AgentMountaineer

<QR> I was just in WW and a thought struck me that I don't think I've seen mentioned in this particular thread. It has been postulated that marketeers are the cause of the majority of high prices on the market. This, in my view, is highly erroneous. I find myself curious, as a marketeer, as to the number of my fellows who have their particular niches in which they earn the majority of their inf, and the rest is just fluff in the pillowcase.

Personally, I have a few items that I flip and will take the time to craft the more profitable of my drops, but the rest (and the great majority) is simply listed low without consideration of current going rates. I know that the Goat lists most of his salvage for 1 and I have found myself adopting this philosophy in order to reduce the amount of time I spend in the market interface and in order to keep needed market slots available.

Thus I enable somebody who is patient enough to wait for my listing with a good deal on whatever piece of salvage I happened across during my game play. Even if I am the only one that does this, low bids usually will net the salvage you need if you leave it up long enough. An old Heinz commercial taught me that, "Good things come to those who wait." The virtue of patience cannot be overemphasized when it comes to the market.

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Am I the only one that thought immediately of TMNT when I saw this?

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It would be nice to round out the two missing turtle primaries.

Looking forward to some screen shots of the lucky recipients of that $$$.

Certainly not a bad deal, I would think. Sure an extra 900K hurts, but I think you'd be able to recoup that rather quickly. If not, I am more than willing to donate it out of my own pocket.

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Here's my analogy, and it's one I used before. Let's say that many of the people in the game believe that if a tanker taunts an enemy, then they get all the XP, and the other teammates don't.

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Interesting analogy, Werner. Like most, this thread has been fun to read from beginning to end and there are a million places I wanted to hit the 'Reply' button, but by the time I got to the end pretty much everything I could have said has been said.

I'll just add my two cents that as long as there is a monetary system in the game, it won't matter how it is configured. Somebody out there will find something about it they don't like and wander here to complain about it. That's just life. There is no such thing as a perfect system. The only thing you can do is to satisfy as much of the player base as you can. I don't see anything with the market that requires further change.

There are now two systems that make it so that interaction with the market is minimized: Merits and tickets. Whether you spend your time in the market, grinding merits, or earning tickets, it all takes some investiture of time. What you choose to do with that time is completely up to you. You say you don't like the market? Well then, be prepared to spend your time waiting for something to drop or work on earning the tickets or merits needed in order to roll what you want. In my opinion, the market is the easiest way to get exactly what you want because the only randomness involved is whether somebody has listed the desired item lower than your bid.

One of the simplest marketeering strategies I know if is that when you find a recipe you want, buy more than you need and sell the extra crafted IOs for profit. In most cases the crafted IO will sell for a good deal more than the recipe itself. It doesn't take that long to look and see a particular recipe will turn a profitable IO. Combining this strategy with selling your drops along the way should ensure a steady stream of income to net whatever you might fancy.

The whole point of the game isn't to to be fun (sorry to burst that bubble), the point is to make money. In order to make money, the game has to attract and keep subscribers (which does denote that some level of enjoyment is involved). One of the main ways to keep subscribers is to have a loot system that provides incentive to remain involved in the game. It is a delicate balance to provide the rewards in a way to keep subscribers playing as long as possible before deciding it isn't worth the time. Reaching this balance is why I see the Devs doing what they have been doing since the inception of the market and with the implementation of the merit and ticket rewards. Everything is designed with the intent to bring in revenue, period.

It seems like the casual gamer always comes in to these discussions, and while I once felt some degree of sympathy for them, I have lost it. There are any number of ways to earn influence on the market with a remarkably small investment of time once you have learned the mechanics of the system, all of which come up regularly in any number of threads on this forum. If they look at the cost of a recipe and curse the whole system instead of seeking a way to earn it, there really isn't anything that can be done to help them. If they want a build that can solo AVs or solo TFs, I think they have moved out of the realm of the casual gamer.

I realize this has turned into a little more than a two-cent post, but just as others have felt the desire to add their voice to those who oppose the system as it stands, I felt the desire to add my voice in support of it.

