My brother, cousin, wife and I are startgin a no AH challange with players recently leveled to 60. We are having a good time, and it's brought a fresh look at the game. However, my brother asked me a question last night I couldn't answer. Anyone care to chime in?
"Did really good last night on my DH. Have a few items you might want. One question though. How are you guys dealing with the cost of services? Repair bills shouldn't be a problem so long as you don't constantly die or corpse run through an area. Crafting can get expensive, but you don't really craft every time you're in town. That can be something you save up for.
The one thing that I'm stuck on, however, is "upping" gems. The higher tier gems cost a lot of gold to upgrade. The Marquises is something like 20mil? I started up again with only around 4mil. After crafting some gear and upgrading some gems to socket, I'm down to just under 2mil.
Have you guys found an idea for getting enough gold to fund this part of the game? Without selling worthless items to complete morons for insane amounts of gold, I don't think there's any way to do this. Of course you could grind for days/weeks until you eventually get enough money to upgrade your gems, but that would take a while.
The player community would probably scoff at this question, but that's because it's a moot point when you've been flipping on the AH and then decide to go the NoAH route. It's easy to be a millionaire in the USA when you were already a millionaire in Germany."
The Marquise gems are designed as a gold sink for players who have made gobs of money off the auction house. Actually, gems in general are designed as a gold sink.
So, just don't bother upgrading your gems to high levels until the rest of your gear is perfect. The marquise is 8x as expensive and is only 10% better.
Well, as a mostly self found player since launch, I can tell you that there's no 'easy' answer. You either make small, sporadic sales on the AH so support gear and gem crafting, or you pick up all rares, salvage some and vendor some. Or both.
Yeah, I have to agree with Maka on this...first time for everything, I guess, :-)
I've been playing "No AH" about as much as I can for quite a few months (definitely most of the game's life, at this point). I'm one of the people who had a character hit level 60 before Paragon levels were patched in, so at least for a while, I stared down the possibility of farming gear infinitely or buying upgrades from the AH to continue "endgame," and I did make purchases somewhat early on. I've since boycotted the AH for major upgrades, but my friends continued using it and I wanted to keep playing with them, so I bought a budget CM Wiz gear set for a million gold, maybe a couple million, and used it ONLY when I would play alongside them. Eventually, my Monk rose in level faster playing solo, and I was able to farm good enough found gear, and craft some nice pieces, for my Wizard, and I've since been able to pawn the gear I bought on the AH for a fraction of what I paid. All I've kept is the really nice Storm Crow, which I may brimstone.
Occasionally, when a drop comes that seems good, I'll list it as a sale on the AH, maybe 20k here, maybe 50k there, but that's about once a month instance tops, and to be honest, I can probably make around the same amount that in one good sitting of farming and vending (especially with the increased mob density) than I would through auctions, which is why I feel I can justify some lowball sales. My sales supplement my gold income by a tiny bit, not provide a sole source of it.
To your point, OP, about getting enough gold for gem crafting...especially when it comes to Marquises, I think (part of) Blizzard's intention to put that in the game is that it was meant to be a long term goal for some people. Past few days/months, I've peeked at profiles of folks in general chat, complaining about AH prices or the lack of endgame...they have around 3k elite kills, with at least four or five Marquises in their gear. I don't normally pick on folks for having very few elite kills, anyone can have good insight...but when something like that happens, a person has chosen to undermine what could've been a long term goal in favor of being powerful.
Me? I heard about crafting plans dropping more often a patch or two ago, and I went farming like a motha, ESPECIALLY on bosses like Cydaea, Araneae, Iskatu and Rakanoth, that were all on the list for higher drop rates for plans with 5 NV stacks. Since then, I've acquired ALL the plans to craft ALL the gems required to make Marquises entirely on my own, not buying a single one. So far, the highest tier of gems I've crafted is Flawless Stars. However, in crafting those Flawless Stars, something great happened...
I ran out of emeralds and Amethysts!! :-D
This may seem like a stupid thing to be excited about, but when people who regularly shop on the AH have gear, gems, potions, plans, materials, etc. all at their disposal, they never HAVE TO farm for anything (nay, farming, to those people, ends up being a "chore"). Now that I'm short on emeralds and amethysts, every time one drops, I get excited to replenish my supply. And EVERY gem that drops means I'm that much closer to have the 1000+ I need to craft my first Marquise.
