All the gear you get is so ephemeral when leveling, any crafting materials or money you use feels wasted.

It feels like a better experience to just use the bits and bobs you pick up, any maybe use a gun you haven't considered.

Money can also be used to reroll bonuses once you get the appropriate tech wing upgrade. I haven't fiddle with it much, but people say it's like the Diablo 3 enchanter.

Like, the pennies you spend on early gear to plug a few gaps in the drops (because that's why you have gear vendors for the levelling: to give you the ability to buy your way out of a gap created by the RNG - the game even gives you tooltips to say you've been holding on waiting for a drop for too long, upgrade your low level gear) isn't actually going to make much difference later on. It's all part of the curve. You spend a decent number of hours in the game while that single piece you purchased was level-appropriate so if you get some fun out of it them flash the cash - there's plenty more to be made a lot faster when you level cap.

The crafting mats, there I think the game has an issue with the curve and so you're absolutely right. Only craft if you really want to when levelling or to get used to the system. I've poked the system a bit, but am not really planning to lean on it until possibly a late-levelling stage (if the levelling progress levels off in the mid 20s and you spend a lot longer at a level then each thing you craft gets a lot more use and at some point you will be getting gear almost as good as lvl 30 crafting as you reach the end of the levelling arc). I mean, the current crafting exploit (get rich at max level, stash the gear, grab it as an alt, sell for basically infinite cash for alt, use cheap early mats to buy masses of cheap gear to stash back to your high level character and disassemble to get crafting mats) relies on the crafting system and the vendor system being slightly out of sync (high level chars can't buy low lvl gear from vendors so it's not a trivial exploit but the stash enables you to do it via lots of load screens). Again, this really only matters if you're about stat-maxing - burning a few mats to have fun crafting when you level is not massively changing anything or making the end-game that much faster (you need a LOT of mats for end-game tier crafted gear so using 5 green mats early on for a craft is not making a big difference in the end - that's usually less than the picking you get from hitting a single mats location, locations that get restocked in your game every 2 real-world hours if you want to farm them).

The rerolling is rerolling of a single stat (and that is in the pool of related stats - so a primary Firearms/Stamina/Power stat will only ever reroll to another one of those stats) and the system is pretty great. You pick a stat, pay the cash, and roll for new stats (it tells you what range of stats it'll be rolling inside). It randomly creates 4 stats from the range and you can then pick one you want and complete the reforging. Video for people who want to see that in action (the paragraph there is something you should grok the second you see the reforging UI and realise the game is telling you how it rolls randomised loot):

Meh, you might as well use those materials, otherwise they'll go to waste. Sure you could turn them in the highest tier ones, but at the tune of 5 every step up, you don't end up with much.

I guess you could make an argument for keeping money, but I think everything ramps up equally, meaning "income" vs prices. So again, keeping money you made early on might be pointless, because a single higher level item would cost as much as what you saved on early levels. Don't know if I'm making sense.

I mean there really isn't a hard and fast rule for this. I was stuck using a LV 12 holster when I was level 17 because I just wasn't finding any good ones. I saw one with the stats I wanted so I crafted it.

@empirepaintball: Yah I'm level 10 and I've been using a level 4 AK because I just don't see anything that offers better DPS, which is a bit weird. I did buy a costly M1A1 rifle recently and man what a godsend it is from the previous one I was using. Before I had 5 bullets and needed to wait out 2 seconds between each shot. Now with a mod I have 11 bullets per clip, ton of damage and can fire as fast as the trigger is pulled. Sometimes you gotta spend those bux, especially since I don't really see any other use for the money early on.

Don't sell anything ever either. Always break it down because even the lowest tier materials convert to the highest tier at a rate of 25:1. I've been playing since launch and already have accumulated a couple hundred of the lowest tier materials.

