The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 42: How to Adjust to Changes as a Lowbie

Lowbie Diaries BannerWelcome to a project, experiment, challenge or whatever you wanna call it. Normally experiencing the content with well-geared toons, I figured it would be quite interesting to approach the game from the perspective of a casual player. How does it feel starting from scratch and build up a character without the help of your mains? How long does it take until you are geared enough for the latest endgame content? Welcome to the Lowbie Diaries, it should be fun!


For obvious reasons I think it’s a good time to quickly talk about the lowbie life and major changes. If something like Module 12b happens, the economy and character building instantly adjusts to the new update, even though you obviously still operate under the current build and its environment for at least a month. Especially for lowbies this might mean that you have to decide whether to play the changes or the game. You normally neither have the funds to profit much nor can you sacrifice too many assets without being left with a bare toon. So what do you do?

Monitor the Preview

First and foremost monitor the preview server (linked article is old, point still stands). I can’t stress the this enough. People tend to believe reading the forum and stuff like that is for the hardcores. But it’s equally important for everyone. Nothing is more annoying than working hard for something over months just to see it’s value diminish in a matter of days. You can prevent some of it by being on top of the patch notes.

Even if you know what’s coming doesn’t mean you can appropriately react. Let’s take the refining changes of Module 12b for example, which effectively cut the value of existing enchantments in half. A lot of endgame players acted accordingly and sold all their higher ranked gems. Hardcores have their legendary gear, legendary companions, legendary everything. Even running Rank 8s, they are probably still a able to master any engdame content. Like I said above, lowbies on the contrary have to decide whether to play the change or the game.

Play the Change or the Game?

Now you either go out and sell all your stuff, which might mean you are no longer competitive until the update comes along. Or you stay put and lose value. I often choose the latter to be honest. What I’m mostly looking at is not the absolute value now vs. the absolute value with the change, but the comparison of an item’s usefulness. In case it effectively gives me the same power, I just keep it.

Let’s say enchantments in Module 12b. They lose value, but keep their stats. So I don’t mind too much. As lowbie you’re not a big player anyway, so why care about squeezing the last bit of value out of the system? With Bondings though? That’s pretty much a straight nerf and I’d definitely would have tried to sell those.

I think looking at build benefits is more important to lowbies than reacting to what happens with the market. Even if people are yelling “sell, sell, sell” all over the place, unless it’s a straight nerf, it’s nothing that affects casuals too much. In most cases you might be late to the party anyway, and much of the market has already crashed. So you might as well enjoy your items for another couple weeks and then see what the future holds. AS you can see being a lowbie comes with some benefits. While the world goes crazy, you can chill!

That’s it for today. See you next time!


The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 37: Here We go Again!
The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 38: Gearing Up
The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 39: Dread Ring on One Weekend
The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 40: To Lowbie, or Not to Be
The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 41: Farming the River District


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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

2 thoughts on “The Lowbie Diaries Vol. 42: How to Adjust to Changes as a Lowbie

  • September 5, 2017 at 9:58 am
    Permalink

    Let’s take the refining changes of Module 12b for example, which effectively cut the value of existing enchantments in half.

    What do you mean by that?

    Existing enchantments, other than Bonding Runestones, keep their stats but now have additional room to grow. Runestones got buffed (although still not enough for any of them except Bonding, Eldritch, and Empowered-in-defense-slots-if-you’re-an-OP to be useful). You no longer need multiple R7s, R8s, and R9s to level up enchants but those aren’t the expensive ones anyway.

    And RP-wise, post-changes it’s pretty close[1] to “double RP, all the time”, with all the individual enchants having almost the same RP value they did pre-change.

    So how have existing enchantments been changed, let alone “cut in half”?

    [1]: There’s a few bugs to work out, like artifact gear pieces not having their salvage value updated to 2xRP levels and there are no more feeder artifacts, but those are few in number compared to the larger number of RP-granting pieces who’ve gained “2xRP, all the time” status.

    • September 5, 2017 at 1:00 pm
      Permalink

      By value I refer to ADs. In the old system, Rank 12s roughly sold for 2M, depending on supply and demand. Since upgrading gets significantly easier (you mentioned multiple reagents etc.), those are projected to sell for about a million, cutting their value in half. Pretty much the same applies to all other ranks.

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