Beginning Loot & Inventory Plans

[swillfly]

My Inventory Space & Gear:
It's unrealistic (without external programs/mods) to keep all the loot you find. Indeed, it will bog down your limited inventory space. Here's what I do:

I keep all components I've found in shared stash -they can be combined and used by whichever char you wish.

You only need 2 Slith Primal Rings and 1 Sister's Amulet of Lifegiving shared amongst all chars (if even that) because that's the max any one char can wear. I sell the rest along with all the extra Slith Necklaces.

I never bother picking up the guaranteed green (rare) drops unless I want to sell them for a few iron bits. There are many guaranteed drops that just don't pack a wallop and take up too much space in the beginning/Act1. Only time I'll use one of them is if my freshly minted char leaves DC with only a white shiv and hasn't found any yellow weapon (unlikely) before going into Burial Hill. It happened once to me.

Those Bags of Salt (without giving away any spoilers) are worthwhile later on in Elite difficulty.. but you can always create a new char and steal it from them I guess if you sold or dumped the salt.

Don't bother picking up or keeping any common (white) gear after lvl3. You'll find magical (yellow) stuff all over that's much better to equip with. I typically never pick up any white ever. For 3 iron bits apiece they really aren't worthwhile.

I typically keep a pair of beginner magic (yellow) gear in shared stash which I deem worth keeping for my other freshmen. I look for movement speed, health regen, armor, and especially stat increase modifiers for leveling up the new recruits. ≤ lvl 4 or 5. You increase levels so quickly and find much better gear when you finish Burial Hill and report back to Capt. Bourbon.

I'll open a riftgate, report in to Bourbon/npc's for experience and refit gear normally after Burial Hill, and when coming across new riftgates.

Rings, amulets, and medals: I found a lot of junk rings, amulets, and medals. I tried keeping all yellow and green jewelry but it became too cumbersome and took way too much space up. Even though they only take up 1 space there are craploads of them. Most yellow ones I sell unless it adds stats/speed/damage early on ≤ lvl 10.

Yellow bones, tomes, effigies, shields I always sell unless they have a worthwhile bonus to a class skill such as +1 Fire Strike. I sell higher lvl yellow offhand stuff because there are so many more rare (green) better offhand items to take up space -even lvl20 yellows without class skill bonuses.

Green (rare) stuff I always keep because it sells for much more iron and the bonuses outweigh any yellow stuff.

Typically in the beginning if something sells for ≤ 100 iron bits then chances are I don't want to keep it unless that item (typically a weapon) has some outstanding randomly assigned bonuses. I sell them.

The random item affixes have magical effects mixed together which may/may not complement your build -possibly keep it only if it's of benefit to another class/build.

My experience is that about 75% to 80% of the various yellow and green stuff I find is better off sold for iron bits.

Magical yellow or green stuff that supplements a particular skill such as +1 Word of Pain I keep and send to the appropriate character that actually uses that skill.

A good rule of thumb I use is that 95% of anything ≤ lvl 10 is disposable. Even most yellow stuff typically requiring lvl 10-12 (or the rough stat # for that lvl) I sell off. Most all the green magic items typically start around lvl 10. And by lvl 14 - lvl 18 if my char is still wearing something yellow then I must have been unlucky. I don't believe any of my lvl20 toons have anything yellow on them.

And I keep all epic or higher stuff.

[powbam]

Alot of people don't realize this but you can get rich in this game without ever selling even a single yellow. Early game you don't really need to buy much except maybe an item here and there from the merch. By the time you start thinking about the Ranger's Badge and Relics (20's) you should have enough for any such endeavor simply from iron loot drops and selling Greens.

These days I often easily have over 50K by the time I kill Krieg. The game has gotten vastly more generous since the early days and even then you didn't really need to pick up yellows either.

As you can tell I am very anti-Yellow looting. It's a complete waste of time imo at any point in the game. Forget Yellows except to wear here and there and it will feel like a giant weight just disappeared off your shoulders as you spend more time moving forward and less time popping back to town.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

I find the opposite myself. I never have enough money to buy stuff even when picking up whites early on. I tend to drop them around Wightmire and move on to minimum yellows, but even then I never have 50,000 to spend. But then I'm inclined to buy from the merchants early on if I don't find any useful stuff. I might have that much by the time I'm somewhere in Act 3.

[powbam]

Originally posted by MedeaFleecestealer:

I find the opposite myself. I never have enough money to buy stuff even when picking up whites early on. I tend to drop them around Wightmire and move on to minimum yellows, but even then I never have 50,000 to spend. But then I'm inclined to buy from the merchants early on if I don't find any useful stuff. I might have that much by the time I'm somewhere in Act 3.

Why tho? How much are you spending? How often?

I buy some items here and there along the way. Nothing extravagant. Because the game the large majority of the time puts everything I need while leveling right there on the ground before me.

