New Player's Finance: How to get enough cash to play the game

Hello dear reader. If you are a new player, this entire guide is for you. If you are not a new player, but a veteran or returning player who is saying "WTF, why am I not getting any gold!?!" then I'll just say this really quickly.

Any mission that is Greyed out, too low for you, will not earn you ANY gold. Nor the first 20 levels.

Nexon has recently patched the game to reinstate the gold rewards for most of the lower level quest rewards. So now, it is MUCH easier to survive the beginning levels without using my guide! YAY!

Nexon Korea has made it so that the first several dozen levels of mission maps in the game do not reward ANY gold. Or from the regular low level drops, as they now sell to NPCs for zero gold. And because the change was introduced by the Korean, the main branch, of the Nexon company, it is not likely that the North American or European community's voices will be heard any time in the near future to get this rediculous and player abusing update reversed any time soon.

It is an update that only harms the actual players of the game. Botters gonna bot, after all, and now they're just gonna do it in a different location. It's an update to the game that only, really, hurts the people who are actually playing the game as it is meant to be.

In other words, it is completely impossible to make money from playing the game normally for several dozen levels. And if you don't keep a nest egg of gold, you actually can go broke from Farming Materials on missions that are too easy for you because of the repair fees of higher level gear. If you want cash, you will either need to get it from your old characters, or through selling at the marketplace.

Yes, I know that every single mission map's description claims there is a monetary reward for finishing it, but that's a bug. It's a legacy effect left over from when those missions actually gave you gold as a reward for completing the map. Nexon has stated they will "fix" it in a future update.

But until then, there is no way to know what missions give you gold and which ones don't until after you have completed the map.

This is insane, I know. It also negates the purpose of doing the optional side quests in each mission map to earn bonus gold at the end. It's Nexon shooting itself in the foot. Yes, I know.

But until Nexon Korea figures that out for themselves, we have to put up with it and adapt. And that is what this guide is all about.

As a beginning player, you don't yet know what can and cannot be purchased in this game. here's the break down of what you are going to need to buy.

Health Potions.
Revival Feathers.
Spears.
Grappling Hooks.
Bombs.
Mining Bombs.
Flash-Bangs.
Temporary Repair Kits.
Campfires.
Armor.
Weaponry.
Skills.
Enhancements.

And most importantly...

You will not need a lot of cash at the start, but as you get into the game you are going to need to find a way to remain self-sufficient in terms of being able to afford to repair your equipment after every map run. If your weapon breaks in the middle of a boss fight, you're brown bread. If your armor is too damaged to survive any more map runs and you can't afford to repair it, it's pretty much game over.

This is bad news, huh? Well, don't worry, uncle Baka is here to tell you new players how to get on the right side and become self-sufficient, quickly, easily, and with little stress.

When you start up the game, don't worry about anything. Just have fun, kill Fomor, and tear through the game's environment.

But keep an eye out.

When you smash pottery, crates, pillars, etc. little objects are going to go flying out of them. The pink ones are Erg Crystals, which are life refills. They recover lost HP, but that's it. But less rarely, there will be little bright shiny disks that have a gleam to them that go flying out and come rolling to a stop.

That is gold. Pick it up, and you'll get some gold automatically added to your inventory. It's important to get some of this accumulated as early as possible. You'll find out why shortly, but just make sure you gather up as much as you can find through normal gameplay. You don't have to go smashing every object in sight, but just go pick up the gold drops when they present themselves.

You will soon find yourself with an accumlation of gold in your inventory. It won't be much, but it's a start. Once you have about 70 ~ 120 gold, you're ready for the next step.

As a new player, if you can't make any money from the missions or from the random drops that come from playing those missions, your only option is to get it from other players.

No, you're not going to be begging for money, stop that. Where's your self-respect.

Huh? NO! You're not going to be turning tricks either! What's wrong with you!?

You are going to sell the more sought after drops that are very commonly found in the game to other people through the Marketplace. You are going to become a junior merchant.

In the main city hub, between the Blacksmith and the exit to the port where you go on missions, there is a huge bilboard. Approach it and you will be able to enter the marketplace. It's an Auction house, minus the bidding wars. Players place items or equipment they have found or made onto the market at a price they themselves determine, and hope that some other player will come along and buy it for the listed price. This is your window to self-sufficiency in the early levels, and a good source of extra funds later on.

