The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Chapter 186 Equipment Selection

Sometimes people are like that; when you want to buy something, you keep giving yourself mental suggestions and convincing yourself.

Even though you know it's not cost-effective, and even though you know that continuing like this will involve a terrifying amount of investment, you will always try to convince yourself that it is worthwhile.

Only in this way can you buy without any psychological burden. Otherwise, if you have all sorts of psychological burdens when you buy, you will end up feeling very upset. That's roughly the situation.

The most crucial point is that you have to believe what you're saying. But many people don't even believe it themselves when they say it. However, this player is clearly an exception. The more he talks about it, the more excited he gets. The more he analyzes it, the more he feels that going straight to the point is the most cost-effective.

"Everyone, let me say something, it's very realistic. Have you ever considered that in any game we play, we all have the experience of changing equipment? Everyone has done that, right? Why do we change equipment? Because we feel that the original equipment is no longer suitable. Why is the original equipment no longer suitable? Because we might have considered the cost-effectiveness."

"Then we put together a set of equipment that we thought was pretty good. With this set of equipment, we can go to some raids or join some other teams. Then you will find that the gap between us and those with better equipment is huge."

Then his set of equipment is considered endgame gear. Eventually, for various reasons, you will also switch to endgame gear. This is because when your income reaches a certain level, or to put it in other game terms, when you reach a certain level in a certain dungeon, you will pursue the limit. Why pursue the limit? Because you might consider soloing, or you might consider driving a team to carry others.

"6

"In short, regardless of the reason, it's undeniable that if we go for the extreme route, then the equipment we bought before will basically be scrapped. Some game equipment cannot be traded, which means that this equipment is wasted and can only be left to gather dust in the warehouse. Some games can be traded, but the price we paid when we bought it will definitely be much lower than the price we are selling it for now. We might lose 20% at the least and 30% at the most, because the price of this equipment will decrease over time."

2i

"When we bought it, there was a huge demand for this kind of cost-effective equipment. When we started selling it, people had probably already bought what they needed and didn't need it anymore. Under those circumstances, the price naturally went down."

"Although the same thing can happen with endgame gear, the sooner you buy it, the sooner you can enjoy it. And let's not even talk about whether endgame gear depreciates or not. You can use this stuff forever and you don't need to replace it. As long as you don't quit the game, it doesn't matter to you no matter how much it depreciates."

"So I've made up my mind. I'll treat this as my final gear. My idea is simple: I'll just craft the most perfect set. I've looked at a few options, and the most perfect set has at least double the stats of what we have now. Although the price is at least several times higher, I think such a big improvement is definitely worth it."

Upon hearing what this player said, many players initially had no idea what to expect, but they quickly began to recognize the connection, because some of them had actually played the game exactly the same way before. They didn't have high aspirations at the beginning, so they chose high-performance, cost-effective equipment, which was considered the ceiling for ordinary players.

The biggest advantage of the "commoner ceiling" is that it can achieve great results with very little money. For example, if a certain dungeon has a requirement for your DPS, you definitely won't be able to do it with ordinary equipment, but if you use the "commoner ceiling" equipment, you can barely meet that standard.

At this point, you can join a team. However, if that were all, it wouldn't be a big deal. The real problem lies in what follows. After you join those teams and clear the game, you'll find that while you do have top-tier equipment that you can use, it's very difficult to play. Everyone in the team has their own assigned tasks.

Because your equipment barely meets the requirements to participate in this dungeon, and your combat power is relatively weak, the team leader might take care of you and assign you the easiest task. Then, you find that even such an easy task is very difficult for you, and you barely meet the requirements, just barely scraping by.

As for those more difficult positions that require higher DPS, you definitely won't get those roles. Moreover, if you did get them, you'd likely fail. So, this set of gear barely meets the requirements, but there's still one problem.

In a dungeon, there might only be a few simple areas, which might be shared by only one or two people. However, since they are all wearing the same gear, there could be seven or eight people. In that case, it would be very difficult for you to join a team.

With seven or eight, or even more, people vying for these two positions, how do you think the team captain should choose? They'd definitely choose the two with the highest combat strength. Even though they're all wearing the same gear, one might have better details in their gear, naturally resulting in higher combat strength. Therefore, the team captain would naturally favor this type.

However, this is precisely the problem: when you barely manage to clear the dungeon with enough damage output, and then you have to compete with others, and all these other factors combined, if you want to continue running this dungeon, you must change your gear.

Either you become a top-tier DPS player, someone with unparalleled skill and high stats that every team wants, or you become a "carry" player, competing with other carry players and barely scraping by. You'll have to endure all sorts of unfair treatment; there's nothing you can do about it, since your gear isn't up to par. Under these circumstances, they'll gradually upgrade their gear until they get their final BiS (Best in Slot) set, and then things will be much easier. But the problem is, getting BiS gear is indeed a good thing.

So, what comes after this graduation outfit?

You can't just leave your old equipment lying around collecting dust in the warehouse, right? Well, that's fine, but it's useless. You might as well convert it into in-game currency or resources, then use it to upgrade yourself. When you try to sell it later, you'll find you're losing out.

