Gearing up in this game...

[Delfofthebla]

I've come back to this game after a 4 year~ hiatus. I brought as many of my friends in as I could, some who have played before, and some who haven't. Back when I played before, and as I have re-learned today, gearing up in gorgon is...tough.

I started by making a new character to "refresh" my memory on how the game plays, what items are important, where I should go, and what I should do. I made a Sword / Necro character. But as many people on the forums and in game will tell you (and they're right), Necro is weak. Oh the pets do decent damage alright, but I was our only melee and effectively our "tank" of the group. Having to deal with pet management issues while also having to maintain them in graveyards while I make my friends wait inside was just really not a good feeling.

So when my skellies died, I often let them stay dead. So that meant I was stuck with the base Necro kit, and man oh man does it need good treasure mods to feel powerful. The sword situation isn't as bad, but it definitely has very noticeable power spikes with the correct gear. Crypt after crypt, goblin dungeon after goblin dungeon, we'd hit up every boss, hit up every chest, then swap to the next dungeon. I'd mercilessly comb over every piece that dropped.

And somehow, before I was ever able to achieve just one set of "decent" gear that I thought would just put me on the same level as a terribly geared Fire Magic player with no secondary skill, I had hit level 50 in both skills. I was stunned. I'm just doing the first two "real" dungeons, and somehow I hit my level cap before I got the gear I wanted. Just what is this madness? Why is it so easy to get level 50? Why is it so hard to get the right treasure mods? Why are the necro damage skill numbers so insanely low?

Shortly after hitting 50 I decided I'd had enough. I swapped some skills around, but wasn't feeling any of them either. Similar problems, and just general "This class isn't for me" vibes. But then I remembered of Transmutation and Augmentation, and I have the benefit of having all of those skills (albeit low level) on my main from years ago. So I decided to switch back to him.

Now that I'm back on my main, I have a pair of sills I really enjoy (Spider / Druid) but gearing still feels so...impossible. I merely wish to acquire good gear (not perfect full yellows, just a "decent" set of purple tiers with my desired build's mods) RNG is rarely kind, and even with these gear-modifying skills, I am struggling to get what I want.

I never have enough dust. I never have enough baubles or beads, and if I did, I'd wager I don't have enough gems either. Constantly deconstructing all my gear to level up those skills is also keeping me decidedly poor. I know that if I stopped trying to level up these skills and use them, I would be rich enough to go to higher dungeons, which would get me more money, which would inevitably snowball into me being max level and farming gear there.

But I don't want that. I want to enjoy the game at a steady pace. Rushing to max level to grind gear is what every single bad MMO is about. What attracted me to Gorgon was how far it strayed from the standard MMO conventions.

So I have to ask: What the hell does everyone else do? Does everyone just charge to the endgame and deal with it there? Does everyone have shit gear and that's just how life is? Is trying to play and experience this game at a steady pace with basic milestones for each dungeon / level bracket even possible? Any info or insights would be appreciated.

[Celerity]

So I just want to say a few things:

Firstly I think you're right, just farming normal mobs even if you hit up every boss and chest it can be extremely difficult to find gear.

But secondly, I don't think you're necessarily "supposed" to get even what you call a decent set of gear until you're at least past 50, probably closer to 60. This is simply because if you did use an actual full set of purple gear or even augmented red simply with correct mods and up to date levels you would steamroll the content. Now I'm not talking out of my ass here since I essentially started fresh too after getting my first build sword/necro to 60/60 which was max at the time. When I used my new build, ice/bc I had at this point learnt leatherworking and I used leatherworking to make myself armour sets every 20 or so levels and I can say that even without transmutation or augmentation, simply making several pieces and picking the best out of them I was able to completely destroy the at level content.

So what are you supposed to do for gear then? Well barters are actually really good, ukorga barters winter armour at lvl 40 and that's probably the best way for a completely new player to get their lvl 40 set. This is relevant for war caches which you do later at 50-60 too but the minotaur vaults are good there also. Obviously crafting works as well and to an extent you can maybe keep up with it up to lvl 30 or 40 when you're a noob, but this probably requires previous experience. Other than that you really just farm group dungeons with elites, which is only available beginning with yeti cave but like I said I don't think you necessarily need even a semi-decent set until you get to around 50 anyway.

[Mbaums]

BTW -- Necro is really a hard class to play well. Everyone wants to rock the skellies but the zombies are the star of the show, once moded. And if your friends are also necro, the undead pet dmg+buffs/heals work with people nearby. This might be a bug but it might not be.

Some folks I knew after the steam launch went right to the end game, then kind of struggled as they couldnt transmute/augment, so besides gear being meh, they had inventory issues. With the cap at 80, I'd say you are going to feel a lot more sane NOT buying every skill, but get some unlocks, try getting notoriety, augmentation, transmutation up, and start hoarding phlog, and small and large beads. Every 200k I earned I ended up spending it asap on skills/unlocks.

I think I learned about augmentation/transmutation after I was 70, so the change from "whatever rng gives me" to being able to reroll items was significant. On lower level stuff I think augmentation is cheaper, so I'd do that over transmutation, but transmutation is overall better. Just not when you are going to replace stuff in a week. I mean before level 50, exp is so quick I wouldnt touch it. Gear wise, I think most players have bad gear until they are able to transmute AND run lvl 70 dungeons regularly OR they get their armor crafted from a friend.

[INXS]

When i restarted a second time i bought amazing pocket gear pants and shirt, with just over 200 armor really good refresh rate and +40 pockets i wore that from lv 1 to lv 50, skills oriented gear for gloves, helmet and boots if i was lacking in that spot of a purple/yellow from found gear i crafted something, at the early stage of game i found properly geared you manage well.

[Glythe]

Not having Transmutation/Augmentation is really going to hurt by the time a new player gets to around level 50. Years ago I kept getting the wrong mods won the wrong armor type.... so I would just sell the armor and hope for a better roll the next day. It took weeks to get one piece mostly right. Long ago before the casino it was hard to get money and that made it harder to get gear.

As a level 80 character who can craft a lot of the armor I have to say gearing up is actually easy. Find a crafter and give them mats for a free combine. You can skip about a hundred hours worth of effort that goes into raising that one skill to make armor. You skip all the recipe costs too which really add up when you consider most armor sets have 5 pieces and start coming in normal as well as max enchanted versions.

Being able to make armor is priceless. I cannot emphasize how much you will want to eventually want to become a crafter.

[Delfofthebla]

Find a crafter and give them mats for a free combine. You can skip about a hundred hours worth of effort that goes into raising that one skill to make armor. You skip all the recipe costs too which really add up when you consider most armor sets have 5 pieces and start coming in normal as well as max enchanted versions.
This sounds good in theory, but I find that it's always crazy difficult to purchase or even harvest the quantity of raw materials needed for crafting in this game. I've only done the bare minimum necessary for getting access to augmentation, but it's been rough. Is crafting gear any different than finding it off of mobs? Can I weight it towards specific mods or something? Because it seems like I'd be spending tons of money and/or resources just for one more "dice roll". If I have better control or if the material costs are really low then I could see this being a pretty valid solution though.


Being able to make armor is priceless. I cannot emphasize how much you will want to eventually want to become a crafter.
Honestly, I find "priceless" to be a very hard sell. It could be the most useful thing in the world and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it after what I've experienced already.

Sorry, off-topic tangent incoming.

I loved most of this game up until level 50. There's all these quirky NPCs, places to explore, interesting abilities. It's been great. That first initial grind of dumping my most valuable items into an NPC just so that I can make more money in the longrun and get extra storage was painful, but satisfying. Once I got access to all of the storage and increased vendor capacity it felt like the world was mine. Oh I have been a tad frustrated with the gear situation for sure, but I was still feeling content with things overall. The gameplay loop felt pretty solid.

But then I got far from Serbule, and had to do it all over again. No more storage, no more vendor cap. if I wanted to stash the same items that I had stored in serbule, I needed to make a very long trek just to maintain my desired item organization.

To make things worse, I hit 50 in several more skills and decided I wanted to get to 60 in them. Suddenly, the favor grind that I was finding frustrating was now infuriating. Why? because the way you increase your level cap in Project Gorgon is by far the worst design decision in all of all of gaming, and participating in it is making me want to die

This past weekend I've been going hard on the "post 50" gameloop. It's different. It's unlike anything prior to 50. Levels 1-50 were the stage demo, the "scripted sequence" meant to pull you into a false sense of security. And much like any stage demo, it's nothing like what project gorgon really is. Because now it's about chasing down copious amounts of gems, wood, chairs, Hate Juice, Ivory Spoons, and other painfully specific items.

Hour upon hour I spent getting the necessary items. I harvested where I could, payed what I couldn't, and pulled off my 4 year old mule whatever I could find. What has all this hard earned meticulous grinding netted me? The ability to pay all of my money just to get access to the god damn experience bar. What a cruel joke...

In an MMO I expect leveling to be the main gameplay, but it's not in PG. It's favor grinding. I get to level 50 on combat skills way way too quickly, and with way too little effort. But once I hit 50 with anything, combat or tradeskill, it's just a straight brick wall. "Grind this item", "Buy these items", "Pay for this XP bar", "Pay for that XP bar". To make things worse, most of these post-50 NPC's are fairly "one-off" skill trainers that have no personality, no interesting quests, and serve no purpose other than to unlock a skill. In the rare event I can use them as a vendor or storage, they usually do not want any items that are from nearby dungeons or wildlife. They want spoons and chairs. Nothing is fun about chasing down these items, and by the time I have enough favor with them to unlock what I want, I am ready to leave the zone and go on somewhere else. Now all of that time spent feels bitter and wasted.

