Ok, so coming back to the game after a 2 year break and one major thing I've noticed is the appauling state of the market now.
Common junk and NPC vending has destroyed the market for C-A grade gear. Many say it is due to no one being those levels, but I still see people running round at those levels and even if there weren't many people they'd still need to buy crafted goods rather than just common from the NPC.
Mats are still high prices and the manor is still inaccessible since crops sell within milliseconds of reset (I've got 20k+ unsold crops I can't use). Even worse is that due to many farmers being banned/leaving there just seems to be a couple that run the market so theres a few shops in town with ludicrisly high quantities of mats priced at stupid prices. This makes crafting out of the question since theres very little profit to be made and little chance to sell your goods.
It seems any of the old systems to make money (Manor, Craft, Trading, Questing) are redundant and the only way to make money is with S80 or element stones.
Now here comes my problem.......
I'm a 79 Dominator, My Girlfriend usually plays a 77 SE and we box/play a BD with another account just for a town dorf. We do great trio in Varka, Pagans or IT but none of these places actually seem to turn over much cash any more.
Varka we get 2 recs a day or a main armor rec in 2 days, but after 2 weeks in town we've sold only 1 rec, these are always put at just under market price too (lowest price in town)! Crafting the items seems redundant as theres a 60% chance to make another 30% profit on selling the rec alone IF you can sell the full item (rec 5mil, parts 2mil, mats 5mil, sell for 16mil).
Pagans costs me 2mil an hour in SSS (10k an hour), which drops never cover. Although getting S weapon enchants would be nice, even though it is only a chance prize.
IT is a little better than Pagans for SS cost, but the quest is past redundant since S weapon recs go for only 800k -1mil, easier to NPC them.
IoP can be nice for firestones and the SS/Adena is nearly balanced, but we can't take the BD and the XP is 1/4 that of in the other areas, I've been 79 since 2007 I wanna hit 80 before 2017!
Since NC in their infinite wisdom nerfed damage to any mobs over your level for mobs 78+ theres no easy way to farm the new places for stones, we can't level our nuker or my saggi sub on IoP and all the new areas have aweful adena/XP rates anyway and mostly drop mithril ore!
So, any suggestions as to ways of making money in the game now? Sgrade market seems stale and crafting inefficient, Anything below that has been ruined by common items. I want a saints spear/s80 and my girlfriend wants a wind mace for her StormScreamer sub. :(
Edit: Just to add we tried catas too, but most rooms are full of "groups" and the highest mobs are light blue to me. we kill too fast so switch between 2-3 rooms and the XP rate isn't brilliant even with all that!
you need to out of party your blade dancer, or your SE, or your Dominator...
all of which will work, dominator is easier, but since it's the main, it'd be counter productive.
it's easy to invite/buff/dismiss, even without using a bot program.
but you're correct, no good way to make money unless you're going to farm Ancient Adena...
The economy changes over time as the game evolves, so you will have to relearn the market. I find that the market is Better now than it was a year or two ago, more opportunities for profits.
So, any suggestions as to ways of making money in the game now? Sgrade market seems stale and crafting inefficient, Anything below that has been ruined by common items. I want a saints spear/s80 and my girlfriend wants a wind mace for her StormScreamer sub. :(
yes .. its pretty hard to get money now and level, but there has been a grind for gold and a 2. grind for exp since prelude ^^.
- do oly and get the rewards .. all rewards sell pretty good
- do TW and get the rewards ... allmost all tradeable rewards sell good
- do Fortress and get KE .. (ok .. you need a level 66 toon for that) .. thats still a way to make gold
- join a major clan, do castle dungie and lot of raids and claim the drops .. any major clan should also provide you with elemental stones and s-grade weaps of your choice.
- bss/a-ss still sells
- this trio should be able to handle GC (even if not 80), exp is bad .. but stones drop there alot, and even full items sometimes
- hellbound? .. thomes for dyn essence and FS
i think varkas is not too bad .. at last on sayha recs sell for 3m and the adena drops are high enough to make a decent profit. LS sell for 200k. Common items for a-ss crafting and eas drop sometimes.
you can level fast in fog .. but you cant earn money there (without a spoiler).
