letting you know if they are strangers or someone you know. However, the mist always hides every player’s name as a “mysterious stranger” including yours. So, the mist actually encourages wild and unpredictable fights.
Here is a beginner tip to be a mist player in Albion Online, I highly recommend wearing headphones. You’d be surprised at how well-designed the sound in this game is. Every sound of potions, spells, weapons, or even footsteps can give you a clue about what kind of player you are up against.
Exploit the element of surprise to the fullest. You can pop a bottle of invisibility potion, get close to a player fighting a monster or another player, and then by the time you land the first hit you already have a big advantage. Be aware though, that other players will also do this to you.
One more thing about the mist, there is an option to enter what’s called a duo-mist. It’s the same thing as regular solo mist, but players are encouraged to enter with a party of two. However, you can still totally enter it solo, although it is more risky.
Tips For Starting Out As A Beginner Guild Member In Albion Online
Lastly, even if you start as a solo player, Albion Online is a guild-focused game for the most part. So, it’s highly recommended to join a guild, even if it belongs to a random guy you meet in the game. The community of Albion Online is alive and thriving, especially when guilds are claiming (or fighting for) territories and building hideouts out in the black zones.
Not only that, some content exclusively requires a group of people to do, like raid dungeons, hardcore expeditions, and some parts of the Roads of Avalon. Moreover, for crafting enthusiasts out there, if the guild you’re in has a hideout in certain locations out in the black zones, you can get a quality bonus for the items you craft.
The real challenge here is finding a guild that rides your preferred gaming habit. Thankfully, there are tons of beginner-friendly guilds as many as there are hardcore guilds. So, be sure to look up their description on the guild finder.
Find The Perfect Guild For Your Gaming Pace
Furthermore, if you hate the tax the auction house imposes, you can simply trade with your guild members. Albion Online is always open to trading among players. But, in a guild, it’s common to meet someone who specializes in certain activities only, including crafting. Talk about asking for a friendship-based market price, am I right? Besides, the Albion Online community is pretty welcoming. Albion Online veterans will gladly tell a beginner some tips, especially if you’re in the same guild.
In addition to that, some activities you’d consider too dangerous to do solo suddenly turn to be pretty easy. It’s hard to gather enchanted resources out in the deadly black zones by yourself. But, when you have your guild friends backing you up, it’s a different story. It’s tough shooing away those pesky gankers out in the open world. But, if you have enough dudes on your back, suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted.
Also, being a member of a guild isn’t all about the benefit. Don’t let the idea of making your swimming in silver and powerful outshine the notion of having fun with friends. After all, Albion Online is an MMORPG and this genre is as social as any other public space.