Ahem.

Jhalil - Heavens Tear · January 2010

Ok, hey there.
So, I've been playing for almost a month now(?) and I feel like ranting a little bit.
I am currently a Blademaster, I love the class and it's entertaining. That's not what I want to nag about, what I want to nag about is the extreme difficulty that PWI has decided to tackle the newcomers with in terms of, you guessed it. Making money.

I like to observe things, so I observed the cash shop items, and it's influence. I observed the gold auction which is interesting. And I found out that, the only way to make money, and enjoy the game comes down to buying anything from the cash shop and selling it, correct?

Now I've read the guide on how to make and save money, and at my level if you consider I do 5 to 10 quests a day, each asking me to kill 20 to 50 mobs. I get drops, yes. After I'm done and I sell ALL the drops I gathered I get a whopping...50k?
I have ~1.000 Mana and ~2,400 HP. The amount of potions I use cost me about 100k, and that's not even enough to get me through the whole run of quests, I have to buy more in the middle of them or towards the end.
Now what I don't understand is, how come that when compared to any other free to play MMORPG, PWI has no "real" way of making money, in the early levels? There's herb farming, material farming and drops. Unless you decide to spend AT LEAST 5 hours a day farming materials to sell, you won't get anywhere near the amount of money you need to pay potions, or repairing equipment or buying new equipment. Now, then I tried to see if I would save money making my own "medication" and I found that if I don't buy the herbs off of other players I will once again be looking at 4 to 5 hours of herb gathering to have enough of said "medication" to last me through out 4-5 quests.
So, my question and rant is. Is this really a free to play game? Because I've kept an eye on the items circulating, the prices and the opinions of players and from even being here only a short period of time. I found out that a majority of the players have made a term: "Free to play, pay to win".

So, erm. Can someone either prove me wrong and explain to me if there is any method of making money besides having to spend half the time meditating to regain HP/Mana, or spend hours a day farming herbs/drops to sell to NPC or paying ~100 dollars to keep you good till you reach level 70-80 where making money becomes available to you and only if you have paid enough money to be able to afford good gear. Or, well. Yeah, or nothing, really :P

P.S

I've used the search button before making this post, finding a few rants much like mine. How come the staff members have replied to a lot, a looot of other issues that are being complained about. But I have not seen a single one giving an explanation why the advantages of buying CS items are so much higher than any other game?

P.P.S

No, I don't want to go play another game, I'm just bored and feel like ranting. Now excuse me while I go try to finish up some quests with whatever potions I have left.

Kimbley - Harshlands · January 2010

... i'm around your level.... and the only thing i've bought from the cash shop is a my strider's vestment and an iron hammer with the $5 left over from the 10....

I have no problem with pots... i keep a few hp pots around for the times that i suddenly get ganked... And just a few mana pots. I craft my own mana regen pots.... and they last for long enough, you don't need to keep them up all of the time...[edit] and it doesn't take forever to farm the herbs for the pots...

Also, you shouldn't be having to spend that much on hp pots if you've leveled up sutra, your only problem should be mana....

It could be something wrong with your build which is causing you to need so many pots and to apparently kill so inefficiently?

Celestyna - Heavens Tear · January 2010

make sure you are not selling any of the mats to the npc, (leather, thread ect that come from mob drops) you can get 6-9k a pop from these depending on the type and level. also make sure your picking up all mines you see as you kill mobs
same for hay, fruit, fungus, meat and ginseng, AH or cat shop that too
you can sell the armors, dq items and the like directly to the npc unless its got a good stat or it is needed for a quest other then dq they dont sell very fast

finish your quests and then grind on a mob that is easy for your class.

dont do negative income quests (crazy stone and wined BH's) it will take you longer to level but more grinding = more money

Cat shop when your not at your PC with all the mats you picked up

Kannone - Heavens Tear · January 2010

Celestyna - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Cat shop when your not at your PC with all the mats you picked up