This is a cycle, a cycle they have all experienced. Considering this factor, many players present recalled their past gaming experiences. After careful consideration, they realized that they might actually be capable of changing equipment in the future. So why not go all the way now instead of waiting until later?

Many players made their decision and started logging into the official auction house.

Currently, there are two trading methods in the game. The first is through player-run markets where players can browse stalls and look at items. The second is through the official trading market.

This so-called trading market can be understood as an auction house. Items can only be registered on the official website, including in-game currency and various top-tier equipment. The currency for transactions on that platform is RMB (Chinese real money), not in-game currency.

It's somewhat similar to the treasure vault feature in other games, and of course, this is necessary for Jiang Chen.

If it weren't for these things, how could he have received so much real-world currency and been able to distribute rewards to players?

Sometimes, in order to boost the real-world market, Jiang Chen would even list some items on the game market himself. Of course, he didn't dare to list too many, otherwise, if the inflation got out of control, he would be in big trouble.

Of course, things are different now; there are plenty of players now. Before, when there were fewer players, he certainly didn't dare to be too rampant; but now that there are so many, having a few more players online doesn't actually have as much of an impact as before, given the sheer number of players.

So that's roughly the situation.

In no time, many players logged into the auction house and started buying in-game currency.

As they started buying currency, many players couldn't help but start discussing it.

To be honest, they were all a little confused at that moment.

As we were chatting, a large number of people suddenly decided to get a graduation mech and achieve it all in one go. If you told them this, no one would believe it unless it seemed outrageous. In short, it was quite magical.

So what were these people thinking? Why did they suddenly make such an outrageous decision?

In general, they said they didn't understand it, but were greatly shocked. However, it seems that this group of amateur welders is about to make a fortune again.

"If I remember correctly, not long ago, those amateur welders and their partners were discussing what to do if they couldn't sell their stuff. Especially the top-of-the-line equipment sets. So far, they haven't sold a single piece. The main reason is that there are too few people willing to buy them. They all feel that the cost-effectiveness of the top-of-the-line accessories is very low."

"After this series of actions, doesn't it mean that this thing is no longer hard to sell, and that many people might even rush to buy it?"

At this point, the players looked at each other in bewilderment. Sometimes things are just like that: you never know whether tomorrow or an accident will come first, and you never know when something will unexpectedly fall on your head, just like this time.

"Forget it, the amateur welder's business is none of our concern. Besides, he's so rich, whether he can sell it or not doesn't seem to matter to this welder. What's important is what we should do next?"

The topic returned to them, and indeed, for them, the most important thing now was what to do. That was the biggest problem.

"What else can we do? Dude, you didn't actually listen to what he said, did you? You don't want to copy him and get it right the first time, do you?"

Upon hearing this, the latter quickly shook his head, saying, "You're joking! To go for the best right away, you need the financial means. These mechs aren't cheap; a complete set costs several thousand RMB. If you want the top-of-the-line version, the cost will definitely be higher. It's no exaggeration to say that with a little more money, you could probably customize a lower-quality large mech. There's absolutely no need to spend so much money on this small mech."

How do you get a top-tier small mech? First, you buy materials from the auction house using real money—those high-level and rare magical items and materials. You buy these materials first, then you buy gold coins, depending on whether the welder has purchased the necessary accessories.

After winning a battle, they usually loot the spoils. These high-level items are very rare; sometimes even captain-level characters don't drop high-level magic items. In short, the drop rate is extremely low, making these high-level magic items very precious. Once they drop, they are almost impossible to trade with in-game currency.

Unless the person is not short of money, so it doesn't matter for them to trade with game currency, they would never sell this item if they were not short of money. Basically, the people who list this item are the kind who are short of money and don't need such a good item themselves, so they sell this item for RMB and then use the RMB to buy game currency to go through this process.

Why not just sell this as a game?

First, they only exchange a portion of their RMB for game currency. They can't possibly exchange it all; they might use a portion for themselves or as their own income.

The second reason is the most important one. You might only be able to sell this item for 500 RMB in game currency, but if you list it on the trading market, someone might be willing to pay 600 RMB for it.

Because of the different monetary systems and the varying levels of convenience, the perception and consumption patterns are completely different. Sometimes, if someone is short of something, and you list it at a slightly higher price than the market price, they will buy it directly from you.

When people are in a hurry to make equipment, they just want something convenient and quick. They won't care too much about the price, as long as it's not outrageously expensive, they're willing to pay the money. So usually, that's the typical process for getting good items.

These magical items cost a lot of money. Then, these magical sets are used to make mechs, followed by top-quality accessories. Once the set is complete, a top-quality mech is created.

As long as it's not overused, a top-tier piece of equipment can indeed be used for a long time, and in terms of combat, it is indeed much more helpful than the ordinary model, which you can understand as being relatively balanced in all aspects.

The standard models are further divided into several different development directions, some leaning towards attack power, some towards speed, and some towards defense. However, when it comes to top-tier mechs, the highest single attribute value of a standard mech is basically on par with the lowest single attribute value of a top-tier mech. It's like a top-tier mech is a well-rounded fighter, while a standard mech can only choose one direction to focus on in order to maximize its effectiveness.