I think people saying how it gets more expensive later on are missing the point of why saving at the start is so important. Once you get to level 30, if you can craft or buy the perfect gear piece (even if you can only afford one from what you saved) that is far more important since that piece of gear won't be redundant in an hour. Why buy 5 or 10 pieces of gear that I will just trash an hour or two later when I can save for end game loot that I will end up keeping for days.

@bollard: Well I'd say you would buy something to add variety to your gameplay. Sometimes you need a shiny new thing. Saving money until the endgame from the very beginning is a bit overkill.

@humanity: That's fair, it's down to personal preference. If you aren't going to engage much with the end game no point in saving either. It just seems like a good way to alleviate late game grinding.

Oh sure, I mean it's one of two paths. Either you play the entire 15-25 hrs of single player without engaging in the whole loot game, or you spend money liberally on your way to the top and grind for the really good stuff when you get there. Personally I'd rather spend money on my way there because when you get to the end you've basically seen the entire game. At that point it really boils down to a numbers game of facing the same enemies albeit with higher numbers above their heads.

I think it's similar to that RPG mentality of walking around and never using your potions because you're saving them up for that huge boss fight, and then by the end of the game you realize you have this huge stockpile of unused consumables.

It can be, it just depends on what your goals are. Since the crafted items have random affixes and stats and rerolling is expensive, it may take a ton of materials to craft the best pieces. Not to mention the many different gear and mod slots that players are going to have to fill out - it's weapons, gear, and mods for practically everything. It really is just like Diablo 3 in the sense that players may have to craft dozens of copies of an item until the perfect roll shows up. Of course, if you don't care about having the best possible stats on an item, then one craft will do it. I'm saving everything.

I do this by accident in every game ever.

Me too! So I'm actively trying to change that, live a little so to speak.

Then again I have this mentality because in FF4/6 I go stuck in the Ifrit factory because I didn't prepare well for the dungeon, didn't buy or hoard enough potions and then I saved myself into an unwinnable situation - basically forcing me to restart the entire game from the beignning. Been hoarding ever since.

Nah, why wait. I mean be selective, don't make everything you could, but making one or two items betwwen lvl 6 and lvl 29 is fine. The balance has to be there, for how you get and then use gear. Sell some stuff and scrap some stuff; and make some stuff and buy a very small amount too. That's my thing do not buy much if you can help it. The drops seem to give you what you need, so unless you are very unlucky with drops don't buy stuff.

I'd say instead to only craft/buy purple items. I didn't see any drop before level 26 I think but I crafted the purple AUG and used it for like 8 levels same with a purple backpack.

I dunno I tend to have the same gear for many levels and even real life days untill something pops up better A: in loot or B: in Vendors.

So my spending has been pretty much all my money on one high level item once every 5 hours with the boost that item gives me being very significant. The loot drops have not been significant for me most the time so your rational doesn't work for me.

Also...THIS IS A LOOT GAME! THIS IS WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! and I genuinely like it like that instead of this mid-max play the end game before I even see it, why play the end game before I get there? I might never get there, I might have had my fill before then...maybe because I played the end game from the start I had my fill and stopped playing?

TBH your ideas and methods do not sound at all fun to me, I will not say they are wrong as you do make sense...however it does not sound fun and more of a commitment which sounds like work and I play games not for those reasons.

Crafting, I agree with. The more materials you save up, the more high end materials you can convert it to later and trying to find that stuff is like half my life in this game right now. But go ahead and buy whatever weapons or gear you want. I didn't buy anything until lvl 30 and by the end of it, I had half a million saved up, which I proceeded to use for nothing. I spent maybe 100k on some placeholder weapons and gear until I could find better superior or high end replacements. There's only one vendor who gives anything worthwhile for credits at endgame, and even that stuff is outstripped by anything you can get from the phoenix coin vendor

Personally, I always find its a waste of time, currency, and mats to craft or buy items before max level. You also get so many purple drop from levels 28-30 that it is double idiotic. I got at least a dozen different purple drops during those levels.

