I leveled from 1 to about 40 w/o soulshots. Well, you know, you kill so much slower than, in fact, you don't save money at all, because money comes in 3 or 4 times more slowly (no, the maths aren't wrong, coz you have much longer downtime too). Not using SS is not a good idea.
No way in hell this statement can be true unless you also used healing pot, soe and telelported everywhere.
Once you run out of the free NG souls shots don't buy anymore. Of course it will take you twice as long to lvl but you will definatley (HAVE) more adena in the end.
Yes you may make the same amount of adena as you would if you used SS but in the end you will have more left to buy equipment because you didn't spend it all on SS.
Pffff, it's difficult to explain, but I'll try, just bear with my explanation, it's gonna be a bit awkward because it's complicated to explain.
Look at it that way:
case one: you don't use SS, case two, you use them.
In case one, you don't pay for the ss, ok, and you level, let's say, 4 times more slowly ( in my case it was more, but I play a bounty hunter, so I accept the fact that it should be faster for other classes -and no, I wasn't using pots, I was doing the "kill 4 or 5 light blue, then rest" routine).
OK, you level w/o paying anything, so you indeed, theorically, save more money.
Then you start all over again, but you use SS. You pay for the SS, but, in the same amount of time, you kill 4 times as many monsters, hence you get more money, minus the SS. So indeed, you win waaaaaaay less than with SS. Theorically.
Now the catch: on the same amount of time, you'll have spent more adena, but, at least in my case, the adena I looted always made up for the SS, plus some extra. Now, I admit I had much difficulty, when I started using SS, to get to top C grade gear, I had, obviously, much less money than if I had gotten there w/o using SS.
BUT! : would I be there, in fact? I would have less money than I have now, and I wouldn't be B grade yet, to put it simply. I'd be way lower level.
The reality is that until you reach level 50 or more, you don't make much money by grinding all alone anyway. It is, in my humble opinion, much more worthy to use SS, and, why not, buy seeds, and use manor while grinding as fast as possible. The money will flow in faster, because the grinding will be much faster (not just twice, but more, because you deal twice as much damage, and therefore take half the damage you would w/o SS). On one day of farming, you'll get more money by using SS than by using no SS, because you'll have farmed much more.
Now, you may think I'm talking out of my... mind, but this is something I've experimented first hand. There is more adena fluctuation in your inventory, but in the end, the total income is higher because the grinding speed value definitively exceeds the SS cost.
Well, that is my opinion, and I know it was true in my case.
I can also add the side effect that the slow pace is also a pain in the *** and might just disgust you of grinding, and that people will complain at you if you don't use SS in parties. Grinding with SS is still frustrating, but it is way less than w/o, and you don't wanna forget that the main reason you play lineage, I suppose, is to have fun, not to be bored to hell.
Well, that's all I had to say, I hope I didn't step out of my boundaries by sharing my opinion.
Have fun!