I'm not even to 60 with many of my gathering skills and I feel emotionally and financially drained. Just how could going through this pain with yet another skill be worth it? It just can't be. And what would level 50 tailoring or leatherworking get me? Jack fucking shit, that's what. I'd need 60, and by the time I got 60 in either of these I'd need 70, and then 80, and then 90, which likely doesn't even exist.

I'm going to stick with the game a little longer, but I do not think this kind of gameplay post 50 is very fun. I want to do dungeons, and I want to fight difficult encounters. I want to feel good about beating these encounters and I want to strengthen my character as I do so. I want progressing my character to feel fun. Favor/money grinding a new throwaway NPC every 10 levels doesn't feel good. It feels like work. I am working so that I can get access to more work, which will give me access to even more work. I never feel rewarded for my work either. Why. Why would anyone possibly want to do this all the way to 80?

[alleryn]

This sounds good in theory, but I find that it's always crazy difficult to purchase or even harvest the quantity of raw materials needed for crafting in this game. I've only done the bare minimum necessary for getting access to augmentation, but it's been rough. Is crafting gear any different than finding it off of mobs? Can I weight it towards specific mods or something? Because it seems like I'd be spending tons of money and/or resources just for one more "dice roll". If I have better control or if the material costs are really low then I could see this being a pretty valid solution though.

There are two main advantages to crafted gear, i think:
* 120 Enhancement points instead of 100. Not that big a deal, but it does mean some extra pockets at least.
* The big one: max-enchanted means 6 mods on a yellow, instead of the 5 you can normally get.

Also it's probably just easier to gather the materials to craft a number of, say, staves, than to loot a staff (you have to get a lot of loot before one item happens to be a staff. Say you loot 20 items to get a staff. Then it's either farm enough mobs to get 20 drops vs gather enough materials to craft one staff).

For some slots (most slots really), like armor, it's not so bad, because you don't really care so much what the base item is. Then it's really more up to the above 2 points.



And what would level 50 tailoring or leatherworking get me? Jack fucking shit, that's what. I'd need 60, and by the time I got 60 in either of these I'd need 70, and then 80, and then 90, which likely doesn't even exist.

...

I am working so that I can get access to more work, which will give me access to even more work. I never feel rewarded for my work either. Why. Why would anyone possibly want to do this all the way to 80?
For me, the chief advantage of hitting those earlier milestones, 50, 60... before 'max' level, is that i can complete more npc work orders. This let's me accumulate more councils to buy items to use for favor and to purchase the skill and ability unlocks themselves. It's kind of a positive feedback system:

Perform NPC workorders --> Level up crafting skills and use profits from workorders to unlock more recipes --> Unlock higher level NPC workorders --> Repeat

I know this playstyle may not appeal to everyone, but i find it quite enjoyable, constantly increasing my ability to make money and unlock progressively higher levels.

[Delfofthebla]

There are two main advantages to crafted gear, i think:
* 120 Enhancement points instead of 100. Not that big a deal, but it does mean some extra pockets at least.
* The big one: max-enchanted means 6 mods on a yellow, instead of the 5 you can normally get.

Also it's probably just easier to gather the materials to craft a number of, say, staves, than to loot a staff (you have to get a lot of loot before one item happens to be a staff. Say you loot 20 items to get a staff. Then it's either farm enough mobs to get 20 drops vs gather enough materials to craft one staff).

For some slots (most slots really), like armor, it's not so bad, because you don't really care so much what the base item is. Then it's really more up to the above 2 points.

This makes sense, and is interesting, but it definitely seems more useful for specific weapon types. Luckily as a beast player the weapon type isn't super important for me, but I definitely could use more glove drops...



For me, the chief advantage of hitting those earlier milestones, 50, 60... before 'max' level, is that i can complete more npc work orders. This let's me accumulate more councils to buy items to use for favor and to purchase the skill and ability unlocks themselves. It's kind of a positive feedback system:

Perform NPC workorders --> Level up crafting skills and use profits from workorders to unlock more recipes --> Unlock higher level NPC workorders --> Repeat

I know this playstyle may not appeal to everyone, but i find it quite enjoyable, constantly increasing my ability to make money and unlock progressively higher levels.
I can definitely see that. For someone who is very interested in crafting for the sake of crafting (or for profit), rather than a means to an end for your own character build, focusing on professions before combat would likely be very appealing. But aren't work orders very RNG? Wouldn't you need to level several crafting professions just to have a constant flow of profitable crafting?

For me though, crafting would purely be for my own character. If I could not directly use what I crafted (the moment I crafted it), I would write it off as worthless. I might complete the occasional work order to help level it up and make sure my materials are used in the most efficient way possible, but I would not enjoy it. I'm much more of a combat / exploration focused player. I want to crawl dungeons with a group, not run around picking flowers and skinning rats.

[Celerity]

the way you increase your level cap in Project Gorgon is by far the worst design decision in all of all of gaming, and participating in it is making me want to die
Wow, exaggeration of the century right here. But seriously, I actually just looked over all the items liked for every combat skill trainer in the game for 51-60, most of whom (all?) do 61-70 as well and every single one of them either takes a gem, equipment for the skill or equipment with those skills' mods with the exception of Yavazek for giant bat and Legs for spider. Yavazek can instead easily be favoured by bartering heart shrooms for health potions and although Legs is probably the worst combat trainer in the game to favour, it can still be done without too much difficulty with things such as skulls. For context you're looking at a cost of about 2.5k for gems to get an npc to the level required for the 51-60 unlock and for any that like equipment, you can get them to probably best friends or at least close friends just saving up the equipment from one dungeon run for them. If this sounds like a lot to you then I really don't know what to say, I'm not trying to make fun of you, I just don't understand how you could struggle so much.

The casino daily quest gives a guaranteed 10-15k in pure cash plus probably an extra 10-15k worth of loot in about 20 mins and that assumes you have a relatively slow group, fast groups can clear them in about 10 mins or less. If you did this just 3 times literally not doing anything else in game you would already have enough to favour both your combat trainers, buy the unlocks and probably all your abilities too. Not to mention joining a guild that does guild quests gives you essentially 30k free a week just for logging in.


In an MMO I expect leveling to be the main gameplay, but it's not in PG. It's favor grinding.
This is true to an extent but firstly I would say it's more a 50/50 split between exp farming and favour farming at most, if not even less favour farming, and secondly I would say it's essentially the same gameplay in that either way you're still farming mobs, except that the mobs you farm are different and I would argue therefore makes the game more varied and interesting as it "forces" you to try out new spots and explore more. In any situation you can always just do combat since you can just sell your spoils and then buy whatever favour item you need so I'm unsure why you have an issue with this. I also feel like you won't enjoy being max level either since you don't gain any experience when you're maxed...


In the rare event I can use them as a vendor or storage, they usually do not want any items that are from nearby dungeons or wildlife. They want spoons and chairs.
Every single npc in the game has at least 2, usually 3 different things they like. As I mentioned earlier every single combat trainer in the game has an easy method to favour them up with Legs being the only possible exception, and after checking the main combat ancillary skills such as cooking, butchering, skinning, foraging, fishing etc every single one of those has an easy favour method too such as gems or paintings. You could probably count the number of npcs who are difficult to favour up on one hand and most of those don't even offer the unlock for any skills.


For me though, crafting would purely be for my own character. If I could not directly use what I crafted (the moment I crafted it), I would write it off as worthless.
It seems to me that whenever people struggle in this game a lot it's usually because they don't do crafting. Most people don't seem to realise that nearly every crafting skill in the game makes profit, there are exceptions to this obviously e.g. brewing and most also lose you money at the low levels and for a lot of the recipes but if you just consider the vendor value of items, normally the vendor value of the finished product is around the same or even higher, see flatbread recipe for cooking; all npc bought items and you can sell it straight back to that same npc for profit. Tanning is another great example, the cost of the tannin is always less than the increase in value you get between the skin and the roll, this isn't a mistake, it's done deliberately so that crafting isn't just a money sink and instead an entirely viable alternative to combat. Work orders for the most part make you money, at lower levels you will roughly break even in exchange for gaining exp but at higher levels you could be talking 5-10k profit even if you just bought the mats straight off a player vendor for 5 minutes work and sometimes 30-40k if you farmed the mats yourself and as long as you knew the right spots to farm with a good aoe build you could probably do it in about half an hour or so.

This isn't to say you have to do crafting of course, combat provides avenue for good money making too e.g. through skinning, group dungeons etc. it's just my belief that people who do combat only get burnt out more easily since their gameplay is more repititive. For example, someone who surveys for an hour, gardens for an hour then does an hour of combat has more variety when compared to someone who just does 3 hours of combat.

[Delfofthebla]

Wow, exaggeration of the century right here.
Sorry, the thought of leveling another tradeskill and favor grinding only to hit another wall kind of riled me up.



I also feel like you won't enjoy being max level either since you don't gain any experience when you're maxed...

Correct. There is nothing fun about sitting at max level in the only dungeon for that level and farming it all day every day. That's what current mainstream MMO's are about. You get to max level in a month and then mindlessly grind gear for years or until you want to gouge your eyes out.
Not my cup of tea.


Every single npc in the game has at least 2, usually 3 different things they like. As I mentioned earlier every single combat trainer in the game has an easy method to favour them up with Legs being the only possible exception, and after checking the main combat ancillary skills such as cooking, butchering, skinning, foraging, fishing etc every single one of those has an easy favour method too such as gems or paintings.
I am a spider, and I don't think I'd put gems or paintings in the "easy" category, as they require several other tradeskills to obtain...

Not to mention that the Endurance trainer won't even speak to animals. As a spider I at least can make it work for the cost of a moonstone, but if I didn't have the wiki it would cost at least 2 due to the nature of the gifts they want. You may have skins, wood, or sexy clothing on you, but there's no way you'd have enough right out the gate. And without the wiki I wouldn't have ever even known how to train this!



