Geldor
07-20-2007, 11:13 PM
There is a constant stream of new players coming into the game and eventually all of them ask the same question: “How do I make adena? I’m poor! Everything is so expensive!” Many players come into this game thinking that if they just kill mobs, they will make a ton of adena and be able to afford all their gear as soon as they reach a class change level. What most new players do not realize, or do not fully appreciate, is that Lineage II has been out for 3 years, and a large number of players have been playing for a very long time. They try to learn to play the game by observing others, and once you have been playing for a while, you have enough money to spam soul and spirit shots. But if you are a brand new player, this is a sure way to go broke in a hurry. Add in popping heal potions instead of sitting down, using the gatekeepers instead of running, and sucking down alacrity and haste potions, and not only will you eat up any adena gained from mob drops, but you run the risk of out-leveling your adena flow. Sure you may level quickly, but you won’t be able to afford that C and B grade gear when you get there.
Now, there are a TON of extremely helpful guides that cover every aspect of making money in this game on these forums, but many people are too lazy to look them up. This is my attempt at trying to pull together as much information as I’ve been able to scavenge into one big guide on making money in L2. I will attribute those players who I have plagiarized and link to their guides as well. I will not be going into great detail, since that work is already done.
So, let’s get started, shall we?
First, you need to understand an important aspect of L2 as a new player. Despite what you may believe, L2 is NOT a game to power level. Gaining levels is not nearly as important as gaining money (adena). L2 is an ADENA grind, not a level grind. If you grind for adena, the levels will come naturally. If you grind for XP, you will quickly become poor.
Second, soul and spirit shots are THE #1 adena sink in this game. When you are just starting out, turning on the auto soul shot can quickly make you live in poverty. Use them only when an extra boost of damage is needed or in an emergency. When you target a monster, the name of the mob will show up on your console in a color. These colors correspond to the relative level they are to you. Dark blues are not usually worth killing, they are far below your level, only drop items rarely and the amount of XP and SP you get from them is minimal. The only reason that is usually valid for killing them is to obtain quest pieces. Light Blue mobs will drop items more often; they are still far below your level but drop more than dark blue. The difficulty goes up from there with Green still below your level but no drop penalty. White is within your level range. Yellow is above your level, but depending on the character and whether or not you are solo or in a party, killable. When you get into red you start entering the range of harder to kill mobs and once again you will encounter a drop and XP penalty. (from Jute’s new player guide) Since there is no drop penalty for green mobs, you should stick to those, as you can kill them without the use of soul or spirit shots, and save money!
Next, STOP PORTING EVERYWHERE! Yes, the gatekeeper will get you there fast, but it is a huge adena sink as well. If you are reading this, you already are low on adena, so stop using the GK and start using your feet. As an added benefit, when running to your destinations, you will often run past glitter fields. Our automated friends often leave drops on the ground, and unless you see someone actively grinding in an area, they are yours for the taking! Even if you do see someone working an area, if they are leaving the drops on the ground, you can always ask them if you can have the drops. Sometimes they will say yes!
At level 1, you can pick up the fishing shot quest. Pick that up as soon as you can and keep it active pretty much all the time. Everywhere you will be grinding, there will be mobs that will drop Sweet Fluid which can be converted to fishing shot. When you get a bunch of them, go turn them into A or S grade shot and sell them to the NPC for 100 adena each. At least until level 40, there is no other quest you will do that will consistently make money for you. Depending on your server, you can also try to sell the shots to other players for even more adena.
Next, as for the drops you will get, NEVER sell base mats to the NPC. You will literally be cutting your own income throat by doing this. Horde those base mats and sell them to other players once you reach Giran (or at least Dion). Base mats would include animal bones, animal skins, varnish, coal, charcoal, mithril ore, silver nuggets, cokes, thread, stems, stones of purity, Oriharukon ore, adamantite nuggets, leather, suede, steel, iron ore, and a few others. At lower levels, most key mats (armor/jewelry/weapon parts) can be sold off to the NPC, as you will rarely find anyone wanting to buy them.
At around level 10, you can take the weapon quest in your starter town. Every race has at least one of these quests available, and the quest reward is usually a mid-level NG weapon, about 100 lesser heal potions, a few thousand NG soul/spirit shots for beginners, and some echo crystals. This weapon can easily take you to level 20 and doesn’t cost you a thing. Also, use the weapon and armor upgrade feature of your starter town until level 20. You can upgrade to near-top NG weapon for only the cost difference in your current weapon to the next level up. This is a HUGE money saver!
