Fulmens

I charge a fee, but it's off a basic 1:1 rate. (so I give 10:9 no matter which way you're going; 10:8 if I have to move inf onto the server in question.)

PLAY "BIG IDEAS", ARC #301788
Mad Science, Family style! Villainous!

I don't know if anyone would pay 100 million for that for a week, but they might pay 10 million.

Normally I trade cash inf from one side to the other. I threw a few mid-low bids up and if any fill, I will trade IO's one side to the other.

Megajoule: If the devs want an average of 1 merit/3 minutes, and they put in code to prohibit above-average performance... you see a problem with how that's going to work out?

Maybe it's just me.

All of the advice given above is good. Especially the part where you put down bids and leave the market. I want to talk about "levels of money" so you know what your options are and how to get them. .

In theory all you need to play the game is enough money for SO's. This is a million or two every five levels. Once you make a couple million off the market you should be OK for the rest of your career (I think.)

If you go with IO's you can spend a little more money... or a lot more. Depends on what you want. I'd VERY STRONGLY recommend putting 10 million inf or so into a knockback resistance IO (the easiest is probably Karma, which goes in a defense power. That includes hover, combat jumping, stealth. ) Game changing experience for me.

Everything except that is pretty much optional. You can get more performance by spending more money- from 20 million for "frankenslotting" (cheapish stuff that gives better results than SO's) to ... well,potentially there's almost no limit. It's like cars- you can get a $12,000 car, you can get a $60,000 car, you can get a $400,000 car. They all get you there, but some are nicer.

So that's the buying side of the equation.

The making-money side of the equation goes something like this:

* Buying recipes/salvage at Wents and reselling to a store: Around a million an hour. Painfully boring and annoying, but it's guaranteed money- you can't lose money on the deal- and you can do it starting with no money.
* Memorizing generic IO's- 1 to 3 million inf every time you collect your money and craft a new set of IO's and put them up for sale. (You could easily do two or three sets a day without flooding the market.) It is theoretically possible to lose money on this, in the sense that it is theoretically possible for me to become an astronaut.
* Serious Market Stuff (crafting, flipping, etc.) - big money. A million per sale? five million? Twenty? Yeah, you can make that kinda money. You need money to start. You can lose money doing this. You can get stuck with a bunch of stuff nobody wants to buy, which you paid too much for. There is the possibility of going bankrupt. But you can make billions.

Something else that changed while you were gone: Money.

IO's vary in price from "about the same as SO's" to "more money than you can imagine". The really expensive IO's are a bad thing [if you are buying them] or a good thing [if you're selling them] or a little of both.

The good news is, level 50's make ridiculous money and the market spreads it around with great efficiency. So you can sell your salvage and recipes and a few of them will sell for prices like 100,000 inf each (that's three SO's for one piece of salvage, yes.) Most of them will sell for trivial money, but regardless, you should never be short on cash for your basic enhancements.

Actually, tell me what server you're on and when you play. I'll swing by and drop off 5 or 10 million to get you started in life.

... so far I'm up around 200 million on my mild level 50 Thunderstrike/Crushing Impact flipping spree. 10 of each type, each side, selling for 5.1 million each. Most sold for 6 million, but a lot sold for 10. Actually, most didn't sell, but I expected that and that's why I marked them up ... umm, I don't remember how they do retail math, it's either 90% or 900%. Bought for half a million each.

Also, to my surprise, I flipped a few respecs. (Guys! I was just trying to store a couple billion! )

They want an average of 1 merit/3 minutes. So as long as there are people doing a "Scenic" Cap SF (13 merits, 2.5 hours, over 2XP weekend- apologies to everyone who wanted an efficient Cap SF; I was there to shoot things) at 1 merit/10 minutes, occasionally, to balance out the 1 merit-per-minute people, we're good.

There's always going to be at least a factor of 2 difference between seriously optimized people and the rest; if nothing else, there's a factor of 2 difference IN DPS between purpled out guys exemping and the rest of us.

Remember when it took 500 hours to get to level 50? I do.

Remember when it took 300 hours to get to level 50? I do.

