MacOberon

All very true, just as leveling the character up will increase all the storages and slots. Of course this isn't what everyone might call "readily available". I'm guessing there's a lot of people that don't buy extra storage as a first priority.

Good Rikti tip though. I had no clue. That's out in the RWZ I guess? I should get some of them merits.

Mac

For those who are new to the game, especially coming from a place like WoW (I'm one of those) the market can seem a bit odd at first. Here's the low down to make sense of it, and to some degree how to make money from it. It's newbie friendly, but it's not a manual, faq or how-to. This is more of a look underneath the hood, exposing the artificial system and how it affects things. Why are things they way they are? In the long run, it's food for thought for anyone that plans to use the market in any way. In the short term, it'll help you pay for enhancements as a newbie.



The market's quirks:

1. Your salvage inventory is very limited
2. Your recipe inventory is very limited
3. Your enhancement inventory is very limited
4. Your number of market slots are very limited
5. A market slot is a market slot, regardless of whether it sells 1 or 10 items
6. And no, you can't buy a bigger bag

Cause and Effect:

What do the above points mean? Aside from the fact that we are in an artificial system with severe limitations, and that normal economics do not apply? Well, it means that if you are out of room, you are out of luck. Returning from a mission with bags full of low grade salvage - your primary concern is getting rid of it. Most people will put up a sell order for whatever will sell for over a million - and simply dump the rest at whatever price they can get. Why? Because they need to clean up their inventories, and they can't afford to tie down market slots for hours to sell a "Symbol" for 20,000 instead of 1,000 inf.

This of course works in reverse as well; if you want an enhancement, odds are you want it now. That means buying recipe and salvage at whatever it's listed for on the market (within reason) - and that can be a hundred times higher than what you sold it for just a few minutes ago.

It's interesting to keep in mind that both of these extreme behaviours will often be displayed by one and the same player - in the same day! We are willing to pay a high "fee", to use the market as a storage space as well as an actual market.



Flippers, aka Market Brokers

If you buy goods at dump prices, say 1000 inf, and sell it for 100,000 inf - you become known as a "flipper". They are widely regarded as a menace, but in fact they fill vital functions. I like to call them market brokers.

Very few are willing to spend a market slot on selling ONE low cost item, so they dump it. The flipper buys it all, in stacks of 10. He then puts the stack up for sale again at a much higher price, hoping to make a buck. What the flipper has in fact done (probably without realising it) is increase the market's storage capacity ten-fold for a popular item. He has made sure that goods is available - on demand. If brokers weren't buying all that goods at prices above what a vendor would offer - all that precious salvage would be lost, junked to your nearest quartermaster. Flipping creates a stockpile of common goods, that normal people aren't willing to bother with!

What this all comes down to is time vs money. Is it worth 100,000 inf, to get an item now, instead of in 30 minutes? With the amount of money that circulates in the game, most people will say "yes". If the answer is "no" - then don't buy it at the listed prices! Just put up a buy order, make a cup of coffee while you wait, and you get it dirt cheap. It's ok not to want to pay the broker for his work - but you better be prepared to put in the time and effort yourself.



Maximise your Market

So how do you maximise your market experience, and get the most money for your goods? Well, due to the limitations on your storage and market slots, this is where it the market becomes really, really funky!

Unlike in a game like WoW, selling your goods at a fair price is a bad idea. You heard me. If you put up sell orders for stacks of 1 - you will be able to sell fifteen items at the time. That's not even half your salvage inventory! You are out of room! A flipper / broker selling and buying stacks of ten, can deal in 15*10 = 150 items at the time.

The clever player will be all of the above mentioned people - rolled into one! Got a bag full of junk? Dump it! Need a salvage? Buy it! Got free market slots? Start flipping!

I'll happily sell a salvage item to the highest bidder, for 1000 inf - just to clean up my inventory and slots. I know it's being sold to a flipper, who will sell it for more. I will happily buy the same salvage item the next day -from the same flipper- paying 100,000 inf. Hey, so what? I can afford it, and I want it NOW. And here's the kicker - since I buy and sell immediately, I have my market slots and inventories mostly free - so I can engage in some serious broker activities at the same time.



Requirements to start

None. Well, a few levels would be good, so you get a more market slots and a bigger inventory. At level 10-15 you can easily start playing the market broker. The more people that actively uses the market, as sellers and brokers, the lower the prices will become. Supply will increase, and demand will stay the same.