I'm taking a less conservative approach with this game, as someone who normally hoards items in long RPGs. I'm not generally buying weapons because I've found a pair that I like (burst fire AR and burst fire SMG) at my current level, though I've spent a few thousand credits buying specific mods that shore up their weaknesses. I'm trying to err on the side of enjoying the game so that I don't feel like it's an extended grind. If the game still holds my attention up to level 30, then I'll gladly switch into grind mode for the promise of more content.

Yeah, all the gear I'm finding is being disassembled for parts. The problem is that you won't get good crafting plans until you get a lot of phoenix coins (100-300 per item) or you reach level 50 in the dark zone. It really feels like a grind.. a grind where you get murdered by rouges... and lose a level. I might be bitter.

Yup, I was the same way. It feels like a waste because of how fast you level up in this game. Hitting the current max rank isn't really that much of a time sink, least relatively speaking when you take into account series like Borderlands and Diablo. It's thusly hard to get attached to any gear you have until you hit max rank because it's never too long before that item you built/found in the dark zone becomes obsolete.

I only ever bother crafting something if the gear, even at it's lowest possible number, gives me those lovely green up arrows showing an immediate improvement. As for re-rolling, I've only done it to get buffs for my turret if the armor doesn't already have it. Not sure if the game is trying to force my hand or what, but every bit of armor I pick up seems to be pushing Sticky Mine (which I don't use) bonuses my way. That being said though; I would recommend not re-rolling much until later on. I'm level 23 and, since anything more than one re-roll is stupidly expensive, multiple rolls are going to bankrupt me. Probably best to wait until you hit the cap when you have more cash to toss around. Better crafting blueprints too of course.

@neozeon: Its slightly more annoying at level 30, as high end gear requires Phoenix Coins to re-roll and not Credits.

I've been trying to min/max my way through the game but now that I'm getting closer to the end game I can see that I've wasted a lot of cash and resources with low-level stuff early on. Now that I'm pushing the level cap and haven't really touched the DZ yet I can see that I'm going to have to grind to get the high level stuff. If I ever decide to roll a new character I won't make these mistakes again and just save my cash and crafting materials for the end game. My big mistake was selling things rather than deconstructing them for crafting materials.

@two_socks: Really? Well, great, that just sounds like a hardcore grind. To their credit though; "Phoenix" is a great name for a currency. I don't know why, but it sounds cool.

@neozeon: It's not so bad. The grind is really more for Phoenix Credits in general to buy blueprints, and then grinding some more to get materials to craft items over and over again. It's because Talents can't be rerolled, they are totally random. I had to craft my Vector 22 times before I got the talents I wanted. Same goes for gear, you just craft a piece a bunch until you get a good one, then you can reroll a stat with Phoenix a couple of times to fine tune it.

@mike: I see. For some reason I feared it became the only currency and that sounds too grind-y, even for me. Then again, at the rate people are finding out farming locations, it may not be so bad in the long run. Doubly so if I can wrangle some other level thirties into making some runs together. I have a little ways to go myself, being level 26 and all, but it's nice to know that the game mixes things up even when you hit the cap.

Well, it is the only currency. That isn't what I was saying at all.

At level 30, there is nothing worth buying that doesn't cost Phoenix Credits.

@mike: Then it is a little worrying after all. Thanks for clarifying it for me. Sorry for missing that in your post the first time around!

@neozeon: No problem. It isn't too bad though, the gear progression goes at a good pace even with Phoenix Credits, I think.

For instance, you can get 30 PC each day by doing the two Daily Hard missions, which are actually laughably easy and can be soloed. Then there is the Daily Challenging Mission which awards 20 PC plus a guaranteed High End gear item. The Challenging mission can be repeated and you get a High End every time. No weapons, though. You can also kill named NPCs/bosses in the Dark Zone, and those drop Phoenix Credits after every kill. They currently drop 1-3 credits but that is being changed by probably next week's maintenance so the range is 1-3 up to 3-5 depending on boss difficulty. Most of the High End blueprints cost between 90 and 110 PC or so, with a couple of the weapon blueprints being as high as 180. So, if all you did was the three Daily missions and nothing else, you'll earn 50-60 PC per day. If you add in some DZ boss farming you can easily buy yourself one HE blueprint a day if you're playing consistently and concentrating on gearing up. Thankfully though, they are increasing drop rates and item quality for DZ bosses and chests as well as increasing the item quality for drops in Challenging missions. It really isn't that difficult to gear up.