It seems to me that whenever people struggle in this game a lot it's usually because they don't do crafting. Most people don't seem to realise that nearly every crafting skill in the game makes profit, there are exceptions to this obviously e.g. brewing and most also lose you money at the low levels and for a lot of the recipes but if you just consider the vendor value of items, normally the vendor value of the finished product is around the same or even higher, see flatbread recipe for cooking; all npc bought items and you can sell it straight back to that same npc for profit. Tanning is another great example, the cost of the tannin is always less than the increase in value you get between the skin and the roll, this isn't a mistake, it's done deliberately so that crafting isn't just a money sink and instead an entirely viable alternative to combat. Work orders for the most part make you money, at lower levels you will roughly break even in exchange for gaining exp but at higher levels you could be talking 5-10k profit even if you just bought the mats straight off a player vendor for 5 minutes work and sometimes 30-40k if you farmed the mats yourself and as long as you knew the right spots to farm with a good aoe build you could probably do it in about half an hour or so.

I will try to take this information to heart, as I have only viewed my current tradeskills as a pure money dump until now. (Gardening, Cooking, Alchemy, Transmutation, Augmentation)

I have skinning, and some tanning, but have not been converting the skins before selling them...

[Celerity]

I am a spider, and I don't think I'd put gems or paintings in the "easy" category, as they require several other tradeskills to obtain..

Beast forms are harder to do than the traditional humanoid skills and you seem to have pulled the short straw since spider is definitely the hardest skill trainer to favour in the entire game.

I consider gems easy since they give ~20 favour each and can be bought in player vendors for even as cheap as 160 each, so for friends you need 300/20 = 15 gems which is a cost of 15 * 160 = 2.4k. This is a rough calculation of course because it differs for each individual npc and depends on your bonuses from civic pride and notoriety. Gems would be difficult if you tried to survey them all yourself, since you don't get many of any one specific gem easily but since you can just buy them so cheaply off player vendors I don't think it's an issue.

I also consider paintings easy since you can farm high value paintings from the red wing of the goblin dungeon annex and normally coming back with a full inventory is enough to favour an npc to close/best friends and then doing a second run and maybe a third gives you enough to get like family, which is the highest favour you'll basically ever need from any of the skill unlock trainers. Now of course you'll have to put some effort into learning and training art history but the very act of training the skill gives you the paintings you need for favour.

[poulter]

For consideration:

Citan has advised in the past that Beast forms (by their limitations) are intended to be used by 'established' players (c. level 50). They appear to have been originally conceived as curses.

Crafting, whilst not obligatory, is a major component in the game and makes things much easier. There is a reason why the 'best' gear in the game are usually crafted, or, for a few items, drop from a boss.

You can regularly make >500k councils /week from selling tanned skins (200k+), running casino dailies (70k+), selling drops (100k), completing work orders, mushroom farming, etc. at level 50. It takes me under 4 hours play time /week to do so.

The number of mods (i.e. color /quality) on your gear make a huge difference. An 'average' red gear set has 27 'random' mods whilst a gold max crafted + augmented set has 56+ mods customised to the spells used by the player. Crafting skills are essential if you are into efficiency and effectiveness.

[alleryn]

But aren't work orders very RNG? Wouldn't you need to level several crafting professions just to have a constant flow of profitable crafting?

Some more than others.

But generally it's not hard to simply visit work order boards often and cherry pick the ones you want to do. Of course if you are most always in dungeons, this won't really work, but if you spend most of your time in, say, the Casino/Rahu, then you can visit these boards whenever they pop. Over the course of the month you are likely to see every work order you want to do.

The Ilmari work order board is all leatherworking and toolcrafting (i think... might be forgetting something). So with two skills (or really you could settle for just leatherworking and do a fair bit), you are going to see a lot of good orders, especially since a high fraction of the Ilmari work order are highly profitable.

The Sun Vale board is more remote and has more skills, so is probably not so worth it unless you have multiple crafting skills leveled.

Kur Mountains board is pretty good, and it's all cooking orders which most people will have leveled. The profit margins are hit or miss, but once you figure out which work orders are good to do, it's a nice addition.

Thimble Pete's board is the worst of the bunch. It's in a remote area, and many of the work orders are just bad. Still some nice stuff on them, so I hit it up if i happen to be in the area, or sometimes park an alt there to farm the more desirable work orders (trophy skins, the higher end cheese orders).

The Serb board is nice early on (especially carpentry) and still useful as the game progresses, but the trip to the docks can feel not worth the small profits, unless you are headed to Sun Vale anyways.

The Fae Realm board is hit or miss, and requires high crafting skills for the most part, but some of the orders are easy to complete and massively profitable (Fairy Icehearts and Royal Jelly for example are huge sums of cash that can be extremely profitable even if just buying the stuff from player ships).

[AgentBbrian]

~tldr
I think making augmentation and transmutation available to players from the start and unlocked via the tutorial would fix this loot garbage problem and give people the choice right off the bat to deal with gear/crafting/moneymaking and character competence, atleast giving people the option to choose, like "NEEDING" to be a crafter like people have suggested and those people who "WANT" to be a crafter or simply to just to try out the skills and playstyles to see what they like without needing to get to 50-60 as a brand new player learning and experiencing everything etc..

New guy here, hi.

I experienced a similar thing like the OP at the start, i was advised by people to do the crypt, got my butt kicked then lol'd at and told about the magical underwater sewer portal in the river to get started instead.
Had no idea it was there, and no idea a blue glowing thing was a portal. i dont think it even said it was a sewer portal.
Didnt know about the suicide hopping around down there either until was told.
Mostly i think alot of people have been playing this from so long ago that so many things have changed like difficulties of monsters as a minimum and they are so high level with alt-crafted gear now that they forget a new player is new and it's different to just making a new character without that backup and knowledge.

At the start of necromancy.. zombie is not strong, none of the pets are strong, getting any gear for zombie as a drop is not a thing that early on, the zombie is the slowest pet in the game, so you dont use it and ignore it as a cheerleader along with all the AI issues of pets.
The damage is weak early on, they're slow and they lag way behind, get stuck on things, bug out on los, and a necro has to go back to a graveyard everytime to sort out the issues of them.
Anyone know why being the master of undead makes all enemy undead immune to the necros damage or spells? like youre basically not a necro.. just a gimp with weird pets and a disadvantage when fighting all undead.
Why would a necro be so useless against other undead? makes no sense, a useless restriction, rawr im a necro and every undead in the world calls me names and picks on me and can attack and kill me and bully me and i cant do anything about it because im a powerful lord of undead that for some reason needs consecrated graveyard grounds to summon unholy pets, or just lots of player tomb stones and suiciding mechanic weirdness.

I came to realise the gear drops were just another resource to farm, and rarely you will get something along the lines of what you may kinda want, but most times its garbage and the system is pretty much a ripoff of the loot/transmute system from blizzards Diablo3.
I was given a bit of advice when it comes to gear and their types:
Tailoring stuff = Power refresh
Leather stuff = Health refresh
Metal stuff = Armor refresh (lycan restriction)
If you have 3 armor of the same type equipped you get a bonus that activates with basic attack and has a 1 min cooldown


I have done a bunch of bartering so far in Kur Mountains, and i gota disagree with a few people who said its worth it or useful, no gear has been good from them so far.
How long ago they did their bartering before a whatever patched changed things i dont know.

The money making thing and guild and dailies and storage and workorders and favors.. this is not something a new player is going to know without a mentor or knowing someone or asking and understanding 100% of what they said, i found most people tell you up to a certain point and forget you dont know that little step in between and then your on the wiki anyway with 8 tabs open.
There isnt a window or ui menu anywhere to show you favors of the npc's you'v encountered to keep track or know what youre getting yourself into, the youtube video you watched of the promotional funny who was talking about the game didn't go over that when he kinda convinced you to get the game, and when you youtubed guides they were years old.

The augmentations and transmutations seem like a cool system, but it should be a system introduced to the player from the start at the tutorial.
New players should have the fun messing around with that the entire time theyre on instead of looking at useless loot all the time to the point they come on here to make a forum post once frustrated.
It seems silly to need to complete a quest in a dangerous area where even being idle can kill you(kur mountains) and then needing 25 skill in 5 crafting skills to be able to train the ability to enjoy the game more so when dealing with loot.

When you see things like pointless restrictions walls, skill walls, and just annoying drawbacks to the entertainment this game could offer it kinda wears you down like "what's the point eh?" and then you see people getting frustrated, burnt out and taking long winded breaks, and those people are no longer around to help new players and make guides for youtube, y'know? because you login and you gota get to work grinding it out.

~tldr
I think making augmentation and transmutation available to players from the start and unlocked via the tutorial would fix this loot garbage problem and give people the choice right off the bat to deal with gear/crafting/moneymaking and character competence, atleast giving people the option to choose, like "NEEDING" to be a crafter like people have suggested and those people who "WANT" to be a crafter or simply to just to try out the skills and playstyles to see what they like without needing to get to 50-60 as a brand new player learning and experiencing everything etc..

[Delfofthebla]

Some more than others.

But generally it's not hard to simply visit work order boards often and cherry pick the ones you want to do. Of course if you are most always in dungeons, this won't really work, but if you spend most of your time in, say, the Casino/Rahu, then you can visit these boards whenever they pop. Over the course of the month you are likely to see every work order you want to do.

The Ilmari work order board is all leatherworking and toolcrafting (i think... might be forgetting something). So with two skills (or really you could settle for just leatherworking and do a fair bit), you are going to see a lot of good orders, especially since a high fraction of the Ilmari work order are highly profitable.

The Sun Vale board is more remote and has more skills, so is probably not so worth it unless you have multiple crafting skills leveled.

Kur Mountains board is pretty good, and it's all cooking orders which most people will have leveled. The profit margins are hit or miss, but once you figure out which work orders are good to do, it's a nice addition.

