Zero to Awesome (30 day project)

Here's a project that I've been planning to do for a few months: run a character from 1 to 50 in about 30 days, and finish with a completely IO'd build.

Not much of a novelty in the days of "self-PL your brute to 50 in hours" guides, but for my goal is more to show that a solid IO build is just as easy to pull together as is getting to 50. (And that may not be much of a revelation either, but after all, there are probably people out there who still haven't investigated an IO build because it's complicated and expensive.

(Which is why I'm posting it here... it's more an exercise in leveraging the market to a nice build by level 50.)

Just to be perverse, I'm going to do this without ever setting foot in AE and do it on a character called AE Baby. (I've had that name on Virtue for several months now.) To be doubly perverse, I've come up with a reasonably workable backstory to explain the name. Yes, you can roleplay a character named AE Baby if you want to! ^_^

Goal: Reach 50 and finish build by August 31 2011. Maybe even incarnate a little.

Restrictions: No AE. No borrowing money from any other character. The whole point is to show that anyone can manage this, starting from nothing.

Day One: I should have started August 1st, but anyway... I spent most of the day at work looking into Mind/Psi doms, which I believed my AE Baby character was, and then decided to make a Plant/Fire Dom instead. I spent a couple of hours working out a build that was perma-Dom, smashing/lethal softcapped, and did not include too many expensive IOs that I couldn't manage to collect them all in 30 days.

And... then I logged in AE Baby and discovered that she was, in fact, a fire/kin Corr. Oops. And I like the idea of a fire/kin corr, so I tossed the plant/fire build out the window. I'll work on a build later.

Ran both of Kalinda's arcs and the first Mongoose arc, all solo. Collected all of the Mercy Island explore badges. Along with the 5, 6, and 7 merits I get from vet rewards, that netted me 37 merits right off the bat.

Hit level 7, moved to Port Oakes, sold my two starting inspirations, and then began the process of buying up recipes cheaply on the market and vendoring them to raise capital.





So much easier to do with /auctionhouse.

With about 2.5 million in capital raised, I placed a lowball bid on a stack of 10 of one of my current favorite recipes to craft and sell... I can buy the recipe for as little as 5,000, and the crafted recipe sells for around 10 million. That's a good place for me to start. ^_^



Day 1: Level 7, over 2 million, 37 merits! No IOs yet.

Alright, I need a lawn chair and some popcorn. I love projects like this!

I also love reading these types of stories. I give major kudos to those that are able and willing to prove out these sorts of theories. /bookmarked

Unpossible. No one can eat their own weight in hamburgers in 30 days. Wait, is this one of those situations where my internal dialogue overwrites what someone else is saying?

I don't get it, really. I pl'd a new Fire/Thorns/Ice dom over last weekend (fri and sat) and IO'd it to soft cap snl defense with 160% rech sunday.

Your project is just to hit 50 and use WW along the way to IO at 50 in 30 days?

A tougher project would to be run a toon to 50, and try to IO a toon at 50 with whatever you get along the way. And only use the influence that you make along te way. It's a more realistic project showing that without messing with WW/BM it can't be done. (the awesome part anyways) To hit 50 and IO is what everyone does anyways. Or am i missing something other than the name AE Baby not ran in AE?

Pretty toon though, btw. I just don't get the reasoning here.

Well, everyone knows, the more you play the faster you can get to 50. And the more time you spend in the market, the more pieces you will get. So, if i play 15 hours a day i'll get to 50 faster than someone that plays 1 hour a day. Common sense if you ask me, but good luck i guess.

LOL you may disdain it but some long time players who love all parts of the game see nothing wrong with leveling up a toon via AE for different reasons. If you move to a new server and are remaking a favorite toon that you have already ran the gambit from 1-50 on. ect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodion People who have an emotional investment in the game disdain the very idea of PLing in AE, but players who have no connection yet see it as the best investment of their time for highest return. Even though it will leave them unable to "earn a living" for the rest of their lives in the game.

Here we can see the longtime effects of AE crack. The above poster has lost perception of up and down. His ability to form sentences is severely impaired as well. Even basic words may elude an AE addict, for example saying "LOL" instead of the intended "aargh I am shaking with rage at the idea that a random stranger on the internet dislikes my playstyle in a video game and I am now going to punch my keyboard and post the result".

If even a third of the players would exert as much effort on a good costume and awesome backstory as you did, this would be worthwhile.

If I see a new player who has spent time and effort on an obviously beloved concept, they get all the help I can give them without overwhelming them.

Carry on the awesome.

This is the Market Forum. We have secrets for making inf, and we will not shut up about them.

I do things like this frequently- "Oh, I'm almost level 32 and I want to IO out; better make some cash." Or "Oh, spring cleaning time, I think I'll list everything at 1 inf and turn all that inf into prestige and leave myself with 1 inf + 1 rare salvage per marketer."

It's good to get back to the basics sometimes, because although we may not see very many of them HERE, there are lots of people in game who don't believe that 50 million inf is a number they can ever get.

Day 2

As with the first day, I start off soloing. There are few other players redside and my corruptor is (so far) a slow soloer. At one point I get blind invited to a team, and it's exactly the kind of team you'd expect from a blind invite. It includes such scintilating conversation as:

Team Leader: st martial
Team Member #4: Mind if I switch to another toon?
Team Leader: st martial
(several minutes of silence ensue)

On the plus side, it's a level 33 team which is a boon for me at level 8. On the down side, it ends exactly like you'd expect such a team to end -- with the leader going silent in the middle of the second mission, then inviting a brand new person to the team, followed immediately by: I gtg guys, good luck in the fight. And he quits. And what's sad is, it's not even the second or third time I've seen someone do that -- invite new people and quit immediately after, halfway through their own mission.

