I’ve been working on a variety of goals since my last post. First and foremost was to start saving gold again. After obtaining a level 50 plate set via questing, I started the expensive process of building up a cloth set. This is not a trivial effort, as each tier builds on the previous one. This means to have a level 50 crafted armor set, you have to start at T1 for each piece and slowly upgrade/craft the next tier.
I opted to have my cloth set as crafted gear because the crafted versions provide more upgrade options. The quest set can only be upgraded via socketing lunagems or using upgrade scrolls, whereas crafted gear goes 4 tiers beyond that point AND can be socketed with enhancements and upgraded with scrolls.
Ouch, that hurts!
Crafting a full cloth set up to T4 bankrupted me again. T9, Delphinad, is the highest tier. When it was all said and done, I only had 8 silver to my name. This wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. I keep a healthy surplus of produce to craft into Trade Packs, which thus far, has been my primary income stream. At a minimum, I turn in 6 packs per day, which yields 42+ gold. If I’m in the mood, I can turn in 9 without blinking an eye about having the components.
Some days I also help others transport their trade packs since I’m one of the only two people so far with a Farm Cart and am on regularly. It’s fun and I don’t mind helping. Lots of laughs and foolishness along the way. On those days, I only get in two runs for myself then I’m off to tend my farms and feed livestock.
Another significant expense is socketing your gear with Lunagems. These don’t come cheap. My Bright Future’s set, which is roughly equivalent to crafted T5.5, has 21 slots available + 3 on my staff. Applying them also has a random chance of failing, causing you to lose the Luna you were attempting to socket. That means 24 Lunagems is the minimum I need. I can only afford to socket “blue” quality at the moment but even that will run 216 gold on the LOW SIDE. I have to balance the cost of that with getting the components for my Conqueror’s cloth set (T5 ) which will set me back 350 gold – if I’m lucky.
550+ gold to socket the plate set plus craft the T4 cloth set, is a lot of money. To put it in perspective, I could purchase a 24x24 Farm/Cottage sized property from someone for a similar amount. And you know how important property is in AA. Someone put together a spreadsheet of the various crafted gear sets and the materials needs. You can check out the cloth progression here to see what I'm up against. Note that the Moonlight component goes from roughly 6G each (dust) to 10G each (Shard) to 15g+ each (Crystal). Yeah, it's brutal. Trying to accumulate this much gold so quickly was starting to feel stressful and not exactly fun.
It’s all in your head
One night it occurred on me that I’m pushing to get all of this done so quickly, when what I’m acquiring are end game quality items. Like DUH!! I have a farm, two houses, a farm cart, a Clipper class ship, T5.5 plate partially socketed and T4 cloth. That’s a lot in a game that I’ve only been playing for 4 weeks. Whew, I can slow the hell down and take more time to reach these goals. I don’t have to be in the top x % of people walking around in end-game quality everything. That’s never been my style so let’s not start it now.
With that in mind, I decided to slow my roll. I’ll spend 25G on my gear for every 75G I earn. That way I always have a pool of money in case something spectacular becomes available that I feel I must have NOW. *smile* Especially since in all of this money flying out the window, I’ve yet to really focus on progressing a crafting profession. And we all know that’s going to be a gold sink.
Now that I feel less rushed, I’ve started narrowing in on crafting a bit more and identifying how I want to make money in AA beyond running trade packs. When it was all said and done, I came to the conclusion that unlike what I’ve done in other MMOs, I don’t want to make/craft things to sell in AA. There are so many other apects of the game I want to have time to do, that pounding out crafted items isn't one of them.
What I enjoy most is managing my farm and livestock, something that’s never been available for me to do before. Specifically, I’ve been trying to breed bears as pets or mounts. The secondary produce from my livestock and crops sell for a good amount on the Auction House so I'm thinking of doing that too. Nope, not going to craft items to sell in AA. Breeding and secondary produce items will be my focus. More on the particulars in another post.
I am sad to say that, for the moment, I won't be able to make a character and join you. I deleted my level 10 character on Tahyang a week ago and the slot still isn't available. This means I can't make a second character on any server. My tickets have not been answered so I am stuck with only one playable character.
Suffice it to say I'm disappointed by this. I'm not willing to buy a third character slot to take the place of the one that shouldn't gotten freed up six days ago, so I'll chalk that up to my plain old stubbornness.
I'm glad you're enjoying the game...it does sound like I'd enjoy be over on the server with you!
All the best,
Chris
Posted by: Chris | October 09, 2014 at 05:23 PM
sorry, "the one that _should've_ gotten free up..."
Posted by: Chris | October 09, 2014 at 05:23 PM
That sucks!! And I agree with you. I wouldn't pay for a 3rd because some bug has you blocked from using you free 2nd slot. We're not going anywhere so whenever is fine. Except that I'm sure the more time you put into your character where you are the harder it will be to abandon for another server.
Yep very happy with the guild I'm in. Two members recently built cutters. I'll be putting up pictures soon.
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | October 09, 2014 at 07:55 PM