Alright, in an effort to help people get a more varied view of the world, i'm going to start posting my hunting logs. This will hopefully help us find the best/worst places to hunt, and if a certain type of monster is dropping way too much/little gold.
This will also hopefully make most of the wannabe PvM mages realize that duo is still the best pvm, and they're doing it wrong.
Methodology: I destroy(move to storage) all bloody bandages on me at start, and also reset to 50 of each reagent. These 50 are taken out of any loot before counting for value at the end of the hunt.
For arguments sake i'll also list base daemon dex, and my minimum dex (yes i waste the reags to maintain an agility spell at all times, and if it's below minimum i recast it). Also my current heal rate.

I also encourage everyone else to post their hunting logs, using the same methodology, warrior or pvm alike.


Today's hunts so far:


12:55 start time
Started at wind reapers
Went to wrong level 1, killed 2 mages for reags.
Went to shame entrance.
Fought down through the entirety of level 1 and about a quarter of level 2.
Ran into Sub Zero (red in poly daemon form).
1:18 Invis'd then recalled to vesper, counted loot.
Total hunting time: 23 minutes.
Total Gold: 6k
Total magic Bags: 3. 1 was a bow of might, so retails for what, 5k? low/high? other 2 bags were armor.
50 deadwood ~ 2-3 shrink potions at 400 each? so another 1.2k gold
Gems + assorted other loot(mostly reags, assuming reags sell for 2k/50 of each now) - 2.5k gold
6k + 5k + 1.2k + 2.5k = 14.7k / 23 minutes. or approximately 40k/hour
Total bandies used: 252 bloody bandages
5 bolts of cloth, bolts of cloth from tailors cost 10 gold per bolt(if done via spools of thread), so total cost of resources used while hunting that wasn't regained: 50 gold.

Daemon poly: 76 dex. Minimum dex while hunting: 90.
Healrate at end of hunt: 83 percent of 199 heals.


1:35 pm start time
started at wind reapers (1 went snow)
Went to wrong level 1, killed 2 mages for reags.
encountered 1 snow lizard, 1 shadow lizard, 1 giant serpent shadow so far.
Fought all the way to entrance of level 3. Trap probably waiting there since i'm posting this in real time. Hunt ended.
1:58 pm end time.
Hunting time: 23 minutes. Weird coincidence.
Gold: 4080
Bandages used: 252 bloody bandages - ok that's just not funny. -50 gold.
39 deadwood - 1-3 shrinks, so 800 gold
Gems + assorted loot ( mostly exec caps here, a little reags but about broke even, exec pots sell for 400 apiece? ) - 2k
4080-50+800+2000 = 6830 gold / 23 minutes. so around 18k gold/hour.

Daemon poly: 76 dex. Mininum dex while hunting: 90.
Healrate at end of hunt: 83 percent of 255 heals.

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Ano hi chikatta makenai koto.
"Give me an inch, and you've given me too much of a head start. "

So how about regs used to heal, and to keep dex etc? That is the arguement there whether or not all resources used is even worth the reward.

as stated earlier belgarion, I start each hunt with 50 of each reagent, and at the end of each hunt, i don't count the starting 50 of each regeant when determining gain/loss.

I.e.:
I start with 50 of each.
at the end i have 80 ss, 30 ns, 40 bp, 180 bm, 5 ga, 50 gs, 90 sa, 30 mr.

We don't count 50 ss, so i gained 30 ss. + 30
I lost 20 ns. + 50
I lost 10 bp. +40
I gained 130 bm. + 170
I lost 45 ga. + 125
I gained 40 sa + 165
I lost 20 mr. + 145

So from that hunt i ended up gaining 145 reagents. At an average price of 2k gold for 50 of each reag ( 2k for 400 reags), i made around 725 gold from reagents, after considering everything i spent. Likewise if i end up negative, say i didn't gain any reags really from the hunt, and i end up with only 20 of each reag, i'd subtract that from my gold gained from the hunt, (240 reags = -1200 gold).

I normally make it a point to include a reag dropping area in my hunting rounds(notice the wrong level 1 mages every hunting trip, covers most of my reag usage), since it is much cheaper to hunt reags than to buy them, and you can make decent money selling them, but occasionally i come up negative money from reagent use. You'll probably see that when i hit hythloth, since i spend a LOT more reagents there then i gain due to debuffs/dispels.

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Ano hi chikatta makenai koto.
"Give me an inch, and you've given me too much of a head start. "

*gives cookie*

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Judas [Cult] The Traitor
Doro [Cult] The Zealot



'And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.' - Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't mean to be rude here Duo - but your hunting character is probably signifcantly stronger than other peoples. And you're assuming that there's an instant market for pots of various kinds AND that everyone has a GM alchemist to make 'em.

So your calculations probably represent the extreme maximum possibility for loot gains.

And then the other calculations are based on finding a buyer for regs who'll pay 40gp per reg (2k/50?) for me that seems a bit high, and not neccessarily an instant factor.

It might be better if you did "loot calculations" based simply on the value of the gold that you gain + the things that you sell off in the shops - drops + regs are an "outside factor" which make lower gold yielding monsters worthwhile.

so for your first hunt it's 6k (gold) + gems (how many? either way they're pretty low value - 400gp all told [-50 for bandies]?) = 6.35k in 23 minutes = 16.5k/hour (+deadwood + regs + drops).

the second hunt would be 4080 (+gems-bandies = 50) + 50 in 23 minutes = 10.7k/ hour (+exe caps + negligible regs).

