UberGuy
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Posts
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Quote:The "casual" player probably isn't using the market. More importantly, "casual player" means different things to nearly everyone you ask to define it.Originally Posted by rainmaker
And yes... your game affects the casual player alot.
Your "casual player" should be able to take their (probably low-level) salvage to the market and sell it for those same outrageous prices that "marketeering" people are listing it for. They may not be helping the casual players, but they're not doing much to harm them.
"Casual" players are often considered to lack high-level characters. This does mean in the current market that there aren't many IOs out there for them to buy, and because a lot of people have given up on looking for low-level stuff, those "casual" players also often can't sell their recipes well. This is not a problem at the feet of marketeers. This is at the feet of the devs, as they have made the game easier to get to 50, meaning less people who drive supply (often power gamers) are at low-levels as long, and they can play the game in reverse, getting to 50 and going back for key content they may have missed. -
Quote:No, this isn't correct. At best, it's a misuse of the word "inflation". Flippers cause you lose the opportunity to get a bargain price. Somewhere above low-ball listings that flippers use to make profits is a price that basically no worthwhile number of people will pay for that item. Inflation is an increase in that upper price. Flippers operate below that price, or they don't make money. All they do is make sure no one can get that bargain listing.Originally Posted by Rodion
There's no question that flippers cause inflation. That's the entire point. Their profit has to come from somewhere.
One of the biggest problems in this debate is that people are using the word "inflation" to mean "I couldn't get a bargain". That's not right, and it massively confuses the issue. -
Quote:This isn't as Faustian as you seem to suggest. Just because people toss around the statements that the knowledge is there for everyone to use doesn't mean we actually believe everyone will use it. We know from experience that not everyone does, including people who are plenty knowledgeable about how it works. I know people who have zero issue with the market and who knowingly empower marketeering by having more in-game money than patience. So long as there are are people willing to use it for profit and people who don't care enough to do so, things will proceed as they are.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The market is a lossy means of redistribution if everyone started to try and make money crafting and flipping nobody would actually profit.
The advice on how to use the market is given for those who are willing to use it, on the expectation that anyone actually asking has the intention to do so. Occasionally we do get posts by folks who are usually forum "lurkers" (no negative connotation intended - just folks who read but don't post much) who confirm that they've learned something and applied the forum advice to their benefit.
Flippers certainly I can see being viewed as parasitic, as they don't specifically add wealth, either in terms of money or goods, to the market. Drop sellers who aggressively push price envelopes I can't see that way.Quote:As to being resented for being wealthy, its more resented for being parasitical, the way lawyers, lobbyists, etc are resented -
Quote:Just because you dislike it does not mean it's abuse. The stuff that goes on in the market is fair game, quite literally. When she was still part of the community team, ExLibris came here and posted in this forum to that effect.Originally Posted by je_saist
I'm not saying any of these solutions is the right one... but I highly doubt that the the number crunchers on the developers staff are not keeping track of the market, and those who deliberately abuse the market, and more importantly... those who admit to abusing the market in game, and on the forums.
Note that I am not a flipper. I simply recognize that there is nothing wrong with it. I can accept that some players find it distasteful, but that doesn't make it wrong, and it especially doesn't make it against the rules.
Flippers take the opportunity to buy something that was listed cheap and instead guarantee that those items they sweep up have to be bought at higher prices. Note carefully that only the opportunity is lost, because there's no guarantee a bargain shopper would have been the next person to bid on the item.
What fillpers cannot do is raise sustained prices above the level where the general populace both can and will buy the item. If they try to do that, they end up with an excess of goods listed at higher prices than others are listing the same thing for. No flipper is going to make the price of, say, a piece of Crushing Impact be 45M inf, because it's too common and the opportunity cost of 45M inf is too high given what else it can buy - people will just wait a bit and buy someone else's lower list price.
It's been shown many times that one can cause a price surge in items if you can absorb enough of their supply. This is generally risky for anything with a good supply, because if you don't get out in time, the price surge will swallow your profit margin, and then it will clog your inventory and the price will recede while you're stuck with stuff you bought at a higher price. -
Your lack of understanding of what's actually going on does not equate to what you say being "truth".
Prices are high because there are lots of very rich characters in the game and lots of players who own them who are willing to pay huge gobs of money to get what they want faster (or be 1st to get it when it becomes available, for suitably rare items).
