Hating on the new gold system.

[Manabi]

My problem with the new system is that it's now 2-3 times more profitable to solo than to find a group. And that's assuming you got your full share, which, frankly, isn't very likely.

I've noticed that I'm starting to avoid groups now. I hate soloing, and going with a group eats up way more gold than I could possibly make in a trip. Soloing, I break even and might gain an extra 2-3 thousand depending on what I'm doing. Groups though? Always a loss and 60% of the time people bail on me when it's time for gold handouts. People are going to say, "Find different people to travel with!" when it's not that easy. My odd playing times, IG conflict, and level of my main character makes it to where I can only travel with two or three people that I trust. Those two or three people aren't always on when I'm on or they are busy and can't do anything - so you know - I end up blowing several thousand on a trip to have someone use a lense and then log out.


Another thing - People aren't as inviting to adventurers, and It's a shame to says that I am part of that crowd. I used to rile up groups to go somewhere - getting five or six people parties to venture with me wherever. Now - it's just not cost effective and I end up losing money because I'm only getting 10% of the cost that the trip took, or the gold collector split it with a friend and ditched the rest of us.

The two things that came out of it that are actually positive? I make my own spell components - and I am a WAYYY better Wizard from soloing.

[The Rambling Midget]

While I'm not sure how you're losing that much gold on group trips, even if you're just barely breaking even, what you're really doing is making an investment.

Group trips will nearly always net you more XP. XP gets you more levels, which means more combat power. Once you have that combat power, you'll be able to steamroll profitable areas for cash, without the need for consumables.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Being good at getting gold is more important than simply having gold.

[IndifferentPerson]

To adapt in the new system as a caster, it's good to learn how to make effective use of your components and go to dungeons you can profit from, and if in a group, stick to buffing and only nuke if necessary. Having played an epic sorcerer before gold was initially buffed, I never really had an issue with gold, with groups or solo. IGMS is a reliable spell since you can have many slots of it(normal, empowered, maximized) and doesn't takes components.

[Winter83]

Things that work for me:

When you dont have time to "adventure", or lack mechanical power.

Factions can be set up to pay wages. Bugger the guard commander of cordor about wages, salaries.
Or join the city administration. Or the rat catchers. Street sweepers.
Join a merchant and be his bodyguard.
Be a packmule of a high level wizard.
Do a street performance for coins.
Gather donations for a cause.
Gather donations from faithful if you are a priest.


Or "other kind of work":
Join a city council and rob their treasury. (You dont even need mechanical prowess for that)
Rat out others' secret for coins.
Blackmail,
Beg on the streets



For strength characters 4-5 stone slabs can yield 1000 coins which is a good sum.
Even in parties most leaving jewels behind. IF you pick nothing else than those you can net a couple thousands. A gold necklace 220 without appraise near anywhere.
When going from point A to point B alone, which is not soloing but traveling, can net a healthy 700 coins just from trash mobs, berries and pelts. Or over 2-3000 if it's a lenghty travel like from Wharftown to Guldorand, and I whack the mobs in between standing in my way.

Resources management became a bit more tactical. No wasting pots on trash mobs, just for the looks. Not wasting essences when with a party. Pointless overkill it'd make only.
Using lenses only in emergencies. Bartering with cooks for bandages or making my own. And in general playing careful so wasting resources wont be necessary.
Wands are expensive. Enchantments are expensive. But they are not a daily need. I preserve wands, not stoneskinning, hasting, barking, FOMint, NEPing, Impinvisibing, etc etc on every single encounter.

At epic levels its not the system that makes grouping difficult. It's the fact that few are in your level zone with whom it makes sense to travel anywhere.
Personally I do not experience troubles with groups at high levels at least. The most common thing I hear after adventures : "Keep my share" .

Parties are still necessary in my experience. Mobs can absolutely maim a lone traveler.

[Tashalar]

Factions can be set up to pay wages. Bugger the guard commander of cordor about wages, salaries.

I choked on my coffee

But yes, Winter's suggestions are all very good.
Saving gold by crafting your own things or making a pseudo-company with other characters that have complementing skills - for example, I am involved with four other characters involved in the creation of trade goods, who all have various skills (with a few little cross-overs here and there in case you miss logging times) and this works out really well in turn for selling goods for profit.

Appraise is an underused wonder (shush Abe Lincoln :p). Especially for mages, who usually have the intelligence to have the skill points to spare. Either make friends with someone who is very silver-tongued with the merchants, or develop this yourself. Collecting gems and jewellery was something that most people neglected during the gold-on-click phase, when it could easily add a couple of thousand, if not more, onto your running total. If you run out of space on an adventure? Start pruning the cheaper jewellery (swapping copper necklaces for silver or gold - common sense).

