'Cache Dive' : Level 4!

[Zzyli]

Hi fellow Alchemists. I've noticed that with the Philosopher's Caches being sold in bundles there's a lot of caches showing up in Dumpster Dive, to the point where some of my friends have jokingly referred to it as 'Cache Dive'. I made a glib comment about being able to level up just by getting caches out of Dumpster Dive, and I thought to myself that this could actually be something which would be interesting to attempt.

I'm using an unlevelled mule and fishing in Dumpster Dive in order to get components and funds to level up. Thoughts or ideas are very welcome!

I could forsee this having potential as a competitive event, but I'm not really the competitive type myself. However, if others were keen I could see what I could do about running it as some form of contest. I don't think that the Alchemy community has had a community event before, and I love community events, so if people are keen, this has some potential. If anyone else would like to join me in 'Cache Diving', I'd love to hear from you! I can update the OP accordingly. 3nodding

If any of you are interested in some of the motivation behind donations, DarkRybrin has done some investigation and a few user replies are below

DarkRybrin

SA

DarkRybrin

Thank you so much! I love these!
Might I ask why you kindly give cache to the DD?

messages like yours
and also
messages like this:
http://i.imgur.com/pSzMMrb.png

CB

DarkRybrin

Thank you very much! I adore these!
Might I ask why you give them, this just act?

I just like donating is all. heart

N

DarkRybrin

N

DarkRybrin

Thank you very much! I adore these!
Might I ask...what motivates you to give caches to the DD? It's a wonderful justice you perform, but I wonder why?

Mmm... I get them myself and I just redump them in there honestly.
I once bought a 1000 pack to dump in there, but I figure it's better than just getting paper or something meaningless. :3

You are really helping the community, do not doubt. I super appreciate finding these things, as it's speeding me through level eight so nicely. Thank you for telling me your reasoning as well. I've been trying to understand why this wonderful trend has occurred.

Thank you for being so polite! I've gotten numerous mean messages... so this was a great change of pace.

SM

DarkRybrin

SM

DarkRybrin

Thank you very much! I adore these!

You're welcome! smile

I do appreciate them. I'm in the last lap of alchemy, and was able to get through the previous level so much faster then ever before with all of the DD help!
Might I ask why you kindly donate caches?

I anon all the time so I saw the thousand pack and decided to throw a couple in. smile

A theme image from Jonjon21428 is below (it's quite big, it may page stretch for you)

[Zzyli]

The account: Impending Purpose
The challenge: To level in Alchemy up to Level 10 solely using items found from Dumpster Dive
Start Date: 21/5/14

Rough Plan: Please note that this is subject to change depending on the MP climate, sheer luck and my level of impatience. I will allow purchasing of formulae from the Bifrost, but all components have to come from the Dumpster, or other basic site activities like free grants and Daily Chance. I'm also planning to craft a Crown of the Thrice Great when I'm done, which has influenced my crafting plans. Components required for the crown are indicated in boldface text. In terms of other options, I have looked for crafted components which require few components or components from common caches.

As far as a general levelling up strategy goes, you may want to consider other factors (like the fact that you would be allowed to buy components from gold shops and such.) Still, in my opinion, crafted components and brute force crafting may be suitable for some Alchemists.

Level 1: Alchemy Starter Kit, Unicorn Blood, Dragon Blood, Bottled Up Moonlight (x2), Bottled Up Sunlight (x2), Cephalopodian Artifact, Bottled Up Moonlight, Bottled Up Sunlight

Reached Level 2 16/6/14
Level 2: Minotaur Horn, Frozen Time x5, Medusa's Eyeball x4

Reached Level 3 20/6/14
Level 3: Banshee's Silver Comb, Ampithere's Hypnotic Eye, Ectoplasm, Twinkle Truffle (x2), Griffin's Fiery Feather (x5)

Reached Level 4 25/6/14
Level 4: Red Mercury (x2), Bahamut's Fire, Ahuizhotl's Tailhand, Red Mercury (x6)

Level 5: Plague Virus, Moonstone (x2), Sunstone (x2), Sunstone (x2), Moonstone (x3)

Level 6: Uranium Biscuits (x2), Wyvern Tears, Angel Blood, Celestial Glow, Demon Blood, Demon's Curse, Uranium Biscuits (x3)

Level 7: Quantum Particle (x2), Ankou's Strand of White Hair, Ambrosia (x2), Ugh everything is so expensive

Level 8: Eldritch Horror Tentacle, Spice (x2), More Spice? Idk

Level 9: Soul Crystals, Leviathan's Venom, Dark Matter, Leviathan's Venom (x7)???????