Learn the Manor system. Use it all the time. Depending on the server and the seed, it can sometimes be a pain to turn in the crops and get your reward, but the benefits are tremendous! The downside of manoring is you give up normal drops (other than adena), but the upside is a constant supply of crop that return a definite amount of material (such as animal bones). You can even take an alt down to the catacombs and necropolis and find a room with our automated friends working an area and seed the mobs they are fighting. They usually don’t mind, but even if they do and possibly PK you for it, the amount of seed you can pick up will far outweigh the 4% exp loss from dying. Just move on to another room and lather/rinse/repeat.
Many people can make good money from Fishing. Either by getting their fishing level up to be able to get items that sell for good adena, or by making common craft items with the parts they fish up that sell for high prices. In addition to the hair accessories that go for large dollars, certain common craft potions also sell very well, such as Greater Health and Greater Swift Attack. Obtaining some of these recipes can sometimes be difficult, as many only come from clan halls. You either have to wait to find someone selling them, or contact someone from a Clan Hall that can get them and negotiate for one (unless of course, you happen to be in the clan that owns the hall). Fishing can sometimes be a tedious thing for certain players, however. On my EE, if I’m soloing, I often fish while I’m waiting to regen mana. Even though mana regen is slower while standing, I feel that I’m not wasting time sitting on my hind quarters.
Once you reach level 19, if you have not already joined a clan, start seeking one out to get into their academy. They can help you do a quest to get Clan Oath armor. This armor set is very good for D grade gear, and it will easily take you to your second class change. The cost is a few hundred crystals, which the clan will either help you get or sometimes certain clans will just give the academy members the crystals. Once you complete your second class change, the clan earns reputation points which they can use to upgrade the clan and buy certain items. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. And again, a big money saver for you!
Finally, a somewhat risky but often effective way to gain adena is to create a new alt. Get that alt up to Rune Township by the cheapest means possible. While the boat takes a lot of time, it is often the cheapest way there (for instance: from starter town, use newbie travel tokens to get to Talking Island (human village), run to TI Harbor, take boat to Gludin harbor, then take boat to Rune Harbor, 7200 adena). Once you are in Rune, run out to some high level areas and pick up the glitter fields. As long as you don’t level your character above level 8, you won’t lose any experience when you die, and you WILL die a lot. Every mob out there can one-shot you. Make sure you don’t pick up a player’s drops who are actively working a field! At least not without asking the player if you can have the drops. There are often players out that are just leveling up alts, and do not need the (by comparison) paltry amounts of adena that is dropped and it takes time away from their grind to stop and pick up the stuff. If you do not see anyone working the area, and you’ve waited a bit to make sure they are not just out of sight, the field is yours for the taking. If a player does see you picking up their drops, they will either (sometimes) ask you to stop, or (more often) PK you on the spot for it. Keep in mind, a player that may PK you for not asking before picking up the stuff, may be completely cool with it if you ask them first. And if by chance you are somewhere that it just rubs someone the wrong way, and begin PKing you on sight, since this is an alt throw-away character, just make a new one with a new name. Make sure you freight all the gained goods to your main before you delete that marked toon though! Getting to areas like Forest of the Dead and Valley of Saints can become profitable very quickly if you learn what to avoid for as long as possible.
Play the market. The first part of this is to learn your server’s market. Make trips to Dion and Giran and spend a few gaming sessions just looking at the prices of every shop there. Learn what is always up for sale, or what is always being looked for. Learn the normal prices for those items. Study the market until you can understand what is a good deal and what is not. And then buy up those items that are selling at a great deal, as many as you can afford, and then sell them at normal, or just below normal price for a profit. Look for things like shots, crystals, enchant scrolls, base mats and the like. For instance, we’ll pretend you have 100,000 adena on you. After learning your market, lets say you know that D grade crystals normally sell for around 700 adena. You stumble across someone selling them for 600 adena. You have enough money to buy 166 crystals. Buy them, and set up a sell shop selling them for 700 adena. You just made 16,000 adena. For slightly less profit, but an effective way to sell out faster, price yours just below the normal rate and yours will be gone faster and you can turn that profit around faster too. If you price them at 695 instead of 700, you still make 15k, and you can go looking for deals again faster.