I had a little writing exercise for one of my classes and wrote the following story as a narrative essay. I thought I would share it and see what you all thought.

The other day a civilian asked me how I enjoy my life as a hero in Paragon City. Sure, a standard response might go something along the lines of, “It is one of the most rewarding positions a person can hold in a city like Paragon. There is nothing that matches the feeling of knowing I get to help people every day and that I have made the world a better and safer place.” But with the population of Paragon City being what it is, also known as a city of heroes, difficulty ensues as I try to carve out a name for myself and set my accomplishments apart from the other heroes. I think the status of the hero has to be seen from behind the eyes of the individual upon whom the title is placed. Let me tell how it all started.

For the great majority of my life, I never had anything that set me apart from the average Jane. Yes, I said Jane. It’s a woman’s country too, after all. You don’t have to look at me with that kind of attitude. As I was saying, there was nothing that set me apart other than my sheer strength of will to accomplish the goals I set for myself with absolute relentlessness. I found the area this was especially true was in my martial arts training with a katana. I excelled in my fighting skill with this blade like no student my trainer had ever known, and he had seen his share of heroes come through his facility.

One night after training, I was walking home and decided to take a shortcut through an alley that would shave a good bit of time off my commute home. The horror of the scene I then encountered still sends a chill down my spine and causes my hair to stand on end. The image of the Hellion gang member stooping over his unfortunate victim with a sacrificial knife in hand is still burned into my retinas, his menace glinting in his eyes in the pale light of the moon as he turned toward the sound of my approach. The hellish pentagram scrawled around the body left no doubt as to what was happening.

Every instinct told me to turn and run as fast as I could before I shared the same fate as the figure inside that arcane symbol. In fact, I was just turning to make the dash when I heard the faintest of cries and noticed the slight movement of the figure on the ground.

It was then that the war within began. It was only a short moment, but every conviction and moral I knew raced through my head like Olympian sprinters vying for the gold medal. Do I stay and help this poor woman and risk sharing her fate, or do I turn and run in order to ensure my own survival? My martial-arts training was for self-defense only. I never had to use lethal force on another individual. If it came to it, could I kill this man, vile in every character attribute as he might be?

I can’t say exactly what happened next. The only thing I know for certain is that I quickly arrived at the conclusion that I could not leave either of these creatures to the fate which would have been theirs if I had not chosen to take an alternate route home that night. The katana is a weapon used by the expert as a tool of efficiency and it was over in a few short strokes after being drawn. The light barely had time to glance from the surface of my polished blade before the man lay at my feet, knife knocked from his hand and unconscious. This Hellion was only an initiate and not nearly as dangerous as some of the other villains I have come across since that dark night in the alley. Lethal force was not necessary in order to dispatch this individual.

Before the Hellion could wake, I pulled my cell phone from my bag and called the police. I never saw the woman I rescued that night after she was placed upon a stretcher and carried away in the ambulance, lights burning seemingly with the passion and determination I felt that night to stop and prevent anything close to such villainy from every happening again. Thus my life as the hero began.

Somebody posted something similar to this build, but i have played with it to better suit my play style, but it focuses on recharge and getting good typed defense. Have fun!

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Ultimate: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Katana
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

It takes inf to earn inf, or at least to really maximize your earning potential. It's all about starting out small and working your way up the ladder. It isn't that hard to do if you'll just try to find a niche or two to work in.

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But who could expect anything more on these forums? Err, the market forums.

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For someone who generally only wanders into this forum just to castigate it, I think you only get what you expect and deserve. You come in here thinking the market is an unfair system and whine about how it works, or doesn't work in your case, and expect us to be sympathetic?

This forum is very generous to those who come here looking for help. Your attitude is just such that I don't see how you can logically expect to get anything but the responses you do here.

But I will say that at least you're good for a laugh every now and then, and I always appreciate a good laugh so you just keep it up.

