Nick, you and the other OOO devs are basically drug dealers, you know that right?

That's bad, and you should feel bad.

It's tough, but borderline doable, if you have a good supportive group of friends, a LOT of free time, and a deep will to spend gobs of money.

During the 4-5 month beta period, prices were significantly lower. That said, during that time, I know of only one player who managed to obtain every recipe in the game. She crafted a lot, but not every item possible, and just getting a hold of the required recipes required very substantial cash contributions from more than a half dozen people. (Even then, about a dozen 5* recipes were purchased for 80% off due to a pricing bug when 5* items were first released- otherwise we could have never afforded them all)

Now, post release, the cost to buy and craft recipes has generally gone up (some recipes costs are 3-5x higher), while Nick is of course threatening to add more items often. ;) My recommendations:

- Rather than buying all the recipes, farm out the crafting to others on low level stuff. Many players are willing to make items for significantly less than the crafting + recipe costs. Items up to 3* can be made instantly, so you'd save the costs of all the 1--->3* recipes required, and not have to wait.

- After a while, some players will also be willing to help level items, turning 4--->5* with their extra heat. It's too early for people to be making things for anyone but themselves, but in a month, you'll be able to find someone. Be sure you trust them, of course.

- Find a good supportive network of friends, and a way to offer something in return (to encourage contributions). In return for a few hundred thousand crowns in donations, my friend used her collection of recipes to contribute gobs of information to the wiki. (Overall, we all came out way ahead) As you build a reputation for being trustworthy, finding people to help will become easier.

- Prepare to buy energy. Lots of energy. Crafting with mist energy on off days will help defray the cost of crafting, but of course, that's a whole day without a chance to earn materials. Big packages are cheaper per unit energy than buying $10 a month in small chunks.

Let's say you want a 4* item, but don't have time to get the 3* precursor to level 5... instead, you can craft the 3* version, but NOT equip it.

A second player then equips and levels the item. When it is used to craft, the new item (4*) is unbound, and can be traded.

Of course, now that I explain this, the devs will probably nerf that market too... but that's kind of a shame. There's a point in playing where you start getting heat faster than you get materials or crowns/recipes to craft with, and crafting for other people helps to keep a sense of progress in the game. (it's also by no means an instant supply- leveling items is a labor of love and dedication that takes days to weeks)

I didn't ever net a profit doing this- recipes cost FAR more than the fee I got for leveling the item- but it was a great way to experiment with a variety of items at less cost to myself. So hopefully this feature- yes, feature- will remain for a long time to come.

Talking from experiance 2 players is what you want. Fastest clearing times for everything especialy arenas