Will I still need the gold? Sure. But like I said, it's a long term goal. Right now, my account is sitting on around 14-15 million, and a vast majority of that (at least 98%) is from farming gold pickups and vending blue and yellow items. Higher Plvl definitely helps, though. Gold Find being higher means gold drops can be in the thousands per shot...and even though some ilvl 60-63 items can be only a few hundred gold, some good ones can vend for 1k-2k. Maybe that's a drop in the bucket for the 20m needed for JUST ONE Marquise, but like I said...
Some people, who happen to shop regularly, say there isn't any endgame at all. I don't shop at all anymore, and crafting Marquise gems is still on my radar. I'll do it eventually, just not soon. Then again, by the time I can do it, there will likely be even more content, even more features, etc.
TLDR: To me, Marquise gems are a long term goal. There are certainly better ways to get gold than others when not using the AH as one's sole source of spending gold. It mostly just takes time and work. Don't let the high crafting prices intimidate you. Like I said, I'm sitting on 15 million. It's not impossible to get the gold and gems necessary to reach that Marquise mountain. This game, like those before it, was designed to take time. People have circumvented it by shopping, that's their choice...but I like the slow progression. Little improvements along the way that lead to bigger ones, :-)
The whole point of the gems is it's supposed to be side upgrades that you work for, and are long term goals. Playing self-found this will defiantly be long-term, but it suddenly makes an emerald in the helm attractive. (emeralds GF right?)
Nah dude, if anything, it's props to players that are heading/are in the self-found route.
A couple of days ago, Blizz interviewed this guy who hit PLvL500, and he said he's pround to say he's 100% self-made. I think that was a little eye-opener to players who wanted to/are in that route. Kinda like, "Yeah dude, it can be done". I'm not making any sense. I'm drunk with exaustion from a long Mother's Day weekend...
Nah dude, if anything, it's props to players that are heading/are in the self-found route.
A couple of days ago, Blizz interviewed this guy who hit PLvL500, and he said he's pround to say he's 100% self-made. I think that was a little eye-opener to players who wanted to/are in that route. Kinda like, "Yeah dude, it can be done". I'm not making any sense. I'm drunk with exaustion from a long Mother's Day weekend...
That Plvl 500 guy is self-made? That's pretty awesome, I didn't know that.
Have you guys found an idea for getting enough gold to fund this part of the game? Without selling worthless items to complete morons for insane amounts of gold, I don't think there's any way to do this. Of course you could grind for days/weeks until you eventually get enough money to upgrade your gems, but that would take a while.
1 : How about selling good items you find to players who know what they are buying?
2 : Yes, grind. That's what the game was designed around. If it is only weeks, then you are lucky.
A couple of days ago, Blizz interviewed this guy who hit PLvL500, and he said he's pround to say he's 100% self-made. I think that was a little eye-opener to players who wanted to/are in that route. Kinda like, "Yeah dude, it can be done". I'm not making any sense. I'm drunk with exaustion from a long Mother's Day weekend...
Yeah... He also said in that interview that he basically played 8 to 10 hours EVERY DAY since the paragon patch came out. Yes, I would play only selffound too if I could invest 100's of hours per month. But that does not realy mean much for people who have a social life besides the game.
All in all, yes, if you take the non-ah road, then you will have to invest more time. Way more time. Crafting and gem upgrading are gold sinks anyway for people who have it all allready. As others have said, I wouldnt get anywhere near that stuff till you have gold coming out of your ears.
ps : what DO you need gold for? Isnt it piling up in heaps by now? Specialy since the density changes I have a feeling that I get 100'000s of gold just from pickups each run...
ps : what DO you need gold for? Isnt it piling up in heaps by now? Specialy since the density changes I have a feeling that I get 100'000s of gold just from pickups each run...
I SERIOUSLY doubt that. Unless you're selling those 'pickups', I find it very hard to believe that you're making hundreds of thousands per run with just gold piles and vendoring.
Actually, I have to say...just selling blue and yellow items during one run can net me at least 100k, as can gold pickups. Think about it....
Gold Find gets calculated when you kill monsters (not trying to make that sound condescending, I apologize, just going through it logically). More mobs means more kills and more chances for that Gold Find stat to factor in. I've laid waste to huge packs of 20-30 bad guys and seen gold piles strewn all over, with a bunch equalling 2-3k each! Simple math...100k gold divided by 2k, that's a maximum of 50 gold piles worth 2k each to make you 100k gold, and most monsters drop at least some gold when dying.
Additionally, the loot issue...