Thimble Pete's board is the worst of the bunch. It's in a remote area, and many of the work orders are just bad. Still some nice stuff on them, so I hit it up if i happen to be in the area, or sometimes park an alt there to farm the more desirable work orders (trophy skins, the higher end cheese orders).

The Serb board is nice early on (especially carpentry) and still useful as the game progresses, but the trip to the docks can feel not worth the small profits, unless you are headed to Sun Vale anyways.

The Fae Realm board is hit or miss, and requires high crafting skills for the most part, but some of the orders are easy to complete and massively profitable (Fairy Icehearts and Royal Jelly for example are huge sums of cash that can be extremely profitable even if just buying the stuff from player ships).

Yeah I've been cherry-picking whichever orders I can, mostly so that I can get industry to 25 and not have to pay 20k to open a player shop. I'm assuming I need like 30-40 before I start to get the actual profitable ones though. It's mostly been break even or net loss so far.



I think making augmentation and transmutation available to players from the start and unlocked via the tutorial would fix this loot garbage problem and give people the choice right off the bat to deal with gear/crafting/moneymaking and character competence, atleast giving people the option to choose, like "NEEDING" to be a crafter like people have suggested and those people who "WANT" to be a crafter or simply to just to try out the skills and playstyles to see what they like without needing to get to 50-60 as a brand new player learning and experiencing everything etc..

The augmentations and transmutations seem like a cool system, but it should be a system introduced to the player from the start at the tutorial.
New players should have the fun messing around with that the entire time theyre on instead of looking at useless loot all the time to the point they come on here to make a forum post once frustrated.
It seems silly to need to complete a quest in a dangerous area where even being idle can kill you(kur mountains) and then needing 25 skill in 5 crafting skills to be able to train the ability to enjoy the game more so when dealing with loot.

Completely agree.



Anyone know why being the master of undead makes all enemy undead immune to the necros damage or spells? like youre basically not a necro.. just a gimp with weird pets and a disadvantage when fighting all undead.
Why would a necro be so useless against other undead? makes no sense, a useless restriction, rawr im a necro and every undead in the world calls me names and picks on me and can attack and kill me and bully me and i cant do anything about it because im a powerful lord of undead that for some reason needs consecrated graveyard grounds to summon unholy pets, or just lots of player tomb stones and suiciding mechanic weirdness.

Lol right? I've never played a necro that is so weak against undead. It just seems so...thematically incorrect.

The graveyard mechanic makes sense to me, but I wish I could at least use the corpses of my enemies instead like you can with the zombie. Why would a graveyard have better "mages" or "archers" than a fucking skeleton or goblin mage I just killed??



I have done a bunch of bartering so far in Kur Mountains, and i gota disagree with a few people who said its worth it or useful, no gear has been good from them so far.
How long ago they did their bartering before a whatever patched changed things i dont know.

Yeah I'm having a similar experience. It's just another dice roll, and it does not feel any faster or better than just farming elites for drops. I originally made this thread prior to getting a foothold in the wolf cave, and that has definitely helped my gear situation a lot. Farming elites is the best way to get gear that I've found so far.



When you see things like pointless restrictions walls, skill walls, and just annoying drawbacks to the entertainment this game could offer it kinda wears you down like "what's the point eh?" and then you see people getting frustrated, burnt out and taking long winded breaks, and those people are no longer around to help new players and make guides for youtube, y'know? because you login and you gota get to work grinding it out.

Yep. I started playing this game with 6 other friends of mine. You know how many of them are left now that we've all hit 50? Just 3. And I can tell 2 of the remaining 3 are on the verge of quitting.

Celerity can break down my ramblings all day, and perhaps I'm not doing a great job of communicating exactly why I am frustrated, but the fact of the matter is, once you hit level 50, this game completely changes. Some people may be able to find the fun past 50, but many people (including 3 of my friends) could not. I'm doing what I can to stay engaged, but if the rest of my friends quit? I don't know if I'll be willing to stay.

[Glythe]

Can I weight it towards specific mods or something? Because it seems like I'd be spending tons of money and/or resources just for one more "dice roll". If I have better control or if the material costs are really low then I could see this being a pretty valid solution though.

You can weight crafted items. If I make an item I can choose which power should have more modifiers. With augmentation I can add a power to remove power choices from the possible rolls. When I roll what I want for one of the skills, I can add a different augmentation (remove the first) and block powers from the other skillset. I have been where you are; without aug and trans the game feels very different if you are over level 50 and struggling.



Honestly, I find "priceless" to be a very hard sell. It could be the most useful thing in the world and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it after what I've experienced already. I expect to make at least 2 million from industry next month. This does not include running the daily (solo) every day or any sold loot. I pick up work orders for chairs, necklaces, flower arrangements, cooked food and stmot/weapons. I deliver them and make a huge profit and gain skill levels in the process.



In an MMO I expect leveling to be the main gameplay, but it's not in PG. It's favor grinding.

I'm going to stick with the game a little longer, but I do not think this kind of gameplay post 50 is very fun. I want to do dungeons, and I want to fight difficult encounters. I want to feel good about beating these encounters and I want to strengthen my character as I do so. I want progressing my character to feel fun. Favor/money grinding a new throwaway NPC every 10 levels doesn't feel good. It feels like work. I am working so that I can get access to more work, which will give me access to even more work. I never feel rewarded for my work either. Why. Why would anyone possibly want to do this all the way to 80?

Most skills have 3 trainers. For Fire you have Velkort, The Sand Seer, and a fairy in the Fae realm. Early trainers do not need to be fully bribed as I think I have velkort at close friends or best friends. It takes an eternity to bribe these npcs when you are starting out but at level 80 I can often fully bribe most of them in under a week. The second trainer needs like family for everything. The third trainer may require like soulmates for some abilities.

This may come as a shock but you are not supposed to play everything. There are a lot of players who have the fever where they think they need every skill at max level. Multiple struggling first time players came to me this week and I made them armor. They looked up what the craft needed for armor of their level and they harvest it or bought it. Making the armor is a gamble because you do not know what rarity you will get but if you make enough attempts you should end up with something pretty nice.

Max enchanted armor gives you an extra modifier and so does augmentation. A level 50 drop (or 70) can have at most 5 powers and 1 you can add. A max crafted armor can have 6 powers with the option to add 1 more. If you compared two players - one with full crafted and one with dropped armor (without transmutation) the power level difference would be insane. Just looking at armor+jewelry means you are missing 14 power modifiers. If we pretend you somehow have otherwise perfect armor without rolling (which has happened about twice in all the time I have been playing) the difference in character power would be staggering.

Go here : http://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner. put in your build and pretend you had 6 or 7 modifiers for every item slot.

The End Game in PG is about rolling perfect gear - which has to be crafted so it has an extra enchantment. Make a good build and create a perfect armor set and you will be as effective as two or three players running around in "random" gear/sub-optimal builds.

[AgentBbrian]

I expect to make at least 2 million from industry next month. This does not include running the daily (solo) every day or any sold loot. I pick up work orders for chairs, necklaces, flower arrangements, cooked food and stmot/weapons. I deliver them and make a huge profit and gain skill levels in the process.
Crafting..


This may come as a shock but you are not supposed to play everything. There are a lot of players who have the fever where they think they need every skill at max level. Multiple struggling first time players came to me this week and I made them armor. They looked up what the craft needed for armor of their level and they harvest it or bought it. Making the armor is a gamble because you do not know what rarity you will get but if you make enough attempts you should end up with something pretty nice.
Crafting..

SHOCK!
i guess new players have to know what they like or know what they want to do before they do it to enjoy the game, little bit of a backwards progression system and see the future skills needed.
I guess you can ask all the players who already know who have unlocked everything on how to play your character, but hey the game has "exploration" wooo pfft.


The End Game in PG is about rolling perfect gear - which has to be crafted so it has an extra enchantment. Make a good build and create a perfect armor set and you will be as effective as two or three players running around in "random" gear/sub-optimal builds.
Crafting..

See the pattern?
I read this and im like.. ok the issue is explained but not understood as an issue.
The OP talks about problems gearing and then people talk about giving handouts to new players struggling..
New players struggling..
New players struggling.....
This isnt a dig at glythe it's the same thing i see everywhere on these forums of long term players pointing out the issues but not seeing it themself and giving tips on the loopholes, when really being a new player in the current games development is much different from back then and things will slowly continue to change but will never again get that "new player" feeling of weakness and stuff, like how necro was gained from touching a shrine before to get instant access to never hurt another undead with lord of undead skills, now you gota destroy a dungeon and slaughter a strong boss which is nuts for a new player to consider, but people will carry you through, and yet again getting help from those that have been here for a long time... this pattern that people aren't seeing will not be good for the "fun" game in the long run.

I see a flaw in the gearing system, just like diablo 3 had, since the transmutation and augmentation are almost identical to diablo 3, and diablo 3 had it's problems of gearing issues.
This gives way more power to my previous suggestion than i realised it needed.. to have the trans and aug be shifted to tutorial island and unlocked from the new player start as a backbone option for the game since crafting is the end all of treasure hunting.
And if it is like that then im like "why bother?" just to farm?
I can't has treasure? :( unless im stupid lucky or just ask trade chat for a crafted set to bypass the fun alltogether.. D:


Just get yer surveying for travel gems and gather whatever it is for whatever craft you wanna do... boom end game character
Being self sufficient is a goal.
Making friends is a goal.
Needing crafters is fine and all, but give people the option to use bluetac and sticktape to fix up their found gear with trans and augs if they want without needing to dive headfirst into 5 skills of crafting to get the 1/3rd max skill levels needed to quest for the damn skill in a frozen wasteland of death to unlock competence in character progression and entertainment.
Feels pretty 1 sided here for everyone who isn't interested in crafting and is forced to purchase a set.. forced..
I mean even Path of Exile has "solo self found" character options and people love that shit.