These days... well, on an SG team (so large, fast, experienced but not specifically PL'ing or farming) I can get a level every hour and a half (roughly) through the 40's.

Seriously, XP flies at you so fast these days.

Also, inf. The IO system will give you culture shock- whether that pleases you or not depends on whether your first experience is "I sold that for 10 million!?!?!" or "They want me to pay 10 million?!?!??" SO's still work fine, you should be able to afford them really easily, but IO's work better and cost between "a little more" and "You've got to be ******* kidding me." And sometimes you will be surprised by which category something falls in.

If I had to choose between "Build Up and Stamina" and "Build Up and Aim" I'd pick BU + Aim.

Just sayin'.

If you're not enjoying those 10+ hours of play, anyway, it's a job.

good job, you! I used to do that but I got tired. Glad someone's keeping the tradition alive.

People frequently get distracted by the shiny and forget about the important stuff. (see: lottery tickets, trophy wives that you can't actually have a conversation with , etc.)

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.

... no Quick Recovery?
Ed: no blaze?

Frankenslotting is , as mentioned, ignoring the set bonuses and just treating them like miniature HO's. It's possible that you've played for three years and only just last week decided to look at this IO thing ... I know people who would do that. I'm not trying to cut you down, just trying to figure out where to start my monologue.

OK, Frankenslotting is "a good start" but you're probably past that. If you're trying to get the hang of what to do how, you could frankenslot one power, spend a million or so and get the power working better than it was.

When you're dealing with set IO's, usually you pick something, or a couple things, that you want to maximize. Regardless of what you do, I recommend that one or two of your set bonuses be Accuracy; you shouldn't need more than a couple of Acc bonuses, but you probably will get them anyway on the way to something else.

Some things people build for, set bonuswise :

DEFENSE- softcapped defense to one or more categories makes a huge difference in play. 45% Defense is twice as good as 40% Defense almost all the time; build appropriately.

HIT POINTS/REGEN- this doesn't work as well as Defense but it can provide a solid boost to a character. Blasters and Stalkers may max out on HP; be careful about that.

RECHARGE- Very very popular with a wide variety of builds. Demand -> expense, of course.

DAMAGE- doesn't work as well as anyone hopes, but you can get the equivalent of another DO or so, above the ED limit.

"UTILITIES"- Knockback protection, if you don't have it, and stealth can be game-changers. Almost all my blasters have both. That's a very minor investment in slots, but can be significant investments in cash.

I know how to do medium-expensive builds; purpled out, PVP'd out, damn-the-expense builds are beyond my realm of expertise because I have no wish to spend four billion inf on anything, ever. I'm cheap.

So tell me what sounds good and I'll tell you where to find it.
Wait... here's some starting places.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...Ranged_Defense
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...ashing_Defense
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...e_Regeneration
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...improve_Damage
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...prove_Recharge

Do you have your window set for "For sale or bidding" ? Or for "all"? That's the most common reason for this problem- you're listing/buying the only one.

I want hookers dusted with coke, or whatever that suggestion in the other thread was.

... what, like we don't have the costume options already?

Red or Blueside?

Traditional Market technique is one of two things:

1) Roll a bunch of times at level 50 (usually the 35-39 bracket), sell what you don't need, buy what you do. I prefer this, but I don't have the current numbers to say if it's the actual right thing to do compared to 2).
2) Pick a specific expensive recipe, sell it and buy what you need. Usual choices are minimum level Miracle: +Recovery, Luck of the Gambler: 7.5% Global, Numina: +recov/+regen. I think Blessing of the Zephyr: KB is also in that range (c.150-200 million crafted) but do your own research. It varies from week to week.

If you're under level 41, there is option
3) I buy rare rolls, 15 million per roll, paid in advance. That works out to about 180 million for a LoTG, which is ... close... to market price. I lose money on it but it amuses me.

Edit to clarify: Level 50 recipes sell for more than lower levels, almost always, even if they shouldn't. So people roll at level 50 and that's why there's nothing for sale below level 50. That's why I can both be underpaying slightly for merit rolls (depending on the market) AND be losing money on them.