I pick up all loot blue and higher, and brimstone the sets and legendaries I don't need, but especially with the Identify All feature, my routine usually works by filling my pack, town portal, sell blues, head right back out in less than a minute to kill more monsters. When I have an almost full pack of yellows, Identify All (to make most use of the 5-6 second cast bar to save me time), vend blues and yellows, put aside ones I want to keep, head right back out again. Most yellows can vend for between 1.5k and 3, sometimes, 4k. 100k gold divided by pieces worth 3k each, that's only 33 pieces of loot you need to vend to make 100k gold, and during an extended run, I'm easily vending 60 or 70 pieces total. Finding 30-40 pieces worth 2-3k is a piece of cake, and adding in the vending of pieces worth less than that, the gold really adds up.
So, look at it...even if one single run brings in 100k between both gold and vending together, that's 10 runs to make 1 million?
Seriously, this week since the patch release has flown by, but just before the patch, I had around 11-12 million gold. In this one week, I had to have accumulated about 4m, no lie. Well, this morning before work, I spent 1 million on gemcrafting for my DH, so I'm at around 15 million right now, but still. I'm no 8-hour a day player. Tops, maybe 5 or so (I'm 32, married, handle most of the household chores and commute an hour and a half each way to my 8-hour job), but still means a player can work slowly and make a few million here or there.
Sure, the AH can magic bullet you to getting 100s of millions and billions fairly easy if you watch market trends and analyze the economy like a Wall Street Tycoon. But just killing monsters and doing things "the hard way" has definitely gotten a tad easier.
Obviously, I'm never likely to be any kind of billionaire in the gold department, but due to the density increases and ID ALL features alone, I have to say, that 20 million gold pricetag on Marquise gems really doesn't seem so terrible to me anymore, even when calculating the gold necessary to make the Perfect and Radiant Stars needed to craft the Marquise at all.
All I need is more gems to craft, and that just requires more farming. Takes time, but I'm very welcome to take on that task.
I SERIOUSLY doubt that. Unless you're selling those 'pickups', I find it very hard to believe that you're making hundreds of thousands per run with just gold piles and vendoring.
I like to do as muhc as possible in one act before remaking new games. I usualy run several areas after getting the 5 NV stack, and kill a few trashmobs in between aswell. I always run the keywarden in any act on any MP just cause I allready have 5 stacks and it would be a waste not to.
Almost all gold drops by now are in the 4-digit range, some going up as high as 3k gold from one drop. 30 of those and you have 100k from pickups in one run.
I also noticed that it realy increased around paragon lvl 25. I dont know, i spend alot in the AH of course, but it definitly feels like they buffed gold drops. Or maybe it's just the paragon leveling, I dont know.
ps : am I the only one who thinks that salvaging rares and selling the mats in the AH gives you more gold than just selling the items to the NPC? Does nobody salvage any more?
Since game release I played withouth buying stuff from AH and in SP-mode.
I've 10 lvl 60 characters and upgrading all the gems I need take a while, both in terms of time, money and materials.
Currently I'm out of amethysts but the main issue are tomes since they are used both for gems AND crafting, which I do once in a while.
As for gold I just did a 1 hr long run with my main WD (Paragon lvl 15, Leoric manor WP and outside area, Cemetery cripts and Act 1 keywarden) and I collected 95k gold, mostly from drops since all lvl 60 items got salvaged.
MP 1 since that's the most I can handle at the moment.
A while ago there was a topic of a guy asking for "cheats" because he/she couldn't handle an act boss in Normal or Nightmare (cannot remember, sorry), the correct answer to that post should have been:
"There is no need for cheats since you can just use the AH, but be aware that AH may end up ruining your game experience in many ways".
In short, it's a long road to play without AH in a game designed around the AH but I NEVER regretted it, not once.
"Did really good last night on my DH. Have a few items you might want. One question though. How are you guys dealing with the cost of services? Repair bills shouldn't be a problem so long as you don't constantly die or corpse run through an area. Crafting can get expensive, but you don't really craft every time you're in town. That can be something you save up for.
The one thing that I'm stuck on, however, is "upping" gems. The higher tier gems cost a lot of gold to upgrade. The Marquises is something like 20mil? I started up again with only around 4mil. After crafting some gear and upgrading some gems to socket, I'm down to just under 2mil.
Have you guys found an idea for getting enough gold to fund this part of the game? Without selling worthless items to complete morons for insane amounts of gold, I don't think there's any way to do this. Of course you could grind for days/weeks until you eventually get enough money to upgrade your gems, but that would take a while.
The player community would probably scoff at this question, but that's because it's a moot point when you've been flipping on the AH and then decide to go the NoAH route. It's easy to be a millionaire in the USA when you were already a millionaire in Germany."
So, just don't bother upgrading your gems to high levels until the rest of your gear is perfect. The marquise is 8x as expensive and is only 10% better.