Later on you can also buy High End gear and blueprints with Dark Zone currency once you reach DZ level 50, but that is probably quite a ways off for most people.

@mike: Oh okay I see what you mean. For some reason I feared that a blueprint would costs thousands of coins instead of a few hundred max. No easy number to attain of course, since it requires grinding to get there, but such is the end-game of anything loot driven I suppose. I did see those recent patch notes and noticed they took the "farming" out, but that was only a matter of time. Also, yeah, I'm not anywhere near DZ Lvl 50, haha. Think I'm just shy of fifteen, if that.

@neozeon: Also, to be clear, this is end-game (something that'll be developed not only via weekly patch changes but the monthly new content - so April and May both have an Incursion being added, first to the south east corner where an icon already exists when you finish the solo campaign and then to the north west expanding up to Central Park; those seem to bring gear sets and presumably set bonuses so anything you're grinding for now just means you're better prepared for doing the Incursions and what may well be ilevel32 gear drops there).

The reason why Phoenix Credits are the only valuable currency is that the assumption is you already have 100% purple ilevel30/31 gear first. 6 gear slots, 3 weapons, up to 12 weapon mods, variable (as a mod slot is just a stat roll so you can reroll any slots into other stats) gear mods. Junk that ilevel 28 purples you got from the final mission, go through all your weapon mods and make sure you've got the max level ones. All of that upgrade cycle to make sure you've got the tier before end-game can be purchased with DZ credits etc. Hell, my ilevel31 purple DMR was just a random drop in the world from a named elite doing a patrol.

The PCs are just for that final step up to the best gear in the game. Top rarity (yellow/gold vs purple) and ilevel31 (stuff has both a minimum level, maxing out at 30, and an item level displayed at the end of the stats view - some items are ilevel 31 and these are the ones you want to be using) - keep going until you get the combo of stats you really want from the random drops or gear crafted from the PC blueprints [you get blueprints and craft your own because the PC items for sale as just generated via the blueprint designs are rarely are ideal so you can pay PC and get infinite rolls as long as you've got the crafting mats or buy it once and be forever stuck with the stats the item came with].

But before then, maybe check out the ilevel 30 purples for DZ credits (vendor in your home base, downstairs, has the DZ credit purples - new stock every hour) as soon as you hit lvl30. Just see if there's any good stats combos there to upgrade anything you're wearing that's lagging behind. As DZ credits are otherwise not that useful, it's not as if you've got better things to spend them on.

There's a lot of seconds of combat while leveling, increasing DPS isn't a bad thing. If you find yourself still using level 10 stuff at 20, definitely upgrade. Killing stuff faster means earning money, xp, and loot faster.

@shivoa: Thanks for all that. I actually just realized that, though I've finally hit level thirty, I'm still rolling with blues in quite a few slots. I only have one high end equipped (the pistol blueprint you get later on), so that certainly explains why I keep getting steamrolled whenever I enter the Dark Zone...or try and run missions on Hard. At this point I have to either group up or get better equipment to try and run solo on anything.

So speaking of crafting gear: If you have a DZ 50 character, you can buy blueprints from the level 50 DZ vendor and craft them, then send them to a DZ 1 alt who is free to equip them. The gear requirement is only for purchasing the blueprint or item - as long as your alt is PVE level 30, they can equip anything in the stash.

This is fitting in quite nicely with my plan to have a DZ 1 alt that can PVP without any fear of consequence. Seems like something that Massive may change eventually, though. The potential for trolling players in the Dark Zone just went through the roof for me. Not that I would ever do anything like that. ...