Now, for a low level player like you, the list of goods you can get a good price on is small. In fact, there are only four items on it.

• Iron Ore
  
• Spider Web
  
• Life Erg Crystals
  
• Magic Powder

You can find Iron Ore as a drop from the Digger worms. Spider Webs drop from Spiders (Press R to Kick!). You can also get good money from White, Black, and Red Gnoll leather, but those move much slower on the Marketplace. Magic Powder and Erg Crystals are dropped from destroyed terrain.

These are your guaranteed money makers in the marketplace, and they are where you will start. Why are they moneymakers? Because people with lots of money will always need them for their crafting, and there is always someone crafting something in this game.

Once you have one or more of the items on the list, and some pocket change from gold drops inside the mission maps, you are going to want do a Search on the item you are planning to sell. You can do that with the search text bar on the top of the Marketplace window. If you need more detailed instructions than that, please follow these directions.

• Roll your chair back until you are about two feet away from your keyboard.
  
• Arch your back until you can see the ceiling of the room you are in.
  
• Whip your head forward, putting all your strength into the movement.
  
• Impact your face firmly and solidly into your keyboard.
  
• Repeat until you have knocked common sense into that bowl of pudding you call a brain.

Now that you have found the listing of all items that contain the keyword(s) you used in your Marketplace search, look through until you find the listings for the same item you will be selling. Since you are in desperate need of cash, you need to look at these prices carefully.

This is a good rule for any selling, but especially for a quick turnaround for beginning players. You need to find the current stable price for any goods, and then list your 1 item for about 5 ~ 10% less than that current price. The goal here is to make sure that your item is the first one to appear on the list the next time someone does a search for that item, and to be just low enough that they won't hesitate to purchase YOUR listed item before someone else grabs it at discount.

The best item for this tactic would be Spider Web, because it will be at a price where you will make enough of a return to be able to list more hot ticket items in your inventory.

The other materials in the list consistently sell for higher amounts for their rarer drop rate and more universal application of use, Iron Ore especially, since it can be refined to higher quality levels for crafting. Spider Web is a good solid item for resale though, as it has a wide window of use, many Tailoring recipes end up needing it as a base item for it's overall chain of ingredients, and has many substrata of Web drops to make it less common a drop at higher levels, increasing the retail price a bit.


Don't feel bad if you don't find one, just list something else that you know will sell. But nothing TOO expensive, because...


Hence, why I had you grab coins and build up your gold reselves a bit. You will need a nice little bit of cash to list that 1 Spider Web, for 1 day.

(Listing for longer than that is ALWAYS asking for trouble, as someone will, 100% likely, come along and undercut you, resulting in a loss for the price in purchasing a longer listing time frame.)

Tool around with the window to place a listing until you get it. After listing, it shouldn't even be 10 minutes until your Spider Web is purchased, but on low traffic times of day, it may take an hour. After the listing is bought, the gold will be sent to your mailbox for you to collect.

WARNING: There is currently a bug in the game. Hovering over an ITEM in your mailbox's letters will crash the game. Any actual ITEMS you recieve through the in game mail, collect them by clicking the Gift icon next to unopened letters, or the Accept button in opened letters. NEVER have your mouse go over an actual item in your opened letters. If the letter contains JUST GOLD, you are fine though. But you have been warned.

After collecting your gold from the spider web, you now have enough gold to list Iron Ores at their regular prices, or THE big ticket item. Magic Powder, which goes for 20,000 gold each.

Why is it so expensive? Because players with way to much spare cash like to enchant their gear, and to do that they need Magic Powder. As a rule, not enough of it will drop for those who actually want it, but players who don't need it will always get some. So, if Enchanting isn't in your list of things to do, don't heisitate to sell it when you need to, but beware, overselling will cause a sharp decline in the price, flooding the market. Remember, have moderation in your selling, not just in your buying.

Now that you've listed a few items and gotten some spending cash from undercutting the competition, you have enough wiggle room to spend money after going through the Trainee HP potions and other Trainee gear.

You now have enough cash to get HP potions. Get more secondary weapons. Buy the non-exquisite armors and weapons you'll find on the Marketplace to supplement the drops you will get in your missions from bosses. And most importantly, keep your equipment in a repaired state. Because the less durability your equipment has, the easier it will break in combat, and broken armor can no longer protect you.