1. Manor. I have the same problem with the normal fruits. It comes from the wrong settings of the whole manor system. The castle lords are not allowed to buy enough of the fruits, so those fruits just fill up everyone's warehouses. Even the bots must have it hard to sell.
Therefore I tried with alternative seeds / fruits. The bots are not interested in those.
Indeed, you get less materials from alternative seeds - if it is counted per mob killed. But if you can sell alternative fruits, your profit is still much higher than zero for normal fruits stored in your warehouse.
2. Using high lvl wolf instead of SS.
Have you ever tried an easy solo-area with a high lvl wolf? Such as those beasts just outside of Goddard? Not for your lvl, but perhaps for some of your subs?
Any lvl 61-70 character would work perfect in there with a lvl 80 wolf.
The character doesn't need any shots, the wolf needs much cheaper beast SS and food. If you can also buff the wolf, you'd not need even the beast SS.
Slow, boring, but you get adena out of it. Disadvantage: higher lvls would occationally come and pk you.
3. If you kill too fast (such as in the case of cata), turn off the shots or switch to A-grade weapon and use much cheaper A-shots.
4. Market can be played. Buying prices of some materials are under the NPC prices (depends on server). I would not list those mats here, I don't want to destoy the business. Just check it out yourself. Buy from people, sell to NPCs.
As for Pagans, I am exping there now and then on solo EE with A-weapon. Even then it is expensive. Using S-shots there means losing adena.
FoG = BD/OL/SE isnt that bad pole setup,just need the proper gear. Elemental stones drop there, plus often full drops,adenas,mats, etc.
Other things u can do for adena is farming forts /fort instances for Knight Eppaulets.
FoG is my aim, I need the money to get a pole, lol. :p
@Fidgit we play the BD off another laptop so isn't too hard to box out of party, but IoP XP will still be lower :( Domi/SE is definately out of the question since they're the mains, lol. :p
@Rum I hope you're being sarcastic with that.
There used to be so many ways of making adena! Crafting, Mammon (for a bit), Manor (got me my full top Cgrade), Trading (got me full Bgrade at 50), TOI quest, AL, GC, Inf Ore, Varka, IT, Pagans, OEing. At one point I had 2 buffers I never used because people partied often so they were town dorfs. I usually had a buy/sell shop and boxed trading while I hunted! Was never short of adena and never asked a clan for anything but a baium.
Now I'm back and can't break into the economy, scared to enchant my skills because of the cost of getting more books and have the recs for all kinds of Sgrade but theres no point in crafting it unless I want to use it myself. I can't even element my armor or weapons because it costs too much and theres no efficient way to farm them :(
On the other hand it's cheap and easy to make noob toons now, but it won't get me to 80, lol.
I know people will probably say this is dumb, but it works for me: Craft lowbie shots. My friend and I each made a D-Grade dorf, I'm the scavvy and he's the arty. We craft d grade and c grade shots and split the profits. I literally make around 1-3 million a week just selling them in Dion! It takes a long time to make good adena, but it certainly helps to reduce our shot cost for our mains if nothing else. Rather than chrystallize items, it's sometimes better to OE one of the weapons,if it doesn't break a +7 weapon can easily sell for several million adena. I know, this is pocket change. But let's say I make 15 million adena a month between shot and OE weapon selling. For you, that's 1.5 hours of free exp if you need 10 million per hour. If you happen to get any good drops, they're all profit...eventually, this little bit adds up.
My friend and I for a side project are going to level the dorfs to about A grade or so to craft shots, and if we make about 15 million a month on D and C grade, who knows what we'll make for S grade! Hey, if you have extra time, it's just a bit of pocket change that surely adds up!
