New Player

## Introduction

This page is aimed at new and returning players alike.

There are a couple of aspects that you should be familiar with going into the game. You can learn them by yourself, but this is also a good introductory.

• The Character Creation Screen & The Tutorial
• Death's Domain
• The Builds
• The Currency
• The Equipment
• (Not in) The Face
• The Guardian (Of the Galaxy)
• The Story
• The Item Upgrader
• Recommended Options
• Extras

## The Battle System

This is a turn-based RPG, where each turn the player can control their equipped items without ending the turn, and attack in some form.

Your inventory is comprised of:

* **Miscs** - Items that add some sort of functionality on top of the player (be it resistance, damage, or some other effect). These generally have an upkeep of one of your resources.
* **Weapons** - This is self explanatory. An item dealing damage with generally just one element.
* **Shields** - An item that provides some resistance to one or more elements.
* **Armor** - The main differentiator, providing both defenses against some elements, as well as playing a part in determining how much damage you deal.
* **Pets** - An ally you can have by your side that deals damage as well. A lot of pets have a bundled effect making them more than just a damage source.
* **Spells** - While this section is mostly dominated by Mages for obvious reasons, some spells can also be used by other builds.
* **Guests** - While not strictly in your inventory, some spells summon an additional ally to fight by your side, consuming some resources for each turn it's on your side of the field.

The base strategy is very simple. Equip armors and shields that are resistant to the element the monster attacks with, equip weapons and pets that the enemy is weak against (can be seen by hovering on the portrait of the enemy).

Each turn you can either attack with your weapon, use an armor skill if there is one, or cast a spell (guest spells don't take a turn, other than some older ones).

Each inventory category can hold up to 8 items, with the **Weapon** and **Armor** categories having 1 slot already occupied with your default equipment.

You have 3 resources available to you:

* **Health Points (HP)** - The most obvious one, if it runs out, you die.
* **Mana Points (MP)** - You start with full MP, but don't regenerate it. It is used for most spells and for some skills, guests and miscs.
* **Stamina/Skill Points (SP)** - You start with 0 SP, but regenerate it over the length of the battle. It is used for some spells, skills, guests and miscs.

Your objective, as obvious as it is, is to make sure your opponent's health reaches 0 before yours.

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## The Character Creation Screen & The Tutorial

While you choose a class on the character creation screen, it only determines 3 things:

* Your initial **stats**, giving 10 points to the stat corresponding with the class you chose. (Easily reversible in the game)
* Your default **weapon**, which is also rather easily swapped, and is generally not used in most cases.
* Your default **armor**, changing the emphasis of your armor from elemental defenses, to dodge chance, and again, is rather easily swapped.

The tutorial gives you a brief intro into the game, and explains how to navigate the town.

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## Death's Domain

When you die in battle, you'll have a short visit by Death, who tells you that you died, but unfortunately there's no place for you in his domain just quite yet, after which he returns you to town. You can however visit his domain by clicking the semi-transparent Hourglass near his boat.

Throughout Death's Domain there are purple portals, leading to random places, two of which are:

* **The Untrainer** - Mentioned in the next section.
* **Name Change** - One of the portals will lead you to Twilly, who helped you name your character the first time, but it seems like he forgot your name and needs you to "remind" him, by typing in your new name.

In order to leave Death's Domain, you must either die in battle or flee a battle.

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## The Builds

Once you roll into town, you can see a Training Tent on the right side of the screen, called "Stat Trainers".

There are 3 options on the “Training!” board:

* **Combat Practice** - A place where you can take your equipment to practice your strategies and see how your combos work. Player can choose the trainer’s element by selecting “Change Weapon”.
* **Training** – This is where you will go to increase your stats up to the limit of 250 per stat and 750 total.
* **Un-Training** – This is where you will go to un-train your stats. It is all or nothing.

The “Player Stat Info” scroll next to the board lists each stat and the benefits of training them.

To train a stat, select “Training” from the board. Each stat is listed on the scroll with its 3-letter abbreviation with a number and box next to it. The number is your current stat number for that stat. Underneath the stats there is a section labeled “Points Left”. This is the number of stat points available to you.

To train the stat, select the box to the right of the stat you would like to train. Using the buttons on the right of the board you can increase the number of points you are putting into that stat. As you assign points, the “Training Fee” amount will increase. You cannot train stats if the cost is above your current gold. Remove points if needed. After assigning the points to the stats, select the “Train” button.

To un-train your stats, select the “Un-Training” option. You can only un-train all stats with this method. Your login password is required to complete un-training. No gold refund is given for un-training.

You can un-train 5 points in a specific stat by locating **Sir Pwnsalot, the Un-Trainer**. He can only be encountered by dying and visiting Death's Domain as mentioned above and going into the Purple portals. The first one will teleport you to **Sir Pwnsalot**.

Choose the stat you want to untrain 5 points of and ***lose*** to him in battle. You can click his jaw to make him deal a greater amount of damage, speeding up the process.

Once encountered at least once, The Un-Trainer will be available from the Yellow Portal in the Guardian Tower, but only for Guardian characters.

There are 6 Stats available to train separated into three **Mainstats** (Strength, Dexterity & Intellect) and three **Secondary** stats (Endurance, Charisma & Luck).

The Mainstats affect the weapon and skill/spell damage for their respective damage type as well as their accuracy.

