On Just Buying Things with Platinum
Sometimes, it’s tempting to just buy something with Platinum. Whether it’s a skin from the market or a weapon part you’re missing. The grind for every item isn’t the same or in any way equal. So what do you do? Do you just buy the thing with plat or do you just farm for it? It’s a hard question to answer.
Well, it’s a hard question for most people to answer. I tend to just farm the thing no matter what. Unless it’s a Prime that is pissing me off with a missing part.
Time VS Money
The question always is, how long are you willing to farm something for, and how lucky will you be? Because farming for something like Sevagoth isn’t too bad. The chances are half-decent and all you need to do are Void Storms. Generally, opening relics for Primed Parts isn’t too hard either.
But you reach a point where the grind just isn’t worth it. For example, the Pennant is a great sword, but it’s a rare drop chance from a boss on a single node in Railjack, in an already rather long mission. Between finding a squad, finding a group that won’t immediately leave once the boss is gone and all the connection issues, you reach the point where you might as well buy the blueprint from another player.
Or, worse, you could be an idiot like me and buy it from the market, not knowing the blueprint was trade-able.
And even farms that aren’t bad can turn sour. The farm for Nidus genuinely isn’t that bad. It’s one mission and not even a hard mission. But if you get unlucky, it can screw you up completely. After all, it took me months to get the Neuroptics, the last Nidus part I needed. In that time, I could have bought platinum and had him from day one.
Coupons only arrive when you don’t want them.
I suppose, in the mean time, you could wait for a 70% discount. Or a 50% discount. Weirdly, there is a 60% discount as well. But I find that the Platinum discounts happen at random.
It’s even harder on consoles. Consoles don’t get the percentage discounts on Platinum. Instead, they get a random item that’s discounted in the shop. But it’s pretty much completely random. So you might be waiting ages for the thing you want to be discounted. Sure, there’s the occasional sales throughout the year, but these are only ever really on specific items. Like bows during Valentines Day.
Darvo deals are also an option but they are mostly crap. Who wants to save 10% on a Heat Sword? No one. But the good discounts are insanely hard to get. Nidus briefly went on sale for once and was out of stock probably within minutes. Darvo Deals are great in theory but they’re too limited to actually be of any use.
Time farming VS time farming platinum
The other alternative is to work out how long it would take to farm for Platinum. By that, I mean opening relics or Orokin vaults and selling what you get. Sure, you’re not going to make tons of Platinum overnight. Not unless you’re selling Loki Prime Systems. But if buying is not an option, then farming for Platinum surely is.
This doesn’t always apply for everything, but it IS good for smaller things. Sure, you could open tons of relics for Forma blueprints. But they take 23 hours to build. If you’re lucky and get, say, an Octavia Prime blueprint, you could sell that and some other bits and bobs. Probably for about 25-35 Platinum. And then you can go and buy a Forma bundle for 35 Platinum. Then again, that’s assuming you get lucky with both relics and traders.
At the end of the day though, it’s all based on luck. And that’s where Digital Extremes make their money.From impatient people. If you are patient, then you can get everything for free. However, we’re all patient up to a point. And that’s when we fork over platinum to satisfy our needs.
Actually, that’s only really true when it comes to Forma and slots. Most of their money (probably) comes from people buying Prime Access gear, or buying cosmetics and Tennogen. But even cosmetics can be earned by being patient…