Seeking Good Advice

Hello. I am 3 days old in EU. I plan to play heavily with my Brother and we will focus on hunting. Right now we are swunting oros and getting lots of skill gains. We are losing PED during this process(as we expected) and our goal is to eventually break even or show a profit. We think it is best to stay on the Oros until we are much more powerful and then move up to something more profitable. It seems that armor upgrades are scarce on Arkadia. The Auction House has a small number of armors for sale, mostly damaged. I would like to know what our best option is for acquiring better armor(in the future), and also, I would very much appreciate any tips you would be kind enough to offer. Thanks everyone =)

 

Hi and welcome to Arkadia and to the Forum ...first i would say...go away from Oro and go for a easier mob to swunt ...in celeste outpost you will always find swunting groups ..search for ....
...feel free to ask an adviser if you find one ..some of us are around all the time ...you also can look for a mentor ..even here in forum some announce mentoring
and read and read and read more you have much to learn
and ...forget armor for the start ...better buy a heal tool...healing let your skills grow ..armor not ....and evade is a important skill for a hunter

 

Hi, Milena =) Thanks so much for your quick reply! The reason I'm swunting oros is my veteran friend told me it was the best thing I could do to get started. I have been getting a ton of skill ups from it. Why do you suggest going to an easier mob? So you say armor will slow my evade gains down? I have been getting a lot of evade, at least it seemed that way

 

Armour wont slow evade down but the decay is costing you unecessary peds with no corresponding skill gain. If instead of armour u invest in a Fap then you can get some medical skills while keeping yourself alive. And if you occaisionally die while swunting, its not a big deal.

Oro a perhaps a little tougher than we might expect a newer player to swunt. But if it is working for you that is great. I would normally suggest carabok to start with. Nusul are also supposed to be good for swunting though I dont know how they compare with oro.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

Thanks Kikki! I should note that I have sufficient starting funds to afford basic equipment. I primarily want to my character's farming ability to grow as quickly as possible

 

Alarm bells sounding with use of word "farming". THis is not your average MMO so farming is not necessarily gonna work out.

Back on topic... It's really a matter of matching your skills to the right mobs and equipment. You can use any gear you can afford but it isnt necessarily going to be economically efficient for you if your skills have not yet grown. Do you have a mentor yet? Might beworth getting one and then having a chat about weapon SIB, armour etc.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

hey
the best bit of advice i can give is that it is not a race, take your time and dont be in too much of a hurry.
this universe is quite challenging and one important thing to learn is to match your gear to your skills and budget and the creatures you hunt, not doing this can be costly, it is not easy to be profitable and limiting your costs for a given activity is one of the best ways of effecting your results. it is also a bit of a mistake to think that moving up means profit, all creatures give basically the same returns percentage wise, any profit is made by selling in demand loot to other players. what is in demand changes and isnt limited to bigger creatures. there is something that is much more important than gear if you want the chance to break even and that is having a large enough budget to be able to save up what you loot to sell while continuing to hunt.
armour is quite a complex subject, normal advice is match your armour to the creature you wish to hunt, many people collect different sets for different purposes. some armour is repairable, other armour is limited, the advantage to repairable is that you can repair it obviously, so you dont have to keep finding new pieces, but limited armour has other advantages, it protects fully whatever its value (repairable armour needs to be fully repaired to work at full strength), and it has better durability, this means that it is cheaper to use, generally speaking if the limited armour costs less than 120% it is cheaper to use than a repairable version of the same type, and since many limited armours can be found for much less you are reducing your cost. because it doesnt have to be fully repaired to be effective it is also less strain on your budget to buy limited armour sets for specific purposes.

if you hope to break even or profit it is important to look beyond what is your own focus, and to understand why people are buying what you loot and how crafting works.

good luck

 

Thanks guys! Fallen, are you sure that all mobs give the same approximate value in terms of loot? The reason I ask is, I can't imagine how I can be very profitable against Oros because their loot seems so weak. I also don't see any big loots coming up on the main chat. I constantly see people getting big loot from Leviathan mobs. I assume the expenses required to farm them is huge compared to what I incur to farm Oros. Another reason I want to "move up" from Oros is that I don't see any loot from them that appears to actually be in high demand. I get the feeling they are mostly just for noobs to train skills and the only way to profit would be to have enough killing power to drop them very quickly so I could minimize expenses.

I will definitely read over your post many times, I found it quite helpful and I really appreciate it. I am very curious to talk more on this topic if you guys are interested. And also, Kikki, if it's wrong to call what I'm doing "farming", what should I be calling it?

 

Hi Heartless,

It's not wrong to call anything farming. It's just that farming techniques from other MMOs will possibly lead to tears here.

It's not easy to profit in this game though players do manage to do so. Most of the time the TT value of your loot will be less than what it cost to gain it. Generally the profit comes from successfully hunting, mining or crafting items with good markup and gaining your profit in sales to other players.