Flippers are not why prices are in the 100s of millions of inf. That's because people have staggering sums of money from playing the game and selling items to one another on the market, and items are rare and desirable.
All flipping does is close the price on where it was going anyway faster. Without the flippers, price migration tends to be slower. The prices go up anyway. All it takes for them to go up is for someone to pay a bit more to get something now, followed by sellers seeing that and setting their prices higher. Enterprising sellers will set high prices when supply is low and demand is high (few for sale, hundreds bidding) and once their sales go through (and it will) the price "floor" creeps upwards.
In I9, we got IOs, which make our characters stronger, which means they can defeat more foes faster. In Issue 11, we got XP smoothing, that not only increased the rate of XP in certain levels, but also increased rewards for over-level foes, which includes Inf/foe. In I14 we got the AE, which empowered rampant PLing. At the time, this inflated the number of 50s, poured vast sums of new inf into the market, and crushed supply of certain goods, like Purples. In I16 we got the ability for everyone to potentially form their own farms solo, followed immediately by a doubling of the inf/kill that level 50s earn.
More people are very likely playing 50s, and each one is better able to earn more inf/hour than ever before. A very conservative model of the game's level 50 population of 1% suggests that we are creating billions of inf/hour. The market serves to concentrate that money. You can imagine that people use it in tiers; I sell items that cost 1M and buy items that cost 10M. Someone above me is selling items that cost 10M and buying items that cost 100M, and so on. Most recently, PvPOs have been so rare and valuable, they have been commanding billions of inf in sale price. This bypasses the concentration pyramid and doles huge piles of inf from those who have concentrated it onto those who sold the drops.
All of this has led to an increase in the rate of influence pouring into the game economy, and things like purples and PvPOs have probably improved how it's spread around.
Anyone who disbelieves the above is simply ignorant. Someone declaring that it's kosher to ignore the game's overall economy, the market's mechanics, and basic economic theory is just mongering one's opinion with no foundation and is safe to ignore. -
It can be a problem, but it's not generally. 5th Column and Council are particularly prolific with AoEs, as minions, LTs and bosses all frequently dish out grenades, LTs and Bosses have shotguns, and Bosses have rockets.
Some AVs do wield AoE damage, and if you care much about Giant Monsters, they tend to have hideous AoEs.
For doing crazy stuff in general play, I'd say you could get by without it, especially if you are anywhere close to the cap. For some special purpose play, you'd probably want it. -
Quote:Huh?Originally Posted by Johnny_X
I would really like to see something different happen at 50 other than just what we get now.
Once you get your first toon to 50 all the others are meaningless. -
That's not enough data with something like this to draw that kind of conclusion. Two people I know in game were raving what great drop streaks they got yesterday.
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Honestly, there haven't been very many rabid defenders of the red market since this debate first aired. The only real defense of it I've ever seen is that it's good for manipulation because supply is so low and those providing demand are used to taking what they can get. I've never felt that was the best big-picture defense of things being the way they are, though, since I think that has knock-on effects for general villain-side interest.
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FWIW, Electric-Knight, I think you're spot on about who drives the prices.
People who want it now and already have the money to make that happen. Sellers see that, figure they can get in on that action, and list higher. The "want it now-ers" keep escalating how much they pay to have it now, and the sellers keep chasing it to keep up with the Jonses. It's a self-reinforcing cycle empowered by the things that are increasing our real Inf supply. -
Quote:I'm not taking your posts personally. The problem is that you're claiming that the only people making money around here are (a) flippers and (b) farmers like yourself. It's a foundation of your argument, and I'm evidence that it's not true. I'm pointing out how I'm different not because I feel personally affronted by your posts, but because it undercuts your broad generalized claims about the market, and how it's only usable by people who are willing to flip goods.Originally Posted by eryq2
Why do you take all my posts personally? When i say "people" im not saying ONLY UBER DOES THIS. Yes, i do farm everyday to afford the nicer things in WW and to get rare drops to sell or slot. The thing that you, sir, are missing is that PEOPLE DO, do those things i've said. Do you read all of my posts or pick out stuff to just whine about? So, please keep flaming me and not the ones posting about screwing up WW. Later Gator.