Yeah, I have to agree with Maka on this...first time for everything, I guess, :-)
I've been playing "No AH" about as much as I can for quite a few months (definitely most of the game's life, at this point). I'm one of the people who had a character hit level 60 before Paragon levels were patched in, so at least for a while, I stared down the possibility of farming gear infinitely or buying upgrades from the AH to continue "endgame," and I did make purchases somewhat early on. I've since boycotted the AH for major upgrades, but my friends continued using it and I wanted to keep playing with them, so I bought a budget CM Wiz gear set for a million gold, maybe a couple million, and used it ONLY when I would play alongside them. Eventually, my Monk rose in level faster playing solo, and I was able to farm good enough found gear, and craft some nice pieces, for my Wizard, and I've since been able to pawn the gear I bought on the AH for a fraction of what I paid. All I've kept is the really nice Storm Crow, which I may brimstone.
Occasionally, when a drop comes that seems good, I'll list it as a sale on the AH, maybe 20k here, maybe 50k there, but that's about once a month instance tops, and to be honest, I can probably make around the same amount that in one good sitting of farming and vending (especially with the increased mob density) than I would through auctions, which is why I feel I can justify some lowball sales. My sales supplement my gold income by a tiny bit, not provide a sole source of it.
To your point, OP, about getting enough gold for gem crafting...especially when it comes to Marquises, I think (part of) Blizzard's intention to put that in the game is that it was meant to be a long term goal for some people. Past few days/months, I've peeked at profiles of folks in general chat, complaining about AH prices or the lack of endgame...they have around 3k elite kills, with at least four or five Marquises in their gear. I don't normally pick on folks for having very few elite kills, anyone can have good insight...but when something like that happens, a person has chosen to undermine what could've been a long term goal in favor of being powerful.
Me? I heard about crafting plans dropping more often a patch or two ago, and I went farming like a motha, ESPECIALLY on bosses like Cydaea, Araneae, Iskatu and Rakanoth, that were all on the list for higher drop rates for plans with 5 NV stacks. Since then, I've acquired ALL the plans to craft ALL the gems required to make Marquises entirely on my own, not buying a single one. So far, the highest tier of gems I've crafted is Flawless Stars. However, in crafting those Flawless Stars, something great happened...
I ran out of emeralds and Amethysts!! :-D
This may seem like a stupid thing to be excited about, but when people who regularly shop on the AH have gear, gems, potions, plans, materials, etc. all at their disposal, they never HAVE TO farm for anything (nay, farming, to those people, ends up being a "chore"). Now that I'm short on emeralds and amethysts, every time one drops, I get excited to replenish my supply. And EVERY gem that drops means I'm that much closer to have the 1000+ I need to craft my first Marquise.
Will I still need the gold? Sure. But like I said, it's a long term goal. Right now, my account is sitting on around 14-15 million, and a vast majority of that (at least 98%) is from farming gold pickups and vending blue and yellow items. Higher Plvl definitely helps, though. Gold Find being higher means gold drops can be in the thousands per shot...and even though some ilvl 60-63 items can be only a few hundred gold, some good ones can vend for 1k-2k. Maybe that's a drop in the bucket for the 20m needed for JUST ONE Marquise, but like I said...
Some people, who happen to shop regularly, say there isn't any endgame at all. I don't shop at all anymore, and crafting Marquise gems is still on my radar. I'll do it eventually, just not soon. Then again, by the time I can do it, there will likely be even more content, even more features, etc.
TLDR: To me, Marquise gems are a long term goal. There are certainly better ways to get gold than others when not using the AH as one's sole source of spending gold. It mostly just takes time and work. Don't let the high crafting prices intimidate you. Like I said, I'm sitting on 15 million. It's not impossible to get the gold and gems necessary to reach that Marquise mountain. This game, like those before it, was designed to take time. People have circumvented it by shopping, that's their choice...but I like the slow progression. Little improvements along the way that lead to bigger ones, :-)
A couple of days ago, Blizz interviewed this guy who hit PLvL500, and he said he's pround to say he's 100% self-made. I think that was a little eye-opener to players who wanted to/are in that route. Kinda like, "Yeah dude, it can be done". I'm not making any sense. I'm drunk with exaustion from a long Mother's Day weekend...
That Plvl 500 guy is self-made? That's pretty awesome, I didn't know that.
1 : How about selling good items you find to players who know what they are buying?
2 : Yes, grind. That's what the game was designed around. If it is only weeks, then you are lucky.
Yeah... He also said in that interview that he basically played 8 to 10 hours EVERY DAY since the paragon patch came out. Yes, I would play only selffound too if I could invest 100's of hours per month. But that does not realy mean much for people who have a social life besides the game.