I'm not trying to start an argument here, but surely the best way to calculate the worth of hunting is in pure gold and then factor in things like regs/ drops as "bonus items" which make hunting lower gold yielders worthwhile?

Personally I think 16.5K/hour + extras is a pretty low rate for the "top end of the market PVMer" - but that's just my opinion. Makes it hard for the "little fella" to get by...
I'm not in game nearly as much as these other guys anyway...

Anyone else's thoughts?
It just seems a better way to calculate (gold + things sold) and then list the amount of extra regs/drops as "incentive items".

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No offense taken, the points you made get raised in every discussion of how best to calculate the "value" of your hunt.

I merely outline the reasoning behind and how i determine the value for my hunts, and how i've always done so.

For the reagents, it's not 40gp per reagent, it's 5 gp per reagent. 50 of each reagent, meaning 50 x the 8 reagent types = 400 reagents. Being as they sell for 3-5 gp in shops, it's not unreasonable. When they sold for 8-10 per reagent i'd routinely sell bags of 50 of each for 4-5k and i would never be able to keep my vendor stocked.
There's always a market for pre-gathered reagents. It's actually one of the best ways to make money as a newer player is just running around buying reagents, and then selling pre-counted reagent bags.
People pay for convenience.

And i base prices for potions on the current market rate i've seen. Potions like shrink, -stat potions always have a market. The lesser potions i'd sell to the alchemy vendors, like gems/etc..
Now assuming you don't have a gm alchemist, you can more than likely FIND one that is willing to process your reagents for a fee. Or willing to sell potions for you. Long before i had my alchemist, i had a deal with 2 alchemists that i'd bring them reagents, i'd get 80% of the profits from the potion. They got 20% just for having the character and making the potion. It was a good deal for both of us. I had a similar deal with a fletcher for arrows.

So as you can see, they are all easily converted into gold. No matter if your character is high-low end.

Now the reason i take all these values into account, is because they are gold you gain. Whether it's from not spending, or from actively selling, it's still a net gain.
For comparison, that's like saying a Fisher should not count any fish as income except str fish. Yes, dex/int/ff are not much, but they do add up over time, and do get sold. Likewise, the fish they fish up and leave on teh ground. If they bothered to collect them, they'd still add to the income, just because they don't doesn't mean that gold wasn't there waiting for a little effort.


Calculating the "value" of a hunt being worth doing without taking into account magic drops, reagents, resources, etc, is basically a nice little excuse to pretend you're getting less value then you actually are. For example, say you have two things you can hunt (in t3a).
You can hunt zorlorns (excellent source of gold) or wyrms (excellent source of high quality magic items).
You WILL get faster gold with the zorlorns. No exception.
However you will get more value from the wyrms if you're a efficient hunter, because those magic items sell for a lot, and save you from having to buy your own.



Over the years, i have routinely done better than others while hunting. Yes part of that is because i have spent a ton of time getting good at the game and learning the systems, where to hunt, how to hunt, etc. But a good portion of that is a basic skill that every angel learns in their guild intro classes. Loot Everything. You gain easily 20%+ more gold(low end), or sometimes even 200% more gold, from looting everything and selling or using it to it's best. It would make me sad everytime i run through dungeons and see gems, or scrolls, or even worse platemail armor, left on corpses.

And as i said, people should post their hunting logs as well. This isn't just me, it takes more than one person to gather enough useful information to learn stuff about (at least in any quick time).
All I did was post mine, outline how i calculate value and why.

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Ano hi chikatta makenai koto.
"Give me an inch, and you've given me too much of a head start. "

Please tell me you didn't have this hunting log up yesterday when we got attacked?

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Duck

An attack sounded like a 20% more economically viable solution (these are times of crisis).

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Judas [Cult] The Traitor
Doro [Cult] The Zealot



'And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.' - Friedrich Nietzsche

hey, i only put solo hunts up. Since group hunts work slightly diff and the gold goes down if ya don't hunt higher level stuff and i'm starting with low level stuff first.

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Ano hi chikatta makenai koto.
"Give me an inch, and you've given me too much of a head start. "

Duo you type just like someone I know!

I think you will notice when you get into the higher levels that the net gain is hugely lower, not as bad now that parry seems to be working better, but on the harder hitting monsters that is where the healing delay comes into play.

Yeah i went hunting golems the other day and i found myself having to run around it half the time cuz it hit me for 70 and 60 and the healing delay f***** me

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Bezerk-Warrior
Foxy Grey-Blacksmith
Jay-Tamer

Golems were never that easy for a warrior. Besides, you shouldn't be able to take one down easily solo with a warrior anyway.

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Judas [Cult] The Traitor
Doro [Cult] The Zealot



'And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.' - Friedrich Nietzsche

Nah i know im just saying back when the delay was dif it was a tad easier, i dont mind now tho, theyre big mofos for a reason

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Bezerk-Warrior
Foxy Grey-Blacksmith
Jay-Tamer

pfft yes you should! this guy beat a magma golem in like 3 swings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDZ2fMHT ... re=related

but then again, he did have a +4 str +4 stam leather belt.... G

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king of the run on sentence.