Comparing Oro's to Levis --- yes oros are a lot cheaper to hunt per mob than Levis. Levis have thousands of hps so it takes a lot of damage to take one down. They also do more damage per hit so you need good armour or fapping, which adds to your cost. There are many loot theories and MA will not confirm details. Two common theories with reasonable data to support them are:
- size of loot (in TT value) is proportional to TT expended to kill the mob, within the bounds of a distribution that has a large variation
- size of loot (in TT value) is proportional to the damage done to kill a mob, again with that large variation from kill to kill.

In the long term your returns should hopefully trend to a small TT loss (the number flung around is approx 90% return). And you are likely to come close to this with lots of mob kills. A small number of mob kills will have returns all over the place. So it is heaps cheaper to kill lotso oros than lotso levis -> more consistant returns on the oros for less peds cycled. You need a big ped balance to be able to weather the low return periods if you are hunting a high hp mob.

You can influence your TT returns by controlling your costs. Minimise armour and fap decay, kill a mob for a minimum cost. Evade profession helps a lot by reducing the chance you will be hit. Picking the right armour can reduce your defense costs. Picking a weapon you can use efficiently reduces cost to kill. Not going after a mob that regens heaps or hits u heaps. THings like that.

You can also influence your bottom line by understanding what sells well for good MU and which mobs to hunt to give you the best chance of looting them. Entropedia is an invaluable tool for that sort of thing but it takes time to understand the market also.

On arkadia, check out the MU on native hides. They are generally pretty good though obviously if everyone targets the one mob, MU on their hides is likely to drop. MU on some oils is also not so bad (compared to other planets anyway). Weapons, when they drop, are excellent. Armour is very difficult to sell.

Hope this helps.
KikkiJikki

 

Okay, cool. Thanks again for helping me out One thing I wonder about is the loot people get that is announced to the server in main chat. When you get a big score like that, is that what can lead to an overall profit? I'm guessing that you generally lose money while hunting but the occasional lucky kill is what can put you ahead. Either that or you find a way to grind out a small but fairly consistant profit. My understanding is that because I'm a new player and my skills are so undeveloped, I should incur the costs of swunting oros because I get such tremendous skill gains from doing so. And then in the long term I can recoup those losses thanks to the skills I acquired early. Does that make sense or is my approach wrong?

In essence, right now I am not worried about losing PED because I consider it a worthy sacrifice for my long term development. Once my skill gains slow down considerably, then I would move on to trying to be very cost efficient in everything I do. Let me know if this train of thought is wise

 

Any loot of 50 ped or more gets announced in the Globals channel of chat. Mobs with bigger hps are likely to have more globals than mobs with small hps. However globalling doesnt necessarily imply profit. In the long term, TT return is around the same. Of course if u can get a loot of several K ped than thats still going to be very helpful to your bottom line. Hunting for globals is like playing slot machines for jackpots. Maybe you will get lucky in the short term but in the long term it doesnt really lead to profit. That's why I mention MU (markup). If you want to consistantly end up ahead, then MU and efficient play is key.

There's also nothing wrong with focussing on skilling, especially early on. It's up to you to set your goals. And as long as you are enjoying yourself and getting satisfaction in progressing your goals then that's great. My own main focus is on skilling. However, skill gain is no guarantee that you will get to a point where you are magically breaking even or better. It just gives you more options. I have a number of soc mates that play at a low level but consistantly break even or better while they gain skills. And I know of many high skilled players who lose heaps.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

Oh I see. That is very interesting. So I guess the ultimate goal would be to break even or show a small profit while hunting specific items with higher markup and then when you do hit the jackpot it is actually going to be a good boost because you weren't counting on it. Right?

Regarding focusing on skilling, I'm most interested in skills which will help mitigate damage. Can you tell me what those would be? Also, if there is a better way to get them than what I'm doing, I would like to know

 

Well defensive skills are gained from being attacked. Check entropdedia for Evade and Dodge professions. Evade reduces your chance of being hit by close combat attacks such as mobs, melee. Dodge reduces chance of being hit by ranged weapons (bots, oratan, pvp players). The main benefit of swunting IMO is the cheap gain of evade. I couldnt stand sweating so I chipped some evade in.

If u can get up close with a bunch of mobs that dont require armour, then thats your cheapest way of gaining evade. On Calypso, I did the merp iron mission, mob training a bunch of them and then killing. Evade gains were substantial. You could do the same sort of thing here. But if you need to armour up then it is more cost effective to take them on one at a time.