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Quote:Do you even read our replies? I told you in this thread that have 10s of billions of inf, richly IO'd characters, and I have done it while doing none of those three things. I told you that, but you either failed to read it, or you refuse to accept or believe it.Originally Posted by eryq2
It's all so simple even for an ignorant person, but yet, i don't have to come in here and ask how to do it. Here's an idea, think for yourself and figure out how to make inf. without
ex 1) trying to whodo players
ex 2) asking a forum for help
ex 3) buying it from rmt'ers
Oh, and you forgot one, in my opinion.
ex 4) farming
I don't do that to any meaningful level, while you've made it sound like it's a pretty full-time engagement for you. -
Quote:1) The above is a generalization. Sometimes you miss things. If you aren't cherry picking your foes so they aren't pushovers, sometimes you miss things that are extremely hazardous if uncontrolled, such as Sappers, Carnie Ring Mistresses, Vanguard Wizards, etc. If you don't control these things, and you have a good chunk of defense, odds are in your favor they will miss you until you can control them.Originally Posted by Fire_Minded
Then the most puzzling thing iv ever seen, is to suggjest to a Dominator to get def %, instead of Perma-Dom.If you have enough Global Recharge to have Perma-Domination, theres aboslutly no reason to have Def %s at all, the mob is under total control, and if its not, then somethings wrong with your attack run.
2) Defense bonuses are often, but not always, cheaper to obtain than high-order recharge bonuses. This varies by powerset. However, to give an extreme example, purples are way more expensive than Thunderstrike set pieces, but there are Dominator set combos have to resort to purples to readily get to the kind of recharge needed for perma domination, where almost anyone can probably slot several sets of Thunderstrike. -
What Wonderslug and Silas said. You can't "replace" existing DoT with a new one, even for the same power. Both apply. Don't base what it's doing on what you see the orange numbers doing. For powers that appear there, look in your combat damage log.
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Quote:It's going to be difficult for the devs to do much about this without revamping some parts of either the drop system, the IO level mechanisms, the attractiveness of playing at 50 compared to other levels, or some mix of all of them. Right now, there are just too many factors acting to make the active market suppliers tend towards 50 and the non-50 "casual" suppliers not bother. Worse, several of these factors are self-reinforcing.Originally Posted by Frogfather
As to the part you are correct about, the scarcity of items at levels other than 50 is ridiculous. You can buy just about anything (even red-side) at level 50 and be okay...Ive had a wide level range of bids out for the pool c version of one of the accurate to hit debuff sets (the specific escapes me) and havent hit one in the mid 30s in near three weeks. I finally gave up and ran enough Ouro arcs to purchase it direct. What a waste of merits. But at least I had that option.
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Quote:Your deep, abiding ignorance is given away by the fact that not everyone does that and they still make money.Originally Posted by eryq2
I guess i should laugh at those losers like the manipulators do. If it's so easy to make inf. or find the pieces that you want then why do people have the need to buy everything and list at higher prices? Just for giggles?
I have probably flipped something less than 10 times since I9 was released. I don't farm with any regularity, having only done it with any seriousness when the AE was first released. Despite this I have over 10B inf in hand on both sides of the game, plus 9 heavily IOd characters. I have a new hero who I've been leveling up solo who has over 1000 merits on hand who will be able to turn that into something like 750M inf conservatively.
If you spent less time railing against things that you mistakenly perceive to be this pervasive abuse of the system you might have actually been able to figure out that there are other ways to make towering piles of money besides flipping. -
Quote:Because there are more 50s now, because it's been made easier to level, and because we printed them like circus fliers when the AE came out. (Don't think for a second that a majority of AE babies were deleted.)Originally Posted by eryq2
Why else have purples went from 30mil -300mil? The drop rate didn't decrease. Everyone seen what someone could afford and now everyone has to be able to afford it or they don't get what they want. Like i said, greed.
Because there are more reasons now to compel people to play at 50 rather than just start a new alt. (Plenty of people still start new alts, but you can now race to 50 and experience most of the game in reverse if you want to.)
Because people started doing things that reduced supply of purples, such as farming in the AE or playing 50s in non-50 content. (Ouro wasn't recent, but it's more recent than purples costing 30M...).