AFK vending is the answer the OP is looking for. Like all MMORPGs- P2P, F2P, or otherwise -making coins on PW boils down to your ability (and sometimes just luck) to vend off the items you gather. Once you have capital: invest -> vend -> re-invest -> vend, keep track of amortization of certain products & especially with the values of coins... oy it's just like the stock market.

b:victory

_Keiji_ - Heavens Tear · January 2010

jeez i spend maybe 100k on pots in like 2-3 weeks on a melee class lol something definitely wrong with ur char, probably ur weapon choice

Darksylph - Heavens Tear · January 2010

I realize the value of gold on the Auction House seems incredibly high. However you say that this game seems worse then most free to play games out there and i simply couldnt disagree more.

Most Free To Play with cash shop games, do not even have any method to use in game coin to acquire cash shop currency. They then put things on the cash shop which give even nicer benefits, like x10 XP, or much nicer gear, which you'd have no ther choice but to use real money currency to acquire. Often the cash shop items are strictly non-tradeable, so you cant even hope to buy off other players.

This game is rather liberal & forward thinking about giving the players who can not spend, or spend very little real money, a way to acquire such items strictly thru in game currency and trading. While the prices may be steep, its better then most other free but cash shop games in that they dont give you access to these items at all.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary · January 2010

This topic has been done to death, but it's certainly important enough to bear repeating for the benefit of newer players.

When I started playing I found that as long as I did some comparison shopping before buying or selling I always had enough money to afford the basics. For example, I'd commonly see people leaving Grease on the ground and think, "Why would somebody just leave 1000 coins on the ground like that?!?"

When I'd point stuff like that out to people, the usual response was something like, "Oh, I just NPC Grease...", followed by complaints about not being able to afford skills, potions, repairs, equipment, etc...

By a month or so in, I'd figured out how to manage a basic catshop that was bringing in about 350k per day profit with about 15 minutes of effort, which was more than enough to satisfy all my low-level needs for free.

Basically, players who are willing to spend some time and effort figuring out how to manage their virtual money are going to have a very easy time of it, because there are so many other players out there who are literally throwing away their wealth.

It's the players who just mindlessly grind/NPC for their wealth, then insist, "It's too much effort to (collect my drops/check catshops/check the Auction House/compare prices/learn how to buy Gold from the Auction House/find cheaper alternatives/etc...)" who make this game free to play for others.

My advice is don't be one of the mindless grind/NPCers.

SPTZ - Lost City · January 2010

What you did with all 500 perfect stones from Lv 40 stash?

You can EASILY make 700K selling those stones. lol

And yes, are u selling with right prices? Leather, Purified Oil, Compound Oil?

Well, i spent money in game (10usd) and i got charms (to minimize my potions consume and survive against elite mobs) and to spend 10USD isnt the same than pay to play each month around 30USD.. because the game is here forever, my char too.

If you Pay to Play, you dont play for fun, you play because you payed.

What i want to say is, whats the problem in buy some boutique items? Isnt that expensive at all, and you dont need to spend money all the time, you can spend 10 usd and try to make more money (i bought 10 anni packs, opened 4, and from one of that 4 has came a best Luck token, that i sold VERY cheap for 4.5mil, and left 6 to do what i want).

Well, its up to you.
You can make the game easy by buying, or keep playing hard. If the game wasnt difficult nobody were to buy stuff.

One more thing, remember that even selling items, they dont sell 'gears' G400 with 6 options xD at least that.

EverDoom - Harshlands · January 2010

haha make a veno then. from the time i started to the lvl i am now (66) i have made more than 3m and got mostly everything i needed without spending a single gold. besdies that like the other said u might be playing wrong. also cat shops are ur best friend. if u have another computer u can just leave an alt on it to sell ur stuff while u do quests on ur main

RaDeSK - Sanctuary · January 2010

I think that you're used with high rates servers, you really expect to play an oficial server mmo rpg in SOLO mode and be one of the richiest without spending real money?