Secondary stats affect different specific things: Endurance - Player HP, Charisma - Pet & Guest damage/accuracy (accuracy is also split between charisma and a Mainstat, currently this is set to Dexterity) and Luck - Affects most things to a minor degree including block chance, accuracy (for all things previously listed) and status inflictions.

For a more comprehensive explanation of stats please refer to this guide: AQ Game Mechanics 101 Part 7: Stats

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## The Currency

Items in AdventureQuest Classic cost one of either of 3 currencies:

* **Gold** - The default currency of the game, earned by killing monsters.
* **Z-Tokens** - The premium currency of the game, which you can use to either buy some premium items in-game, or a loot-box, dubbed Golden Giftbox, that contains access to one of the exclusive shops of the game. More on the looboxes on the Additional Information page. They can be either purchased for real money, or earned through random drops from battles, ranging from 3 to 10 per battle, and capping at 25 (Adventurer) or 50 (Guardian) Z-Tokens per day. (See below for Adventurer/Guardian)
* **$$$** - Some items are only available through the purchase of Z-Token packages, which are essentially the addition of some Z-Tokens to your character as well as one item of your choosing from the list.

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## The Equipment

Once you've chosen your build, head over to the Equipment Guide and choose the equipment corresponding to the choices you've made in the Stats & Builds page.

Generally, the top option in each category is the cookie cutter option, offering the most in terms of raw strength, and is what you should choose if you don't like reading too much. **However**, not all items are available to your character, depending on your access type. Items in the Equipment Guide are separated into 4 major access types:

* **Adventurer** - These items have no badge (that little text at the top right of the item card), and are available to everyone.
* **Guardian** - These items are only available to those who upgraded to a Guardian, more on that on the Guardian section.
* **Z-Tokens** - These items, while technically available to all players, require the use of the premium currency.
* **Premium** - These items, while technically available to all players, cannot be accessed without the use of real world money, and are available only through the purchase of a Z-Token package.

You are therefore advised to either pick the best option that's available to your access type.

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## (Not in) The Face

On the main town, go into the Mage Shop, and see that you can purchase faces there. Once you bought the face you want, go into the Mirror of Colors in the same dialogue menu, and choose the face you want, and customize it to your liking.

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## The Guardian (Of the Galaxy)

Unrelated to the movie, while the base game is free, some in-game content is locked for Adventurer characters which are essentially the Demo characters of the game.

You can make a one-time payment of $20 ($10 for additional characters on the same account) to experience the full game.

**It is possible however for free characters to access almost all the locked quests and travel locations through a Travel Pass which will be described at the end of the section.**

The most notable features of Guardians are:

1. Access to the Guardian Tower, including a permanent location for Void Challenges, which are an occasional event.
2. Access to better no-drop gear, which can be elementally aligned.
3. Access to many quests and locations on the map.
4. Access to a lot of the meta gear.
5. Increase of the level cap from 135 to 150.

### Travel Pass

The Travel Pass allows you to access Guardian Only locations on the map with an Adventurer character, and it lasts until you log out.

In order to acquire a Travel Pass, go into the Mage Shop, ask to explore and the shop, and put the following three ingredients from the cabinet into the pot:

* Magma Leaf
* Bad Juice
* Slattwobb Dust

This will give you a **Pet Rock**, but the process isn't done yet.

Go back to town, click on Valencia, the purple haired lady with a floating Moglin by her side, and ask to visit her privately, where you'll ask her about the Travel Pass.

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## The Story

The story of AdventureQuest is scattered across the various towns, and locations on the map, comprising of some one-off stories, as well as some long sagas.

Unfortunately, due to the lead writer constantly changing as well as contradictory and non-canon "lore" as detailed here, a formal story guide is impossible to make. The closest thing available is a catch-up guide for the modern story from AQ's lead writer.

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## The Item Upgrader

AQ allows players to upgrade their items without having to complete the same quest again to get a higher level version of an item. The item upgrader is available through the Account Manager (Character List --> *Click a character* --> Upgrade Inventory).

Some items are not upgradeable, meaning you have to quest for them again in case you want higher level versions. It's mostly the so-called "MC set" items that you cannot upgrade.

A list of items that can be upgraded can be found here.

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## Recommended Options

In most games, the options menu provides some tweaks to affect performance or basic visual or audio settings. AQ is a game in which some vital gameplay mechanics are hidden in the options menu, so it is highly recommended that one turns on some of these features as soon as possible.

Click Options below the SP Bar -> More to see the game options.

The relevant options are Quick Spell Cast Icons and Ready Inv Before Battle. The first option allows one to cast spells without clicking through the spell menu. This speeds up spellcasting a bit and acts as a minor Quality of Life improvement. The main option that matters is the second one. Ready Inv Before Battle, as its name implies, allows players to change their inventory before battle. This includes armor and shield. Because elemental resistances matter so much in AQ, getting caught in the first turn in suboptimal equipment can be dangerous if not fatal. Thus, this function provides a massive benefit in battles and is absolutely vital for players to turn on.

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## Extras

Once you're done getting acquainted with the game, this wiki offers a couple of additional features to help you navigate the game:

* A list of most of the important terms.
* Guides to the Events that take place in the game.
* A comprehensive guide on the Housing System.

As well as many other features, appearing on the guide's Main Page.

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