From the very beginning the only items I pick up with the intent to sell are Greens. Other than that my income is iron drops from mob kills. Sometimes if I've completely deleted my save folder and started fresh I'll take that 50k and drop it on a new bag at the smuggler and I'll have that 50k back and then some long before I make to Homestead.

All from Greens and the ground. As far as I'm concerned yellows only do two things. 1) To wear until you find something better. 2) To waste your time if you intend to sell.

And hell, even Greens now are closer to approaching yellow drop levels, requiring much ferrying to town to sell rather rapidly. By the time you near the end of base game story Greens are coming out of the woodwork. With AoM release/changes it was quite noticeable that Green drops had increased across the board.

But at least they are drastically more profitable than yellows.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Just depends. I'm looking for better weapons and gear that has resistances on it most of the time. I tend to play mostly self-found in GD which is a bit weird since I happily loot my TQVault for stuff when playing that game.

I've complained several times over the years about the imbalance between sale and buy prices in the game. It's not (quite) as bad as TQIT, but still leaves a lot to be desired in my mind. I know most ARPGs are the same, but frankly we're bringing back much needed items considering the supposed scarcity of them in the game and the merchants should be paying us thousands for what we provide, not a few measly iron.

[swillfly]

How does anybody assign value or a number of gold pieces/iron bits to items? I guess merchants decide for folks based upon supply and demand.

If stuff is too costly then it becomes a task to find creative ways to generate money for stuff -even stealing. If money is all over then everyone is rich and the game is broken.

I think the prices buying/selling in GD seem ok. The inventory space can be an issue.
Micromanaging every plain item becomes cumbersome in any game. I liked how TL/TL2 used pets to make the town trips and report back with money. But that's also kinda cheesy too. Pets would end up dinner in the grim dawn.

I like how in the upcoming Forgotten Gods they're gonna be putting in a transmuter to allow you to actually make use of all the dupe set epics and legendaries. Set pieces should be realistically obtainable -and not just after 1,000 hrs.

In the meantime I guess we all have different methods of dealing with limited inventory space and just too much stuff... but on the brightside, at least they didn't implement an encumbrance system. oof -my back

[powbam]

Originally posted by MedeaFleecestealer:

Just depends. I'm looking for better weapons and gear that has resistances on it most of the time. I tend to play mostly self-found in GD which is a bit weird since I happily loot my TQVault for stuff when playing that game.

I've complained several times over the years about the imbalance between sale and buy prices in the game. It's not (quite) as bad as TQIT, but still leaves a lot to be desired in my mind. I know most ARPGs are the same, but frankly we're bringing back much needed items considering the supposed scarcity of them in the game and the merchants should be paying us thousands for what we provide, not a few measly iron.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1558211304

Level 20 - Still clearing out Burrwitch General. Have yet to head down to have tea with Krieg. That particular excursion will probably net me an extra 10-20k I imagine, nevermind that he has likely already spent around 10-15k up to this point. Oh and forgot that I have to still clear out Hallowed Hill as well. That's probably another 10k. Maybe more.

Rough guess for a "true" iron total for Act 1 alone, "Greens and the Ground" only: 75-95k
Used to be a time not so long ago you could only get around this amount with this method by the time you had hit Homestead (and personally, I was fine with it like that even then).

Like I said tho, Green drop rates have increased since then, drastically, across the board. Plus I think iron drops have been more generous too.

[swillfly]

Originally posted by powbam:

Level 20 - Still clearing out Burrwitch General. Have yet to head down to have tea with Krieg. That particular excursion will probably net me an extra 10-20k I imagine, nevermind that he has likely already spent around 10-15k up to this point. Oh and forgot that I have to still clear out Hallowed Hill as well. That's probably another 10k. Maybe more.

Rough guess for a "true" iron total for Act 1 alone, "Greens and the Ground" only: 75-95k
Used to be a time not so long ago you could only get around this amount with this method by the time you had hit Homestead (and personally, I was fine with it like that even then).

Like I said tho, Green drop rates have increased since then, drastically, across the board. Plus I think iron drops have been more generous too.

Wow -that's a lot of iron bits! As any of the Luther Graves clones attest: "Ion wells bent."
On Veteran for my platoon-o-toons I average each having about 25-30k prior to entering Krieg's luv shack. All are between lvls 17-20. I immediately spend the 10k for added storage to satiate my green & class bonused item hoarding. Realistically I think each will net about 50k after finishing Krieg.

[Janthis]

I agree, I've also set my item filter to green+. Especially toward the later acts, there are so many yellows that if I picked them all up I'd have to travel back into town every 5 minutes to sell everything, and that just gets tedious. As for money I never had a problem, as there isn't much stuff to buy from vendors anyway.

[Shyue Chou]

I seem to remember the costs for creating a mythical relic for my cabalist was several hundred thousand iron pieces, costs of assembling the materials, and relics needed.

