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Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-11-22 07:05
First of all, metal conversion. The training is pretty expensive but I went ahead because it is worth it in the long run. It's already worth it for iron ingots. I'm currently R2 and one last diamond to get to R1. The first diamond was unexpected and from today (on a Monday). I get 10+ of ores after that which are not diamond, which is really frustrating.
I dislike the metal conversion mini-game on the whole. Even though I made a tool for it, memory work seems to be the most efficient for now before I can look into automating the process, which is really possible for me once I can find the time to sit down and analyse what I should do.
Now I know that the game is not meant to be played this way, but judging by the hell-hole blacksmithing is, I cannot afford to do every single mindless task that blacksmithing requires manually and alone. The ore picking is automated and it's quite sad how I have to resort to this. The fun thing is that the existence of diamond-mining bots make this possible.
Many people are extremely unsupportive. Some people have plans to pick it up as well and wouldn't want to help you. Some people are more concerned about maintaining the status quo. It's quite easy to say that they are jealous people. However, I also understand how some of them are concerned that it would not be worth it at the very end. I shouldn't be bothered by these people but somehow, I feel quite frustrated. Brings back fresh memories of the old days of enchanting and weaving difficulties. Those were worth it even with many R1 weavers or R1 enchanters on the server, but I wonder if this will be.
My guildmates are quite supportive by small measures, mailing me leathers. There's this one friend who I often help with enchanting who occasionally mail me leathers as well. It does count for something.
It's difficult to back down of the decision for blacksmithing now because I have always wanted to pick this up from a long time back and I have announced it to a few people that I'm intending to do it. It's not simply about the profits of blacksmithing, I just wanted to go for the challenge and make my own equipment. So I do not wish to take back those words. I have done extensive research from way back, but it was not possible to deduce what I could do before the existence of Meiya's guide. I have postponed it again and again because the conditions are not favourable. No R6 thunder, no alchemy, no automation tools at my disposal back then.
Gold buying is something that I am extremely against in this game, but it seems that it is a part and parcel of things if you have to pick up blacksmithing here and complete it in a considerable amount of time. Try hard as I may I usually stay clear of gold buying/trading, this is a very exception case as the things on my server are super inflated and the things that I sell, although expensive in comparison to NA server, are not very expensive over here. What bugs me is how some of these gold sellers proudly claim that they have never spent one single cent on the game. I am seriously pissed off by what they seem to imply about card sellers without understanding their situation. The only saving grace is that they are supporting my work, and I can't spam-buy leathers if not for this help.
I'm not totally against card sellers (or I'd be a hypocrite), but I do dislike the underlying attitude that selling real money for in-game money can buy your way through everything. I don't believe in that and if there is a way that I can earn that money through in-game in a short period of time, I would choose to do that. I'm looking into reducing the need to involve myself in the gold trade business. The trouble is that time feels like a very limited resource for me at this present moment and it's not possible.
The next problem is material collecting. I have no clue how I can fund buying leathers for very long but my current funds are sufficient up to rank 7 or 6.
Braids are also a problem but with Sunday free time I can make at least 135 braids which should clear my braid problem by the end of next year if I can keep up to the schedule.
The other last thing is that I'm also considering the x2 skill training potion that lasts for 10 minutes, but seriously I do not know how effective they can be. It takes me about 2 hours to finish a decent amount of blacksmithing on a Monday so I cannot waste too many of these potions. They are horribly expensive, worth about 2 million gold, which might be better used for materials but where fine leathers are concered that's only about 20 stacks of fine leather, so I was considering them for great successes in future.
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Tally wrote on 2010-11-22 08:35
Hard job, I'll admit. I actually got to rA blacksmith looong ago before I took a long and unexpected 'break' from Mabinogi. Only recently came back, a couple weeks before double rainbow.
I'd say bollocks to gold sellers, as well. I don't understand how anyone could seriously say that's actually necessary for anything. There are a million ways to earn money in Mabinogi. Maybe you aren't looking hard enough?