I go back to soloing, find another (better) team, and even manage to get both a jump pack and a raptor pack. I make level 12.

On the marketing side I'm a bit worried that I've made an error. I buy my 10 recipes easily enough, and only 1 rare salvage to start with given my modest startup cash of 2.5 mil. I craft my IO and discover that they're selling for a lot less than they were in just the last week or two. There are hundreds for sale, so clearly the market is glutted. Maybe that will change when we hit Double Experience Weekend, but I need to make money now. I list for less than I'd like but just above the last 5 sales, which may not work. We'll see.

I also put in lowball bids on level 15 generic IOs: accuracy, damage, heal, endurance. I expect better results from this.

No new merits, no new cash. All I really accomplish the 2nd day is making it to level 12.









Other than that, I scanned the Corruptor forums and found a build I thought would work for my project. Again I was wrong. More on that later.

Day 3

After a diversion to run an ITF, I got to work on my new corruptor. Market-wise I was disappointed... my LotG IO had not sold, and I'd only bought three accuracy IOs with my lowball bids. I realized that not only had I made a mistake with the LotG, for which the market is glutted and prices are way down, but as it's an orange IO that requires rare salvage it wasn't the best choice for my first thing to craft and sell. Also, these are recipes I normally craft and sell with an eye to what will sell in 4-7 days, not what sells overnight. So I've made several mistakes initially.



Also my great build that I found on the forums... is actually a fire/rad build. Hmm. What can I say, I grabbed it during a 15 minute break at work and didn't look at it hard enough. Maybe I should have gone fire/rad anyway, they're certainly more popular.

I place bids in for some Efficacy Adaptor recipes. Good old Efficacy Adaptor, always fairly cheap to buy and always sells for a few million at least. In no time I have two endurance/accuracy recipes that I craft and place for sale at 2.1 million each. This takes a bit more buying and vendoring recipes first, it's 490,000 to craft a level 50 recipe and the listing fee is 105,000. But what are Essense of Curare recipes for if not vendoring? Also I'm juggling a lot of things, with the LotG IOs and salvage stored in the market, bids on crafted IOs, and everything (and I only have 12 slots). But within an hour one of the Efficacy Adaptors sells for 4 million. Now I'm in business!





I buy another rikti alloy and craft a second LotG def/rech. This one I list for 5.2 million. I note that they're selling for 8 and even 9 million today, but the one I listed yesterday for 6.3 mil still hasn't sold. I listed too high. Anyway it doesn't take long before my second LotG sells for 8 million, allowing me to bid on several more rikti alloys. Maybe my original idea wasn't as bad as I thought! My other Efficacy Adaptor sells as well.

I also pull down my lowball IO bids and place more reasonable bids on level 20 generic IOs. A few purchases come in within an hour or two, but I'm still leve 12. I don't bid on the Endurance Modification IOs I need, level 20s are selling for a million each. But I recognize another good marketing niche when I see one and bid on 10 each of the salvage needed to craft them.




I want merits so I do the explore badges in Port Oakes, and work though missions for my current contact, Radio. It's slow going though. The problem with Radio as a contact is that he only has one arc for 5 merits, and doesn't introduce me to any new contact. But I run 4 radio missions in Cap Au Diablo and get another bank mission, which I'll save for tomorrow -- that will get me another contact. I hit level 14, and also earn 2 merits helping take down Deathsurge. That gets me to 49 merits total.

I buy salvage to craft some of the level 15 IOs I failed to buy overnight. Now at least my character is a little better off in the IO dept.

Two set IOs I need as soon as I can afford them: a stealth IO (unbounded leap will work) and a knockback protection IO (which will likely be a karma in combat jumping, or stuffed into manuevers for the time being if I don't have CJ yet).

I'm probably going to pull a build from this thread and maybe tweak it slightly.

What Four said is absolutely right. Bidding on the crafted IOs is being lazy... and also done because in the back of my head I know that you can get the lower level IOs especially for below cost that way, if you can wait. But in fact I can't wait, and so I wound up crafting a bunch of level 15 IOs anyway.


This morning before work I checked things. My 3 LotG def/rech IOs had sold for 8 million each. (The one listed for 6.2 mil still hasn't sold). I'd also bought several more Efficacy Adaptor recipes, so I quickly crafted some of those and put them up for sale, and bid on five more rikti alloys.

Just to recap what I've done so far to raise money:

1. Sold my two starting enhancements that I got from the tutorial. The large heal sold instantly for 140,000. This was my starting capital.

2. Bought level 50 recipes for 100 and 500 inf each and vendored them for 5,000 or 10,00 inf each. I picked recipes that I know are not popular -- sleep, stun, snipe, slow, certain of the hold recipes, etc.

3. Once I had a couple of million I bid on some recipes that I knew I could craft and sell for a profit. I could have started by crafting generic IOs -- especially in the 25-35 range that can be profitable. But you can skip that stage to more profitable things if you like. Efficacy Adaptor IOs are very good for this, they're common recipes and endurance IOs always sell. I also bought some cheap Luck of the Gambler def/rech recipes -- this is a bit more risky, there's a glut of them on the market. A month or two ago they were selling for 15 to 20 million each, now they're selling for 6 to 9 million, but that still leaves room for a profit if you're careful.

The next two steps will be to ramp up my money-making by selling more IOs and more profitable IOs, and then to start buying the recipes that I'm going to want for my final build. I should note here that I plan to buy mostly level 30-33 IOs which is what I normally do, but this strategy isn't much different for those who want to IO at level 50 -- the only difference is that you'll have to find places to store your recipes or crafted IOs longer. But the key to everything is placing low bids that you can wait for days or more than a week to fill, so that you're not spending so much money at level 50 to buy it now. As always, patience is your friend. ^_^