Quick progress snapshot at 25/6/14. I have;
8/80 XP for Level 4 Alchemy
2 Base Caches
20 Gold Caches
2 Platinum Caches
16 Diamond Caches
48 Garnet Caches
1 Ruby Cache (Never enough!)
30 Topaz Caches
18 Emerald Caches
20 Aquamarine Caches
0 Sapphire Caches
19 Amethyst Caches

485 million gold eek

[Yami no Sakura]

It's definitely an interesting and fun idea.

In fairness, you would not be allowed to use crafting services for XP because that's technically outside of the Dumpster Dive. But you would be allowed to sell things you've crafted and then reinvest that gold. I think you might even be allowed to sell Gold caches that you pull from the Philosopher's Cache.

I don't know if you would want yourself to have some starting capital. It should technically be possible to start with maybe just 100k to pay for crafting fees and formulas, and then get the rest from the caches in the Dumpster Dive. But that might be too hard.

Sounds like a lot of fun, though! I might do that on my mule too once I've completed my Wing Mastery achievement. xD

[Ace of Blue Spades]

Well, if the intent is to challenge yourself, then you should probably only use caches from the Dumpster Dive. Crafting using other people's stuff seems to defeat the point.

There's no problem selling off the caches you don't use, though. Or with buying the non cache components because waiting to get some of that stuff in the Dive is just futile.

Heck, you could start the challenge off with buying the things you need for the Crown of the Thrice Great. It requires formulas from all levels to make it. What with higher components requiring components from lower levels and all that.

[Ankit Yamotashi]

Zzyli

Yea it seems to be a cache dive xD.

[DarkRybrin]

I've been loving the caches! (Thank you again, Zzyli, you really helped speed me up in level eight, and I appreciate the caches. As well as all the experience you let me gain in previous levels!) Truly, I typically just fish for trash to make caches, but finding finished ones! Paro is a darling, as well as all of the other enterprising and kind cache donators that I have been thanking each and individually as I find them (the anons make me sad, I can't thank them directly).

I think anything you find within the DD should be fair game for selling. Whether that is selling gold cache, items or supplies found, and so forth. I think the challenge is also making sure the avatar is well dressed while doing alchemy, like keeping cute or handy items that were crafted, or not selling simply everything (here's looking at all the gold-gen extras that people dump).

Experience and donations from others should likewise not be considered for the challenge. But what you do with what you get from the DD is your business. I love the idea of this being a community challenge! It's not one I could willfully play, but there's so many ambitious and quick that I'm sure would eat a challenge like this up. I'd love to follow your progress with it, if you do decide to crack open that mule and revel in the goodness that is the DD leveling process. I bet you would still manage it faster then I have. *nod*

I think, simply because of how the two overlap, any catches you get during BG, or caches you find in the DC, should also be counted towards your DD challenge. As well as any 'randoms' floating around on pages. It's too difficult to keep them separate, and all were technically 'chanced' to you. Likewise, playing BG would let you get those starting and crafting funds, if you don't have cache or items to sell.

[Zzyli]

Ace of Blue Spades

Yami no Sakura

DarkRybrin

Thanks so much for the input! I've got myself a mule account (please ignore the post history on the account, it was used in the past as a shared account to help facilitate a backwings craft I did for another user) and removed everything except for the clothes it stands in.

I've turned gifting off to make sure that no-one does anything sneaky. I will sell things to get crafting funds, but I won't vend caches (using the funds from selling caches to buy other caches), as that would make it way too easy. I won't actively try to earn gold from things like BG, but anything I get from posting etc is fair game. I also plan to play the Daily Chance, and I'll keep/sell things from random site events (pink links and such).