My method for evaluating what to list and what to vend follows a few specific guidelines. I am to the point now where I can pretty much spot the good recipes when they appear in my Rewards tab and what is almost just as well deleted after defeating whatever I happen to be fighting at the time. Outside of this gut check, anybody else can follow the other steps.

1. Check out the price of the last 5 on WW on WW and as long as the average selling price is greater than 1 million inf, proceed to step 2.
   
2. Check the dates of the previous sales. The ideal situation is to have all five on the same day, but as long as there isn't more than a week from the most recent sale and the one 4 sales previous I'll proceed to step 3.
   
3. With the first two conditions met, I then proceed to check the average price of the crafted IO. This price should be at least 2 million higher than the average price of the recipe. Those with a greater disparity obviously get higher priority. If this condition is met, proceed to step 4.
   
4. Check the price of salvage and make sure there isn't anything that will completely wipe out the 2 million buffer from step 3. Also make sure you consider the crafting and listing fees. If the prices of the salvage don't look that great, you can always put in a low bid and see if it fills within a reasonable amount of time (within 24 hours for me). If the salvage prices don't wipe out the 2 million buffer proceed to step 5.
   
5. With the prior conditions met craft the IO and list it on the market for somewhere under what you want it to sell for. For example, if you want to sell it at the current going rate of 4 million, list the item at 3.76 million. This tactic keeps your IO out of the hands of somebody bidding 3.75 million and will most likely get you very close to the 4 million mark, if not more. Remember the system generally matches the lowest price and the highest bid.

With drops you can skip the entire evaluation outside of step 1. I say anything that will net at least 1 million is worth listing as long as you don't have other uses for your slots. Good luck to you!

By the way, I have a pretty good spreadsheet I use to keep track of my marketeering if anybody is interested. Of course, I'm not going to give it to you filled out with all the information I have on it, but I'll put a few items in so you can get an idea for how it works.

Just flipping a certain piece of uncommon salvage got me to 10 Million at lvl 10. No running back and forth. No extraneous work. Just taking advantage of those who see fit to sell low and buy high. I feel no shame whatsoever. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

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This game even after 5 years still has potential but its the same potential that has been untapped all this time.

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I'm not trying to incite a flame war or anything, but am merely curious as to what potential you see for this game. You obviously enjoy the game enough to pay the subscription each month. What if you were the Lead Developer and could take the game in any direction, where would you like to see it go?

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I was on a MA Freak slaughter mish today. 3 tanks, 1 ta/a defender, and 3 scrappers. The only 50s were me and the spines/invuln.

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A truly scrapperish attitude and an excellent story worthy of the scrapper boards. Tanks are certainly not the end-all be-all of meat shields. A well put together scrapper can withstand a brutal amount of punishment and live to tell about it. The point is knowing what your limits (if there are any) are and pushing as close to them as possible without falling over the edge.

I am always reminded of one Citadel TF when I ran off from the group because we were steamrolling easily and I was tired of the team stealing my kills. I got myself into a little bit of a tight spot and the def came to help. While not intended, he stole the aggro and promply face planted while I managed to get away to heal up. While chewing on dirt he muttered, "Never try to save a suicidal scrapper."

It's moments like that that make me love the scrapper AT, though I'm sorry for causing the debt on the Def. I did go and clean up and gave him a wakie for his trouble. He just learned to let me do my own thing from that point and it wasn't really an issue.

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Well, for a 50 you'd be lucky to get one of the "coveted" recipes for 65mil.

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so what?

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Honestly, Goat, I'd think your ignore stick would have knocked this guy out of the park, but I suppose it's fun to feed the trolls every now and then. I'll enjoy watching the exchange.

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Level 20 maybe, but still, not without playing the market, or transfering inf.

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I don't know about that. You can turn off XP and run posi and synapse at 20...a lot...it's not my cup of tea, but somebody else might be happy with it.

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I consider myself a fairly casual gamer. I play quite a bit (maybe 15 hours per week on average), but on most toons, I don't play the market or farm. I do quite a few task forces though, since I'm fond of them. Generally, by the time I get to level 10, I have between 100 and 150 million on a toon. Some I actually use it to buy set IOs, and others I just stick with generic IOs and SOs, and funnel the money to another toon.

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What TFs/SFs do you do to get that much money by lvl 10? Unless you mean you get that by playing the market (which you said you don't do)....

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I'm also curious to know what SF/TFs are available pre-10. Don't you have to be at least 10 just to do Positron's? Last I checked you couldn't SK onto a TF. Something seems quirky here. Perhaps it's a typo.

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So did you fight your custom toons by hovering or flying above them and attacking with no fear of them ever being able to attack you? Because that's the reason the ranged attack was given to them.

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No, my character is a /WP Scrapper so the more mobs around me the better (up to 17, of course) which is the reason I designed them the way I did. I also had to stock up on purples to make sure my defense was softcapped or they'd mop the floor with me.

Now, with the ranged attacks, I can't engage them the way I want because they will stay at range rather than swarm around me to saturate RttC. Absolute lame sauce!

I know this post is a few days old, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents on my personal feelings towards MA. I don't mind the ticket nerfage so much as there are still plenty of ways to earn enough influence to buy the things I need and it does return a little bit of balance to the availability of recipes.

The change that really bothered me was the fact that they added the ranged Epic powers to melee custom characters. I've felt that the MA customs might be somewhat overpowered, but since the change I have lost my interest in the MA because the power change completely changed the feel of the missions I created around a specific theme. I admit I rode the MA-farm wave to 50 on one of my characters, but it was done while solo against my custom toons (non-exploitative AFAIK) so I have no fear of having the XP taken away.

I do have one arc I created and might venture back to the MA to create some more, but right now I have other things I am interested in doing; toons to level and min/max and such.

The bottom line is that the MA has lost its luster for me and it might be a while before I get back around to using it. Issue 15 sounds like it will be fun to test and I'm looking forward to the Going Rogue expansion so I won't be wandering away from CoX any time soon.

<QR> Very good. Thank you for the assistance.

Alright, I've got the pylon thing down, but I thought I'd give the RWZ challenge a try before I start hitting AVs. What exactly are the parameters for the challenge. Is it two or three groups of at least +3s without temps or insps?

Thanks!

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I fully expect the next thing will be to lower XP, influence & prestige awards in MA missions. There are simply too many ways to manipulate the custom enemies to provide situations custom tailored to certain AT's & powerset combos.

That will be the final nail in the coffin for Issue 14.

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The whole situation with the MA is one that saddens me greatly. It semes like the whole game is stuck in a cycle of awesome->nerf->dull and dreary.

All I can say further is that there is another MMO out there, granted still in beta, that is looking more and more appealing with each issue CoX nerfs into the ground.

I was just pricing them this morning. They're running between 20-30 Mil blueside if you haven't looked yet. Don't know about red.

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So will you be crediting our accounts for the extra loss of game time?

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This reminded me of all the times, while working for Spring PCS collections, I got to tell people that just because you have a Sprint phone, it does not guarantee that you will always have service. I know it was a jerkish thing to tell people, but it was right there in the service contract. Same situation.

If you really feel you are missing out on game time, just try another server. There are plenty of options.

***Edited the field crafter link and some language that leaned towards a bit of negativity.

Every now and then I come across somebody who is less than happy about the market system and the rather high prices of certain items. While not extensively detailed, this should provide some good starting strategies on how to get the influence/infamy you need for those items you wish to make your toons lean, mean critter-bashing machines.

The system is fine the way it is as far as 'free-markets' are concerned. With a little time and effort you can literally start to roll in the cash. How about a short list of some of my own strategies, starting with the most obvious?

1) Do your job. Sure this won’t generate a lot of inf in the early levels, but does begin to become more lucrative as you advance. The game we all play is City of Heroes/Villains. Be the hero! Be the villain! Realize your potential by incarcerating those baddies, or by advancing your own villainous purposes. Go. Fight! Kill Skulls! And earn a little inf along the way.

2) Don’t just sell everything to the vendors. The implementation of the invention system was brilliant in that it allows you to generate inf by other means than option number 1. You have salvage, enhancements, inspirations, and recipes that can all be used to either further the powers of your character or line your wallet. Some of these ‘drops’ sell better than others. Some sell better on the markets, others are just as well sold to the vendors. The only problem is that you won’t know what to take where unless you put forth a little effort. (Curse the day that god decreed that man should earn his bread by the sweat of his own brow!!!) Go to the markets and see if those drops are better suited to sell to other players or just dropped off at a vendor. Personally, I keep Notepad open so that I can keep track of where to take things and I’m always checking the markets because they have a tendency to fluctuate. I don’t keep track of every item individually, but I keep my eye open for big money makers. Also don’t delete items unless you can help it or unless you know that it isn’t worth the space in your inventory.

3) Flip this Salvage/Enhancement/Recipe/Inspiration! This is what I call, “using the markets to your advantage.” I do not call it greedy to want to improve one’s own situation or their character’s. I want all of my characters to perform to the best of their capabilities and I want everybody else’s to perform to the best of theirs. You generally need salvage and recipes to accomplish this so start learning (another hard thing to do in an society that demands instant gratification, but still doable) the price ranges of a few pieces of salvage, buy low, and sell high. This requires a little trial and error; but once you find a niche, it works quite nicely. The key to flipping is patience and a little bit of knowledge of how the game works. Flipping is awesome before an event such as 2XP weekend because prices on certain items sky-rocket during these times. If you can get enough of a few items, they will reap very nice benefits. Just by logging in a few times to make sure my previously-purchased supply was maintained over 2XP weekend, I made a good chunk of influence. Candy canes were extremely profitable at the beginning of this past winter event. Think ahead a little and you just might be able to see some good benefits from your insight.

4) Do a little crafting. In general, crafted IOs will sell for more than the recipes and salvage will sell by themselves. After crafting enough of a certain kind of common IO, you will have ‘memorized’ the recipe and all you will need for further crafting is the salvage. There is an excellent guide to the field crafter badge that could help you maximize your profits if you wish to make it your profit-making niche.

5) Merits = Influence/Infamy. Merits do take time to generate, but can reap very nice dividends. Play taskforces, trials, complete story arcs, and defeat Giant Monsters. Quite recently, 200 Merits earned me approximately 65 million influence points from random rolls at one of the Merit Vendors. Not a record, but from what I understand 325K/Merit isn’t a bad ratio. Of course you can save your merits for specific recipes that you know earn good influence, but that is really a matter of preference. Kind of a risk vs. conservative approach to the markets. Dr. Robert has created a merit price index for anybody who would be interested in up-to-date numbers for IO set prices and inf/merit ratios. Oro arcs are great for generating merits while running solo if you have the build for it. Here is where you can find the merit reward for each of the various arcs.

6) Spread the wealth. While I don’t condone any sense of entitlement in this game or in real life, I do believe one of the keys to a happy life is to share a little bit of your own good fortune. Every now and then give a little bit of your influence/infamy away to another player. You can either do this spontaneously or as a reward for a unique challenge you thought of, finding a cool costume, or a particularly well written bio. In the short term, this may not grow your own influence account, but you might find yourself in Atlas one day with a generous gift from another player. Personally, sometimes I will hang out in Atlas under the statue and wait for a low-level char and give them 1 mil inf to help them out with DO/SOs or whatever they might wish to use it for.

I realize that my examples are anecdotal and may not be representative of every situation; however, I am confident enough in these strategies to say that, with a little personalization, you will begin to see the amount of influence/infamy you generate grow and multiply. You won’t wake up tomorrow with 2 billion in your wallet, but you’ll find that you will begin to be able to purchase the things you want and need to optimize your characters. Remember that patience is key.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Marketing Cliff Notes: A Guide to Marketeering