Is that hard to pair up with a priest and farm Dq itens? Or just google it, and find "hum, in Japan servers they do this and get money", "in Brazilian servers they do this other one, hum interesting", "hum in malasian they do thiiiiiis one, omg! that's really easy!"

Ashendal - Dreamweaver · January 2010

EverDoom - Harshlands wrote: »

haha make a veno then. from the time i started to the lvl i am now (66) i have made more than 3m and got mostly everything i needed without spending a single gold. besdies that like the other said u might be playing wrong. also cat shops are ur best friend. if u have another computer u can just leave an alt on it to sell ur stuff while u do quests on ur main

This. I have a veno as a side and I use her to farm gold and items that I need. An few hours a week gives me plenty of gold.

I have a few other sides that I get gold from but even if you only make a veno and spend a bit of time getting a magmite or walker you'll be pretty much set for a long time. (created veno at level 16 and haven't had any gold issues at all)

Jhalil - Heavens Tear · January 2010

Not going to quote things, or else it would become way too long.

For the person who asked if Mana potions were the problem. Indeed, my HP is stable and the regen is good enough for me not to waste potions on it. The problem is Mana potions, which if I buy 100 every time I spend about 60k on those alone (I think?).

I don't sell any of my materials, I however do use them. I am I think for my level, pretty well off. Having my first TT60 axes ready for use, and my Calamity axes for when I hit 70. And I had a few extra millions and got myself a Grand Lobster mount which has a value of a few million coins.
My rant is directed more at some friends as well as myself, that if you don't have some sort of investment, you won't be able to make good money. I kept an eye on the gold and I think it was a coincidence that I joined with 1 month left but it was fairly easy to buy 20 pieces of gold for 440 to 450k each and sell them for 500k at a later time of the day and making a good profit off of it.
By all means this is more a rant of boredom, not something that I struggle with, not a lot anyway.

What caught my attention is, how does a Veno act as a good money maker, someone care to explain?

Also, at the one person saying I'm used to high rates. Oh holy father, please forgive him for he was not aware of the blasphemy that he bestowed upon this topic (Just kidding, God doesn't exist. We all know the easter bunny made us)
I never played a high rate server for these kinds of MMORPGs. Just thought I'd let you know.

One last thing, I'm not sure if maybe it is my lack of finding skills on these forums but. There isn't really a "good" money-making guide out there, is there? The fact that Veno's make good money is a first to me, I'd really like some explanation on that matter if possible.

Thanks guys, if this turns out well I'll roll a Veno soon and I'll try my shots at a beginner's guide for it to help people. That is, if one doesn't exist yet.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary · January 2010

Jhalil - Heavens Tear wrote: »

My rant is directed more at some friends as well as myself, that if you don't have some sort of investment, you won't be able to make good money.

It's certainly true that investing is the easiest way to make money in the game. The difficult part for me back when I was around level ~50-60 was resisting the temptation to spend my investment capital. But once I started taking investing more seriously it wasn't long before I was dealing with 100s of millions of coins, rather than just millions.

Personally, I prefer low-risk investments like buying Gold, buying items from the cash-shop with the Gold, then selling the items for about 5-10% profit. But there are also plenty of other markets that don't involve the cash-shop to choose from. For example, my cousin has been playing since November and has earned about 30million buying and selling Chi stones.

Jhalil - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What caught my attention is, how does a Veno act as a good money maker, someone care to explain?

Personally, I tend to think of this statement as a bit of a myth. It's true in the sense that a Veno can solo TT and sell the drops, but that takes far more time and is far less profitable than merchanting, which is something any class can do.

Jhalil - Heavens Tear wrote: »

One last thing, I'm not sure if maybe it is my lack of finding skills on these forums but. There isn't really a "good" money-making guide out there, is there?