I'm thinking the most effective and logical method would be to do chained component crafts (like Bottled up Sunlight goes into Sunstone which goes into Spice which goes into Dark Matter...). I'll need to sit down and figure out what is the best way to make use of each level, but I may as well start diving in the meantime.

[User_36512777]

Hi- I'm Zzyli's mule, and the one who will be levelling up in this challenge

[piggyzhou]

Impending Purpose

Hi- I'm Zzyli's mule, and the one who will be levelling up in this challenge

Please keep us updated on your progress. It would be amazing to be able to look back a year from now and go "I've finally reached level 10... And it literally cost me nothing!" (well, hopefully it won't take a year, but you know what I mean XD)

[Zzyli]

piggyzhou

Please keep us updated on your progress. It would be amazing to be able to look back a year from now and go "I've finally reached level 10... And it literally cost me nothing!" (well, hopefully it won't take a year, but you know what I mean XD)

I have no idea how long it will take, I'll need to get a feel for what I can get out of the Dumpster. I'm looking at about 40 mil for crafting costs based on the mean number of attempts required to craft an item with Very Low odds, plus I'll need to buy formulae (I figured that I'd be waiting a *long* time for any of those to show up in the dumpster). I may have to double up though and craft things at a lower level to progress at a higher level. I also need to figure out what would be most effective to craft aside from the components for the Crown of Thrice. But I'm surrounded by spreadsheets, and this makes me happy. Us Alchemists are an odd bunch. xd

This can go down with my Michael's Wings which in the end actually earnt me about 1 billion gold. I was really suprised when I ran the figures, and think that a mixture of good planning and serendipity got me that. I'm not sure if anyone else can say that their wings made them a profit without selling them. sweatdrop

[piggyzhou]

Zzyli

piggyzhou

Please keep us updated on your progress. It would be amazing to be able to look back a year from now and go "I've finally reached level 10... And it literally cost me nothing!" (well, hopefully it won't take a year, but you know what I mean XD)

I have no idea how long it will take, I'll need to get a feel for what I can get out of the Dumpster. I'm looking at about 40 mil for crafting costs based on the mean number of attempts required to craft an item with Very Low odds, plus I'll need to buy formulae (I figured that I'd be waiting a *long* time for any of those to show up in the dumpster). I may have to double up though and craft things at a lower level to progress at a higher level. I also need to figure out what would be most effective to craft aside from the components for the Crown of Thrice. But I'm surrounded by spreadsheets, and this makes me happy. Us Alchemists are an odd bunch. xd

This can go down with my Michael's Wings which in the end actually earnt me about 1 billion gold. I was really suprised when I ran the figures, and think that a mixture of good planning and serendipity got me that. I'm not sure if anyone else can say that their wings made them a profit without selling them. sweatdrop

XD; Walps, if you say you've earned 1 billion on your Michael's I'm going to assume I did as well... Largely due to inflation and the fact that I got the 3 diamondbacks between 150-700mil each o w o

Is that how you've got an unrealized gain of 1 billion ;o?

[Zzyli]

piggyzhou

XD; Walps, if you say you've earned 1 billion on your Michael's I'm going to assume I did as well... Largely due to inflation and the fact that I got the 3 diamondbacks between 150-700mil each o w o

Is that how you've got an unrealized gain of 1 billion ;o?

No, I actually walked away with 1 bil pure + my wings. I'd been fishing to get enough Sand Boldurs to buy a Diamondback, and I was about 80% done when the Diamondback Lions were put in CIs and were going for about 3 bil. I bought the Diamondback, and sold my fish for about 4.5 bil all up.