[alleryn]

(Snip)
I've basically played the combat-portion of the game as solo self found so far. I haven't bought any gear, or used transmutation, augmentation, or shamanic infusion to alter gear i use.

I have crafted two sets of winter gear, but literally just two sets. I didn't craft more than one piece for any slot. [Edit: One set was level 50 and one was level 70. I don't wear either anymore.]

I'm level 80 in my main combat skills and 70+ in most of my crafting skills (which i really only use for work orders/money-making). Admittedly i cannot do endgame content yet, but really the progression towards increasing amounts of power, the excitement of replacing a piece of gear when i find a better one, outweighs the delay in gratification of getting to pwn leet mobs.

I did receive a little help from the "higher ups" as i played (the Lomas quest i got help with), but i don't think any of that was something critical to my progress. I finally unlocked necromancy earlier this month (started in Jan 2017). I was surprised to find i could have soloed it easily. I guess if you really want to play a necromancer out of the gate it can be frustrating to have to put it off, but i don't see the problem with having some skillsets that are "higher tier" and can only be unlocked later in the game. It's not like it takes ages to unlock Necromancy or Battle Chemistry. It just takes a bit of perseverance.

I guess my point is that i enjoyed struggling as a new player (and i don't think it's any more difficult now than when i started in Jan 2017, but i could be wrong). This isn't to say that other players ought to appreciate it the way i did 'back in my day', but i do feel like it's worth pointing out that the struggle doesn't have to be, and isn't for everyone, a part of the game that is undesirable.

Good luck in your struggle.

[AgentBbrian]

I've basically played the combat-portion of the game as solo self found so far.

I have crafted two sets of winter gear, but literally just two sets. I didn't craft more than one piece for any slot.

I did receive a little help from the "higher ups" as i played

I guess if you really want to play a necromancer out of the gate it can be frustrating to have to put it off

It just takes a bit of perseverance.

I guess my point is that i enjoyed struggling as a new player

struggle doesn't have to be, and isn't for everyone, a part of the game that is undesirable.

Good luck in your struggle.
(Snip)
/10char

[Rockdelver]

Lol right? I've never played a necro that is so weak against undead. It just seems so...thematically incorrect.

The graveyard mechanic makes sense to me, but I wish I could at least use the corpses of my enemies instead like you can with the zombie. Why would a graveyard have better "mages" or "archers" than a fucking skeleton or goblin mage I just killed??

I'm in two minds about the "normal" undead mobs being used to make skeletons. I would definitely love it, personally, but rationalise that the skeletons I destroy have already been 'used' once already when they were created by some nameless NPC. I do think, purely for continuity reasons that appeal to me and probably me alone, that Zombies should be creatable only using non-undead corpses though, since they have the necessary muscle and sinew on them to reform into a Zombie. It fits the theme better in my opinion.

I understand your point about Necro damage not being optimal against other Undead, but on the other hand, in most mmorpgs using Fire Magic against Fire-based creatures doesn't give optimal damage either. Ditto with Ice, Electricity and so forth. Necro damage is, in my experience, usually very effective against just about everything else that I have encountered so far, so I put that down to swings and roundabouts so to speak.

Of course, let's not forget we all have TWO spell toolbars, so we Necros aren't limited to one damage type. I always use Mentalism on the second toolbar, and at 45 Mentalism plus some equipment mods I can do some decent damage. All the main spells hit for around 100 to 220 and Agonise hits for a DOT of around 800 and maybe a little more and the heal (Reconstruct) isn't too shabby either. What are you using as your second set of abilities?

[Glythe]

Crafting..

See the pattern?
I read this and im like.. ok the issue is explained but not understood as an issue.
The OP talks about problems gearing and then people talk about giving handouts to new players struggling..

This isnt a dig at glythe it's the same thing i see everywhere on these forums of long term players pointing out the issues but not seeing it themself and giving tips on the loopholes, when really being a new player in the current games development is much different from back then and things will slowly continue to change but will never again get that "new player" feeling of weakness and stuff, like how necro was gained from touching a shrine before to get instant access to never hurt another undead with lord of undead skills, now you gota destroy a dungeon and slaughter a strong boss which is nuts for a new player to consider, but people will carry you through, and yet again getting help from those that have been here for a long time... this pattern that people aren't seeing will not be good for the "fun" game in the long run.

I see a flaw in the gearing system, just like diablo 3 had, since the transmutation and augmentation are almost identical to diablo 3, and diablo 3 had it's problems of gearing issues.

I mean even Path of Exile has "solo self found" character options and people love that shit.

My first character was self found. I went to dungeons over and over and over so that eventually I had all yellow armor where 4/5 mods were correct. This took a long time and a lot of grinding. You are welcome to do it this way if you want.


As for the crafting.... Join a guild. Find someone who does the skill for the work order you have. Buy all the mats, give them the exact mats and say : 10 quality chairs please. If the crafter is not busy they will likely not mind. If you are that guy who says, "hey what do quality chairs need I see a work order on this board"; then you make my eyes roll. You can get up to ~25 industry in the first month if you stick with it. You can get up to 40 in the next month and by that time you will likely be filling half of your own orders and be on your way with tradeskills. Spoiler alert for anyone wanting to learn augmentation : you need leatherworking, alchemy, blacksmithing, toolcrafting and carpentry at level 25 to get all of the augmentation skills. He set the game up so you become a crafter (or at least a novice once).

I was broke as hell and there was no casino. NO CASINO! Let that sink in because I see people who have been playing for a week get carried in dungeons like it is no big deal. Earning money/loot was running from dungeon A-B-C-D-E and selling what you got. It sucked. People told me about industry and I tried it. Be patient with it and you will learn a tradeskill for free. It is not as fast as the casino and takes more time to get where you make all the money you will ever need but it is totally worth it to be independent of the player market prices. If you are a little bit on the lazy side you can buy industry potions from Qatik.

I often shout in global asking for people looking to join a guild in the 40-50+ range because I know how much it sucks to not be able to progress with gear. The thing you need to realize about aug/trans and gear mods is that they make you insanely powerful. He has the game setup so it is supposed to take you a lot of time/effort to learn to do them. This is good for the game so that you can't wiggle your nose and go from being lvl 0 to a perfect geared 70 in ~2 weeks.

It might sound hard to believe but 1 character in a strong build with good synergy in perfect level 70 gear is worth about 3-4 players in "whatever" gear/builds. That kind of power level increase needs to be gated. Also I think you do not start with Aug/Trans because there is already so much to do and learn when you play this game. But I would love to see a level 35/40 quest where one of the npcs offers you a high reward mission to go see Makara.

As for Augmentation.... there are NPCs now who can add things to your gear. You can ask in global with the right mats and someone will extract powers for you. This is the friendliest community in a game I have ever seen; you would be wise to make use of it instead of being a hermit. That being said Kudos to you for going on the forum and posting.

[Celerity]

Crafting..
Crafting..
See the pattern?
Crafting is just one option, lots of people also talk about the millions they make from skin farming but everyone and their mother knows about skin farming since it is already talked about so much. The entire point of an advice thread is to give the maybe less obvious solutions such as industry which are often overlooked by newer players. Skin farming is also mentioned by me and several others already as a viable and effective money making method but you seem to have willfully ignored this.

Some of the best industry work orders in the game; 10 royal jellies for 60k, 5 phoenix eggs for 120k, 5 fairy icehearts for 48k and all the trophy skin work orders. These are all combat acquirable only and although I will admit 90% of early industry is crafting, it's just something to consider.

As for crafted gear you can get someone else to craft it for you and avoid 100% of all crafting in the game and still get your top end set. Either that or you can bite the bullet and go for not max-enchanted (gasp) gear from dungeon drops which is probably around 5x easier than crafting max-enchanted yellows and in most cases barely affects your strength since there's not usually enough really good mods on every single gear piece to make a big difference, and even if there is, all content in the game can be cleared by people in a set of reds so it's not like you're locked out of any content or it makes the content significantly easier either.


when really being a new player in the current games development is much different from back then

You're correct, being a new player "back then" was probably 2-3x harder than it is now, depending on when "back then" was; you used to need a belt to get any loot attuned to you at all, all monsters used to drop less rare loot, boss mobs especially got a massive boost to their loot dropped, crafting got a buff to the rarity of equipment it gave, at one point yellow loot literally didn't exist, there used to be a lot of useless mods in the past which were removed, most skills have received buffs as time has gone on; notable exceptions being sword, fire magic and archery as well as the damage calculation changes but most of this was only relevant for end game builds, not new players. There was also no transmutation and no augmentation, which despite what you might say ARE fully available right from the beginning to all players, sure you need someone else to extract the augments for you and for transmutation you have to run to the desert but you can technically get them both very early on. And depending on how far back you look, you could also see no elite mobs, who have an increased chance of loot, no casino, so no dailies or gambling for easy money, fewer dungeons so fewer chests and bosses to farm, fewer active players so fewer people to craft things for you or group with, no player vendors or work order board so more difficult to acquire items, no guilds so no free money for new players every week, the barter options weren't in the game so fewer chances to get gear, combat refreshes were weaker and probably a ton more things I'm missing. The only things that have made the game harder were a couple of times mob hp was buffed very slightly, something like a few percent with no perceivable difference at the lower levels, and the introduction of crits which again are not a mechanic which affects low level content.