It's worthy of note as well, that I'm a very new player. I do not have a rich alt as a sugar daddy. I do have a char now that's up to level 37, but she still isn't swimming in money. Believe me when I say I was hard pressed to pay for my first set of SO enhancements!

I have no such troubles any more. I get by more than comfortably by playing the market. Sometimes I'm successful, and sometimes I'm less so. Either way, I easily cover my own expenses now. I build IOs for my char. I even made a few IO sets!



Squishing the Buck

If you are indeed a new player, and you want to build some IOs for your character (And you probably do! They are really neat! Check out the guides!) you may want to squish the buck a little bit, get the most value for your inf. The important thing here is patience.

Buying what you need now, may for example set you back 200k for the recipe and 300k for the salvage. 500k for a simple level 30 IO enhancement. If you put up buy orders over night - you may return in the morning to find that you have purchased everything you need, for less than 100,000, shaving 80% of the market price. Of course this requires patience, and some good guessing. Still, if money is tight... squish the buck! We all have to eat and sleep. Doesn't cost anything to make the market work for you while you do it!



Should I feel bad about ripping people off?

No.

You are making a profit, but you are providing a service. People can take or leave it as they please. Keep in mind that every time you buy something, it's because you offer more than everyone else. Every time you sell something it's because you sell it cheaper than everyone else. On top of that, you are increasing the market's storage capacity (which depends on the characters' number of market slots) making things available.

If everyone sold their own salvage one item at the time (and some people do!), the market would be empty and the prices sky high. Anyone that accuses you of cheating them, doesn't understand the market as it currently functions. This is not nasdaq; things don't work the same way here. This is a very artificial and limited system we work in, and it leads to very artificial behaviour. Just chalk complaints up to ignorance and move on.



Mac

And here I am, having created 4 seperate mercenaries over the past few weeks, and ended up rejecting them all because of one reason or another. I really need to get my act together and get a mercenary char I like, or I'll miss the entire venue. ^_^

I guess I could slip in the door with my witch as well. While not a mercenary as such, she is an unaligned rogue offering humble services to whoever is willing to pay the fee.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to it.

Being Swedish, like I mentioned earlier, I suppose I got a slightly different outlook on things. One thing that always surprises me even after all these years online is the obsession with pg rating, and how it's directly related to language and little else. It also surprises me how the discussions often seem to revolve mostly around the language itself, as if that was somehow the source of ill will between players.

I always felt it's far worse to kindly inform a player that "you sir, are an idiot", than it is to have a character use the phrase "eat ****, ************" in RP. In pretty much all games I've even been on though, I've seen people banned for using the f-word carelessly - and at the same time, I've seen others escape without even a slap on the wrist, despite repeatedly going out of their way to hurt and insult other players in an OOC fashion, albeit using posh language to do so. It all feels extremely foreign to me.

Anyone else playing the EU servers, who is noticing a difference in attitudes towards language and intentions?

Calling a player a smeghead... I'd consider it offensive to no end. Far worse than using "profanity" in character. The intentions, and the intended target, matter so little. "Euphemisms and invented vulgarities" just strike me as odd, and again, very american. Someone comes up to me and writes "What the frack are you doing?!", to me it's little more than a way to circumvent the profanity filter. We all know the meaning of frack is equivalent of ****, don't we?

Mac

I just wanna point out also that any change made preferably shouldn't destroy the sets either... While my assault rifle girl would be pleased to see knockback "nerfed" - my electricity/energy blaster would be VERY upset, if the secondary set's knockback became useless!

It just feels like the knockback effect needs some options, to make it team friendly.

I was playing around with the assault rifle set the other day. I loved the set - at first. After a while the knockback was becoming more annoying, and teaming was becoming a pain. Seemed to me that the knockback distance also increased with level - starting off as good natured knockdowns, and ending with more hangtime than Magic Johnson.

The assault rifle set has knockback on 3 of the 4 first skills. That's a lot. One of them, (m30) also sends enemies flying in all directions, from the origin of the detonation - making it exceptionally difficult to use, even when you position yourself as to knock the enemy into a wall.

In the end, I dumped the char. It was just being ridiculous. Solo was fine, but team play was completely ruined. I'd agree actually that something is "broken" and needs to be fixed. It's not well thought out.

Fire, ice, radiation, electricity... all sets have a secondary effect, but only the knockback effect can be a hindrance - and my gosh what a hindrance it can be!

When it came to walking the fine line between right and wrong, I simply sat down and watched other people walk past.