I got my Crown, Furniture and Neckscarf ages ago. I paid 500k for the scarf, 300k for the crown (which was a good snag even then), and probably about 500k for the furniture all up. In a sense my caches were free, because I opened base caches and sold the coloured caches until I'd turned 100 cache start-up into all the caches I needed, but even if I counted the cost of them, it's only about 200-250 mil. My quest I bought for 10 mil the first time that they were in the CS (I probably overpaid for that at the time actually). I panic bought 10 Monarchs and a White Body Dye when they put caches in the Bifrost for 50k, and that cost me about 7 mil for the bugs and 25 mil for the dye. I spent relatively little on crafting costs because I used crafting services for all my lower levelled stuff, and was pretty lucky with my final wing stages, but even if I gave a hand-wave overestimate of 50 mil, it's not unreasonable to say that I walked away with 1 bil from the fish transaction.

My only disappointment with the whole process is that I didn't have the foresight to consider that I'd want to make more than one set of wings. If I'd bought multiples of some of these things a while ago, it would have really streamlined other quests. I'm considering having a crack at Winged Mastery, however, I'm honestly not that fussed on any of the other pairs of wings, so I'm not sure about the whole thing. Maybe I can find someone who'd be interested in getting me to craft for them and I can provide some of the stuff (not the bits which are a huge headache to find xd ). Also, I wouldn't even mind catching the fish myself (yes I am out of my mind thinking about catching 4k Boldurs), but the bug situation is currently rather untenable with no paths for creating rare bugs. From what I hear, quite a few of the rare bugs on the site are from some kind of Towns spasm back in 2007 or 2008 when the frequency of rare bugs made them somewhat... unrare, so I don't think that they're being replenished nearly as fast as they're being consumed.

[piggyzhou]

Zzyli

piggyzhou

XD; Walps, if you say you've earned 1 billion on your Michael's I'm going to assume I did as well... Largely due to inflation and the fact that I got the 3 diamondbacks between 150-700mil each o w o

Is that how you've got an unrealized gain of 1 billion ;o?

No, I actually walked away with 1 bil pure + my wings. I'd been fishing to get enough Sand Boldurs to buy a Diamondback, and I was about 80% done when the Diamondback Lions were put in CIs and were going for about 3 bil. I bought the Diamondback, and sold my fish for about 4.5 bil all up.

I got my Crown, Furniture and Neckscarf ages ago. I paid 500k for the scarf, 300k for the crown (which was a good snag even then), and probably about 500k for the furniture all up. In a sense my caches were free, because I opened base caches and sold the coloured caches until I'd turned 100 cache start-up into all the caches I needed, but even if I counted the cost of them, it's only about 200-250 mil. My quest I bought for 10 mil the first time that they were in the CS (I probably overpaid for that at the time actually). I panic bought 10 Monarchs and a White Body Dye when they put caches in the Bifrost for 50k, and that cost me about 7 mil for the bugs and 25 mil for the dye. I spent relatively little on crafting costs because I used crafting services for all my lower levelled stuff, and was pretty lucky with my final wing stages, but even if I gave a hand-wave overestimate of 50 mil, it's not unreasonable to say that I walked away with 1 bil from the fish transaction.

My only disappointment with the whole process is that I didn't have the foresight to consider that I'd want to make more than one set of wings. If I'd bought multiples of some of these things a while ago, it would have really streamlined other quests. I'm considering having a crack at Winged Mastery, however, I'm honestly not that fussed on any of the other pairs of wings, so I'm not sure about the whole thing. Maybe I can find someone who'd be interested in getting me to craft for them and I can provide some of the stuff (not the bits which are a huge headache to find xd ). Also, I wouldn't even mind catching the fish myself (yes I am out of my mind thinking about catching 4k Boldurs), but the bug situation is currently rather untenable with no paths for creating rare bugs. From what I hear, quite a few of the rare bugs on the site are from some kind of Towns spasm back in 2007 or 2008 when the frequency of rare bugs made them somewhat... unrare, so I don't think that they're being replenished nearly as fast as they're being consumed.

Oh I see, you actually have a realized gain (I was under the impression you meant 1 billion of gain only upon selling the wings).

And those are quite the favorable prices in terms of today's economy! But I'm betting back then when you bought your items 500k was a good chunk of change, although probably still more easily obtainable than now -- since there would not have been as huge of interest in crafting backwings when caches weren't readily available.