All in all, yes, if you take the non-ah road, then you will have to invest more time. Way more time. Crafting and gem upgrading are gold sinks anyway for people who have it all allready. As others have said, I wouldnt get anywhere near that stuff till you have gold coming out of your ears.
ps : what DO you need gold for? Isnt it piling up in heaps by now? Specialy since the density changes I have a feeling that I get 100'000s of gold just from pickups each run...
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
Actually, I have to say...just selling blue and yellow items during one run can net me at least 100k, as can gold pickups. Think about it....
Gold Find gets calculated when you kill monsters (not trying to make that sound condescending, I apologize, just going through it logically). More mobs means more kills and more chances for that Gold Find stat to factor in. I've laid waste to huge packs of 20-30 bad guys and seen gold piles strewn all over, with a bunch equalling 2-3k each! Simple math...100k gold divided by 2k, that's a maximum of 50 gold piles worth 2k each to make you 100k gold, and most monsters drop at least some gold when dying.
Additionally, the loot issue...
I pick up all loot blue and higher, and brimstone the sets and legendaries I don't need, but especially with the Identify All feature, my routine usually works by filling my pack, town portal, sell blues, head right back out in less than a minute to kill more monsters. When I have an almost full pack of yellows, Identify All (to make most use of the 5-6 second cast bar to save me time), vend blues and yellows, put aside ones I want to keep, head right back out again. Most yellows can vend for between 1.5k and 3, sometimes, 4k. 100k gold divided by pieces worth 3k each, that's only 33 pieces of loot you need to vend to make 100k gold, and during an extended run, I'm easily vending 60 or 70 pieces total. Finding 30-40 pieces worth 2-3k is a piece of cake, and adding in the vending of pieces worth less than that, the gold really adds up.
So, look at it...even if one single run brings in 100k between both gold and vending together, that's 10 runs to make 1 million?
Seriously, this week since the patch release has flown by, but just before the patch, I had around 11-12 million gold. In this one week, I had to have accumulated about 4m, no lie. Well, this morning before work, I spent 1 million on gemcrafting for my DH, so I'm at around 15 million right now, but still. I'm no 8-hour a day player. Tops, maybe 5 or so (I'm 32, married, handle most of the household chores and commute an hour and a half each way to my 8-hour job), but still means a player can work slowly and make a few million here or there.
Sure, the AH can magic bullet you to getting 100s of millions and billions fairly easy if you watch market trends and analyze the economy like a Wall Street Tycoon. But just killing monsters and doing things "the hard way" has definitely gotten a tad easier.
Obviously, I'm never likely to be any kind of billionaire in the gold department, but due to the density increases and ID ALL features alone, I have to say, that 20 million gold pricetag on Marquise gems really doesn't seem so terrible to me anymore, even when calculating the gold necessary to make the Perfect and Radiant Stars needed to craft the Marquise at all.
All I need is more gems to craft, and that just requires more farming. Takes time, but I'm very welcome to take on that task.
I like to do as muhc as possible in one act before remaking new games. I usualy run several areas after getting the 5 NV stack, and kill a few trashmobs in between aswell. I always run the keywarden in any act on any MP just cause I allready have 5 stacks and it would be a waste not to.
Almost all gold drops by now are in the 4-digit range, some going up as high as 3k gold from one drop. 30 of those and you have 100k from pickups in one run.
I also noticed that it realy increased around paragon lvl 25. I dont know, i spend alot in the AH of course, but it definitly feels like they buffed gold drops. Or maybe it's just the paragon leveling, I dont know.
ps : am I the only one who thinks that salvaging rares and selling the mats in the AH gives you more gold than just selling the items to the NPC? Does nobody salvage any more?
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
I've 10 lvl 60 characters and upgrading all the gems I need take a while, both in terms of time, money and materials.
Currently I'm out of amethysts but the main issue are tomes since they are used both for gems AND crafting, which I do once in a while.
As for gold I just did a 1 hr long run with my main WD (Paragon lvl 15, Leoric manor WP and outside area, Cemetery cripts and Act 1 keywarden) and I collected 95k gold, mostly from drops since all lvl 60 items got salvaged.
MP 1 since that's the most I can handle at the moment.
A while ago there was a topic of a guy asking for "cheats" because he/she couldn't handle an act boss in Normal or Nightmare (cannot remember, sorry), the correct answer to that post should have been:
"There is no need for cheats since you can just use the AH, but be aware that AH may end up ruining your game experience in many ways".
In short, it's a long road to play without AH in a game designed around the AH but I NEVER regretted it, not once.