And of course, there are money making quests that are repeatable. Look through the guides at some of the fan sites and pick the ones in your starter area that render the most money for time spent, and do them until you are sick of spiders/mushrooms/zombies, etc.
A huge thank you to the many players who have written guides and posted responses to player questions that much of this information was stolen from. Please forgive me if I miss anyone, but specifically the following sources were used: RemianenV, PainAmplifier, Biotox, Aspecti, Lisail, KingdomForCoin, SpectresWill, Heartfang, and all the staff and members of Lineage 2 Stratics (http://lineage2.stratics.com/), L2 Vault (http://l2vault.ign.com/), and Wrath of the Just (http://www.arktic.net/wrath/) clan site.
Now for the links to the juicy details:
Some Leveling Suggestions 0-40 (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=spoiler&Number=338442&pag e=0&fpart=1) by BKMiller
The Adena Multiplicity Game (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=753509&an=0&page=0#Post7 53509) by Spudnik
Elf Mystic Guide (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=569253&an=0&page=2#Post5 69253) by Spudnik
Hunting For Profit System (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=520140&an=0&page=3#Post5 20140) by SpoiledPrincess
Manor System Guide for Lords and Farmers (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=153454&an=0&page=0#Post1 53454) by Choch (see the farmer section)
Fishing Guide (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=513602&an=0&page=0#Post5 13602) by PleChan (Keep the fishing shot quest active all the time!)
How I went from 40k at lvl 35 to 30kk at lvl 40 (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=740469&an=0&page=0#Post7 40469 ) by PoulKrebs
The Quest Guides (http://lineage2.stratics.com/content/library/quests/) at Stratics
The quest guides (http://www.arktic.net/wrath/quests.shtml) at Wrath of the Just
fastest way to make money? (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=837389&page=0&fpart=1&vc =1)
How to get some money (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=questions&Number=836424&S earchpage=1&Main=836424&Words=How++get+some+money+ &topic=&Search=true#Post836424)
Re: Grinding - some noob questions (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=questions&Number=807914&S earchpage=1&Main=807866&Words=%26quot%3BShots+in+a ll+forms%26quot%3B+PainAmplifier&topic=&Search=tru e#Post807914)
Re: New Player Advice? - Continued Part 2 (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=questions&Number=782103&S earchpage=1&Main=781680&Words=%26quot%3BIt+only+ge ts+harder%26quot%3B+PainAmplifier&topic=&Search=tr ue#Post782103)
As this is my first guide, I'm sure there are errors. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome!
Now, there are a TON of extremely helpful guides that cover every aspect of making money in this game on these forums, but many people are too lazy to look them up. This is my attempt at trying to pull together as much information as I’ve been able to scavenge into one big guide on making money in L2. I will attribute those players who I have plagiarized and link to their guides as well. I will not be going into great detail, since that work is already done.
So, let’s get started, shall we?
First, you need to understand an important aspect of L2 as a new player. Despite what you may believe, L2 is NOT a game to power level. Gaining levels is not nearly as important as gaining money (adena). L2 is an ADENA grind, not a level grind. If you grind for adena, the levels will come naturally. If you grind for XP, you will quickly become poor.
Second, soul and spirit shots are THE #1 adena sink in this game. When you are just starting out, turning on the auto soul shot can quickly make you live in poverty. Use them only when an extra boost of damage is needed or in an emergency. When you target a monster, the name of the mob will show up on your console in a color. These colors correspond to the relative level they are to you. Dark blues are not usually worth killing, they are far below your level, only drop items rarely and the amount of XP and SP you get from them is minimal. The only reason that is usually valid for killing them is to obtain quest pieces. Light Blue mobs will drop items more often; they are still far below your level but drop more than dark blue. The difficulty goes up from there with Green still below your level but no drop penalty. White is within your level range. Yellow is above your level, but depending on the character and whether or not you are solo or in a party, killable. When you get into red you start entering the range of harder to kill mobs and once again you will encounter a drop and XP penalty. (from Jute’s new player guide) Since there is no drop penalty for green mobs, you should stick to those, as you can kill them without the use of soul or spirit shots, and save money!