Yeah sad Hindsight is 20/20. As for the bugs not being replenished: They're definitely not. I'm sure you've noticed that the same few people seem to have a constant supply of them -- but they're not willing to let it go for cheap.

The times I was able to buy the rare bugs in multiples were from people who had just returned from a long hiatus and was willing to part with them for below MP (so basically luck + timing).

It also doesn't help that there are those who... don't... "craft responsibly" and have the gold to pay premium prices, driving up the prices of the bugs even more.

I wish you the best of luck though o w o!

[Zzyli]

piggyzhou

Oh I see, you actually have a realized gain (I was under the impression you meant 1 billion of gain only upon selling the wings).

And those are quite the favorable prices in terms of today's economy! But I'm betting back then when you bought your items 500k was a good chunk of change, although probably still more easily obtainable than now -- since there would not have been as huge of interest in crafting backwings when caches weren't readily available.

Yeah sad Hindsight is 20/20. As for the bugs not being replenished: They're definitely not. I'm sure you've noticed that the same few people seem to have a constant supply of them -- but they're not willing to let it go for cheap.

The times I was able to buy the rare bugs in multiples were from people who had just returned from a long hiatus and was willing to part with them for below MP (so basically luck + timing).

It also doesn't help that there are those who... don't... "craft responsibly" and have the gold to pay premium prices, driving up the prices of the bugs even more.

I wish you the best of luck though o w o!

Thanks!

It's kind of odd the influence hyperinflation has had on Alchemy. Even if we had a stable economy and Gaia put caches in the Bifrost for 50k each and sold the two rounds of Inizios in the CS, we'd definitely have seen a big spike in price in non cache components (I was not a happy person paying for the WBD and Monarchs, but knew if I didn't get on top of them, they'd only get dearer), but walking away with a 1 bil realised gain is something which I would have laughed at if you'd told me about it 12 months ago.

I think that the price increases which we've seen in everything actually have a twofold cause. Obviously, all the gold from gold gens has to go somewhere, but the other factor is that prior to gold generators, users who were rich or even moderately wealthy (I'd consider that I was upper middle-class pre-Flynn and I'm still upper middle-class now. If I killed my invo, at a guess, I could probably just scrape together enough for an offer on an Angelic Halo, but Tektek is an even more inaccurate source of account worth since their hard drive failure) had to have some understanding of the marketplace, either because they invested to earn their gold, or just from being old users who have been around for a long time and got used to questing (and as a consequence, stalking the MP). Gold generators put a lot of currency into the hands of Gaians merely by spending a pocket money amount of dollars (or even for nothing except for time if you're fortunate enough to get good GC offers), and if they're anything like I was for the first few years on the site, as soon as they have enough gold to buy an item, they just buy the lowest listing regardless of things like average price or graphs.

From a perspective of a big economic experiment, I'd be really curious to see what would have happened if all the currency from gold generators went to Gaian users who were in the upper 10th percentile of account worth (just a figure I pulled out of my head). I wonder whether the impact on our economy would have been as extreme. There's no real way of testing this out (and even if there was, there'd be some kind of torches and pitchforks riot from the users).

Hindsight is amazing, but unfortunately not especially useful unless you manage to invent a time machine. I always consider responsible crafting and making a fair playing field for all users, and I have to admit it can be really frustrating to find that someone has gone and bought up all the listings of a particular needed component, unnecessarily driving up the prices for everyone, when waiting a bit longer would have meant they actually save gold. I suppose that this is what we have to contend with, and actually if everyone had put as much foresight into crafting as me, I probably would have ended up having far fiercer competition for components from the get go.

I know there's been quite a few petitions to let us trade up regular bugs for rare bugs, but Gaia will probably use the method that they've used for every other item which users have requested and just chuck them in a CI at some point. sweatdrop

...and I've totally derailed my own thread into an economic discussion. redface

[Urd Tanzanite]

I didn't realize this was a thing, or going to be a thing.

I've crafted Ectoplasm and Amphithere's Hypnotic Eye tonight just from the caches I pulled from the Dumpster Dive over the past couple of weeks.

So it's quite possible to do this.