No, there really isn't, because the best money-making methods rely on playing the markets, but the markets are constantly shifting. Plus, people are reluctant to come right out and say, "I make (x profit) buying and selling (whatever)," because then everybody else who reads their statement might copy them and flood the market.

However, it's also been my experience that even standing in West Archo, openly saying in public chat, "I've made 75million this month selling Oracles," during the Anni-Pack sales still wasn't enough to attract enough competition to cause prices to collapse and profits to drop. So who knows?

Kimbley - Harshlands · January 2010

...Q_Q... you have/had far more money than i have ever had... I need to start farming/merchanting.... meh...

Solandri - Heavens Tear · January 2010

Kimbley - Harshlands wrote: »

...Q_Q... you have/had far more money than i have ever had... I need to start farming/merchanting.... meh...

Once you get the hang of it, it's scary how much money you can make. You start thinking in tens and hundreds of millions.

If you don't want to merchant, I ran some tests early last year with a level 30 veno and level 30 cleric. Both basically worked equally well at farming DQs and mat drops around Silver Pool. NPCing all the DQs and selling the hay via cat shop at 5k (market price at the time), both made about 150k per hour. Selling everything via cat shop, it went up to about 400k/hr. I dunno how it is for BMs, but it would seem you're doing something seriously wrong if you're only managing 50k per session.

If mana pots are consuming most of your money, you should look into alternatives. Run some tests not using as many skills. Your kill rate will probably drop, but your mana consumption should drop by a larger amount thus reducing your costs. Also give the mp regen apothecary item a shot. They'll set your mana regen at 50/sec for 10 min. I suspect that'll be cheaper than pots. Also, as someone else suggested, your build or equipment may not be ideal, causing you to burn an inordinate amount of time and mana per kill.

hemoglobin · January 2010

i agree it is difficult to make money in this game but i aint gonna worry about in game money pssh. im a bit higher lvl than you and i survive on like 16k a day i swear. lol the drops i get from bh gives me enough to buy arrows and keep doing bh and pq. i dont buy pots much and i dont bother doing CS. i wear the gear i find on the ground and ocassionally ill get a good 3 star from a bh and that will go towards a skill. thats the poor life for me, and its easy

Sheeeba - Dreamweaver · January 2010

Jhalil - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What caught my attention is, how does a Veno act as a good money maker, someone care to explain?

The main thing with the veno is that you can grind without using any pots, with very low repair bills (just wep needs repaired, not armor.). As you get higher lvl, you may go thru a few hp pots when you get in trouble and pull aggro from your pet, but usually what you pick up while grinding is sufficient.

I can also make a good bit of money with my cleric just aoe grinding poison mobs. Only problem with this is how much mana you go thru.

~EDIT~ also with the veno, there is the possibility of taming rare pets, but this is pretty difficult, and most people's chances of actually getting one are slim with the usual campers. best ways are soloing fb's (usually not TT unless you have a herc) and grinding.

Solandri - Heavens Tear · January 2010

Sheeeba - Dreamweaver wrote: »

The main thing with the veno is that you can grind without using any pots, with very low repair bills (just wep needs repaired, not armor.). As you get higher lvl, you may go thru a few hp pots when you get in trouble and pull aggro from your pet, but usually what you pick up while grinding is sufficient.

I can also make a good bit of money with my cleric just aoe grinding poison mobs. Only problem with this is how much mana you go thru.

Thing is "low cost" is not "making money". "Making money" is income minus cost. In the testing I mentioned I did above, the cleric had a higher kill rate, the veno had lower cost. Net result was that both had about the same money-making capability. The cleric's higher cost was offset by higher income from the higher kill rate.

This obsession people seem to have with minimizing cost reminds me of the bad advice being given to not use teleports. Paying to teleport is one of the best ways to make money in this game because it saves you the one thing you cannot buy from someone else - time. At 88 I can typically grind 200-250k/hr of loot without even trying. If a teleport saves me 3 minutes of traveling, I can make 10-12.5k in those extra 3 minutes. So unless I'm planning to go afk for those 3 minutes, I actually make more money paying the 3k-8k it costs to teleport. Don't even get me started on how wasteful it is for a squad to wait to start a TT/BH while the last group member flies instead of teleports.