I'd say the best way is to just gather everything yourself. I likewise intend to get r1 metal conversion. Though the main purpose of that is so I can pull silly things like turning a stack of iron ingots I got from a rafting run into 5 silver ingots (Iron -> Copper -> Silver).
If you can do rafting competently, it shouldn't be too much of a problem for you to stockpile large amounts of iron. Ask your guildmates to help you out too! You'll be surprised how much of a difference it makes. The same can be said of common leathers, too. You only need to get 2 kills per person per dock, so it's pretty easy to get a high amount of them for when you need them later (rank A).
Aside from that advice, all I can really say is good luck! Blacksmithing is more of a test of your determination instead of your resources.
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Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-11-22 09:37
No, I have looked hard enough into various ways.
Most of them involve time, which is a limited resource for me as I have school and work and projects.
I do not intend to trouble other people if I can do things alone. I might only ask for help with leathers when I have reached a decent rank.
It's just not possible to gather leathers on your own. You have to buy a lot of them.
If I were to take a steady pace which doesn't involve gold trading, 6-10 years to Blacksmithing R1. Serious about this with the calculations that I have done up.
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Iyasenu wrote on 2010-11-22 09:59
Too bad you can't bother people to help you.
If you could raft with others, it would make getting common/fine leathers easier.
Do friends mail you unknown ores that you can turn into iron ingots?
It might be really hard to think about it like this, but if you can find someone who is both kinda selfless and not interested in ranking BS, then they might be able to help you.
Other than buying them, what ways do you get more common materials like non-finest things and ingots?
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Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-11-22 13:15
Do friends mail you unknown ores that you can turn into iron ingots?
Common leathers are not a problem as I can open multiple accounts and do them myself.
Iron ingots are no problem as long as the bots continue to do diamond mining in that area. I don't really want to bother my guildmates with taking up unknown ores when the mule can do-it-themselves.
The main problems I have are with braids (and other weaving products), fine and finest leathers.
For braids, I have arranged about 6 mule accounts to spam at Pierrick's whenever that part-time job is available, and have to supplement with stuck sheep and spider farms. Rafting is not very time and mana-efficient for me.
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Iyasenu wrote on 2010-11-22 13:32
Too bad I can't play over there.
Mindless weaving and sieving isn't bad, to me.
Then again, I'm bored with the exp grinding so Life skilling is a neat distraction.
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Zid wrote on 2010-11-22 19:35
Quote from Yogurticecream;224268:
I dislike the metal conversion mini-game on the whole. Even though I made a tool for it, memory work seems to be the most efficient for now before I can look into automating the process, which is really possible for me once I can find the time to sit down and analyse what I should do.
Eh? Well, I got to r1 Metal Conversion by Metallurgy alone and no ore buying. Mini-game isn't that numbing either, and you only need to do the Metal Conversion mini-game for gems. Once you use Metal Conversion for Blacksmithing, just ignore the game completely (It's only 4 random clicks).
However, I think there should be an option for a non-Minigame Metal Conversion that is compatible with Auto-Production. That would net easy and fast Iron Ingots.
I remember when my Elf friend did Blacksmithing (before she quit) and I helped her out so much with free Leathers of all types, plus rafting for Iron Ingots. She got to r7 (r6?) Blacksmithing from our efforts (which was like... some odd million worth of gold in terms of material gathering). She never bought gold from gold bots or used NX potions, so it's doable. I guess in her defense, I say helping friends are as worthwhile (if not more) as buying materials. Plus, friends are what pushes you to keep going, right?
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Meiya wrote on 2010-11-22 20:26
I started smithing since G1. I finally hit rank 1 two days ago, and only thanks to the rainbow event 8D.
While getting help is nice, you shouldn't really expect it. The amount of stuff your friends can provide you, most likely wont even contribute 10% of the amount you need. Hunting for stuff takes time. Thats why you cant do it alone. By that same logic, thats why you cant really expect your friends to do more than toss the occasional leather they get from their normal routines. It takes too much time, and they may not want to spend that time gathering stuff.