I know people will probably say this is dumb, but it works for me: Craft lowbie shots. My friend and I each made a D-Grade dorf, I'm the scavvy and he's the arty. We craft d grade and c grade shots and split the profits. I literally make around 1-3 million a week just selling them in Dion! It takes a long time to make good adena, but it certainly helps to reduce our shot cost for our mains if nothing else. Rather than chrystallize items, it's sometimes better to OE one of the weapons,if it doesn't break a +7 weapon can easily sell for several million adena. I know, this is pocket change. But let's say I make 15 million adena a month between shot and OE weapon selling. For you, that's 1.5 hours of free exp if you need 10 million per hour. If you happen to get any good drops, they're all profit...eventually, this little bit adds up.
My friend and I for a side project are going to level the dorfs to about A grade or so to craft shots, and if we make about 15 million a month on D and C grade, who knows what we'll make for S grade! Hey, if you have extra time, it's just a bit of pocket change that surely adds up!
I agree with you. My girlfriend, which started L2 on retail two months ago, tried to make a bit of money with SS D.
She leveled a dwarf level 20, dropped the rec and used some common items to do some SSD
She usually sell between 50k and 100k ssd PER NIGHT. Even if it's only 2a/3a benefit per ss, it's still noticeable :D
She is now at 20m, full grade A at lvl 61 on her main. With just the SSD business. Nice isn't it ? :D
Best option for you is fort sieges atm imo. Get a 66 toon/sub, think tyrant would be the best and go farm forts. You can get 700-800 on the top and even more if you have buffer/dancer/healer/great wolf with you and do the bosses too. Epas sell for 20-23k, so the lowest you get is 700*20k=14mil/hour. People always need them since you get Mastery books for 1800 of those and you might even use em for yourself later to enchant skills.
And RumPunch is right, too, you can always play the market, you just need to know what is selling well atm. Takes some time to find that out ofc. Just watch out what ppl are shouting for or think about what they'd need and try to sell it, if it sells well, focus on that and get rich.
1. Territory wars. U can farm books every 2 weeks that make 40-50 mil. Either get in a clan, visit ur local arena, or with ur 4 accounts if u have the right toon set up u can farm ur own(i have 4 accts and thats what i do)
2. Get noble(easy now thru Territory wars) and farm giant codexes through oly.
I know people will probably say this is dumb, but it works for me: Craft lowbie shots. My friend and I each made a D-Grade dorf, I'm the scavvy and he's the arty. We craft d grade and c grade shots and split the profits. I literally make around 1-3 million a week just selling them in Dion!
That's pretty weak. I make >100 million a week just by buying and reselling stackable items.
To the OP: to make adena, you need to know (both in general and by monitoring the current status) the part of the market you are going to invest your time and/or adena in. It's easier to do with the stuff you are using by yourself, so you already have the history of knowledge of its price/shop locations/market variations in time. The most obvious example is S-grade shots, but I'm sure you could find other opportunities as well (maybe not instantly, though).
And no, you don't need to make your own lvl 70 dorf in order to be involved in S shots business. You have a recharger, that's good enough. The 350 adena craftshop cost on a single SSS craft means 1 extra adena per shot in total costs, I'm sure your business will be able to cope with it.
IOP has an area where you can keep the bd grouped, it's the entrance to the darkwaterdragons..
still your best bet to make money as said before is farm AA or KE..
for example try go backside of disciples there's usually some empty large rooms (does have stun mobs but still) and farm there by clearing 2 rooms that are close to each other, that's decent xp for a trio & good AA drops..
The most basic economy rule of thumb is a deflation is much worse then an inflation. Nevertheless NCSoft killed the economy up to S grade. Now it is true - the stuff dropped in price too but the adena which can be earned both by drops and market is even less. The result - the top tier players are quite unreachable now for any normal player.
Yes making money is not balanced at all on NA servers and the changes with s80 stuff who made everyone to look after a dynasty set,turned s grade gear worth only for crys...
from all the advices you had the best one was from stupidity-make tw and buy mastery books with q items,also make as many possible toons noble through tw q,make 9 matches oly and sell giant books each month,if you do that you have covered any shot expense.
you will need gb and masterys for yourself in higher lvls,but it works for now.
if you join a big clan,you will take your share from clans activitys(raids,sod)and this means money.
if you want more money do fortress,need a ~65lvl toon and you use your buffers too.
try xp at mos,q there still gives eas/ews,not random.
catakombs always good if aa=a price is high in your server.
fog drop stones,den of evil drop stones/s80 parts and has quest too and mobs are easy,just remember always kill the big eyes before they self-explod.
last advice,do kleft
if you can stay with your 3 accounts during all 12 hours,you ll make 150m at least,you need toons 75+ to do that.
