Dante’s Inferno for Facebook is a text-based role-playing game.As is typical of these types of RPGs, mastering the basic game mechanics can significanlty increase the quality of your game play. Here is an outline to help you get started in Dante’s Inferno.
1.0 – Getting Started
Installing Dante’s Inferno is easy. There are no downloads required. Simply log into facebook and go to the Dante’s Inferno application page. Agree to installing the application and their terms of service and you will be set to play.
1.1 – Picking a Class
Before you can get started, you have to pick a character class. Character classes seem to be permanent choices and each one gives you a slight advantage in a different aspect of the game. Here is a list of each class and what it actually does:
Anger: Reduces your virtue regeneration timer by ~10%. More specifically, while other classes regenerate 1 virtue point every 2 minutes, players of the Anger class regenerate one virtue point every 1 minute and 49 seconds. This allows Anger players to do battle (fight other players) a little more frequently.
Greed: Reduces the time it takes for artifacts to produce currency by 10%. More specifically, players’ artifacts of the Greed class produce souls (the currency for Dante’s Inferno) every 54 minutes instead of every hour. This allows Greed players to have the capacity to build up a slightly larger passive income when compared to players of other classes.
Lust: Reduces the energy regeneration timer by ~10%. Players of the Lust class will regenerate 1 energy point every 1 minute and 49 seconds, while other players will regenerate 1 energy point every 2 minutes.
Unlike other games of the genre (like Mafia Wars), no one class currently has an extreme advantage over other classes. If you are not sure what to pick, I would recommend the Lust class, as any player type will benefit from picking this. Do not pick the Greed class. I will examine the differences between classes in a later post.
2.0 – Home Page Interface
In order to play Dante’s Inferno well, you need to be able to understand the game and move around the interface. I will break down each page section so you can figure out how to get around.
2.1 – Home Page – (Maximize browser or click to see the full picture)
About each number:
1. This bar allows you to move between acts if you want to access older jobs. Simply click on the act you want to go to. At that point, the missions will change.
1a. The chains symbol means that these acts are locked. Master 3 jobs in the previous tier to remove the next chain.
2. Artwork indicative of which circle of hell you are currently in.
3. This panel displays your character’s current status. I will cover what each thing means below.
4. This navigation bar allows you to move between missions, battles, the shop, etc.
5. This is your battle feed. It lets you know who has attacked you so that you can get them back!
6. Game news and updates are displayed here.
7. Various in-game advertisements and reminders. These will change often.
2.2 – Character Status Panel
This is a handy reference that tells you exactly what is going on with your character at that moment in time.
1. This is your health bar. The number displayed is your current health total. If this is low, you can not fight. You can refill your health at the healer on the “Favors” page for a few souls.
2. This is your virtue bar. The number displayed is your current virtue total. You spend virtue to battle, so if this is low, you may not be able to fight other players. This value regenerates over time.
3. This is your energy bar. The number displayed is your current energy total. Energy is spent on missions and regenerates over time.
4. This is your currency bar. The number displayed is the amount of souls you currently have (not including vaulted souls).
5. This is your experience points bar. The number displayed is the amount of experience points required to get to the next level.
3.0 Missions
Access the mission screen by clicking on the “missions” tab on any page.
Mission Screen
1. This is the “boss fight” of each act (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc). To unlock this, complete 3 missions.
2. This is the status bar of each mission. When it reaches 100%, the mission is complete.
3. Rewards for completing the mission. You get this every time you do the job, not just when you take the mission to 100%. Sometimes there is an item drop, but not in the example above (it will say “loot drop” if there is one).
4. Requirements for the job. There are three types of requirements – items, faction, and fights won. The small white icon indicates the number of faction members you need to complete the job. The “battles won” simply refers to how many battles you have won versus other players (does not include missions completed). You get most of your items from the “Devil’s Dealer”. You can click on the icons in this category to take a shortcut to the store with what you will need for the job.