This doesn't mean I'm saying the game should go back to how it was, I think it was too difficult back then and I welcome all of these changes which made the game easier. I'm just using them as an example to show that you essentially have no idea what you're talking about since you seem to be implying the game was easier in the past?


like how necro was gained from touching a shrine before to get instant access to never hurt another undead with lord of undead skills, now you gota destroy a dungeon and slaughter a strong boss which is nuts for a new player to consider

I don't see how it's "nuts" for a player to group up in order to kill a boss, or for a player to simply wait a little until they're a higher level before doing so. You mentioned yourself they can be carried through early if they really want access to it immediately anyway. Is it also nuts to get 50 alchemy for battle chemistry or 25 fire magic/rabbit plus a quest for ice magic? In my opinion that's just something which makes the game more interesting. Having access to all skills immediately would just be overwhelming for a new player and also just make the game shallower since that's one less thing you have to work towards.


This gives way more power to my previous suggestion than i realised it needed.. to have the trans and aug be shifted to tutorial island and unlocked from the new player start as a backbone option for the game since crafting is the end all of treasure hunting

Not the worst idea but it would make the game shallower in my opinion and would need to be accompanied by a big buff to all mobs since you would be making the game insanely easy. At the moment you can clear all content up to lvl 50 relatively easily in white gear so giving this kind of power that early on would just result in steamrolling content otherwise.


And if it is like that then im like "why bother?" just to farm?
I can't has treasure? :( unless im stupid lucky or just ask trade chat for a crafted set to bypass the fun alltogether.. D:


Just get yer surveying for travel gems and gather whatever it is for whatever craft you wanna do... boom end game character

It is far easier to farm group dungeon elites to gear up than it is to farm even just the mats (ignoring the cost of leveling the skill) for crafting gear. Group dungeon elites only become available at 45 with yeti cave but considering you mentioned end game I guess this would be available. The main advantage of crafted gear is that it can be made max-enchanted, which is only available starting at lvl 50 and realistically you're not going to make a set until you get to the max level, which not only is much more difficult, for not much more reward than just a normal yellow set but means it isn't relevant to new players at all AND there's absolutely 0 requirement for you to level it up yourself if you really hate crafting that much since other people can craft for you.

You mention "bypassing the fun" though which makes me confused because I thought you said you hated crafting but now you're saying it's fun? Either that or you're implying that farming the crafting mats is somehow free and bypassing requirements when it's significantly harder than just farming the gear yourself from drops.


Needing crafters is fine and all, but give people the option to use bluetac and sticktape to fix up their found gear with trans and augs if they want without needing to dive headfirst into 5 skills of crafting to get the 1/3rd max skill levels needed to quest for the damn skill in a frozen wasteland of death to unlock competence in character progression and entertainment.
Feels pretty 1 sided here for everyone who isn't interested in crafting and is forced to purchase a set.. forced..

There is no requirement to learn transmutation other than favour and augmentation is 100% optional since other people can extract the augments for you. If you want to argue that you have to learn augmentation in order to get the prisms I would direct you to the player market where prisms are sold constantly, and in fact many players I know never decompose anything since in most cases it is more cost effective to buy prisms from the player market and use them to distill items only.

As for the "forced" to purchase a set, just same point again, you don't need max-enchanted, you don't need any crafted gear ever, dungeon gear is easier to obtain and in most cases very comparable in terms of power it provides.

[Delfofthebla]

You can weight crafted items. If I make an item I can choose which power should have more modifiers. With augmentation I can add a power to remove power choices from the possible rolls. When I roll what I want for one of the skills, I can add a different augmentation (remove the first) and block powers from the other skillset. I have been where you are; without aug and trans the game feels very different if you are over level 50 and struggling.

Can you elaborate more on this? How exactly do you choose which has more rolls? Is it just the primary vs auxiliary gem choice? And if you use augmentation to "block" a power, is that so that you can reroll a different mod with transmutation?
I've played quite a bit of Path of Exile so I'm no stranger to advanced crafting methods like this on gear, but what you describe sounds pretty expensive on the augmentation side of things. Am I understanding your strategy correctly?



This may come as a shock but you are not supposed to play everything.

I have seen many posts and statements from citan, mods, admins, and senior players that state exactly what you just said. This may be the developer's intentions, but the way the game is designed, I have to disagree completely.

Because the game actively encourages players to level up every single skill in the entire game through several aspects:

1) You are not restricted from doing so.
The simple ability to level everything makes it seem as though you should. After all, if a skill is useful, why wouldn't you want to level it? It's a natural player inclination to want to expand and perfect their character. Whether it's a good idea or not, people will strive for this if you let them.

"Who cares if it's way too expensive to learn that skill, it will be worth it later!" - Some poor noob who burned out and quit.

2) Many skills provide bonuses to other skills.
These bonuses allow you to get access to greater strength despite not having payed for a higher skill cap. This gives the player a sense of power and progression. Moreover, if you are the type of player that wishes to min-max, you must get the highest skill cap possible. This means leveling more skills.

3) Many skills are required to properly self-sustain other skills.
Let's say I want to do cooking. Well, that means I need gardening, foraging, fishing and possibly butchering too. As evident by this thread, I will also need Armor Augmentation in the future if I wish to perfect my gear. (I need ALL of the aug skills but let's gloss over that for now eh?) Well it seems l need 25 leatherworking and 25 alchemy for that, which is not achievable (by myself) without achieving similar levels in Tanning, Mycology, and Fishing.

See what just happened? I only want two things (Cooking/Armor Augmentation) and already I have been forced to level 7 additional skills!

4) NPC's that offer valuable services (such as vendor, storage, or your skill trainer) often provide another service that encourages you to seek out another tradeskill.
Let's say that I am a skinner, and I want to get favor with Nishika for the sole purpose of surpassing level 50. Lucky for me, this is an NPC with storage as well, so I have a really good reason to gain favor with this her. However, Nishika is also the trainer for Butchering. Fancy that!

Now, I may have achieved my initial goal of unlocking skinning, but now that I have her favor high enough, I can also train butchering. I know that getting favor with this NPC was costly, and I know that a higher butcher skill will help me immensely with favor farming other NPC's, as well as with my cooking skill, which is important to me. I am now committed to leveling up butchering to take advantage of my previous effort.

Since I am a skinner (and now a god damn leatherworker...), I am also a tanner. I want to get the most value out of my skins, and money is always a problem, so now I vendor my leather rolls. In order to get the max value from this, I have gained favor with Amutasa to increase her vendor cash. Well, now that I have gained favor with Amutasa, I notice that she can train me in Toolcrafting and Carpentry, which are coincidentally required for other augmentation skills...

This goes on and on and on...
5) The player shop system is painful to use, and encourages you to just make/farm your own items.
* You have to return to Serbule to use it despite it no longer being your home base as a higher level player. No other player shops are used.
* Manually running between every shop and trying to remember which shop has what you need and which has the best offer is time consuming and annoying.
* Certain items never show up in the search, even if the vendors possess the item. (I feel for people who try to sell Shaman Rat Belt's.)
* It's impossible to search for gear or augments, effectively forcing players to train these skills for themselves.
* Many players charge more than double the value of the item itself, encouraging you to simply scour the "Buy Used" tab instead to try and scoop up any item that noobs foolishly sell.

6) Getting crafting services done by other players is awkward.
First off, many crafting components are multi-tiered crafts that require many more ingredients to obtain. Let's say that I was an alchemist that decided "I am not supposed to level everything and so I will avoid mycology and fishing. This Swimming Potion I wish to craft requires 1x Milk Cap Mushroom powder and 1 eel fillet. Ok, so how the hell do I get those?

I have two choices. 1: Go to the wiki (hint: the only real choice) or 2: Bother another player.
"What items do I need to make that?"
"Oh, well where do I get that?"
"Oh, well what level do I need to be to pick that up?"
"Oh. I'll check player shops."
"I don't see any."
"Well can I just buy it from you?"
"Oh you don't have any either... Ok sorry to bother you."

^ Is an interaction I genuinely had when trying to see if I could have something crafted for me. If you do not have the sub-tradeskill required, you must go to the wiki to figure out what you need, and you must farm it yourself, which even then will require you to level at least one gathering skill. Even if the item I sought was on a player shop, I feel very confident that it would have been too expensive for me to feel justified in buying it.

---

Note that I am not necessarily pursuing all of the aforementioned skills, but I've got my own branching tree of chaos that I am working towards. I just used these as an example based on what people have told me to do in this thread already. I hope it's easy to see how the game's design actually encourages the player to do more than what the developer actually intends.

Sunk cost fallacy (whether through money or favor) is very real. And while favor and money act as barriers against training additional skills, they do not actually prevent the player from doing anything. It creates opportunities for a player to be spread thin, trying to chase too many unlocks, too many NPC's, and ultimately, a goal that will force him to quit.

In the past decade or so, it is quickly becoming common knowledge that gamers will actively try to optimize the fun out of their gameplay for the sake of being efficient and perfect. It does not matter that the act is not fun, or that they ruin the experience for themselves. Players would sooner burn themselves out and quit before ceasing behavior that is against their own interest. It's just human nature.

If we are truly supposed to rely on other players for crafting things, the process for doing so could be improved. And maybe just maybe, we should be more restricted in what skills we are allowed to train. Favor and money are not an effective answer to that problem. They merely sour the act of going through with it.

[Celerity]

Delfofthebla It's subjective opinion but your points 2-4 are exactly what I love about this game since it gives it such a sense of interconnectedness and means that most of the time, whatever you're doing, it is helping your character even if you decide to completely change your combat skills for example.

I think a lot can also be solved by slightly amending the statement to "you are not supposed to play everything at once". Sure eventually you'll want to get all the bonus levels but the important thing is just taking it all one step at a time and as long as you do that I think it's managable.

[Delfofthebla]

Delfofthebla It's subjective opinion but your points 2-4 are exactly what I love about this game since it gives it such a sense of interconnectedness and means that most of the time, whatever you're doing, it is helping your character even if you decide to completely change your combat skills for example.