Hmm, what's the cleft? That's in gracia, still not really checked that out yet.
Cheers for all the tips (apart from bot and ebay), Managed to get myself up to 100mil ferming recs and crafting arcana sigils, but that's all gone into more bits and bobs now.
Stuff is really taking forever to sell still. I've ended up putting most of my recs and stuff like the drac helm and gloves I crafted in my WH and moved on to other things like trying to craft and sell Tateossean, hopefully that'll make me a little profit since I've not seen any tat on the market and people still need Sgrade gear. Though 50% of the crafts failed by the same dorf that failed my saint spear! She must be the worst crafter I've ever used!
I'll be 80 very soon so I'll go hunt S80 spots and get the quests and hopefully stones too. Till then though I just hope my little trading spree pays off, still only sold a minimum amount of stuff though and have quite a stockpile of bits and bobs to make a profit on, though it's certainly not a quick one thanks to this economy.
I hate the way everyones after junk that comes from fortresses and TW and so on. What happened to grinding in the right spot for less XP but getting great stuff to sell instead of playing crappy sidegames?
Hmm, what's the cleft? That's in gracia, still not really checked that out yet.
I hate the way everyones after junk that comes from fortresses and TW and so on. What happened to grinding in the right spot for less XP but getting great stuff to sell instead of playing crappy sidegames?
Cleft is on Gracia,there are many details you have to learn to know what to do there,try find guide on fan's sites.
There arent spots for less xp but with great drops or quests anymore.Check price for fire stone/wind stone in your server,i believe people always need to buy them,go xp den of evil,or fog so you can get some everyday.
Xp in catakombes,s gems always in demand.Dont craft s gear,its only random when you will find a buyer,try to sell things that people buy constantly.
btw tha_don, if you plan to pole in FoG, you'd better do it before Freya update comes, after that only classes with Polearm Mastery will be able to really use poles, rest will not really be able to use them for anything.
So unless you have a class that has polearm mastery, poling won't really be a option when Freya is here.
btw tha_don, if you plan to pole in FoG, you'd better do it before Freya update comes, after that only classes with Polearm Mastery will be able to really use poles, rest will not really be able to use them for anything.
So unless you have a class that has polearm mastery, poling won't really be a option when Freya is here.
I remember chasing a friends Golem into 20 groups of mobs in Ancient battleground - whilst he stepped out of XP range. Awesome XP, but it got killed.
When we XP, we love to go kill red mobs (my level +9 or more), more XP, more SP if you have a decent group. but now we're at the higher levels, you cant do damage if the mob is +3 from your level... way to go.
Now because people love to AOE in-game, it gets scrapped.
It seems that NCSoft look at how people play the game then nerf the heck out of it.
I remember chasing a friends Golem into 20 groups of mobs in Ancient battleground - whilst he stepped out of XP range. Awesome XP, but it got killed.
When we XP, we love to go kill red mobs (my level +9 or more), more XP, more SP if you have a decent group. but now we're at the higher levels, you cant do damage if the mob is +3 from your level... way to go.
Now because people love to AOE in-game, it gets scrapped.
It seems that NCSoft look at how people play the game then nerf the heck out of it.
Also there 's xp penalty if mob is 3-5lvls higher than your toon,so no more plvl with a high dd :(
it was a quick way to lvl clannies/buffers/alts put them on a high lvls aoe party.
i try to lvl my 3d sub party with my buffer using her as nuker(inquistor) and i get really disspointed,i take double xp when i find someone in my lvls to xp together,this lvls xp cap was good to stop low players from going to s80 areas,but really bad to plvl low classes in partys.They could add more dmg from mob into a low toon instead of xp cap.