Next, STOP PORTING EVERYWHERE! Yes, the gatekeeper will get you there fast, but it is a huge adena sink as well. If you are reading this, you already are low on adena, so stop using the GK and start using your feet. As an added benefit, when running to your destinations, you will often run past glitter fields. Our automated friends often leave drops on the ground, and unless you see someone actively grinding in an area, they are yours for the taking! Even if you do see someone working an area, if they are leaving the drops on the ground, you can always ask them if you can have the drops. Sometimes they will say yes!
At level 1, you can pick up the fishing shot quest. Pick that up as soon as you can and keep it active pretty much all the time. Everywhere you will be grinding, there will be mobs that will drop Sweet Fluid which can be converted to fishing shot. When you get a bunch of them, go turn them into A or S grade shot and sell them to the NPC for 100 adena each. At least until level 40, there is no other quest you will do that will consistently make money for you. Depending on your server, you can also try to sell the shots to other players for even more adena.
Next, as for the drops you will get, NEVER sell base mats to the NPC. You will literally be cutting your own income throat by doing this. Horde those base mats and sell them to other players once you reach Giran (or at least Dion). Base mats would include animal bones, animal skins, varnish, coal, charcoal, mithril ore, silver nuggets, cokes, thread, stems, stones of purity, Oriharukon ore, adamantite nuggets, leather, suede, steel, iron ore, and a few others. At lower levels, most key mats (armor/jewelry/weapon parts) can be sold off to the NPC, as you will rarely find anyone wanting to buy them.
At around level 10, you can take the weapon quest in your starter town. Every race has at least one of these quests available, and the quest reward is usually a mid-level NG weapon, about 100 lesser heal potions, a few thousand NG soul/spirit shots for beginners, and some echo crystals. This weapon can easily take you to level 20 and doesn’t cost you a thing. Also, use the weapon and armor upgrade feature of your starter town until level 20. You can upgrade to near-top NG weapon for only the cost difference in your current weapon to the next level up. This is a HUGE money saver!
Learn the Manor system. Use it all the time. Depending on the server and the seed, it can sometimes be a pain to turn in the crops and get your reward, but the benefits are tremendous! The downside of manoring is you give up normal drops (other than adena), but the upside is a constant supply of crop that return a definite amount of material (such as animal bones). You can even take an alt down to the catacombs and necropolis and find a room with our automated friends working an area and seed the mobs they are fighting. They usually don’t mind, but even if they do and possibly PK you for it, the amount of seed you can pick up will far outweigh the 4% exp loss from dying. Just move on to another room and lather/rinse/repeat.
Many people can make good money from Fishing. Either by getting their fishing level up to be able to get items that sell for good adena, or by making common craft items with the parts they fish up that sell for high prices. In addition to the hair accessories that go for large dollars, certain common craft potions also sell very well, such as Greater Health and Greater Swift Attack. Obtaining some of these recipes can sometimes be difficult, as many only come from clan halls. You either have to wait to find someone selling them, or contact someone from a Clan Hall that can get them and negotiate for one (unless of course, you happen to be in the clan that owns the hall). Fishing can sometimes be a tedious thing for certain players, however. On my EE, if I’m soloing, I often fish while I’m waiting to regen mana. Even though mana regen is slower while standing, I feel that I’m not wasting time sitting on my hind quarters.
Once you reach level 19, if you have not already joined a clan, start seeking one out to get into their academy. They can help you do a quest to get Clan Oath armor. This armor set is very good for D grade gear, and it will easily take you to your second class change. The cost is a few hundred crystals, which the clan will either help you get or sometimes certain clans will just give the academy members the crystals. Once you complete your second class change, the clan earns reputation points which they can use to upgrade the clan and buy certain items. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. And again, a big money saver for you!
