FAQ

Q: Does this game have offline progress?

A: No, you must remain connected to IdleLands for your character to continue leveling and exploring. Offline progress is not planned.

Q: What is my max item score? What for? How does it go up?

A: You can increase it primarily by leveling up. There are some auxiliary methods of leveling it up such as getting achievements like Drunk, Camper, Party Member, etc, but the best way to make it go up is to level up.

Q: My stats don't make sense! Why do the equipment numbers not match up with my actual stat numbers?

A: There are a lot of things that can affect your stats, such as your class, current festivals, and buffs you may have. Relax, it's probably correct!

Q: I hear people talking about parties. That's a group, right? How do I get in one of those?

A: It will happen completely randomly after you hit level 10! Completely random, I say!

Q: I lost a fight with some dude and then stole his item in the next few minutes, how does that work? Didn't I die?

A: Yes, sir, you died. Then you were revived immediately, and granted the wonderful chance to pilfer that person fine head-resting-clothes. Events generally do not influence each other, so you can be best friends in one event, and then mortal enemies in the next. They're completely independent!

Q: What's a pers-on-a-li-tee? I don't have any, but people keep talking about being Greedy and Camping. I thought that only happened in FPS games, what did I get myself into?

A: Well, personalities are one of the few ways you can tell your adventurer how to behave. Personalities include things like "don't go down stairs, ever!" and "stand completely still until the end of time!" but also more mild, passive things like gaining XP and Gold at different rates.

Q: I have a negative stat, now I can't do anything, right?

A: Wrong! Your negative stats are actually treated as a value of 1. The website shows you your totals, not actual values.

Q: Events aren't happening for me, why?!

A: Relax. It's an idling game, something will happen to you eventually. Just give it some time! Low luck means a low chance to have an event.

Q: Okay, so if events don't happen, I'm not doing anything?

A: That is absolutely not the case. You have one action every 5 seconds, during which you take a step (and get that sweet, sweet xp), and try to do an event. If at first you don't succeed, try again in 5 seconds!

Q: I'm not making any progress! Am I doomed?

A: Absolutely not. I run simulations for this game all the time, and players always, always make positive progress, no matter how long it takes. Hang in there!

Q: I just got an achievement worth +1 xp, that sounds like total garbage, what gives?

A: Well, actually, that means you get +1 xp every time you get XP (which includes every step you take). Doesn't seem so bad now, huh?

Q: What is a providence?

A: A providence is a great thing that is awesome and probably the worst thing on the planet in your equipment. It comes from the Fate Pools, and the only way to remove it is by finding a Fate Pool and getting lucky. Enjoy!

Q: Hey, why do I have something like poison(-1) or, really, any negative special effect? What does this do?

A: All this does is reduce the chance for that effect to trigger for you. If you have -1 poison, it will never trigger. If you have an item with +1 poison and -1 poison on another, it will still never trigger. If you have a net total greater than 0, though, it will trigger!

Q: I have a pet... uh, a pet rock? What? Why would that ever be useful?

A: So you do. Despite your initial observations, your Pet Rock is actually fabulous. If you upgrade it, it can find you items (and earn you gold), help you fight in combat, and do all sorts of tricks. Okay, maybe not that last one, but I digress. Pets are very useful!

Q: So... my pet isn't leveling up anymore, but it's not at the max level?

A: As it turns out, pets are so loyal to you that they will make no attempt to pass you up. You have to level up before they can do so. That said, if you have recently de-leveled or ascended, your pets will not even attempt to level up until you catch up. They're all so loyal!

Q: So I can choose to leave my party, or... I can choose to leave my party?

A: Yep! If someone wants to actively leave their party, they can. Otherwise, choices will sometimes pop up to prompt the more idle players (and get taken care of with Affirmer/Denier accordingly).

Q: Why would I ever want to turn SharpEye off? It seems so useful.

A: Well, sometimes you have very good gear for a fighter class, but not very good gear for a mage class. It can be exceedingly tough to find items for a different class over that particular threshold, so you can turn SharpEye off to find more items that might fit better, even though they're technically worse (ie, lesser score).

Q: Switcheroo! Why? Why did you do this to me?!

A: Well, you can thank RNGesus for that. No, really, though - these aren't so bad! I can hear your angry thoughts. Give it a second... 1... 2... okay. So here's why they can be good: Suppose you have an item that gives 20k dex, but you're a Mage. 20k dex is completely useless (mostly). So, now you have -20k dex and probably a really bad item score. That is not bad! Now your item has room to grow via blessings and other bonuses (since items do have a hard cap on the % improvement they can be at), which means your item can turn into something much better and more relevant than it was before.

Q: What is this "sentimentality" and why am I attached to my item?

A: Sentimentality simply increases the score for your item. Nothing more.

Q: Well why would anyone want that? It's useless, isn't it?

A: Yes and no. Sentimentality allows your item to have a max higher percentage than it normally would if the item comes with sentimentality. So, suppose you have an item with 1000 base score, but with +5000 sentimentality (which makes it 6k). 300% is the max item % you can get. 300% of 1000 is 3000, but 300% of 6000 is 18000, which obviously lends itself to having much higher caps and much more enchantability. That said, if you get enchanted with sentimentality - well, that sucks.

Q: Hey, can we like, have a party chat?

A: No. Parties are often too short-lived to make a chat just for your party useful. There are chats for permanent things, like the game (General chat) and your guild (Guild chat).