I pretty much still only adventure in a group when I adventure at all - and my role has adapted somewhat to a buffer/support rather than outright blasting everything (especially when the front line I am usually behind is so damn effective). Buffing and supporting in turn reduces the amount of healing that becomes necessary (as long as you're not stupid or suicidal, or in utter disorganised chaos) and that in itself saves you gold in the long run.

Remember: The bigger the party, the lower the IQ/gold share/xp/whatever floats your boat. It's a delicate balance.

[DaTexican]

I really don't understand what the problem is. If you want to leave it the way it is now thats fine. if you want to go back to the click system, just tweak it. Make it so that the loot on the body is only able to be seen by people in the group that got the killing blow for a limited amount of time, and make the amount of $ on that mob static, and when a player in the party clicks on it, they get a share of the total $ on the mob. The system should be able to take the $ on creature and devide it by the # of people in the party, no? Solves the money inflation issue, solves the "thief" issue, in the way that if you want to steal from a group, you have two options. Stay hidden until you can last hit the mob, allowing you to steal all the loot quickly from the body and run off (which opens alot of RP for this matter for both the party being stolen from and the thief, along with making beig a thief dangerous, as it should be). All in all I do think its hard to tell at the moment because most of the rich characters are the high level characters, and these characters tend to be the ones controling the market. They have money, so they want to make MORE. And since they control the market, you have no other option but to buy from them, or wait for other players to buy a shop because a high level player decided to stop playing/doesnt log in for too long and opens their own shop with reasonable prices. This could be a change that happens over a month(unlikely) or over a year(more likely) in real life. Trust in the developers. Personally, I feel the current system is fine, BUT adventuring costing more than the return is a bit harsh. If I buy bandages from a vendor, and only use self/party buffs, and leave an adventure with less money than I spent, it becomes a problem because adventuring into strongholds and the like is naturally sapost to yield rewards if im not mistaken. Its the point of raiding these places. I personally dont suffer too much from this as I make wands and sell them, but this does stunt my leveling quite a bit. I make good money that pays for the adventuring, BUT then i end up spending 1/3-1/2 of my exp i earned to make the wands so im only leveing at half speed, and with the leveling proccess already taking a LONG time unless your a hardcore player who has all the time in the world to play. I get to play a few hours a day, so I will admit the current system is a bit rough, but time will tell if the economy changes. :/

[aaa3]

Economy alone is so broken already (half of items are sold under price or given from factions/friends etc) so using it as argument for any change is kind of...

[lordsterling]

I kind of like the revert. I hated the conga-line corpse looting..

[ArcanaFTW]

I'd like them to bring back the old system where you click to get gold, but then scale the amount of gold down so it's low for everyone. This way it solves the problem of splitting gold and people logging with it then coming on five minutes after.

[Stath]

I'm a pretty big scrub, and I actually love the new gold system. I only get to play for about two and a half hours on weekdays and admittedly 98% of that time is spent in Wharftown, so unless I go and raid the Wharftown Boys lair, I'm lucky to make about 800 coins in five real-life days.

Also because I'm a rather huge moron ICly and OOCly, I don't tend to take a share of any loot when we -do- go out to say, Kholingen perhaps. I still freaking love it, because it adds a little bit of dynamic, player-freedom in a sense, for lack of a better term.

Divvying up the rewards when getting back to safety is fun, and provides oppurtunities for all kinds of Character traits to glint few, even if only for a few moments. Is the person ((Read: Character)) you all chose to ransack corpses really that trustworthy?

Although it can be a bit of a pain barely being able to afford your bandages, it's soemthing that I feel is worth pushing through. Plus you get to actually see the nice big pile of shiny metal circles on the corpses of your butchered enemies! Hurrah!

Anyway. Just my one cent. And that's only from my personal experience too, so I've probably not experienced the pain of blowing out on supplies.

[Dr_Hazard89]

Honestly I love the "new" gold system. I put quotation marks there because when the last gold system was implemented I was one of the few players I knew of that was having a whinge-fit and sooking. I -love- it when there's a sneaky loot collector who keeps the majority for himself due to "collection tax" or just runs off with it, as long as the character is actually RPing being a sneaky little bugger, rather than just a paladin and oops I forgot to split, again. Again again.