 

Alright. In that case, it sounds like my current method will suffice. I don't mind swunting as the sheer amount of skills I'm getting is incredible. The PED loss is decent but I'm not worried about it for the time being. One thing I wonder is, at one time should I try different monsters? I have no real means of acquiring stronger armor, well, the auction house seems to have only a smattering of damaged armors. I haven't checked the shops yet, though. Also, does 1 protection point of armor reduce your damage taken by the corresponding attack type by 1? Ie: 1 Fire protection = -1 damage taken from fire. I guess my real issue now is I don't know where to go from here. I plan to farm Oros for at least a few more days, possibly even weeks if it still seemed worthwhile. But how will I know when it's time to move on and start thinking about the bigger picture?

*Edit* I want to be able to move faster. What are the best activities to help with that? Also, I'm very grateful for your help, you are very kind.

 

First a plug: You can buy low level arkadian armours from my shop at Celeste North 5. Southern Fortress Engineering also sell from the Quarry and from Sanctuary Cove (shop 3). However if you can get full or near full TT armour parts from auction you will probably get a better price the. Entry level armour is also available from the TT.

As to how armours work, I think the best explanation is available in this article.

I'm not sure I can advise you on when it is time to move on. If you are getting bored try something different. IF MU on oro hides is looking bad, then check MU for hides of other mobs and think about spending some time on those. One thing you could consider are the IFN missions. These will give you skills for grinding various mobs. Check entropedia to get an idea of what is easy and what is tough and maybe do some of the stages of the missions. There is a whole forum section devoted to missions. You can pick up IFN missions outside the command centre at any Firebase.

 

I'm actually doing the Oro mission. I'm only on stage 2 due to the fact that I'm swunting and not focused on eradicating the species(yet) Thanks again for your response. I find you very enjoyable to speak with and quite helpful as well. I will check out the shops you mentioned and the armor link as well. Are the IFN rewards usually worth it? It's hard for me to evaluate. For completing Oro mission 1 I received some Rifle skill increase but it didn't really go into any detail.

 

Are the rewards worth it? Well I look at it as a bonus. If you are going to kill mobs you might as well get a bit extra for the effort.

oro stge one reward used to be 0.03 ped TT Courage but all rewards have been redone recently so I dont know the current value.
THis is the thread where we are recording the latest info

Rewards are stated in ped value because the increase depends on your starting skill. As skill gets higher the reward effect is diminished. TT values are based on what it would cost to chip in that amount of skill. You can convert between skill gain and TT value here

Usually before I cash in a mission I check what the skill is that will be gained, then note the value of that skill (press K to show skills). Then afterwards check the new skill value for an extra feeling of accomplishment.

I noticed an earlier edit about speed of movemet. Agility attribute affects speed. Being attacked can grant agility increases. Also many other activities such as weapon use. Ranged weapons are more effective than melee for this purpose.

However, speed of weapon use is governed only by the specific weapon, moderated by your profession level in using that weapon. There is a whole topic on "maxing" weapons and weapon SIB that relates to using a weapon efficiently. Once again Entropedia has relavent info on how SIB works but it may not make sense without some context. And it's nearly dinner time here. In relation to weapon use speed, check your weapon and look at attacks per minute/max. Ideally you want your attacks per minute to be as close to max as possible. This will happen as your weapon hit profession increases.

 

Alright. Enjoy your dinner and thanks again! Your information is very clear and concise. I'll absolutely follow your method before turning in a mission.

 

The thing you must remember is that an oro costs 20-30 pec to kill so getting a 3-7ped loot from them is almost like a global... the small ones do even give quite big globals every now and then. Those mobs you see globaling alot cost 3-10 ped sometimes more to kill a single one and thats is why you will see their messages in the global chat all the time. Another thing you should know is that global does not equal profit most of the time. On big mobs if I dont cover at least 1/2 my ammo spent in globals and mini's then I know I'm running a loss.

As others stated here the best thing is to match your gear & skills to a mob. Using an undersized gun on a high regen high dmg mob you will incur big armor costs and strugle to shoot past the regen rate, the inverse is true as well using to big a gun and armor will cause expensive armor repair bills and overkill.

Best advice I can give is get a good mentor, someone who knows about hunting.This will give you two things: very valuable knowledge and advice and a set of adjusted pixie armor when you graduate.

Also profit lies in Mu simple fact... you only get 95%-98% back in the long run of whatever tt you spend. To break even or profit you need to sell what you loot to cover the few % up to 100% return and above. Also do not forget that any mu you spend is lost forever so the mu you sell must be more then the mu you buy otherwise you will loose in long run even if your getting 100% return rate. My advice would be to rather do carabok or halix instead of oro, both of their hides have much higher mu value then anything oro drop. if you want more of a challenge I can give you the coords of halix stalkers.

cheers and gl... and welcome to Arkadia

 

Thanks a lot Mordrell, that was incredibly helpful. I feel I have a much better understanding of what I need to do now. I'm going to give the mobs you recommended a try. Is the hide of a mob the primary consideration when choosing which mob to farm? I ask because the Oro loot does seem to be giving me a net loss but they do drop some pretty valuable things. I do like the skill gains I get from Oros but it could be nice to try something else too.