Adeon Hawkwood

Prior to I20 shards dropped from any level 50 enemy. Now they should drop while running any content (I think the enemies must be at least equal to your level).

Not a bad idea.

When asked about this in the past (as well as recipe storage in bases) the devs have taken the stance that increasing it would encourage hoarding. I'm not sure I agree with them on character storage but there is a rational for limiting market slots. A limit on transaction slots encourages players to place bids that will fill in a reasonable time frame instead of long-term just in case bids.

Yeah, this has been asked for quite a few times, often in response to the latest I hate/love speed boost thread. I think it makes a lot of sense the issue is just how much pain is it for the devs to implement.

Yes... and no.

You only get components from a completed trial. However during the trial you will get threads and Astral Merits (which can be exchanged for threads). You will also get Incarnate XP (which unlocks the new slots). It is possible to build up common and uncommon components using threads alone. Rare and Very Rare components are available through threads alone but it takes a LOT of threads.

Now the other good side of this is that the thread and incarnate XP rewards are front loaded in the trials. The early stages of the trials involve killing large numbers of basic enemies and are where you will get a large chunk of your Incarnate XP and thread drops for the entire trial. The later stages mostly focus on killing a few tough enemies and consequently don't give as much in terms of thread drops and incarnate XP.

A successful BAF Trial will award:
5 Threads (on average, you could easily get more of less depending on luck)
3 Astral Merits (worth 4 threads each)
1 Empyrean Merit (8 E Merits = a rare component, 30 E Merits = a Very Rare component)
1 Component (rarity is dependent on luck)

In a failed trial you will generally get a similar number of threads and 1-3 Astral merits (depending on how far you get before you fail). So a failed trial will get you about 10-15 threads (or about 50%-75% of a common component) while a successful trial will give you the high end of the thread range a guaranteed component and an E Merit to put towards the higher tier components.

I think this is the switch memebers feature (not sure though, I couldn't get it to work)

This is the "lock teams" button. A slightly odd feature since it allows you to lock teams that only you can change int he first place. I guess it's intended for people with multiple personalities.

I think this is promote.

[quote4) A button with what looks like a red D-pad (or maybe a red cross with a white dot in the middle).[/QUOTE]
This is the quit league button.

No you'll need to run it a number of times (probably 6-10) to unlock each slot. However it is perfectly feasible to complete it without having any of the new boosts slotted. They definitely help (especially Judgment and destiny) but they are by no means required. I ran it twice today. The first attempt failed on the final stage (the one after Siege) but it was a close run thing. The second (which had about 50% of the people from the first) was successful. I think we had a few people with one or two of the new boosts slotted but the majority of the people in both runs just had their Alpha Slot.

The trials are hard but a lot of it is really just a matter of practice. There is a flow to the trials and as people learn it they will become easier.

Threads can be used to make Alpha boosts but it's probably not worth doing. All Incarnate slots (both the Alpha Slot and the new ones) have the same costs in terms of threads to get abilities. However the Alpha slot is much cheaper than the others to buy with shards, plus the Notice of the Well is much easier to get than the new rare components. Therefore you're probably best off using the threads to work on the new slots and using shards and the WST to build up your alpha boost.

This is Virtue, Catgirls are provided free of charge.

Unfortunately Real Life will prevent my attendance. Good luck to you.

Ah, I misunderstood, sorry.

You can enter it through Pocket D. However to do the trials you don't need to go there, you just use the LFG feature and it will teleport you to the mission.

The problem is that different people use different definitions of "overcharging". Personally my opinion is that if the item sells at all then you aren't gouging: someone was willing to pay the price and at the time they paid it no one else was offering it for less. However certain people use a definition of gouging that is defined as "more than they personally are willing to pay".

Actually Empyrean Merits can be exchanged for the new components (8 for a Rare or 30 for a Very Rare). Depending on you luck with drops and such this can be a faster/cheaper way to get higher tier boosts.

The thing is, the market generates a lot more wealth than farming ever can. Or more accurately the wealth standard used on the market is effectively an order of magnitude higher than the wealth standard from playing the game (whether you farm or not).

The market removes 10% of the inf used in every transaction and is the largest inf sink in the game (in fact you could probably say that to a first degree approximation it's the only inf sink in the game). What this means is that every inf generated by playing the game will generate 10 inf worth of market transaction (well slightly less than that but it's close enough for our purposes).

This means that market prices are actually scaled to 10 times the value of inf from playing the game. This in turn means that the wealth of those who actively participate int he market will be, on average, 10 times the wealth of those who don't and it is the peopel who do participate that sets prices.

It's one of the reward choices from the new trials.

I think this also demonstrates why storing inf on non-existent items is a bad idea (ok, I can't prove that's what happens but I think it's a good bet).

Read my post again. I'm talking about market mechanics as in how the market actually implements transactions.

Your post was based on the idea that the market matches highest buy price to highest sell price when it actually matches highest buy price to lowest sell price. Hence you do not understand the market mechanics.

Understanding the actual economic implications of this is not particularly relevant to my point (although I have my own opinions on your knowledge there). As a side note, I'm the King of England (ok, fine I'm Prince Consort).

Your knowledge: market mechanics: lacking
Consequence: your argument: invalid

When the market executes the highest bids are matched to the lowest sales. If you listed the recipe for 500million and then bought a bunch on another character you wouldn't get the sale, the person who has it listed for 1 inf would.

Now you can theoretically do it by listing yours for 1 inf and setting a buy order on the same character for 1 inf to clear out any others but at the end of the day so what? As Hyperstrike said the market rewards patience and insight. If someone artificially boosts the apparent price and you don't care to bid creep well, that's the laziness tax.

Now as it happens I am in favor of providing some protection against this sort of thing. Not because I consider seeding the last 5 to be a problem but because I feel that decreasing the "stickiness" of market prices would be a good thing. My suggestion is to provide more information than the last five, specifically High/Low/Average prices for the last 24 hours and 7 days.

Fair point, I was referring to the single aspect ones (which cross over at 26).