Unlikely, the “pro move” described above is rather misleading. Yes, extracting essence from fossils is indeed a pro move but that is because of the exp it rewards, not the coin.
Large fossils are constantly in demand by a few players offering on average about 45 coins each. The spark cost per fossil extracted is about 1-2c each, assuming you have the optimum number of coils on each extractor (10 coils or thereabouts).
So now that 58c profit has become about 11c per fossil. You had to invest in about 16x24 coils, and a fully coiled chrysominter. You will burn around 1.25 mil spark each time you do this.
So at approximate market values (not including any tax incurred) you have now invested around 500k in coils, about 15k in spark and almost 400k into fossils to start this process. Each craft takes 2 hours so that’s more like 3 days before they are all done and you’ve made yourself 100k profit at the very best. It will then take you at least a half an hour to load the machines with mass crafts again and mint all of your stacks and stacks of essence. Hopefully by this time you’ve got your hands on another 8,640 fossils to extract but you’ll most likely need the coins from the minter to refill the fossil request basket.
However, with teaching pies you will now have the pleasure of receiving 2,880,000 experience (14.4 levels) in a matter of moments. This is the reason people extract and mint essence from fossils, the meagre amount of profit made for the time and effort spent doing this is a bonus.
As far as nerfing: it’s been that way for a couple years at this point. I think AVE is the go-to cash source for most folks. If they changed it to a different system, ie: quests, then I could see AVE getting reduced to compensate. Before the minter coin was footfall only and not as broadly available. Putting money into more hands has definitely helped as far as I can tell.
Interesting how a lot of people think this, saying ‘it’s free if you mine/farm them yourself’
Personally I have a different point of view. First of all, it’s not technically ‘free’ as you do have to invest in tools, food and brews.
Then there’s the time and labor you invest. Everything takes time to farm, essentially when people are buying things, they’re paying people to do labor for them, so they don’t have to invest time and labor themselves farming those. Which is also why you generally see higher prices on things that are harder to farm.
Basically you’re substituting coin for the limited amount of time you have.
Think of it as instead of doing work to make money so you can buy something, you’re working to make that something directly. It doesn’t change you’re investing work (time+labor) either way.
The people with more time than the average players are also diluting the value of that limited amount of time some players have.
If little bobby and timmy come home and sit on the PS4 for 4 hours a weeknight mining away pushing the prices of resources down.
Then Joe average comes on to play on the week end he sort of has to ask himself where the heck is everyone getting all this coin from?
Then Joe average hears well i need to make some doors with all that stone so i can get some coin… and poof joe average has 100k to his name for the first time…
then little timmy and bobby hear about the door method and guess what happens…
they become al harrington and start cranking out doors since everyone knows that once some one finds a loot cave the people with nothing better to do ruin it for everyone else that probably needed it just to compete…
People forget this is technically a “mmo” so the balance has to be done for the most active players that run it for normal people.
The devs freak out and go oh no we need to pump the breaks
Edit: also for new players id suggest not wasting time with any gathering just go to hunts and stay alive, sell the stuff you get until you can figure out what you want(ie like) doing, there is literally a hunt happening almost every hour of the game and at low levels you only need to be present to profit. Gather beans, a leafs while hunting if you must gather anything…
Also, go to “The Future” and visit all 64 regions - get a lot of XP and level up.
Go mine gleam until you build yourself a decent miner page.
Then go mine anything and sell.
To get your first AoE hammer -> Besevrona ice plain -> get bitter beans and easily catch RoadRunners as they cannot run fast on ice. Sell the glands and the beans -> buy T6 AoE hammer -> go mining.
Get a persisting pie with it.
Myself, I sell nothing of what I make. I made over 5 million from price differences between buy & sell.
When I reached 5.5 million, I bought around 1500 advanced coils for 1.5 mil.
ps. As a good advice: keep some 200-400k as “seed/backup” money, when you get there. Never drain to <200k
While I said time was limited, that ‘limited’ amount isn’t equal to everyone. Nor is the efficiency of doing labor, as some will be better at doing the same job, like mining, farming glass ect. Heck, I hate mining and don’t do that, can’t even get myself to focus for half an hour to mine.
But that’s also the thing, since bobby and timmy is investing far more time into the same method of making money than joy average, it is also true they will make more coins out of it… until the supply exceeds the demand, lowering the efficiency of that method to make coins. This is a fluid player driven economy after all, things will change over time. Which is also why people try to figure out how to make money all the time, instead of just following one ‘best’ method to make money, since there never be one.
Another thing about the whole coin thing is people worry about making less money over time as prices drop due to more people farming that. Thing is, that also means it’s possible, and will drop the prices for products made from that ingredient as people compete for prices, being a player driven economy. In the end, the end result will be similar in trades, just differ on how much coins were involved in trades.
People treat coins(or any other currency in games with player driven economies) as if they have an absolute static value. In reality, it’s just a more convenient method of barter in the end to show how much things are worth compared to others.
Yes, the absolute value of coins will change over time (and have dropped drastically compared to what it was before judging from posts that are like a year old). But you still will be able to buy a similar amount of something by selling an item no matter the value of coin. That only will change by how much more available that something or the item you sell becomes, either by better methods to farm them or availability like through sov planets.
One way I recall earning money early on in the game was following the in-game objectives and the challenge tree in that section of the journal, (which is basically a tutorial.) This was before I learned about mining or knew about teaching pies and way before I found this forum.
I dunno… I slogged away for weeks before the mining thing really clicked. The thing is to level up yer XP so you can get planetary protections. (Teaching pies!) Then save for those magic hammers. And mining definitely levels you up.
This was how I made coin as a new player, and honestly if I needed coin, dumping some of my hunt stuff would be the way. The coin from selling rough oort alone from a single Brown hunt is a ridiculous windfall for a new player. (but make sure you use BUTT!)
Yes, they can buy 10+ AoE T6 hammers after hunting for 2 hours (be selling the Oort). They don’t even need to stay in the hot action - can stay on the sides or take jobs healing, reviving either solidifying lava.
Except, as a new player the “best way” is going to community hunts.
period, full stop…
It is the least effort activity with the most reward, you dont even need to participate in order to receive the rewards, infact hunts require such little effort some players bring alts that do nothing but stand around waiting for the reward.
With those community hunts the reward doesn’t really represent the level of effort required, everyone gets at minimum some form of a participation award for just being present.
Yes and no.
I know people which this didn’t apply cause of the timezone they live in. literally 0 hunts happening while they play.
And then there’s people that hate hunting and don’t do it.
All other activities can be done whenever, hunts require you to play at a specific time to participate.
Mining gems makes about the same amount of money in about the same amount of time as well if you’re mining on a good planet as well according to some people that sell gems to make money.
Sort of alluded to this before, but most profitable mining I’ve found is T6 Corrosives in amethyst hotspots, particularly if you can find areas with emerald overlapping into it. You’ll get lots of fossils, plus the gems and a good bit of metal, particularly silver. I’ve got two good corrosive sovereigns open for this, Proserpina and (might be temp) Stellamaris IV, when I remember to stock they even have 99c atlases available in the mines I put portals to at Paka’s Palace. Go raid anytime!
… Can just sell the fossils outright to baskets and still make a pretty great profit per hammer mining these hotspots. Significantly larger than mining diamonds and hard coal on my good Blast, Hyrule, from my experiences.
they even have 99c atlases available in the mines I put portals to at Paka’s Palace. Go raid anytime! 