But if you go splurging, you will quickly run out of funds. So how do you keep ahead of the bills? Well, that's pretty simple.

Learn to not get hit while fighting. Taking damage will force you to drink HP Potions, meaning you will have to buy new ones. Lame. Start learning your defensive techniques. Block, Dodge, and move out of harm's way. Learn to use shorter attack chains to keep from being stuck in an attack animation when that big swing from a Boss comes your way, leaving you sprawled upon the ground and in need of a swig of healing juice.

Trust me. Not getting hit will serve you well in the long run.

Don't bring secondary weapons. Spears are cool. Bombs explode. And Grappling a boss is fun as all &$#@, but you can get the job done without going through disposables to deal damage. Save those for Raid Bosses, or bosses with breakables you want.

(A breakable is a part of their body that, if hit enough, will fly off and can be collected. They require skill to get without killing the boss before they break off.)

And even then, you can still use objects in the level or Smash attacks to hit that part of the boss. Chain Vellas even have a skill, just for that.

Bring Mine Bombs.

Yes, I know what rule two is. You're not suppose to talk about- I mean, you're not suppose to bring secondary weapons. But Mining bombs only mine ores. Like Iron Ore, which sells for 4,000 gold plus each on the Marketplace.



This picture, originally made by TA on the Mabinogi Nation forums is very good at showing you what an Ore Deposit looks like. These will start showing up in the mission where you fight the Red Chieftain of the Gnolls, and in all missions afterwards. There will be one in the boss fight room with the Red Gnoll Cheiftain with 100% certainty, so find it and bomb it with your Trainee Mining Bombs. After that, you will start seeing Ore Deposits appearing in reliable, predictable locations in the many missions around the game, some being more easily mined than others. So bring Mining Bombs on your missions in order to take advantage of them.

And after getting ores, post them on the Marketplace for Profit. Use the money you get from Ores to buy more Mining Bombs. Rinse and repeat for a long term high profit margin that will keep you well funded.

By doing this conscientiously, in addition to Magic Powder sales, you'll have an abundance of Gold you can use to buy Exquisite Sets from the Market to keep yourself well equipped for the level trend. Trust me, it's worth it.

Now that you are on a high from reading how to make your fortune off the backs of your fellow gamers, I'm going to tell you what not to do in order to hold onto your Gold.

With the exception of Equipment, any item you buy on the Market will be BOUND TO YOU. It cannot be resold, so any thoughts of buying all the cheap items on the market and then reselling them at profit will bite you in the backside. Those bound items are also counted as being a seperate entity to your non-bound items of the same kind, so they will take up their very own slot in your inventory.

You can easily bone yourself by doing this.

Sure. Crafting that Crimson Rage set yourself takes fewer resources to do so than crafting it through Feargus, and that's universal for ALL craftable sets.

BUT.

Crafting is THE most expensive thing you can do in this game aside from trying to enhance your weapon to +15. It is a long, arduous, and expensive means of killing time. You will never have enough drops to craft everything yourself, so you WILL be going to the Marketplace for more of everything. And often, someone else will have already crafted what you want to make in the first place, meaning you can just buy it second or third hand at less than it costs to produce it yourself.

Some people can make lots and lots of Gold from crafting. But not you, unless you give up all your free time to grind materials and have an eye for THE least represented items in the market at any given time.

In the long term, Crafting will ALWAYS cost you more than you get back.

Unless you want to do the Equipment Story Quests, be satisfied with the generic drops you can get for a pittance on the Marketplace. The difference between Dropped Equipment, and Exquisite (crafted) Equipment is slight. it's there, but it's slighter than it could be. The Exquisite Sets are throw backs from the days before Equipment dropped from killing bosses, meaning the ONLY way to get equipment was by crafting it, or buying it from someone who crafted it. As a result of Equipment Drops, the bottom has fallen out of the Crafting Business, and Exquisite armors are cheaper, so you can still find great deals on them in most cases. The Exquisite versions are also harder to find than they use to be, however, so the rule does not always hold true. as some armor sets just plain don't drop from from bosses.

In short, be frugal about your equipment, and be familiar enough with the Marketplace that you can spot those deals when they arise.

Eventually, you will start getting rewards for playing the missions, and then you'll get yourself an influx of currency. When that happens, you can either keep selling drops and ores in the marketplace, or just ignore financial matters completely.