5. Cost for doing each job; for the most part this just requires energy.
4.0 Battles
The battle system has a lot of contributing factors, so be prepared. Here is a pic of the interface after you’ve just engaged in a fight with each element explained:
1. Total attack – the summation of the “attack prowess” and “attack arsenal” categories.
2. Attack Prowess – Appears to be a multiplication between your “attack skill” and your “effective faction”. Note that 5 (my attack skill) times 36 (my effective faction) = 180 (my attack prowess).
3. Attack Arsenal – This is the summation of the offensive capabilities of all your best items (1 weapon, relic, minion, and sinner) for each effective faction member you have. You can use 1 item of each type per faction member.
4. Attack Skill – Your stat points invested in the attack tab.
5. Effective faction = 1 faction member for each level. If you are level 5 with 10 faction, this will only be 5. If you are level 10 with 5 faction, it will also be 5.
6. Top Items – pics of your top items. Nothing special here other than bragging rights!
7. Opponents total defense – the summation of his “defensive prowess” and “Defensive Arsenal”
8. Defensive Skill – the amount of stat points my opponent has spent on defense.
9. Effective Faction – my opponents current effective faction.
10. My opponents items. I’m not impressed!
11. Pain (damage) dealt – both winners and losers can receive damage. In a rout like this, I took no pain but my opponent received quite a bit.
12. The game telling me in a passive-aggressive way I need to fight a tougher opponent).
13. My reward for winning – XP and souls. You will make more XP and souls by fighting challenging opponents.
I will cover battles in more detail in upcoming posts.
5.0 Devil’s Dealer
The Devil’s Dealer is the in-game store. Here you can buy and sell items for souls. As you advance through the content, more and more items are added to the store. The best items cost the most money, but for the most part, there are always some great items you can buy. As a result, for a new player, souls have a lot of value.
1. Items tab. There are 4 types of items – weapons, relics, The Damned, and hellions. In battle, you can use 1 of each type of item for each faction member that you have.
2. This is the item that you are looking to buy or sell.
3. This panel tells you the items stats (the higher the better of course) and how many you own of each item already.
4. The cost of the item.
5. “Possess” is equivalent to purchasing the item. The cost is listed directly above (#4).
6. “Expel” is the term for sell. You get one half of the item cost per sell.
The Devil’s Dealer will come in handy in two ways. First off, as a new player, you can make a lot of souls starting in the second circle of hell by earning items through missions and then selling them at the Devil’s Dealer. As a high level player, you can buy high quality items to use in battle.
6.0 Artifacts
Artifacts are items you can purchase (for a large quantity of souls) that will produce souls over time. In other words, artifacts are investments; you put in a large amount of souls up front, and you will be paid back over time.
1. Combined value of souls that all of your artifacts are producing each hour.
2. Clicking this button will collect all the souls from all of your artifacts.
3. Amount of souls that particular artifact has stored. Note the yellow bar – each artifact has a limited capacity that it can hold. Once an artifact is full, you will no longer earn currency off of it. It seems that each artifact can hold about 2 days (48 hours) worth of souls, so be sure collect your souls at least that often.
4. Clicking this button will collect just the souls from this artifact. There is no real advantage to using this button over the “Collect All” button in #2, unless you have an exact amount of souls you want to spend.
5. Upgrade button. Each artifact be upgraded quite a few times for more souls. Each time you upgrade it, it produces more money. After 5 upgrades, the artifact increases a tier, and becomes a new item. For example, after 5 upgrades, the “Lowly Minion Horns” upgrade to the “Humble Minion Horns” as pictured above.
I will post up detailed information on artifacts and all their upgrades in a separate post in the near future.
7.0 Profile Page
The profile page is where you can use all of your earned skill points. On this page you will also find the healer (if you are injured from fighting) and the vault (where you can store your souls). You can also see all of your character’s stats, loot, and comments.
1. Clicking the “basic” tab will bring up the page pictured above.
2. Clicking the “loot” tab shows a picture of each item you have. For detailed stats and numbers, visit the Devil’s Dealer page.
