Curse

led-zep · Mar 21, 2006, 11:22 PM // 23:22

i do tombs runs a lot and never buy keys, they are a total waste of gold especially for those of us who hate selling to players and cant be bothered wasting time spamming wts for hours

Mustache Mayhem · Mar 21, 2006, 11:25 PM // 23:25

I like phantom and obsidian chests.. least you have a chance to get something worth a few hundred thousand- outside of those 2 =\ not much

Sirkaze · Mar 22, 2006, 12:22 AM // 00:22

I was lucky i got a 120k item from a chest, but havent sold it yet and a tip never open the first chest you see its mostly purple lo

Riceboi · Mar 22, 2006, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Chests are a gamble of course, however if you get lucky it's so worth it. I was one of the lucky ones and probably spent around 20k on darkstone keys, and made a total profit of over a million gold.

Sirkaze · Mar 22, 2006, 12:27 AM // 00:27

I never buy Darkstone key's, i buy Minor Key's for SF and Shiverpeek key's

thunderpower · Mar 22, 2006, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr1zz one

That zealous axe upgrade can be sold for almost what you spent.
Chests are a gold sink and takes quite a bit of an investment to reap rewards.
If we dont have favor, Ill give this run a quick try.

Dam, i think you're the one who tried to sell me a zelous axe haft for 5k. I think the price is somewhere 1k. GOOD math

dr1zz one · Mar 22, 2006, 12:39 AM // 00:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by thunderpower

Dam, i think you're the one who tried to sell me a zelous axe haft for 5k. I think the price is somewhere 1k. GOOD math

Garaunteed not me, never sold an upgrade to this day. If anything, I sold 6 chaos axes. and thats it.
Ive bought a couple zealous mods for a sword and axe, and got raped doing so. Dont point fingers, you'll get burned.

BAD accusation.

XeNoGeArZ · Mar 22, 2006, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Hey I'm glad most of you got a kick out of this thread. I was up very early in the morning and was bored and decided to do this on a whim. Korea had favor.

There were few constructive posts, and then there was a lot of posts I knew people would try to take the opportunity to voice what they believed and lash out. Let's get to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZennZero

If you are going to chests to sell the drops to merchants you will always lose money. Farming chests only makes sense if you are trying to sell drops to players (for much larger sums) or you are trying to unlock upgrades for PvP.

Someone did a rough cost/benefit analysis a while ago and found, even when trying to sell to the player market, it wasn't really worth it (I would give you a link, but searching here has become all but impossible). The likelihood of getting a really valuable drop is just too low.

I, like many others, only bother with chests when we get keys as drops.

Very good point. Even if I had found that one rare item, the inherent value wouldn't be astronomically high if I sold it to the merchant. Not like there is a "Rare Item Trader" around. This was just a quick experiment to compare some values some would not think to compare, to get a different perspective. For many reasons which I stated in another thread, selling to players these weapons I found in the chests isn't such a good idea. If some would like me to elaborate, I will. To summarize, it would be hard to find a buyer, and you would be wasting your time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ophidian409

you need a group of people to make the run profitable, so that you only use the keys when the chest opened by others is gold. And consider there could be drops of mursaat hammer/horn bow/magmas shield, I feel 40% gold is very profitable.

[Others have pointed this out later on in the thread, but I quoted yours because it was the first and short.]

This is another good way to go about chests, probably THE only good way to go about them. I did this solo, because it was early and I did not want to have to deal with fighting mobs of monsters with a team to get to certain chests. I know chest parties probably rez each other in case of danger, or have some tactic, but for this quickie, I just wanted some fast solo results. But yes, chest farming is best done with full party. G1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savio

If you want to make any sort of conclusive test, you need more data. 10 keys isn't anywhere near proving anything.

I knew someone would reply with that, and that is why I added that first sentence disclaimer, and mentioned it again later on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savio

Also keep in mind that you make much more by selling to other players, and limiting yourself to the merchant is a bit unrealistic if you're trying to make money. Not that anything you've had so far is worth selling to other people, but you're not about to sell that req. 8 15>50 to the merchant now, are you?