Me personally, I'd prefer you sell your monster drops. Some people need those for crafting, and they can be a pretty good source for extra income. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

But either way, you are now past the Dead Gold Zone and on your way to financial solvency, with no extra effort!

Cheers!

So, now you know why you have no money, and you also know what you can do about it. It's simple, easy to execute, and is a rule that can last you the entirety of your time in Vindictus.

If you are having trouble playing the game through Steam, you can always try the version of the game that goes through the Vindictus Home page, and vice-versa. And if you enjoy the game, don't hesitate to drop a few dollars in personalizing your characters, or on pets / bless stones / and other things as a sign of how much you appreciate Nexon's work in bringing this game to us. But in all things, remember, spend moderately, or you'll find your real life bank account has run out of cash.

Thank you for reading, and if you have your own suggestions on saving money and making those early levels easier, go ahead and post here and I will find a way to incorporate the helpful ones that are in line with this guide.

And one last note:
If you are stuck in the game, ask higher level players for help. We enjoy helping the Newbies, as we all know the pain of having to struggle through the ranks.

Good Hunting, Mercs. By the Grace of Morrighan

As you keep playing and leveling up, you're going to find that prices on equipment, accessories, and weapons will start to rise. This is because there are fewer free drops and he difference between dropped gear and manufactured gear become more telling. Crafting gets profitable again for those veteran players who stuck with it, and you're the one that's going to make those crafters a profit. There really is no way around this, you're going to be buying something from someone.

Your level 60 items are a bit of a hard sell on the budget. Either it will be the Character Unique sets made from Larken and Titan goods/drops, or the ones from the other various bosses in the level 60 range. The advice I would give would be to choose a set of armor, and then farm the boss that drops the required items on Normal difficulty, because on Hard mode you get crap weapon drops thrown in way too often, which slows down your progress while making the fights themselves more difficult. Macha also contributes just about nothing to your farming, either.

You can do a google search for level 50-60 armor sets yourself to find the stats and looks you prefer, and preview in game listed Marketplace items by presing Ctrl while mousing over them. Make your selection by doing that, I have no advice on feeding your fashion sense. This is a finance guide, not an armor guide, and I'm offering advice, not hand holding. Yeah, well right back at ya.

Anyway.

If it's a Character Unique set of armor, then I suggest depending on the goodwill of the friends in your guild you've made after all this time. Get second hand Greaves, Chest, and Helm, which drop from Titan from people who don't/can't use them, and then hire someone to make you the Gloves and Boots, if you can't manufacture the items yourself. For weapons, you're SOL in terms of cutting corners and either have to make them yourself or buy from the Market. It's gonna take Gold either way, so make sure you keep selling on the Market and saving your gold.

If you are one of those people (like me) who can find the loopholes in the Marketplace and manufacture and sell at a profit, you'll be able to be in good shape for the future. But that takes a LOT of time bargain hunting and crafting. I routinely set up a crafting queue for basic parts and walk away to eat/work/shower/read books/etc.

Or, you can find ingredients that are rare on the marketplace, yet easy to get if you don't mind the tedium. By level 40-50 you will have found some items that sell at a high profit, and you can go back to farm the heck out of them. You'll take a loss on repair fees, and even Health Potions if you still haven't learned your defensive skills yet, but you'll get a long term profit that will get you on your way to affording the purchase of your gear, as long as you stagger your selling so that you don;t single handedly kill the item's market value. And like I said before, do this on Normal, as weapon drops sell for crap and you won't ever use them yourself.

There are many methods of getting Gold in the game, and all of them appeal to different people. Just work at it, because a goal will give you purpose and a purpose makes playing the game fun. And you won't have to do MMO BS Rep Grinding to achieve it.

Eventually, with work and patience, all the pieces will start falling in place, and you'll have the armor which will define you for a good long time to come. You won't be replacing it until you are an Elder Player who is bloated with millions of Gold from End Game missions and can throw your weight around like Fat Albert on a trampoline. When that time comes, you may just end up with a collection of multiple armor sets that you swap in and out of based on whimsy alone, and tossing obsolite armor sets to the up and coming players that have caught your eye.

And you'll have earned the right to do so. So don't you dare look down on players that have reached that far, folks. :)