Lygerr - Dreamweaver · January 2010

it won't be that way forever. me and my wife are level 69 and we haven't spent a dime on the game and we have anything that most anyone has at our level.

StormHydra - Sanctuary · January 2010

Heheh, the majority of my money was made by selling molds dropped in FBs/BHs, or farming ultimate substance mats.

The BEST THING to do is...

Quest as usual, sell DQ drops, bank the mats you get to sell them later, pick up every single thing a mob drops.
Then once you get over 200k coin in your inventory, put all your coins into your bank and repeat.
I started doing this at about lvl 55. THe amount of money you get gradually increases in your bank until you open your bank to clean it up or something, and you look at your money and youre like wow..

MagicHamsta - Lost City · January 2010

Lygerr - Dreamweaver wrote: »

it won't be that way forever. me and my wife are level 69 and we haven't spent a dime on the game and we have anything that most anyone has at our level.

um me has suggestion
Join a good faction.
show that you be dedicated and willing to stay.
they help run a few TT runs to get the mats for your gears.
then you in turn go back and help others in their TT runs/quests/RBs/etc.
b:thanks
everyone wins.
=p

(me personally hate TT though.....me actually died like 10x more times to those explody hands then to the bosses....)
(T.T)'
*me suspect they go out of their way to grab me*

BIackTyphoon - Heavens Tear · January 2010

This obsession people seem to have with minimizing cost reminds me of the bad advice being given to not use teleports. Paying to teleport is one of the best ways to make money in this game because it saves you the one thing you cannot buy from someone else - time. At 88 I can typically grind 200-250k/hr of loot without even trying. If a teleport saves me 3 minutes of traveling, I can make 10-12.5k in those extra 3 minutes. So unless I'm planning to go afk for those 3 minutes, I actually make more money paying the 3k-8k it costs to teleport.

That is a logical way of thinking....never thought about it this way(tho i port anyway...too lazy)

and about the money...well lol i bought so far over 1.5k pots in total. imagine the price(and no not only hp and mp but these cross over pots aswell, forgot the name) si u can guess i spent a lot of money...or better said wasted...i am jstu too lazy to meditate. to survive u have to invest. u can choose not to but u will need much more time for playing. depends on u.

to making money with a veno...now don'T egt me wrong i only played till lvl 10 or so lol. but i think a veno is faster in killing than a cleric. the fact that u can get ur pet to work and kill another mob at the same time. i eman venos are pure mag aswell and sure have damn high dmg, right?. so in the end a veno should be faster grinding. sure u might have some more repairs but u will have a lot more income

_Pale - Sanctuary · January 2010

I think somehow this difficulty of making money in early stages helps people to find other ways to play.

Instead of potting every 2 monsters, most players figure out the advantage of life and focus powders and other HP/MP apothecary stuff. I think you get some normal pots and elixers from some of the quests. And ofcourse getting your skills up helps. Blademasters self heal is really good for fighting mobs, most of the time. Same goes for most other classes, except maybe archers.

It seems to me that most players in early levels are imprinted with the idea that money is the only thing that will make you win. This is just due to bad example from higher lvl players. When the lower lvl players do act according to higher lvl player examples and lvl up by putting money in game, these same high level players start to whine.

There is no need to put money in game for the lower lvls, because you change your armor and weapons so often it doesn't make any sense. You can buy what you need with the money you make in-game, most of it coming from quest rewards. Besides, it learns you how to play.
When you reach endgame or are getting close to it and your armor and weapons have to last you a while, then maybe it may be worth it to invest some money into it. By that time you will have other ways to make more money though: grinding, farming, cube, etc.