Finally, a somewhat risky but often effective way to gain adena is to create a new alt. Get that alt up to Rune Township by the cheapest means possible. While the boat takes a lot of time, it is often the cheapest way there (for instance: from starter town, use newbie travel tokens to get to Talking Island (human village), run to TI Harbor, take boat to Gludin harbor, then take boat to Rune Harbor, 7200 adena). Once you are in Rune, run out to some high level areas and pick up the glitter fields. As long as you don’t level your character above level 8, you won’t lose any experience when you die, and you WILL die a lot. Every mob out there can one-shot you. Make sure you don’t pick up a player’s drops who are actively working a field! At least not without asking the player if you can have the drops. There are often players out that are just leveling up alts, and do not need the (by comparison) paltry amounts of adena that is dropped and it takes time away from their grind to stop and pick up the stuff. If you do not see anyone working the area, and you’ve waited a bit to make sure they are not just out of sight, the field is yours for the taking. If a player does see you picking up their drops, they will either (sometimes) ask you to stop, or (more often) PK you on the spot for it. Keep in mind, a player that may PK you for not asking before picking up the stuff, may be completely cool with it if you ask them first. And if by chance you are somewhere that it just rubs someone the wrong way, and begin PKing you on sight, since this is an alt throw-away character, just make a new one with a new name. Make sure you freight all the gained goods to your main before you delete that marked toon though! Getting to areas like Forest of the Dead and Valley of Saints can become profitable very quickly if you learn what to avoid for as long as possible.
Play the market. The first part of this is to learn your server’s market. Make trips to Dion and Giran and spend a few gaming sessions just looking at the prices of every shop there. Learn what is always up for sale, or what is always being looked for. Learn the normal prices for those items. Study the market until you can understand what is a good deal and what is not. And then buy up those items that are selling at a great deal, as many as you can afford, and then sell them at normal, or just below normal price for a profit. Look for things like shots, crystals, enchant scrolls, base mats and the like. For instance, we’ll pretend you have 100,000 adena on you. After learning your market, lets say you know that D grade crystals normally sell for around 700 adena. You stumble across someone selling them for 600 adena. You have enough money to buy 166 crystals. Buy them, and set up a sell shop selling them for 700 adena. You just made 16,000 adena. For slightly less profit, but an effective way to sell out faster, price yours just below the normal rate and yours will be gone faster and you can turn that profit around faster too. If you price them at 695 instead of 700, you still make 15k, and you can go looking for deals again faster.
And of course, there are money making quests that are repeatable. Look through the guides at some of the fan sites and pick the ones in your starter area that render the most money for time spent, and do them until you are sick of spiders/mushrooms/zombies, etc.
A huge thank you to the many players who have written guides and posted responses to player questions that much of this information was stolen from. Please forgive me if I miss anyone, but specifically the following sources were used: RemianenV, PainAmplifier, Biotox, Aspecti, Lisail, KingdomForCoin, SpectresWill, Heartfang, and all the staff and members of Lineage 2 Stratics (http://lineage2.stratics.com/), L2 Vault (http://l2vault.ign.com/), and Wrath of the Just (http://www.arktic.net/wrath/) clan site.
Now for the links to the juicy details:
Some Leveling Suggestions 0-40 (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=spoiler&Number=338442&pag e=0&fpart=1) by BKMiller
The Adena Multiplicity Game (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=753509&an=0&page=0#Post7 53509) by Spudnik
Elf Mystic Guide (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=569253&an=0&page=2#Post5 69253) by Spudnik
Hunting For Profit System (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=520140&an=0&page=3#Post5 20140) by SpoiledPrincess
Manor System Guide for Lords and Farmers (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=153454&an=0&page=0#Post1 53454) by Choch (see the farmer section)
Fishing Guide (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=513602&an=0&page=0#Post5 13602) by PleChan (Keep the fishing shot quest active all the time!)
How I went from 40k at lvl 35 to 30kk at lvl 40 (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=740469&an=0&page=0#Post7 40469 ) by PoulKrebs
The Quest Guides (http://lineage2.stratics.com/content/library/quests/) at Stratics
The quest guides (http://www.arktic.net/wrath/quests.shtml) at Wrath of the Just
fastest way to make money? (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=837389&page=0&fpart=1&vc =1)
How to get some money (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=questions&Number=836424&S earchpage=1&Main=836424&Words=How++get+some+money+ &topic=&Search=true#Post836424)
Re: Grinding - some noob questions (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=questions&Number=807914&S earchpage=1&Main=807866&Words=%26quot%3BShots+in+a ll+forms%26quot%3B+PainAmplifier&topic=&Search=tru e#Post807914)
Re: New Player Advice? - Continued Part 2 (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=questions&Number=782103&S earchpage=1&Main=781680&Words=%26quot%3BIt+only+ge ts+harder%26quot%3B+PainAmplifier&topic=&Search=tr ue#Post782103)
As this is my first guide, I'm sure there are errors. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome!