Should I be bothering to collect loot to sell?

[BlackFlame]

I find that if I keep picking up stuff I don't really need to sell back at town, my inventory fills up pretty quickly, what with the food, oil, essential scrolls and potions, and either wands/rods/staffs, books, or alternate weapons depending on class that I also need to take.

So what do you folks think? Should I just keep running back to town with loot every two or three floors, or only keep ego items to sell, or not even bother keeping anything that I don't actually need?

[dhegler]

I typically keep the ego items once gold is not as important as the begin-game. Otherwise it gets too tedious for me and the payback isn't much. Also depends what kind of character to me... As a mage I'm not carrying a ton of stuff around to slow me down.

[Eagle]

I always carry loot. Cann't help it, I'm a gold junkie.
In the beginning I hold on to "Good" weapons, and stackable rods. After dLvl 20 I only bring "Excellent" weapons, rare books and stat potions to the shops.
The reason I do this is to be able to buy a) stat potions or b) an occasional excellent item in the black market (potion of experience!).

After clvl 40 the looting stops, because I'm a milionaire at that point.

The looting/selling process gives me a playing style in which I regurarly get back to town, to get supplies and/or drop stuff in my home. It also gives me a pause in my hack&slash playing style. Time to check things out, like swapping items, or checking monster memory.

[fizzix]

There are useful reasons to continue amassing gold even if you are rich.

1: If you don't have stats maxed, you can buy up cheap slots in the black market. This will increase (slightly) the chances of getting a stat potion or other useful consumables like potions of healing, scrolls of teleportation, deep descent or teleport level. All of those show up in the BM about once or twice a game.

2: Usually in the midgame I have a bunch of stuff stored in my home that can sometimes be bought in town. These include: potions of restore str, con, dex/int/wis (depending on situation) staves of identify, staves of teleportation, scrolls of recharging, potions of restore life levels. If I have a ton of money, I can afford to buy out the magic shop/alchemist/temple several times to get these items. Since usually by this point, home inventory slots are extremely valuable for artifacts, i'm in essence trading about 100k gold for an extra home slot.

3: In the same vein. If I need some ammo, and can't brand it myself yet, there's a good chance that enchanted whatever will show up in the weapons shop if I buy it out several times. Or I can buy plain ammo and buy out the alchemist for scrolls of enchant weapon.

So there are some reasons to keep on lugging the stuff back to town to sell. Remember though, that it takes 3 (?) town changings for your stuff to vanish from the shops, so you'll have to wait a shop out once you sell something to it. On the crappy games where the weapon shop maxes out at 5000, I'll only bring up blessed or blunt weapons that I can sell to the temple. In that case I'll keep both !CCW and !RLL around. Especially if you are low on health, SP, and are going to rest anyway. There's no reason not to recall to town just to check out the BM or buy up slots.

[buzzkill]

I think that everyone starts out as a hoarder/seller, and then as they progress, the emphasis shifts to less selling and more surviving. I would think that this holds true for individual characters as well as one's banding career.

There is a balance that you will come to find on your own. Selling is certainly important, but once gold is plentiful and selling itself becomes cumbersome, then it's probably time to cut back, despite all the really nice gear you'll have to leave lying on the dungeon floor. After all, how do you think that stuff came to be lying there in the first place?

[Maupin]

After all, how do you think that stuff came to be lying there in the first place?

Because I mowed through a gnome mage convention?

[Hariolor]

I started off dragging everything back to town frequently.

Two things have changed this:

1) Identify by use has made it far more reasonable to ID ego weapons and armor.

2) I realized that magical items are simply *not* worth it. Nor are most staves, wands, and rods. In fact, the only things I lug around with me are Westernesse, Defender and Gondolin items, and the occasional artifact. Everything else is literally rubbish basically from the get-go. I'll use a plussed rapier or trident if I find one, until the first lightweight ego weapon shows up, then all I care about are artifacts and the three aforementioned valuable ego items. Then again, I also dive to about 450' *immediately* upon entering the dungeon. And once I have FrAct, I dive to about 1500. So I can afford to be picky about what I bring with me, because I get to the good stuff sooner.

[Magnate]

I find that if I keep picking up stuff I don't really need to sell back at town, my inventory fills up pretty quickly, what with the food, oil, essential scrolls and potions, and either wands/rods/staffs, books, or alternate weapons depending on class that I also need to take.

So what do you folks think? Should I just keep running back to town with loot every two or three floors, or only keep ego items to sell, or not even bother keeping anything that I don't actually need?

This all depends on how much you like shopping and how much you like wandering around the dungeon. I now loathe shopping so much that I don't pick up anything I don't actually need, except items which are obviously of very high value (high-end egos, rare devices etc.). IMO recalling every 2-3 levels is a recipe for deathly boredom but it's all about your personal preference. I tend to recall something like this:

~600-800' (when I have enough for tSelf, or a longbow and lots of ?+dam)
~1500-1800' (to stock up on escapes)
~2500'
~3000'

I'm usually dead not long after that. I find that recalling frequency *increases* as I get deeper, because I run out of consumables quicker (or get stuff burned up).

[tummychow]

I think that everyone starts out as a hoarder/seller, and then as they progress, the emphasis shifts to less selling and more surviving. I would think that this holds true for individual characters as well as one's banding career.

There is a balance that you will come to find on your own. Selling is certainly important, but once gold is plentiful and selling itself becomes cumbersome, then it's probably time to cut back, despite all the really nice gear you'll have to leave lying on the dungeon floor. After all, how do you think that stuff came to be lying there in the first place?

I totally agree. I went from looting for my first thirty levels to now shifting towards getting better equipment and weapons.
Anyway... I would totally suggest getting loot to sell. It's way more important than it seems! That loot comes in handy for purchasing stat potions from the black market (which accounts for about half of my stat gains lol) and for picking up high-quality equipment from the shops. For a fairly long time, the shops are able to stock some impressive stuff, meaning that it literally pays to have some money on hand.
Once you've got a solid reserve of money, the items in the town become less useful to you and you need to hunt stuff down more.
As for what ego items to keep, I would keep those three (westernesse, defender and gondolin), but I would also suggest going for extra might/attack/shot items, as those things sell for a surprsingly high amount. In general, I would just collect everything I see until my inventory is full. Then, when I come across a sweet sell, I determine what will sell for the least, drop or destroy it, and pick up the new item. Then I move on. I've got max strength so the load doesn't really matter too much to me.
I immediately identify everything I get, and I'm not often lucky enough to get all-ego loads, but those extra items account for a good 5-10k in the long run. Anyway, looting is... quite necessary. As a rogue, I've got to get some valuable stuff going through my hands to live up to my reputation!
I personally will always loot. I will probably never find a reason to stop going back up to town with a full load, although my focus may now be shifting. Everybody's opinion on the topic differs. Loot until you feel you no longer need the cash, I'd say.

[PowerDiver]

Do you die because you recall to the dungeon and land in the frying pan with no conveniently connected stairs leading up?

Do you die in part to moving at minus speed due to load?

Do you die because instead of carrying something useful in a slot it is devoted to loot?

Would you rather be an adventurer than a shopoholic?


If the answer to all of those is no, then you should increase the amount of loot you carry to sell and/or the frequency with which you recall to sell stuff. If the answer to any is yes, then you should decrease the loot you carry.

[nobody]

i sell a lot, good items at first, i think, like eagle, i start ignoring most magical items at around clvl 20 instead only bringing up egos. actually recently it seems some things, like mauls, get decent money even if just magical, so i continue bringing those up a little longer, since i usually play a highelf rogue with good stength

[pav]

I demand a price readout in Inspect screen for every time. Just like in Ey. (Hmm might as well patch this in myself in my copy.)

[Ghen]

I demand a price readout in Inspect screen for every time. Just like in Ey. (Hmm might as well patch this in myself in my copy.)

I'd accept a price feeling, like say "This is probably not worth much" to "This will make a killing, even on the black market!"

[pav]

You don't need a feeling like this, you know this already. I'm interested in precise figures, to maximize money income per loot slot.

[Eagle]

Hmm, I prefer to leave that knowledge to the player. An more experienced player will know more about the prices than inexperienced once. It's yet another aspect of the game to master.

And it's not that hard to know what to sell, and what to drop.
Furthermore I have 5-6 slots for loot in the 'looting'-phase of the game (~clvl 1 to 30). Enough space to get rich.