It's been a day since Eden Rising has started.
When you enter Eden, you get transported to a new state (Storywise, it is a time in the past). Here, the player population comes from different states. This alone means that the power level discrepancies between players is vast. Players in the older states usually have a huge advantage over players in newer states so it is easier for these older advanced players to put younger players in a fallen state.
So, as a newbie, you probably don't want to start a tile grabbing war early unless the area you are in is filled with plenty of guild allies. Guilds are like alliances except that players come from different states. The ranks are still there (R5 down to R1). And I guess the R5 will determine who gets what rewards, assuming the Guild gets a good ranking at the end of the season. There's also an additional chat window - the guild chat - but it made my phone freeze a lot. This can be difficult if you're trying to find out what are the directions or instructions of your guild leaders.
Initially, your base is shielded when you enter Eden. But once you decide to occupy a tile that is already occupied by another player, you have to drop the shield. Perhaps a better strategy is to maximize the hours that the shield is initially active. Only occupy vacant tiles while in this state. (Probably easier said than done. Players only has a few hours edge over me, and some could already occupy a level 7 tile while I was only about to start. So sometimes, if most of the tiles in the area you find yourself in are already occupied, you are forced to attack a tile just to go through the usual tile levels. You can't occupy a higher level tile unless you've occupied the level before it. And you can't occupy a tile if you haven't developed the infection immunity level needed to surpass it.
A bunch of players attacked me the moment I was unshielded. (And because I occupied their guild's tiles). After the attack, I was in a "fallen state". While in this state, I cannot occupy other players' tiles. I also have to shell out a bunch of resources to get out of this state - resources, mind you, that I didn't even have because I just started in Eden. Maybe developers should pay attention to disadvantages like these that could set back the progress of other players. (I was at a point where I was thinking of boycotting Eden Rising). But the other good thing about having no contaminated resources yet was that when those players attacked me, they did not get any loot. I did suffer a lot of damage, being attacked by players with power levels of 100M and 50M while I was a mere 15M player. The 100M player even had maxed three sisters in his APC. In my mind, I was like - wtf dude, why are you even doing Eden Rising when you already have the prizes for it.
There are cities and gates. And you can just think of them as high level tiles that you need to attack as a group. The infection immunity levels you need to develop to attack them are high. (I think the starting gate is like a level 9 tile). And you can't just teleport to a gate like before. You have to tile near it. You have to occupy 4 tiles in a 2x2 formation so that you can create a teleportation platform on it. And you have to spend refined resources to teleport. So moving around in Eden needs some preparation and planning.
I still haven't been part of a group trying to take down a gate or city. Once I've experienced what it is like, maybe I'll be able to write about it. Till then, hope this serves as an early guide for those who are just starting out in Eden Rising.