I'll very much agree with the OPs feeling that the sides in Pretoria are indeed black and off-black. Both sides are doing terrible things, with a the-end-justify-the-means attitude. I certainly got the impression that the choices were never about ethics, good or bad, heroic or vile - I got the impression it was all about being loyal or disloyal, and little more.

As this didn't fit my character the first time around, I saw the missions and "sides" merely as a way to get badges and levels while enjoying some stories unrelated to my character. Very little of it would ever be incorporated into my character. In fact, the sides as they are haven't fit any of the characters I have gone through Pretoria with. It usually feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

While the stories and missions are very well written and enjoyable - I feel strangely comfortable and relaxed hitting level 20 and leaving Praetoria, "so I can start RPing my character." A bit harsh perhaps, but... there it is.

Mac


----- EDIT

I know exactly what you mean Samuel, and it's why I rather like coming back to "the old world". I'm kind of blessed in that I came to the game recently, just after i18 actually, and I didn't even know there had been a major issue released 2 days before I joined.

I have taken to the Rogues myself, and the reason is simple:
* Villains should all aspire to replace Lord Recluse, that no-good hack!
* Heroes should all aspire to crush Lord Recluse, and bring freedom to all(tm) and wave the american flag!
* Vigilantes should all aspire to smite the wicked, like a self-proclaimed angel of death.
* Rogues are in it for THEMSELVES.

Ok, if you read carefully, rogues are all about money, but I've chosen to skip that part many times. My characters are in it for themselves. They are rogues for independence. They are rogues for money. They are rogues because they hate politics. They are rogues so they can develop their powers. Rogues don't care about WHY. They don't care about the narrow game-view of right and wrong, good and evil. Most of my rogues are actually inherently GOOD people - which I guess is a bit ironic.

Mac

I have never, nor will I ever, base a character on bad language and profanity, just to make that point clear. I wouldn't have thought it necessary to make a point of clarifying that, but since some may have hinted at it, I suppose I'll have to. Being Swedish, and English being pretty far from my native tongue, I should hope that my rudimentary grasp of the English language should also suffice as adequate evidence that any profanity or vulgarities from my direction isn't the result of neither stupidity nor lack of imagination; quite frankly I find the very notion offensive.

Now, while it's certainly true that the silver age villains wouldn't use much profanity, it may also be wise to consider that the vast majority of said villains appear in comics made in the US, and are aimed at a young US audience. Let's not forget that they are also about fourty years old. Not all comics follow this standard. Some heroes and villains can pull such things off. Some can't. For example, every time Robin says "Holy Noodles, Batman!" instead of "<censored>!", I feel like bringing a baseball bat over to the bat cave to have words with him. There's certainly room for these characters, but if they all spoke in this manner, or even if just one out of ten did, I'd have to cut myself.

I have the utmost respect for any hero or villain who can be truly acidic, while remaining perfectly composed and civilised. It is however not an optimal solution for all characters and all times. Everyone can't run around, exchanging politically correct insults like Batman and E Nigma. In fact, many characters would suffer failure of epic proportions if they even tried. It's a rare few thug masterminds that should ever even consider saying "Oh, I say... Lucas, would you be so kind as to teach the gentleman a lesson?" Again, there's room for these characters as well, but if they all acted like this I would need a higher dose of anti-depressants.

Personally, I only play characters who are highly intelligent. I simply find it more entertaining. Most of them are in fact quite skilled at delivering sly remarks, and using clever language to belittle people. However, they never fit into either of the above categories. I don't use catchphrases as a substitute for when a sane human being would simply curse, and I don't use a higher standard of language than you can expect form an average human being, or even an intelligent one. If pushed, involved in a heated discussion, or -heavens forbid- an actual argument, pretty much all of them can resort to some pretty foul language; this isn't due to a lack of imagination, but rather an imitation of how perfectly normal people tend to react in the same circumstances. I never liked dressing things up needlessly.

In order to provide depth to a character, they also need a flaw, a disadvantage. I suppose there's always room for more cryptonite, but to be perfectly honest, such mundane cop outs are rather dull and dated. It is for good reason that the majority of more modern heroes and villains have a truly horrendous background of some sort, that in itself is the flaw. Such a flaw typically manifests itself through behaviour; some of it can be disturbing, and include bad language. In fact, more often than not you can barely tell the heroes from the villains; Going Rogue really did arrive in the nick of time.

To reconnect with the original topic, I'm hoping the spirit in which I making the original post is a bit clearer. Perhaps it's easier now, to see why I would ask about what is considered kosher and what isn't. Normally I would try to avoid making posts with quite this much attitude, or at least feel bad about doing it, but I will make an exception just this once, as I rather feel it illustrates well my ability to belittle and patronise without resorting to profanities.