I do collect all the yellows and greens just for the iron. I also use my higher level characters to finance the lower level characters by creating their relics and also legendary/rare items .

In short, yes, I collect all yellows and greens to sell. The only thing that I am ever short of is... Manticore Eyes.

[powbam]

Originally posted by Shyue Chou:

I seem to remember the costs for creating a mythical relic for my cabalist was several hundred thousand iron pieces, costs of assembling the materials, and relics needed.

I do collect all the yellows and greens just for the iron. I also use my higher level characters to finance the lower level characters by creating their relics and also legendary/rare items .

In short, yes, I collect all yellows and greens to sell. The only thing that I am ever short of is... Manticore Eyes.

I'm just not seeing a strong enough justification for the time spent looting low value gear. At the latter stages of the game the amount of loot from killing one or two groups of mobs alone is massive. So, you spend a couple minutes max wiping them out to spend double or more of that time and possibly several trips back and forth just to be able to grab it all? I'm not seeing it at all when I could better spend my time picking up items actually worth the time investment to bring them back.

In the time wasted on grabbing yellows I could have moved on further down the road and killed many more mobs (all while getting their auto-iron drops) and looted many more valuable greens actually worth the time to pick them up and simultaneously came out ahead of you in wealth with far less time wasted shuttling back and forth. I'm killing far more birds than you with one stone. 1) I'm advancing the campaign and leaving you in the dust. 2) I'm making more money while actually playing the game instead of playing Pretend Economic Grind Simulator 2018 where even killing a single group of mobs has the potential to send you back to town 2 maybe 3 times just to cash in on that primarily worthless pile.

My advice: Stick your loot filter to Green Plus and use the Keybindings to temporarily reveal hidden yellows after each battle so you can eyeball them quickly and determine if maybe there is anything there actually useful for your guy to wear until you find something better, then release that button and hide all that junk that is cluttering up your view.

[powbam]

So, here is the full accounting of an Act 1 loot total:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1558777414

83k + the 10k worth of blues I've stashed away + 10-15k I roughly spent on gear + fixing the bridge on the way to Burrwitch etc. Total: 103-108k iron.

This includes every doable Act 1 area by this point. Depraved Sanctuary, Gutworm, Hallowed Hill and in general fully uncovering the map.

From here on out the numbers only begin increasing as you go on, so much so that by the time you are conquering Act 4 there are so many Greens you may have to make the decision to just lump them in with Yellows and possibly all together stop looting them for sale purposes or simply become much more selective about the process. The last time I had payed attention for a total take of a full Normal/Vet playthru I do believe that when all was said and done I had amassed/spent over a million (with little to no actual farming whenever possible, just a pure once over clear of the game map and all accessible areas).

Generally for a new player being frugal over the course of playing the first difficulty (Base Game) you will have more than enough from this method to unlock most your bags and blueprints from Faction Vendors etc and the majority of your take from here on out in Elite/Ultimate is basically pure profit and can be put toward your needs at the Blacksmith.

[Shyue Chou]

May I know if you buy xp potions for your newer characters?

[powbam]

Originally posted by Shyue Chou:

May I know if you buy xp potions for your newer characters?:Uranium:

No, I do not.

[ZarahNeander]

I agree that picking up yellows is a waste of time, except you're standing in Alkamos back room and gonna back to town anyway. But..

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

.... As for money I never had a problem, as there isn't much stuff to buy from vendors anyway.

The rather common notion that money is irrelevant...we're playing the same game, are we? 10 xp potions: 400k, 4x crafting at Bella: 600k, 10x greaves at Angrim: 350k. High lvl game play while supporting your lowbies is expensive af

[powbam]

Originally posted by ZarahNeander:

I agree that picking up yellows is a waste of time, except you're standing in Alkamos back room and gonna back to town anyway. But..

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

.... As for money I never had a problem, as there isn't much stuff to buy from vendors anyway.

The rather common notion that money is irrelevant...we're playing the same game, are we? 10 xp potions: 400k, 4x crafting at Bella: 600k, 10x greaves at Angrim: 350k. High lvl game play while supporting your lowbies is expensive af

Yeah, later on it's expensive but on the first difficulty there isn't really much you need to spend in most *normal* scenarios. Perhaps buy some cheap-ish gear upgrades here and there, maybe some relics (depending on what you have access too and really want this may or may not be expensive). Every once in a while near the end I might be tempted to buy a Green from the merch (if I have enough for it and I know I will use it for a while). Other than that the large majority of your funds could end up going to unlocking bags and attempting to buy up all the Faction blueprints.

Assuming this is a persons first character. Other than buying the occasional upgrade tho you can usually get good enough gear for the difficulty straight from the ground. Oh, and I usually buy as many Dynamite as I can at Homestead for Treasure chests.

Supporting a new toon via an old toon will of course be expensive for the old toon.