Hunter_PT - Heavens Tear · January 2010

MagicHamsta - Lost City wrote: »

.....me actually died like 10x more times to those explody hands then to the bosses....

I know exactly how you feel lol, hands always get me to b:surrender.

Solandri - Heavens Tear · January 2010

BIackTyphoon - Heavens Tear wrote: »

to making money with a veno...now don'T egt me wrong i only played till lvl 10 or so lol. but i think a veno is faster in killing than a cleric. the fact that u can get ur pet to work and kill another mob at the same time. i eman venos are pure mag aswell and sure have damn high dmg, right?. so in the end a veno should be faster grinding. sure u might have some more repairs but u will have a lot more income

People mistakenly figure since the veno is a caster, her damage must be the same as a cleric or wizard casting spells. For the level 30 case I tested, here's how the staple spells worked out:

Spammable spell (1.5 sec channel, 1.0 sec cast, 1.0 sec cooldown):
Veno Venomous (L7) = base magic + 85% weapon + 574.5 damage
Cleric Plume (L7) = base magic + 85% weapon + 822.5 damage

Alternate spell
Veno Ironwood (L5, 1.5 sec channel, 0.8 sec cast, 8.0 sec cooldown)
= base magic + 200% weapon + 576.7 damage
Cleric Cyclone (L6, 1.0 sec channel, 1.0 sec cast, 3.0 sec cooldown)
= base magic + 80% weapon + 673.0 damage

I was using a mirage sword with 264 avg weapon attack, and with rings had about 800 avg magic attack. So you ended up with:

Spammable spells
Veno = 1598.9 per 2.5 sec = 639.6 DPS
Cleric = 1846.9 per 2.5 sec = 738.8 DPS (15.5% advantage for cleric)

Alternate spell
Veno = 1904.7 per 2.3 sec = 828.1 DPS
Cleric = 1684.2 per 2.0 sec = 842.1 DPS (1.7% advantage for cleric, and 3 sec cooldown vs. 8 sec cooldown for veno)

So the cleric had a pretty substantial advantage in spell damage. The veno's pet damage helped bring it up, but these were 2-3 shot kills, so the pet only got in a couple hits before the mob died. Overall the cleric ended up with a measurably faster kill rate.

The weapon I had was pretty high-end too (level 22 legendary beats anything except level 30 legendary), which favors the veno since it minimizes the influence of the constant in the damage equation (where the cleric has an advantage), and maximizes the 200% weapon damage in the veno's Ironwood. With a more typical weapon like the supply stash weapon, the cleric has an even bigger advantage.

Where the veno has the advantage is in minimal downtime without pots. Her spells are very mana-efficient, and she has several mana-replensihing skills. But like I said, if you're willing to spend money (on pots and mp regen gear) to make money with the cleric, they ended up with about the same net 150k/hr grinding rate.

Edit: Forgot, the cleric also gets a buff which increases magic attack by 25% at that level. I've re-edited the numbers to reflect this.

Spammable spells
Veno = 1598.9 per 2.5 sec = 639.6 DPS
Cleric = 2103 per 2.5 sec = 841.2 DPS (31.5% advantage for cleric)

Alternate spell
Veno = 1904.7 per 2.3 sec = 828.1 DPS
Cleric = 1937 per 2.0 sec = 968.5 DPS (17.0% advantage for cleric, and 3 sec cooldown vs. 8 sec cooldown for veno)

DeathBanana - Heavens Tear · January 2010

Making money is very doable in this game if you do it right. Grinding for money is usually only good during the higher levels. Use sesames and jiaozis, they are much more cost-efficient and effective than conventional pots. BMs have a fairly high HP regen and a fairly low MP cost, so take advantage of this by meditating for HP and potting for MP.

The best source of income: Trading. Before the annipacks came back (for the third time), I had 17k and 300 tokens. Now, once I sell the tokens I got from profiting during the event, I'll have 140m (no joke).

Ahem.

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