So you've got examples of forces from classic, high-school-level economics: decreases in supply and increases in demand. Either one causes an increase in price. Both cause a more dramatic increase. -
Huh. I never actually realized I already do what Shred is saying until he mentioned it. I've been doing it unconsciously. I don't think I'd have realized it at all except I realized as I read his description that I suffer from the condition where sometimes the original target doesn't die.
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Quote:You probably shouldn't. That bug still exists, in spades. It's just not that the attacks don't register, but rather that they can very distinctly unregister. This is wild guesswork on my part, but because this effect seems significantly exaggerated under conditions of bad network lag, I have a suspicion that this is related to packets arriving out of order. Previous packets arrive at either the client or server that tell one of them something else is going on from some previous state, and it ends up unqueuing your next attack.Originally Posted by Werner
Or just double-tap your attack. Actually, for a while maybe a couple years ago, it seemed like there was some bug that made attacks not always register. I got in the habit then of multiply-tapping my attacks, and kind of never unlearned it.
I have a tendency to continuously tap my next attack until it actually begin to animate it. The only real downside (other that wear-and-tear on me!) is that I sometimes autotarget to some unintended foe if my current target dies unexpectedly. -
Quote:His missions have nothing to do with the rocket. To get a rocket you have to rescue three scientists from inside the WEB (in the open zone). Each one gives you a code segment, and when you get three you can get a launch code for a payload type of your choice. You can then go launch that into orbit, explaining why you can call down a nuke later.Originally Posted by Fusion_7
I also have another one in Warburg, Warzone Agent Goddard. I believe this is the one that has the rocket you can elect to launch.
It's so people who have run all the content have a way to get instanced missions that aren't paper/scanner missions. I don't really quite understand the Hollows contact in that light, but that's the reasoning behind them all in general.Quote:So, with all that being said, the first thing I want to know is what is the sole purpose for having contacts that give "looping" repeating missions with no end to their story? As we all know, the majority of contacts will give an "end" to their story arcs or their missions. At the end you normally get a Merit Award and maybe some extra influence. Were these contacts added to give people the opportunity to earn more drops and influence when their other contacts have dried up? If someone can shed some light on this that would be great. 
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I had a Hovering Stalker, mostly because I wanted Air Superiority to help Placate/AS in better safety. (It works great.) Anyway, I eventually respeced out of it once I used IOs to get defense to help with the AS interruptions. I generally find ground or leaping mobility much faster. The one exception I know of is when you're stuck in caltrops, mostly only an issue when fighting Knives of Artemis and, to a lesser degree, Tsoo.
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Quote:Don't forget fun stuff like siphoning their life force or draining their souls.Originally Posted by Kelenar
I can't see how it's any less heroic than shooting acid arrows at them, setting them on fire, shooting grenades at them, shoving them off rooftops, summoning flaming imps to attack them...
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Quote:This is really key. It's really intense how sometimes a small overpricing means your item won't move for a looooong time. I'm talking like 1M our of 25M inf has had something take (seriously) a week to sell when 4-5 of them were moving per day.Originally Posted by RagManX
I do for anything I expect to sell for under 20-30 million. I'd rather move something quickly at 90% typical selling price than get 105% and wait 3 weeks to sell it.
Getting greedy on list price makes sense when you're listing something you have great confidence has more demand than supply. This is why we keep seeing the prices climb on things like purples. But when it's a relatively common item, even one in high demand (LotG:Recharge), you can end up waiting a long time to cash in if you overshoot even a few % on the max price. -
Quote:One weakness of this approach I came up with considering this it for my own characters is Dark Melee, which is relatively common among NPCs. Both Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp are Melee/Negative, meaning they slip past the defenses of a build with L/S+R. That's still probably acceptable to something like Dark Armor, which has Negative resists out the wazoo, though it depends on what you're fighting. Soloing Requiem or Nosferatu would probably make it pretty uncool.Originally Posted by Shred_Monkey
I don't know if it possible on a scrapper, but using the epic defense powers on my blaster I was able to soft-cap smash-lethal and ranged. Ranged is easy to pick up with few slots using Zephyr sets. As you said, many FCEN have lethal components. And the ones that do not are mostly ranged attacks... Also most psi attacks are ranged as well. Again, this may not be possible on a resistance scrapper. /Dark or /invul might be able to pull it off. You might have to take hover and combat jumping both. Personally, I hate hovering with a scrapper.
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Nivienne: The images on the front page announcement don't link correctly to the large images.