The members of http://alttabme.com came together during this weekly podcast to talk about "How to make MONEY Part 2!"
The questions answered here are some of the top questions we get during our live streams at http://alttabme.com/live and these forums!
We are live Mondays @ 5:15 EST : http://alttabme.com/live
If you wish to submit questions for next weeks podcast for please feel free to post on the forums.
Summary:
- A small addendum to the idea of opportunity cost that I missedis the time spent farming going to make you the same amount of gold as the same time spent on the tp (or whatever you do to make gold) and how to balance that with the things you want to do in game.- clarification on why to use crude salvage kits/mystic salvage kits/black lion salvage kits
just found a site that did 1500 tests each on cloth salvage items of top tier. He used crude, basic, fine, and mystic. Here are his findings.
-Chance to get a higher quality item means higher tier when talking about salvage items.
-The percentage chance to get higher quality items is multiplied by that items base chance to drop higher quality items.Lord Signis found evidence that "items may have their own rare salvage modifier value other than 1. (ie .52 from the item and .25 from the salvage kit means salvaging will yield rare materials 13% of the time) Further testing is needed."
So, supposing that gossamer has a base 11% chance of being salvaged from a rag, the chance of getting gossamer with each kit is:
Crude: 11% * 1.00 = 11.00%
Basic: 11% * 1.10 = 12.10%
Fine: 11% * 1.15 = 12.65%
Journeyman: 11% * 1.20 = 13.20%
Master: 11% * 1.25 = 13.75%
General principals of making gold in game
- learning what players want for each class
Rangers and thieves like condition damage and crit, Warriors and guardians come to find out they need either more toughness, vitality, or healing, flavor of the month build will buy items to compliment the build.
- patience and long term strategies
Mystic coins, buy during the late night and sell during the day, buy during the middle of the week and sell during the weekend. Stockpile when you see a market getting ready to explode
- short term strategies and knowing when to pull the trigger
If there is a market that is unbalanced, say a 30 or 40% difference between buy orders and buy price then act fast. Only allow yourself to use a set % of your funds for short term buys 20% is good.
- how much time you need to spend to be profitable
Can be lots, can be few depending on your strategy. Tp goes with you everywhere so sell while doing other things, and check to see if your stuff sold before making the trip to the tp person. Flip side is camping next to the tp to flip items or cancel and repost.
General principals of saving gold
- buying level 78 rare gear instead of level 80 rare gear
A full set of 80 rare gear can cost around 10 to 15 gold. For a 3%ish loss in stats you can get lvl 78 rare gear set for about 2 to 3 gold. And if you are getting a magic find set to farm in they have the same amount of magic find as the level 80 set.
- getting exotic gear from the things you like instead of the trading post
Run your dungeons if you like that, do events if you like that, farm mats or mobs if you like that, play the tp if you like that. You can get gear how you want and don't have to get gold, but use these ideas to make whatever you are doing the most efficient.
Playing the Trading Post
- buying mats and combining them to sell at a second level profit
logs to planks, mats to inscriptions, ore to ingot
- where is the market focused, and where is it headed next. Following the player wave
most players are getting to 80 now so the big wave is there, middle of the road items will dry up some and t1 items will still be plentiful because of alts. Crafters still need to level.
- Taking advantage of speculators.
Get in early on a spike (pumpkins) or manufacture one yourself. This economy is ripe for manipulation
Gem store
- buying gems for cash and turning them into gold
good way to turn money into gold, only safe legal way. Conversion is losing money, but it works.
- buying dyes and minis for gems and selling them on the tp
convert gems to gold price then see if the dye pack can average out to the same price
- buying gold from illegal gold sellers vs the gem store. pros/cons and the dangers
anet is watching them and who they sell to, so you will be on their radar. Also prices on the gem store is cheaper than goldsellers.
Crafting for profit or lack thereof
- any profitable recipes?
Bloodsaw, inscriptions, highest level tier 6 gear. Spidy. Crafting items.
- efficient use of leveling crafting to not go broke
Inscriptions are selling for a profit right now. When making discoveries you don't have to make every type, just make the ones whose mats are cheapest. Check the tp for pricing of finished mat to decide if you want to salvage, vendor or sell
- selling to crafters who are leveling
Inscriptions, planks, ingots, etc can sell for more than the mats costs. 1C profit at a full stack of 250 items is 2s50c in profit.
Farming
- is farming worth it
in this game more so than other games. With small profits on the tp, finding mobs that drop items worth more than 1s is good. Also orr farming of de's throws tons of mobs at you for loot. Orr also has orichalcum and ancient log trees.