To be honest, I have only recently started playing the Monk profession, and still don't fully grasp the importance of caster mods, and since most chest drops consist of caster items, I don't know their worth. My downfall, I know.
And yes, obviously selling the items back to the merchant is the worst-case scenario, but in many cases that is what a lot of people end up doing for the reason that some items are worthless drops/mods. For me, I can't be bothered to sit and sell. I know at least the maximum limit of many mods so I know to salvage something, but having that stastical data there does not imply that I sell solely to the merchant to make a profit. That would be ridiculous. I wanted to make match up with the price of the key with the value of the item from the merchant. Who knows, maybe they'll change the price of the key to be less in the future, although that is doubtful. If a certain type of chest has a great chance to drop something "godly", then it will probably have a higher price tag, which is probably why the price of Obsidian Keys are so high.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hurricane

uhh...How much for that earth staff? >.>

I am thinking of selling all of these items for 600g each, but I am afraid too many people would contact me and I will have to deny all those that didn't PM fast enough. I don't plan to profit on these, but if you would like to tip me for what you think it's worth, I would appreciate it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alcazanar

use your brain next time cus a few there looked like
some fine pearls to me...

Alcazanar, do I know you? Certainly I don't think you know me well enough to make such a flaming comment. I will make it a note to put you on my "people to ignore" list when browsing these forums. I had wish the moderators had done something about you; people with your attitude are a cancer to forums like these. Look up the word "tact" in the dictionary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiffy

hmm i actually found this thread helpful some 1 should do a threat like this on fow chest runs

If not conclusive, I'm glad you found it "fun".

I had a sort of fun doing it, although compiling all the screenshots(photo editing), and typing it all up was pretty bland. I am also eagered to see more drop results.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alana

Well, while I appreciate the time it took you to do this experiment, I think the fact remains that random is random.

I never set out to disprove otherwise. What I believe is that in order to capitalize from these chests, you will need to go "all-in", or none at all. I am not about to go "all-in", and I believe casual players should not either. I like to think of these chests are for those players too rich with gold to know what to do with; I'd say the 10% of the GW population that is overflowing with gold. But, that is just my opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by danakin

Yeah. Don't complain, because the value of some of those mods will easily break 6k. You got a net gain of at least 2k, let alone anything else that dropped.

Good to know, I suppose. I eagerly await GW "Auction houses".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Methal Seran

Although some of those mods might look good on paper, its near impossible to sell anything to players thats not perfect, or just under
Unless you are willing to waste countless hours in town

I agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orbberius

Keys = goldsink. Pretty simple.

I agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loralai

Well, now I have to go do it too. Will let you know.

Go for it. Those Drakes are fast as heck! And there were times I thought I would be Shadowstriked to death.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny dai

you should be able to make up 6k on the mods, and then turn a profit on remaining at merchant if nowhere else but... the main concern i've found is time invested to sell the tiems which noone likes to do and it takes a while.

I like reading studies like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

I have a feeling that chest are going to be completely nerfed or keys removed.

Bots are becoming more sophisticated. Some believe that they are able to make a team of bots now for farming. If they can cordinate a running team they will be able to alternate keys till they hit a gold chest. Then you can get a gold for each character per chest.

This could potentially be very bad.

I am also very interested in the future state of these keys. I would really like to get the word out that they are "gold-sinks" really, unless you are devoted to it 100%.

SUMMARY :

If you want to gamble on chests, you need 'risk-it-all' mentality to come out in the end, and even then you don't know how much you will need to spend to hit it. You could go bankrupt. -o.0- It makes sense; the more times you run into GOLD chests, the higher your chance at hitting the probability.
Chest farming in groups is more productive than alone.
Be prepared to spend some time to sell your items to other players to lessen the net loss. Or else you will take a big hit.
More CLASS PROFESSIONS makes it much harder to get the item you want.
The price of the key is related to the maximum possible drop value. Higher investment, higher loss/reward.

I am sort of tempted to spend 60plat on 100 keys and do a complete solo trial, or even a trial with a group, but I think I've had my fill with keys, and I'm not sure there is anything godly from the Darkstone chests that I really want. I'm sticking with the safer method, and that is farming (but then again I was bored with that in the first place which is why I did this,... FPE couldn't come sooner).

