Character development and equipment DI Riptide Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

As in the previous game, to develop your character you unlock skills divided onto three branches. Every time you level up (new level cap is 70) you obtain a skill point and you can spent it to buy a new skill or augment the one you already have. You get skill points mostly for killing zombies, but you should also consider sidequests (also events and team missions) and challenges (like killing given number of enemies by headshot - more about it in the further part of this chapter). You should also know that when you return to the particular area, zombies will respawn, so you can gain additional experience.

While choosing skills, you should consider previously chosen specialization and purchase skills which improve it and make your character even more efficient on the battlefield. Don't forget about some defense skills, like those improving healing or decreasing a number of obtained damage.

Independently of your character choice, you can use a Fury mode, but investing in skills related with that depends strongly on your personal preferences. Optional skills in which you can invest for every of the playable character, are the ones which decrease a financial penalty for dying - what is especially important in the late phase of the game, when you operate on hundreds thousands of dollars. Another useful ones are the ones focusing on opening chests as the containers with second and third level of locks have inside very precious treasures, which you can add to your inventory or simply sell.

A new feature in Dead Island Riptide is a fact, that you can improve your ability in using particular weapons. It works very similar like in the The Elder Scrolls series. Using a weapon of given type regularly (blunt, firearm) will fill a bar of progress at the bottom of the screen.

When you max it, a skill for particular type of weapon is increased (max level is 10), thanks to which you improve its efficiency (strength and speed of damage, chances for critical hit etc) and usefulness (endurance, slower usage of stamina, quicker reloading). So, generally, you should use weapons connected with your specialization, making exceptions only when defeating a particular monster requires other type of weapon (for example firearm instead of blade) or if you've found a rare weapon which surbeltses the rest of your inventory.

In Dead Island Riptide you have also a known color division of items (weapons, modifications, resources) according to their quality: grey and white are the weakest ones, then you have green, blue, violet and orange. Of course, you should try to get the rarest item you can find. To increase your chances for that, search all locked chests, visit Dead Zones and talk with all possible merchants. Important information is a fact, that statistics of your weapon behaves according to your current experience level. So you shouldn't use the same weapon all the game, but swap it when you find one better adjusted to your current level.

Another well known and very important thing is a limited number of active slots and capacity of your inventory. You unlock more active slots as the game moves on. The inventory can get bigger due to purchasing proper skill points from the tree.

Another important information is a fact, that game limits a maximum number of firearms and blades that you can carry around, but the rest of items (med-kits, explosives, resources, throwing weapons) can be stacked without limitation. You should sell out useless weapons at once, going to your favourite merchant after every longer trip. You can also use Henry's services (he is always in the main survivors camp) and leave him items you for example can use for now on because of your low level.

As in the previous part of series, the melee weapon you use is getting worn out and you can't underestimate this fact due to decreasing your combat usefulness. I recommend to use workshops very often, so it won't hurt you that much. As repairing the rare weapons is expensive, try to use different ways to eliminate zombies, for example to have also a firearm and some explosives in your active slots.

Workshops, which I mentioned earlier, are also used to upgrade your weapons (up to the fourth level) and modify them basing on modification you've found (a full list of them can be found in the chapter dedicated for the collectibles). I strongly recommend both of those action for any rare weapon which you're going to use for a longer time.