It also leaves room for my wealthier characters to be generous/lazy. Nah, you guys go ahead and do the collecting and keep my share, I'm sweet. Where as with the altered system, if I didn't pick up gold, it was just wasted... I also found it hard to imagine why so many animals and insects were full of gold. Most of my characters came to the conclusion that there was such a MASSIVE inflation crisis on Arelith, that it was turning up in every ecosystem and biome. With every creek, river, and pond filled to the brim with gold it was only a matter of time until it found its way into the digestive tracts of the wolves and badgers. Jingly baadgers were inevitable without the introduction of a gold sink.

Also, keep in mind, you're not supposed to be able to afford tabs full of healing kits/potions and having to buy a raise dead scroll should take a large chunk out of an adventure. There was a time when items had value, but with the alternate gold system we had, I found my characters VERY quickly accumulated more gold than most settlements had...

Realistically my former Archmage of Myon, Ker'uanna, can afford to buy Myon, Bendir and Cordor. I don't know what the other cities have in their coffers. That's just silly!

[The Man of the Moon]

Realistically my former Archmage of Myon, Ker'uanna, can afford to buy Myon, Bendir and Cordor. I don't know what the other cities have in their coffers. That's just silly!

Well... you are right while most of cities get a bank-break from time to time or someone stealing millions without any trouble nor getting jailed nor even exiled...

I kind of like the revert. I hated the conga-line corpse looting..

Very true, that was the silly side on the gold-for-all system.

[Winter83]

There is adaptation. My new character for instance would be less viable in the touch-system. Because the silly ammount of gold and the increased inflation. Now esp at low levels coin managament became an important feature. Mercant/trader concepts , those skilled in the market can become richer,basically rewarded for their profession.

[The Man of the Moon]

There is adaptation. My new character for instance would be less viable in the touch-system. Because the silly ammount of gold and the increased inflation. Now esp at low levels coin managament became an important feature. Mercant/trader concepts , those skilled in the market can become richer,basically rewarded for their profession.

And the MAIN point about this is an increase in RP meanings, cause their merchant role will be adding an additional RPing scenario for them!

[NauNatha]

How to divide the loot, and disputes over shares, should be an intrinsic hook for roleplay when putting together an adventuring group.

This is fun the first two or three times.

[Arach]

Just putting this out there. I get more two to three times more gold and items soloing. I only get in a party when I get tired of soloing.

OH btw this isn't a jab at the new... er well old system. The last system I could get enough gold for a home/shop at an extremely low lvl.


Less gold makes it more valuable, period.

[Razmo_de]

There is adaptation. My new character for instance would be less viable in the touch-system. Because the silly ammount of gold and the increased inflation. Now esp at low levels coin managament became an important feature. Mercant/trader concepts , those skilled in the market can become richer,basically rewarded for their profession.

Only if you put points in appraise and use that vs. NPCs. The PCs on the other hand haven't got enough gold to really buy stuff from you. But thats the nature of a merchant char. It will always be worse than going out and looting.
Meaning with the new gold system, you'll get even less profits from PCs.

[Winter83]

FYI. My mcerhant character makes more coins in the city than out adventuring. Possible. Just need creativity.

And as for looting & adventure. A bloodmoon orc ride at level 11 nets over 8000 coins. In this level zone that's a sweet ammount of coins.
It never will be a Kohlingen nursery where a level 3 just following the group can make over 30.000 in a few hours. Everything pales compared to this. Atm the whole feeling like coming down from hard drugs and having withdrawal symptoms.


There was rich character before the revision. Market & players adapt. I beleive in this. Simply have to revise the value of a single coin.

[Rystefn]

This week, I noticed that on Layla, I bank more gp walking from Guldorand to Cordor and back alone than I did from doing a 4-man Kohlingen run.

[daemonshadow]

Bugger the guard commander of cordor about wages, salaries.

What are you trying to say, Winter?

[Winter83]

*Has a happy recruit with a nice salary of 400 coins! *

[The Man of the Moon]

*Has a happy recruit with a nice salary of 400 coins! *

The waymen pay better!... 500 monthly coins to recruits...

[Yma23]

The simple fact is that, at least from mid-high levels, you make much, much, much more coin soloing than you do any other way. yes, that includes merchant work.

I'm not sure this is a huge problem, per see, but I can't say I much like it.

[Rattus_norvegicus99]

There are so many ways to make coin in this game ... as a merchant character ... well I won't say what my merchant can/has made, but trust me, if you're willing to work, the coin is there.

[DaTexican]

Roi was making 10-20k a day selling barkskin wands. Mayor of burrowhome said there was a need for them, she started putting them in a shop and wa-la the money started flowing. If you want money, you are going to have to sacrifice something to get it. Time, money, exp, ext...