- what type of things should you farm? armor/weapons, fine crafting materials, loot bags
high level and low level everything sells well now so farm there, middle levels are a bust.
- resource gathering: ore, wood, food harvesting? What areas are better?
High and low areas again.
- magic find, how it works and when to get it
forget it below 70. after 70 get as much as you can. Pirate, scavanger, traveler, explorer. It increases your chance to get a better item. If a green has a 10% chance to drop and yellow a 5%, then 100% mf will make it 20 and 10 respectivly.
- food buffs and gem store boosters worth it?
Yes always eat food if you can. Specific boosters from the blc or gem store are super powerful if you will utilize them. Farm mobs with karma and xp boosts. Read the boosts cause they sometimes say mob drops
- where to farm
online maps, dungeons, gathering, rare crafting mat drops, loot bags
- AOE builds
why you need them and what each class has
- Play in a group
helps you find events, get more guild influence, have more fun, some say loot drops are better in groups
- have a plan before you go
know what you want to farm for, know if it will help you do other things like hearts. Bring empty bags and gathering tools/salvage kits. Repair first. Bring your magic find gear and put the rest in the bank.
- diminishing returns and the anti bot code
after 30 mins of killing the same type of mob you start to get less loot for each mob killed. Same with karma. To clear the code go kill some other type of mob usually in another zone to reset the code. Latest patch has reduced the speed of the DR and set a higher bottom for karma. Used to be 9 now its 141 per DE.
- Dungeon speed clearing code
if you clear the same wing twice or more in 1hr you will get less badges and loot from the end bosses
- Combating bots
dr code, speed clearing, putting all badges on the last boss only, reduced karma on dr
- problems with anti botting stance
hurts players more than bots. Anet says they want you to play the way you want, but not if you like farming or grinding. Code is buggy and hurts legit players for longer than intended. Hurts players who can do events quickly (especially in orr) even if they don't farm the same 2 events over and over.
- Positives for anti botting code
it does hurt the botters and take away the rewards they are botting for, karma and exp. Anet is hands on even if they arent acting fast enough for players to see change.
- Anet's hands on approach
shutting down sales instead of being greedy just so it wont impact players. Hands on for the economy with mystic chests, hands on with anti botting and anti farming to funnel players into an experience they think will be better than grinding. Large involvement with facebook and twitter and forums, answering people pretty directly. Banning exploiters and shaming whiners who are misrepresenting themselves.
Along with all that to chew on I have found some interesting things this week in the gw2 news front.
- Legendaries now being made after the oct 1 patch fixing thingsprecursor epics prices going through the roof, and same with high level rares and epics
- Oct 1 patch taking away the karma items on weaponsmith trainers and where to get the stuff now for karma if you want.usually not worth it because the cost to port to the vendors is almost as high as the coin cost of the item in LA
- gw2spidy.com now has crafting profits and shopping lists to craft items
- tpcalc.com now gets prices if you put in the item name
- prices on the tp are not accurate unless you click on the item.speculation that this is a side effect of trying to fix the last in first out bug. This also makes pricing sites like gw2spidy unreliable. Only use them as an indicator of where to do your research for profitable items
- magic find (or maybe just boosters) are effecting the mystic forge. Tests done with runes and sigils are returning either an 11% higer rarity or a 41% higher rarity.
Specific items that are making money right now
- farming for rare crafting matsgold blog sites are showing good areas and maps
- Corrupted weapons, recipes come from vendor in frostgorge sound after the claw of jormag event.
- Magic find gear
- inscriptions
- loot bags, especially when turning the items into inscriptions when possible
- other 2nd level crafting mats like helmet lining and sword hilts
- orange unidentified dyes (medium risk)
- crafted runes and sigils that are put in the forge (high risk)
Q/A
Feel free to post any questions you may have here and we will do our best to answer you! 
Links
Gathering
-gathering node map
- tier6 gatherning node maps of all 3 orr zones plus frostgorge sound
- gathering farm maps
Botting
- Anet addresses concerns with the anti-botting code hitting normal players
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Let-s-Start-the-Karma-DR-Dialogue/page/10#post357474
Misc
- A quick google docs reference I built to see the price after 15% TP cuts from 1c to 5s20c
- speculation on things that will be used or put in game only for Halloween.
Gather pumpkins now. Price spike from speculation http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/12538
fall dye pack, no new dyes, just fall colors you can buy for gems (existing colors)
more than just Halloween coming https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Halloween-Update/first#post350406
-Math on salvage kits
- Mystic forge and magic find (discussion starts at the bottom of page 11 and goes for a few pages)
forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3506860&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=11
Karma vendor lists