Progression

Well I've done a lot of adventuring this weekend.
I'm facing a lot of demands on my hard-earned gold.
So it was with some considerable satisfaction that I realised that the skellie in Solania catacombs, which had had an orange name when I first ran through with the mail, now had a yellow name.

I was filled with pride, it was filled with arrows. Eventually it died.
And dropped 5g and a rusty.

The skellies in Soltown Catacombs which now die when looked at harshly drop 25g - and the same rusty.
I killed a couple of elves for good measure and they were equally parsimonious.

Is this an element of loot table itemisation that is being sorted out or am I missing something?

On the one hand I'm glad to see a visible sign that I am making progress, On the other it doesn't seem right to stay in areas more suitable for absolute beginners who need the spawns more than me.

Are there places better suited for someone who I guess has just started to aspire to 2-skull scenes?

I'm still using a bow - as per the oracle's starting advice - but I'm thinking about switching to daggers or sword-and-board in the interests of rounding out my skills and also because every time I come back from an outing with 150g I spend 50g on replacing arrows.

 

Hello, take a look at this thread https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...what-is-going-on-a-sota-leveling-guide.41503/ it points you in the right direction of progression and also gives some general advices

 

Congrats on your achievement, and nothing is done even loot and you are not alone in the requests to make the game feel rewarding to your sense of progression.

So as with all of us we pick ourselves up and try to find our patience over and over from playing a game in development. From one room existing in the total of this game and a chicken. We could have started screaming 'let me out' at that point, but here we are finally with tons of progress.

So we keep saying one day it will be done, and one day it will all be worth it and some do not, they go and come back another day.

And you're listening to someone who has been doing this since Nov 2013 and is still here. So good job on your first hurdles. I am Majoria if I can ever. And I think of David Lee Roth when I think of picking myself up again and again. Welcome the Game, it will all be worth it I believe it.

Thanks for your great feedback, yes there are tons of places to go and skeletons and anything archers are not the best things to kill in this game. Just look for the skulls on the posts and explore the world. I'm partial to Hidden Vale but mostly because that was the starting map of this game for a very long time. Anyway 'hit it David' And here's to better loot

 

You are right that mobs do not drop much gold. You can get more gold by selling the weapons that they drop at a blacksmith. Note that some weapons are worth more than others, and that some blacksmiths pay more than others. I used to sell halberds that I looted in Serpent's Spine. That's a 4 skull area, but I heard someone mention that it may change to a 5 skull area in R40.

In case you were unaware, you can also get 500g/day from the Oracle by taking her test. First talk to her about your progress so you know her opinion of you, then take the test and answer "yes" or "no" to the question she asks.

Another source of income is 100g that you get every time you talk to a town crier for the first time. (Only allowed once per scene.)

 

Welcome to the game! The loot is horrible right now, so when an artifact drops you go "weeeeeeeh".

 

Ok I get the picture. Loot is still on the ToDo list

That's ok. As long as it isn't me misunderstanding something.

To be honest the whole concept of "level appropriate" is very difficult in a classless skills-based game.
The fact that the skeleton even recognised I had become infinitesimally more formidable is a bit of a tour-de-force in gaming terms.

Of course if I did swap to sword and shield style then - apart from my side skills in STR and DEX - I'm guessing I'd be back to struggling in 1-skulls.
This is so refreshing after games where any high level can use any weapon with no training.

As for the comment about selling the loot, I'm salvaging most of it. The local blacksmith pays about 5g for rusties and I figure the benefit I get from using less virgin raw wood or ore outweighs the loss.

But yes I could make more by selling it. That doesn't hide the disparity but now I know that is hopefully transient I'll not worry about it.

 

worry,
This game has some serious principles to contend with and are fixing to make the the same mistake they did with uo. This game is very thinly veiled deer hunter game. they need to hire more people, quite a few more.

 

what gripes by butt, is the over world reminds me how like my guy in the center of the screen.

 

not quite as bad as the first time.
a: you've (presumably) leveled some skills outside of bow to help your char (strategy trees? armor?)
b: you get some health and focus with adventuring level gains, which you wouldn't be losing
c: part of what calculates your ability to hit things and not get hit by said things is dex, but part of it is the difference betwen your adv level and your target's. that difference is also what controls their nameplate color.

 

Lol! you pulled out David Lee Roth!!!!