I think a lot can also be solved by slightly amending the statement to "you are not supposed to play everything at once". Sure eventually you'll want to get all the bonus levels but the important thing is just taking it all one step at a time and as long as you do that I think it's managable.

I don't necessarily mind either, and I agree that the interconnectedness is a good feeling at its heart. I'm just saying that these points strongly encourage you to level every single skill in the entire game, and the resounding statement I've heard from everyone is "you're not supposed to do that".


I think a lot can also be solved by slightly amending the statement to "you are not supposed to play everything at once".
This isn't what people say though. And regardless of what people say, the game is all that matters, right? The game tells you to level everything and the game tells you to do it right now. Want to pick up that tree? Better level your foraging. Want to skin this higher level mob? Better work on your skinning. Want this tradeskill? Better learn 7 more first.

[AgentBbrian]

Crafting is just one option, lots of people also talk about the millions they make from skin farming but everyone and their mother knows about skin farming
Sure, you and the other people who have been here for years, this post was about gearing as a new player, the crafting part was the best option to gearing up, kinda not sure where you are at here.


Skin farming is also mentioned by me and several others already as a viable and effective money making method but you seem to have willfully ignored this.
Yes money making.. sure.. not gearing a character as a new player.


Some of the best industry work orders in the game; 10 royal jellies for 60k, 5 phoenix eggs for 120k, 5 fairy icehearts for 48k and all the trophy skin work orders. These are all combat acquirable only and although I will admit 90% of early industry is crafting, it's just something to consider.
Yep sure, and as a new player that's not a thing that is do-able.


As for crafted gear you can get someone else to craft it for you and avoid 100% of all crafting in the game and still get your top end set.
But you still can't avoid it 100%.. right? like you need to craft to get 25 skill in 5 skills to unlock transmutation to be able to farm drops into gems.
And you need to get alchemy to 50 to get a combat skill.


Either that or you can bite the bullet and go for not max-enchanted (gasp) gear from dungeon drops which is probably around 5x easier than crafting max-enchanted yellows and in most cases barely affects your strength since there's not usually enough really good mods on every single gear piece to make a big difference, and even if there is, all content in the game can be cleared by people in a set of reds so it's not like you're locked out of any content or it makes the content significantly easier either.
Not sure a new player is going to do this, i think you missed a step.



You're correct, being a new player "back then" was probably 2-3x harder than it is now
Sure some stuff, not all the stuff.


most of this was only relevant for end game builds, not new players.
Point of the post and current game as of now, aimed at new players.


There was also no transmutation and no augmentation, which despite what you might say ARE fully available right from the beginning to all players, sure you need someone else to extract the augments for you and for transmutation you have to run to the desert but you can technically get them both very early on.
Get someone else to extract? uhuh.
Hmm i guess the quest and 25 crafting skill in 5 skills is forgotten here.
You also need favor, not just a desert run.
So no to new players.


mob hp was buffed very slightly, something like a few percent with no perceivable difference at the lower levels
It was buffed.


you essentially have no idea what you're talking about since you seem to be implying the game was easier in the past?
No i referenced the necro touching a shrine instead of needing to kill a crypt boss, and how people have said many times in game they don't know the new changes because they did it all long ago.


they can be carried through early if they really want access to it immediately anyway.
Yeah carried through.


Is it also nuts to get 50 alchemy for battle chemistry or 25 fire magic/rabbit plus a quest for ice magic? In my opinion that's just something which makes the game more interesting. Having access to all skills immediately would just be overwhelming for a new player and also just make the game shallower since that's one less thing you have to work towards.
So yeah crafting for BC.
I didn't see many restrictions with the fire magic, other than gathering the crafting resources, salt was ez to start off.
"work towards" this game is not a job to me, i probably play this "game" less than you, probably by alot.


Not the worst idea but it would make the game shallower in my opinion and would need to be accompanied by a big buff to all mobs since you would be making the game insanely easy. At the moment you can clear all content up to lvl 50 relatively easily in white gear so giving this kind of power that early on would just result in steamrolling content otherwise.
Sure in your opinion, but you can't redo your first time as a new player anymore, so your opinion is based on a different era.


It is far easier to farm group dungeon elites to gear up than it is to farm even just the mats
As a new player?

elites only become available at 45 with yeti cave
Ah, so no not new player.


The main advantage of crafted gear is that it can be made max-enchanted, which is only available starting at lvl 50 and realistically you're not going to make a set until you get to the max level, which not only is much more difficult, for not much more reward than just a normal yellow set but means it isn't relevant to new players at all AND there's absolutely 0 requirement for you to level it up yourself if you really hate crafting that much since other people can craft for you.
So you need to get someone else to craft it anyway or waste your time?


You mention "bypassing the fun" though which makes me confused because I thought you said you hated crafting but now you're saying it's fun? Either that or you're implying that farming the crafting mats is somehow free and bypassing requirements when it's significantly harder than just farming the gear yourself from drops.
Nope, bypassing the games content of hunting and gathering, the transmuting and augmenting.


There is no requirement to learn transmutation other than favour
So there is a requirement...


augmentation is 100% optional since other people can extract the augments for you.
Yeah get someone else to do it.


If you want to argue that you have to learn augmentation in order to get the prisms I would direct you to the player market where prisms are sold constantly, and in fact many players I know never decompose anything since in most cases it is more cost effective to buy prisms from the player market and use them to distill items only.
Do the players you know.. know about the skin farming? :O


As for the "forced" to purchase a set, just same point again, you don't need max-enchanted, you don't need any crafted gear ever, dungeon gear is easier to obtain and in most cases very comparable in terms of power it provides.
Yeah not a new player option.

So in my opinion, i don't think it would make the game as heartless and shallow as mentioned above, i think it would be a huge fun improvement having transmuting and augmenting added to the tutorial and unlocked without a quest or crafting skills and favor needed initially to get started, and since it was never done like that previously, we won't know, especially if people keep referring to it as "shallow" and "work" while contradicting themself without really knowing but just a gut feeling making them believe it since its been a long time from the time they were new.

[Celerity]

Sure, you and the other people who have been here for years, this post was about gearing as a new player, the crafting part was the best option to gearing up, kinda not sure where you are at here.
Crafting is only the best option when you are a vet and have 1-2m to drop on a crafted set at the end game, for new players it is slower to farm the mats and get somebody else to craft for you or to learn the crafts yourself than it is to run an elite dungeon. The elite dungeons are also better since you earn cash in the process and can be easily done with groups because of the casino daily. The only reason a vet might craft to gear up their new build is because they have the resources to drop the extra money on it and crafting is faster if you already have all the materials. Prior to elite dungeons if you mean the really early game, the gear you get from bartering and the mismatch of blues and reds you might get from ordinary enemies is good enough to do all the content until you get to those elite dungeons. If you are struggling to do the dungeons in blues I think it's probably more likely that you aren't using your abilities effectively, not using good enough food or you aren't body pulling the mobs.

You directly replied to Glythe's post about making 2 million from industry by saying "crafting" and that's what I was replying to about money making methods.


Yes money making.. sure.. not gearing a character as a new player.
You were the one who originally brought up this point about industry and how everything in the game is crafting. Additionally, money can buy mats -> other people can craft for you -> geared new character.


Yep sure, and as a new player that's not a thing that is do-able.
True, but you said

since crafting is the end all of treasure hunting.
I took this to mean you were saying end game is all crafting and that is end game and isn't crafting.


But you still can't avoid it 100%.. right? like you need to craft to get 25 skill in 5 skills to unlock transmutation to be able to farm drops into gems.
And you need to get alchemy to 50 to get a combat skill.
Transmutation has no such requirement and I think you also fundamentally misunderstand what transmutation does.
2 combat skills in the game have a crafting requirement to unlock them, battle chemistry and bard. Solution in my eyes is to simply avoid those combat skills if you hate crafting since you have another 23 combat skills all without a crafting requirement.

You can avoid 100% of all crafting, I had a player in my guild who frequently did end game content with us who absolutely refused to learn any crafting skills whatsoever, he didn't even learn skinning or butchering yet he could still comfortably do the content with very comparable damage since he had yellow rerolled dungeon dropped gear and simply asked one of the guild members to extract augments for him whenever he needed it.


Not sure a new player is going to do this, i think you missed a step.
This was in response to you saying end game is just gathering stuff for whatever craft you want to do.


Point of the post and current game as of now, aimed at new players.
I was referring to the nerfs that sword, archery, lycan, hammer etc all had. The nerfs only affected the end game geared players who had stacked their mods, whereas the buffs affected new players, making the game easier for newer players.


Get someone else to extract? uhuh.
Hmm i guess the quest and 25 crafting skill in 5 skills is forgotten here.
You also need favor, not just a desert run.
So no to new players.
Yes you're correct, when somebody else extracts you don't need any of the 5 crafting skills or the quest.
Favour can be obtained to learn the skill with about 10-15 magical lvl 20 items. I literally watched a streamer do it without any help obtaining the items less than a week ago when he was around lvl 30. Yes this does require consulting the wiki or other players, but similarly you also can just not get the skill until lvl 50 and you will be fine, I'm pretty sure you could even make it to max level and not need it until you run the end game group dungeons.


It was buffed.
Yes, at high levels, not relevant for new players in nearly all cases. All cases where it affected the low level mobs were in pre-2015 which was before I started personally but I expect back then it was done because the game was likely too easy and an increase in the hp just made it more balanced, not suddenly impossible.