-[XGZ]

Bob of Maple Ave · Mar 22, 2006, 03:41 AM // 03:41

did a couple of the Fire Island missions today--8 keys, 4 gold + 4 purples

BuddyLeeX · Mar 22, 2006, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alcazanar

use your brain next time cus a few there looked like
some fine pearls to me...

(btw greenies are worth about 35g to merchant
and you wouldnt want to sell that to them?)

are you blind? Didnt you see what he got, nothing but merchant food that crap wont sell for anything.

Smurf_Default · Mar 22, 2006, 04:13 AM // 04:13

oo how much for that Zelous Hand Axe?

ign = Smurf Default

thanks ^^

CyberNigma · Mar 22, 2006, 04:15 AM // 04:15

Yeah, it has to do with your character's seed so go with someone who has a better seed and let him/her open them first. Of course this only means you can choose the gold chests. I've done over 100 runs, last run was with 33 keys, 25 were purple and out of the golds over half of them were req 13 and nothing worthwhile selling to another person. I've known that char to have a bad seed though (my guildies and runningmates always tease me about it even and tell me to delete him or take another character).

Try keys on another character. Out of 4 of them you should have 2 or 3 with a decent seed, maybe even one with a good seed. Believe me that when you run with a character that has a good seed (or have one) you will definitely notice (most of the time as even with seeds there is still the bad times that come up with their algorithm).

Divinus Stella · Mar 22, 2006, 04:28 AM // 04:28

I think they are more fun than anything else, i always take a couple when going on a UW or FoW run with a group, bit of entertainment really, rarely get good things, but i probably break even.

Manic Smile · Mar 22, 2006, 08:08 AM // 08:08

Nothing there is really worth the time to sell to players...I tend to agree with the OP. I mean if the mods were perfect but the time it takes to sell a 10/8 sundering or a +4 energy mod is annoying <-> inhibiting depending on your luck.

Battle Torn · Mar 22, 2006, 08:33 AM // 08:33

FoW chest runs have been fruitful for me...and its been fun!

I found a perfect fellblade and chaos axe but spent 90k on keys so i made about 400k as both are worth around 250k each

it took 60 keys (30-40 trips) before I found anything, but as I said it was fun you just have to be patient.

Avarre · Mar 22, 2006, 08:38 AM // 08:38

I usually get quite decent stuff out of Darkstone... a few are:

Super Fire
Rare Magmas (req10)
3/-1 +15% ench wingblade
+5>50 +18% blood recharge cesta

Are a few... i usually make far more than I spend from Darkstones (one of the better keys imho). Luck ftw!

QuuTip · Mar 22, 2006, 11:55 AM // 11:55

This is offtopic but the table breaking images next to each other make this thread a pain to read.

Can you maybe add a line break please?

-Loki- · Mar 22, 2006, 12:38 PM // 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bahumhat

I think the Chests inside the Tombs(not HA) always drop rare weapons. I brought a key for each lvl, each chest droped gold.

Plenty of purples come out of tombs chests, and rarely decent weapons.

Yichi · Mar 22, 2006, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Had you actualyl took the time and had you actualyl gotten some of those upgrades, you could have very well made your money back.

Zealous axe haft = 1-2k (normally althought price seems to be going up)
Staff wrapping armor +5 - 5k easy
Energy +4 insightful head - around 5k
Health +25 staff wrapping - i could see between 2-7k depending on your responses to this as advertised.

in all u might have made a profit. that is providing that you got those upgrades and found buyers for them. but trading = sux

but from the looks of it. you got hosed tommy! (MT DEW commercial reference ftw)

LoneWolfWinter · Mar 22, 2006, 07:24 PM // 19:24

It seems to me that the real trick in being profitable with key runs is not to BUY the keys, but to FARM the keys.

If you can afford it (and have nothing better to do

) alternate between farming with a 55 monk and a 55 necro until you have a bunch of keys, and then go off on a big chest farming run with a few other people (to avoid those pesky purple chests). Yes, its going to take a bit more time, but you make more money in the long run mes thinks.

I'll go on a run myself in a bit and post up the results for people to see later.