 

I had to, lol he said loot would get better. . But really sometimes something just reminds you of a song

 

It does actually make perfect sense to start off with everything having rubbish loot.
I can think of other games where a loot table error or oversight meant swarms of players descending locust-like on the bonanza with all the associated drama and damage to the economy.

The game wasn't actually being quite as clever about my level as I thought. As Alley Oop said the mob colours respond to my "adventurer level" which is hidden someplace.
So even when I equipped the sword and shield with no skill at all they were still green to me.

In my constant efforts to explore I naively took a mail delivery for Desolis which seems to be behind 5-skull barriers. Am I supposed to abandon it or go in and run like hell?
In fact both trails out of Perennial coast seem to meet such barriers. Is it a newbie containment area?

 

a: within both those passes there are mages that will teleport you to the other side for a fee. is very expensive. much more than you'll get for delivering the mail.
b: both those passes have a gated central area you have to get through and out the other side of to exit the scene where you want, but eastreach has some hidden passes that will allow you to drop into it halfway through. it's still a matter of running for it.
c: those two passes are not the only way out of the area.

 

As @Alley Oop said, running for it is a good option when you're low level. If you die in the control point then continue as a ghost to the ankh on the far side and you will end up where you need to be. Also bear in mind that the natural behaviour of wolves is to run away from you, so it is possible to snag some higher tier resources in these zones if that happens (if they don't run away just run away yourself ).

There is a third way, though it is a bit of a hike if your target is Desolis.

 

Aye, it will be interesting to see how itemization works out. It can feel like not much loot drops, but at higher levels it is not hard to earn 3000 gold in a short time. So to me its not necessarily about not getting enough. Its more about variety. Yet I think there is a counter-interest in not having variety of drops be so robust that it infringes on the player-crafted economy. I dont think we know where the middle ground lies yet. Right now in testing its a bit wonky as mostly low-end stuff drops with a few of the most valuable artifacts, but little in the middle.

 

For what it's worth, the tougher mobs giving no better loot/drop rate is not without precedent. FFXI was bad about that as well. Solution? Farm loot from the easy stuff. Farm xp from the hard stuff. Be happy you are getting something useful either way.

Anyhow, the thing is that you are going to make the most money by selling resources to other players. Rusty weapons? Except for the most valuable ones (halberds, etc.), scrap them on a table and sell the scraps for 3-4g each, but try to check prevailing prices first. And don't miss the chance to harvest wood/cotton/ores. In fact, you should actually consider mobs to be in the way of getting to the resources, and that clearing the area to harvest resources is your real primary objective.

Second is to learn to craft something that people will pay gold for. I wouldn't recommend making armor/weapons, there are a lot of people already doing that, and it takes a lot of cash and time to get to a point where you are competitive. You should try to make consumables for a profit, particularly scrolls. (Hint: those wood scraps from salvaging shoddy bows? That's the best way to make wood pulp for scrolls!)

Look at a public vendor and see what stuff is on with mostly 6d time left. You want to find out what sells fast, and how much it sells for. Also, if you can share someone else's commission-free vendor (many guilds will have ones you can use), that will really help with your profits by skipping the 10% fee and 1 week limit.

 

It's depressing we know. Far as pve, the only way to grind gold atm is to farm Fighters and sell the halberds to a Blacksmith. Over and over and over again. And they wonder why player retention is bad...LOL

 

I have 300K gold right now, maybe 5% of that is from grinding. I know a lot of people who make millions of gold now doing nothing more then traveling the land, visiting cities and PoTs, looking for good deals, building up relationships with other traders and selling the stuff at a profit. These guys have jobs so they arnt on all day long. They have built empires now doing that without spending a dime on real money transactions. I have never spent a dime on real money transactions. In fact, even though I have a large pledge, 99% of the stuff I get, goes into a chest, Im a pack rat. I spend FAR more gold making deals for things I want or buying from player vendors and putting them in my house.

For example, I have probably bought 300 COTO with gold to buy hundreds of obsidian light sources for my house alone, all on in game economy mechanisms.

oh, BTW, that 300K gold will probably be spend on player vendors in the first hour that I log in tonight lol.

 

I think they are leaning more toward a commodity economy where gold is not of such importance as a thing and what that thing can further become a component to or smelted into. I've head Lord British speak a few times how (in so many words) SOTA's economy will be something special.



For what I've heard, it sounds more like a UO Siege Perilous type of player based economy.
~Time Lord~