If you expect help from people, you will quickly start to feel frustrated. This is what I thought when you said people were unsupportive and didnt want to help you. Well, thats no surprise, the amount of help that you can get is limited. No matter what they are gathering for you, it will take a lot of time. If you can get help, thats great, but if not, thats normal. Ingots, take time to mine/sift and refine. Yarn, Braids, takes time gathering, not to mention requires high weaving they may not have. Leather, its drop rate too low and random to successfully gather a large amount in any reasonable time.
I dont know how the economy is over at your server, but its true that blacksmithing requires a lot of money. Where you get that money from is up to you, I dont really support gold buying though, and never had to do it. Then again, there were many times where I ended up bankrupt for awhile and had to hold off with my training for awhile. But that was fine, because I wasnt racing against anyone, I took my time with it. In actuality, I didnt spent the majority of my time with it anyway. Rather, I went about my daily business while people mailed me materials to buy. Most were just small amounts from random players selling the random stuff they picked up. I took whatever that has sent to me, and used it up during Monday. There were no timetables, no calculations, I ranked up when I ranked up. I wasnt in any hurry, and I actually saw 3 other smiths pass me by quite easily. I dont know how they do it, or what they did, nor did I really care. Its not a competition to me, even if they sell their stuff lower than mine, I simply match the price and thought nothing of it.
With that said, I did get help from my guild. Random leathers may be a small amount compared to the total amount needed, but I realized quickly that my scale of worth was completely shifted thanks to the huge training requirements. 10 Leathers wont get me very far, and its worth felt very small. But this 10 leathers to other players is actually quite a large amount to them. The perspective was different. When you deal with hundreds of ingots and leather, the small contributions from other people may feel small, but you should thank them anyway for any help you can get. I also had a friend that helped provide braids. I wouldnt be here if it wasnt for her, I guess you can say I got lucky when you think about the amount work required to make braids :v
On a last note, Im still R2 conversion. This last diamond refuses to appear, I really hate skills based on luck like conversion 8(. I have no idea when it will appear, and the only thing I can do is keep at it. Walking a tunnel with no end in sight is quite demoralizing.
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Ailyene wrote on 2010-11-22 20:39
Well, blacksmithing is supposed to be one of the hardest skills to rank and it takes tons and tons of time. But like others said, you shouldn't really expect people to help you either. There's no way I'd mail a blacksmithing friend a bunch of fine leathers for free when I could use them to train weaving or tailoring...or just sell them for a lot of money. I don't see why I'd need to give up hundreds of thousands of gold just to help someone to blacksmith when I probably won't even use their services. =/ I think it's already great that you have people occasionally giving you free stuff though. Just work at it slowly as a side thing. Or if you want to sacrifice buttloads of AP...Brionac. 8D
I mean, I already feel really special when my friends sometimes randomly give me an arat crystal or two for free and that doesn't happen often. o.o
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Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-11-23 03:13
The stuff on my server are pretty expensive. Whatever the case I cannot depend on selling HW for income anymore, because the pay is too low for the amount of effort involved. Although shadow missions are nice for exp/money I don't like to do dungeoning much. Rank 1 enchant does help me a little since I make pretty big money when I deal with risky enchanting (e.g. Jackal, Abysmal), but I also need startup funds for anything to work.
I also understand the problems with gold buying, introducing more money into the server and contributing to inflation, which is why I'm avoiding it as much as I can. I collect as much materials as I can deal with. It's only the leathers which give me the most problem. Fines are 40k a stack and finest 100k a stack.
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NotAnElf wrote on 2010-11-23 04:20
For braids I raft.
:/
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Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-11-23 15:09
I'm too stingy with mana and mana potions also take time to make.
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Iyasenu wrote on 2010-11-23 16:20
Your perfect solution to this...
Time Control.
I suggest Maid School.
But if you were to raise your Thunder to 1 so you could 1hit hobs on the raft consistantly with an MP reduction crystal lightning wand then that would help.
But that requires a buncha AP...
But it'd help with rafting for materials at least.
Now, back to what I was saying about time control....
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Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-11-24 03:22
The only thing I need out of rafting for now are common leathers
I find it more relaxing to make braids through the conventional collect and weave method.