3. Clicking the “comments” tab allows you and your friends to post comments on your profile.
4. This is a brief overview of your character’s stats. I will provide more information about stats below in section 7.1.
5. I forgot this number, sorry!
6. Your character’s mission and battle stats.
7. This is where you spend your skill points earned by leveling up.
8. This is the vault. You can store your souls here, but there is a 10% deposit fee. Stored souls can not be lost in battle or when you are attacked.
9. This is where you can heal. Thais the healer will restore your health for a small amount of souls if you are injured from fighting.
7.1 Stats Points Explained
When you spend stat points in your profile page, your choices are permanent, so be careful before you spend your hard-earned stat points! Here is what each stat type does:
Attack: Increases your efficacy in offensive battles (i.e. battles you start). Attack is used as a multiplier with your current effective faction size (see sections 4.0 and 8.0 for more details). In other words, the more people you have in your faction, the more effective the attack stat becomes.
Defense: Increases your efficacy in defensive battles (i.e. when other players attack you). Defense is used as your current effective faction size (see sections 4.0 and 8.0 for more details). In other words, the more people you have in your faction, the more effective the defense stat becomes.
Energy: Energy is used when performing missions. As you progress through the game, missions become more and more expensive. If you are not interested in battling other player, maximize this stat.
Vigor: Vigor is used in battles. The more powerful your opponent, the larger this value becomes, but at the same time, so does the reward (in XP and souls). If you plan on doing a lot of fighting, you will need a lot of points in this stat.
Max Health: Health is lost in battles, both when you win and lose. The more powerful your opponent, the more “pain” (health lost) will be inflicted. This stat is not very important unless you are a very active fighter, as you can heal cheaply at the healer on the profile page.
If you want to finish jobs quickly, you should put most of your points into energy, as you can always diversify later. If you are interested in winning fights, you will need a blend of attack and vigor. If you are losing a lot of fights on defense, you may want to invest some stat points into that stat as well, however, know that there is no significant penalty for losing fights if your souls are stored in the vault.
8.0 Favors
On the favors page, you can either purchase tokens or earn them by completing offers (surveys, trial offers, etc). Tokens can be used to buy souls, health refills (a waste), energy refills, virtue refills, perform a name change, get a new minion, or get a new faction member.
The best uses for tokens are (in my opinion) either an energy refill or a virtue refill, depending on which stat you have more of.
9.0 Faction
Faction are friends that have “teamed up” with you. On the faction page, you can recruit more players to join your faction. Faction is used in battle and is also used as a requirement for certain missions.
Faction is not necessary to complete Dante’s Inferno. However, there are two ways faction is of significant benefit to the player:
1) Effective Faction – You can use 1 faction member in battle for each level you have in Dante’s Inferno. So, if you are level 80, you will want 80 people in your faction to be most effective in fights.This is referred to as “effective faction”.
2) Mission Requirements – Some missions require faction members to complete. While these missions are not required to complete the game, these missions typically pay out the most souls and experience points based on the energy investment than other jobs in the same act.
10.0 Tips
Here are some tips that will go a long way for a new player.
- Do a lot of battles versus other players when you just start out. Many missions require a lot of battles being won, and the vigor cost for battles increases as you level up. When you first start out at level 1, you can easily win 30-40 battles within your first 10 levels, which will set you up to have access to a lot of jobs.
- Always look for the best 3 missions in each mission tier. Master those 3, then do the boss mission, and move on to the next tier. You can always come back for unfinished missions later when you are a high level player.
- Sell items that you find that you do not need for jobs. For example, the Heavy Rain item from the “Visions from Hell” job in act 3.4 sells for over 100,000 souls a piece, and the drop rate is somewhere around 1/5.
And that’s it for the tutorial! Start doing missions, battles, putting your stat points in the right place, come back to Dante’s Inferno Guide later for more updates!
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