No i referenced the necro touching a shrine instead of needing to kill a crypt boss, and how people have said many times in game they don't know the new changes because they did it all long ago.
You mean the necro shrine that just moved forward one boss, i.e. you still had to kill khyrulek's first form and spider boss to get to it. This was only done because khyrulek's true form literally wasn't in the game at the time and it was a lot harder to group up for it back then due to a lower player count, but the devs still wanted players to test the skill. I would also say it's almost entirely irrelevant since it is the requirement for 1 of 25 combat skills in the game that was minorly changed. Most players are/were never affected by this change, hence people saying they didn't even know it had changed. And somehow I guess you would throw a fit once you learn that battle chemistry didn't used to require 50 alchemy to learn. That's a much more significant change and even then I would still pass it off as mostly irrelevant since it only affected 1 combat skill, a lot of players probably never even touch it or would have touched it.


As a new player?

Ah, so no not new player.
I would class pre level 50 as a new player and before that my argument is you don't need anything better than blues which can be easily farmed from solo mobs, bosses and barters.


So you need to get someone else to craft it anyway or waste your time?
It's not wasting your time to just not get the absolute best gear in the game, which makes next to no difference in a lot of builds. Many players actually choose to deliberately not get crafted gear for their end game sets, usually for tanking, since dungeon dropped gear is actually better in a lot of cases. This is in reference to end game and I would say in reference to early game it literally does not matter either way since the gear will be replaced, and max-enchanted does not exist before lvl 50, and you said yourself that apparently lvl 45 isn't a new player. Even if we agreed level 50 was a new player, I would say close to 0 people in the entire game make lvl 50 max-enchanted gear since it's such a high cost for something which gets replaced so quickly.


Nope, bypassing the games content of hunting and gathering, the transmuting and augmenting.
Are you saying crafting bypasses transmutation and augmentation? This is just completely incorrect. If you're saying transmutation and augmentation bypass hunting and gathering that is also completely incorrect since transmutation requires you to farm gear and distill it into phlog in order to do your rerolls and augmentation is a completely optional addition to your gear, where you still have to farm gear to get the correct mod and the baubles in order to extract the augment.


So there is a requirement...
Yes, favour which can be gained by handing a few pieces of magical gear to the npc which can easily be obtained with combat. There isn't even a training cost to learn it.


Yeah get someone else to do it.
Yes or completely skip it. I thought that's what you wanted to do. Is doing the augmentation personally really such a deal breaker for you? Or is it the fact that someone, somewhere had to do some crafting in order to unlock augmentation and the very idea that you even came into contact with someone who might have slightly dipped into crafting skills at some point in the past so disgusting to you?


Do the players you know.. know about the skin farming? :O
???
If you're trying to say buying prisms is obvious, then I was only trying to come up with something I thought you might say, since I've heard that argument before from other people. If you do indeed think it's obvious then I guess you agree that there are no crafting requirements whatsoever if you just want to focus on combat and your entire point about being "forced into crafting" is wrong.


Yeah not a new player option.
The game isn't balanced around you being fully geared or even partially geared until you reach the level you can do elite dungeons at. Again I would also argue you're still a new player at the point you start doing elite dungeons too since potentially you can start them at around lvl 30 or even earlier if you do casino dailies.

[AgentBbrian]

Glad you agree on the most parts, not sure you get the sarcasm though.
Was amused you cared so much about my emotions about crafting you call it disgusting.
Also amused you counter my points by saying you know 1 other guy who did it.
You prove my point about augmentation and transmutation though, all i needed was to typo/swap augment with transmute and you explain it better as to why it would be good and not a problem for them to be unlocked via tutorial at the start.

The part where you talk about max enchanted stuff at 50, and then say it gets replaced so quickly, like.. what? you missed another step where you assume new players know what you are talking about, it's like you don't see the problem and go all trump.

[Delfofthebla]

I've come to a couple of very simple conclusions after reading all these posts, trying various things, and expanding my character.

Having progression gated behind money is not fun.
Having to pay to unlock skill caps for every single skill is not fun.
Being forced to go into debt on several crafting skills to actually be able to make the money required to progress is not fun.
Grinding the same zones over and over to get money, only to have to grind the same exact dungeons to get XP after you've unlocked it, is not fun.
Farming money for the purpose of progression...is not fun.

Project Gorgon, is actually not very fun.


Level 1-50 was a solid 'demo' and a solid glimpse at what this game could have been, but I have come to realize that I do not enjoy the real thing. I wish the best to those that enjoy the money grind loop that is project gorgon, but me and my friends just couldn't handle the grind.

[Sheawanna]

I am a spider, and I don't think I'd put gems or paintings in the "easy" category, as they require several other tradeskills to obtain...

Not to mention that the Endurance trainer won't even speak to animals. As a spider I at least can make it work for the cost of a moonstone, but if I didn't have the wiki it would cost at least 2 due to the nature of the gifts they want. You may have skins, wood, or sexy clothing on you, but there's no way you'd have enough right out the gate. And without the wiki I wouldn't have ever even known how to train this!


I will try to take this information to heart, as I have only viewed my current tradeskills as a pure money dump until now. (Gardening, Cooking, Alchemy, Transmutation, Augmentation)

I have skinning, and some tanning, but have not been converting the skins before selling them...

Lamashu will speak to you if you use your spell insisdous illusions :)

[Coglin]

I have only viewed my current tradeskills as a pure money dump until now. (Gardening, Cooking, Alchemy, Transmutation, Augmentation)

1 week a month I dedicate a week to trying to make money. I typically average 2 mil in that week. That money is made almost entirely from selling items I aquire from the trade crafts you are declaring as money sinks.

[Delfofthebla]

Lamashu will speak to you if you use your spell insisdous illusions :)

I know. I mentioned this in the post you quoted :p

My point was that because you cannot talk to the NPC without using an illusion, you, as an animal player, have no idea that the NPC is even important to you. You also have no idea what types and quantities of items to bring to get your favor high enough up to train (unless you consult the wiki) which in my opinion, is not good game design.


1 week a month I dedicate a week to trying to make money. I typically average 2 mil in that week. That money is made almost entirely from selling items I acquire from the trade crafts you are declaring as money sinks.

Yes after you spend hundreds of thousands of councils to reach the end game (the worst part of any MMO) you no longer have any real economic drain and can simply collect pools of cash to fund whatever the hell you please. That doesn't make a noobie's plight any less real.

I'd also wager you aren't making that money from players. You're making it from industry (another tradeskill) or vendoring. Which means that if I wanted to make money with those tradeskills, I must first devote thousands of councils towards reaching that end goal (whether it be favor or industry). All the while my character's combat skills will suffer due to their lack of funds.

My character was around 65 in spider / druid, with various tradeskills ranging from level 50 to 60.

I've never had more than 120k at one time in my entire time playing, and when I did, I spent it on unlocks. That's the point I was making in my last post. This game is nothing but farming for unlocks. Yes after you've "completed" all content that exists, you can sit back and relax. That's not my idea of a good time though.

[Sheawanna]

I know. I mentioned this in the post you quoted :p

My point was that because you cannot talk to the NPC without using an illusion, you, as an animal player, have no idea that the NPC is even important to you. You also have no idea what types and quantities of items to bring to get your favor high enough up to train (unless you consult the wiki) which in my opinion, is not good game design.



Yes after you spend hundreds of thousands of councils to reach the end game (the worst part of any MMO) you no longer have any real economic drain and can simply collect pools of cash to fund whatever the hell you please. That doesn't make a noobie's plight any less real.

I'd also wager you aren't making that money from players. You're making it from industry (another tradeskill) or vendoring. Which means that if I wanted to make money with those tradeskills, I must first devote thousands of councils towards reaching that end goal (whether it be favor or industry). All the while my character's combat skills will suffer due to their lack of funds.

My character was around 65 in spider / druid, with various tradeskills ranging from level 50 to 60.

I've never had more than 120k at one time in my entire time playing, and when I did, I spent it on unlocks. That's the point I was making in my last post. This game is nothing but farming for unlocks. Yes after you've "completed" all content that exists, you can sit back and relax. That's not my idea of a good time though.

Your right Industry is great to make cash , do as many as you can in as many skills as you can .. As for Lamashu be thankful your not a bat :) .
Never had a issue getting unlocks for even lvl 80 skills . cash can be issue but sell the rolls you don't use for industry . don't hoard everything . build up favor , group do that dailies . should be plenty of cash .. perhaps a skills type game is not your thing :) I think its just right

[Rockdelver]

Playing as a Spider isn't easy (nor is playing a Bat, since they don't even have the Illusion spell) but I weighed this up before starting those characters and I knew what it would entail. As such I can't complain. In any case it's very easy to undo being a Spider (or a Bat) using potions and then go back again a few levels/tradeskills later, so the problems aren't insurmountable, just inconvenient.

[Coglin]

. I'd also wager you aren't making that money from players. You're making it from industry .

That is because you make really uninformed assumption.
I have literally only ever completed 1 single work order

What does it cost you to level leather working for example? You farm skins easily through regular game play. Survey some gems. VIOLA, nothing to buy. But wait, there is more. You can sell those items you made to level up and make thousands, hundreds of thousands, some might even say millions. I know, cause I did that. If you take your time and level as you aquire materials through personal action, you only make money.

[mistryzop]

Being able to make armor is priceless. I cannot emphasize how much you will want to eventually want to become a crafter. techzpod (https://techzpod.com/) stream free movies (https://get-mobdrovip.com)

[Roekai]

i personally hate crafting and dont craft but eventually i'll have to craft because the best armor is all crafted

craft craft craft

also, im very poor and stupid i still farm coins in the boarded up basement at 85/75

edit: i've also never done a work order and never sold anything to another player. i strictly farm coins and sell them to flia. probably spent hundreds of hours in the boarded up basement. yes, i know, im smart.

[Mikhaila]

Swap to something like farming wolves in Kur. You have 4 people to sell the hides to, lots of items to unload, and other drops like teeth and a few stomachs. No shortage of werewolves. You'll be less poor and can get to 85/85. Time to leave the basement.

And you don't have to craft if you hate it. Go farm the needed items, and people will combine for you.