Mac

Once.

"Deliverance Payne" -Mum had a sense of humor.

I'm keeping the char as a placeholder until I can figure out hat to actually do with it.

What's ok, and what isn't?

I'm a roleplayer - and a rogue/villain that doesn't even use the f-word strikes me as silly. 7 year old girls in catholic school uses the f-word. I'm hoping I'm not expected to live up to US TV standard, bleeping myself all the time.

As far as I'm concerned... I think it should be fine to use as foul language as I like. Anyone that doesn't like it should keep the profanity filter ON; that'll take care of everything.

Of course, mis-spelling foul language on purpose to circumvent the filter has to be a BIG NO NO - as it forces people to listen to it, even if they don't want to, bypasses game mechanics, and is clearly something that's spoken out of character, not in character.


---


And what's ok to actually do/discuss in RP?

Villains, rogues and vigilantes can be pretty freaky folks. Murder is all in a day's work - so I'm assuming topics of murder, torture and inhuman experiments sort of have to be in the clear... (though at the same time, I somehow doubt it is)

Can people talk about sex, or will we end up black listed for it? It's not quite as "necessary" as violence, but I don't think all the supers around here are gonna stay virgins.


---


Just thinking.

mac

Personally, I've had a crapload of fun on my corruptor since level 1, and I'm at 33 now. I'm fire/pain domination - and much like the OP's power sets, it's team oriented. I pretty much suck when I'm solo, just like you. I picked team-centered power sets - and invested in skills and slots to further support team play; that's the price I pay.

When I'm teamed up though, I couldn't possibly have more fun, or be more useful. Best way to describe the corruptor AT is "a defender on pcp"; we get the attacks as primary, and scourge to boot. How does that not translate into barrels of fun?

As for solo pwnmobiles... I don't know if corruptors can make good pwnmobiles. We have support as secondaries, not personal defence; we are the main villain support AT, with only MMs as competition. We might never be up to par with certain other ATs as solo chars. We aren't designed for it in the same way. On the other hand, we provide things no pwnmobile could ever dream of in a team environment.

Thank you, thank you for adding CMD-Tab to the mac client! I have no idea when you added it, but it must have been very recently. Thank you, thank you!

Mac

After a bit of forum-*******, just looking a little bit at everything, writing up suggestions, and generally being a benign nuisance, I've been collecting a bit more pieces of information. I think the one thing I really overlooked on blasters is the whole aim-buildup thing, which seems to be unique to blasters. That should certainly make a difference. Who knows? Maybe it's perfectly balanced after all.

Anyway, Imma go make a blaster, and see if I can make things go boom. Looks like fun, and I guess that's really the main point.

mac

I'm finding myself having the power "Enforced Morale" which will remove any type of control from one of my team mates - IF, that is, I know they are affected by it.

On Screen Situation:
8 players, 10 pets, 20 enemies, loads of explosions. I can't see the small graphical effects that indicates a mate is mezzed.

Team Window Situation:
A player can have a ridiculously long list of buff icons. Even with autopowers off, you can still have lists that are long enough to reach the center of the screen. In this huge mess, I can't detect a debuff icon. Heck, I don't even know what those icons look like!

Suggestion:
Add a de(buff) detector. Add a new tab to the options, where we can ask the game to detect things for us, and MARK those team mates in some way.

For example, I'd like a drop down menu where I can select "Controlled(any)", and another drop down next to it where I could select "Flashing Name in Team Window". That way I could finally tell easily who needs Enforced Morale.

Or, select "Glacial Shield" and then "Player Name Tag: Red" - and voila, three guys in front of you suddenly have red name tags until you shield them.

Something like that. An easy way to see who needs YOUR buffs, or counter-buffs. Doesn't really matter to me exactly how it functions, or how it marks the players. I just need an easy way to see critical information that I can (and should) do something about.

Or, at the very least, allow us to set the team window's icon list to "show debuffs only" and "show buffs only". It'll be less versatile and a bit annoying to switch back and forth - but at least it's a working option.


mac

Darned. Thanks. It's atl east good to know I'm not the only one with the problem.

Mac

I'm a pretty new player here, but from what I can see, there's only one AT that's in danger of going "obsolete", and that would be the blaster.

Yay, you get 2 attack sets! Does anyone ever need TWO? Sure, I suppose I can see the attraction of having high dps as the primary, and something like energy as backup so you can use the kickback in clever ways but... really? No defenses, no resists, no buffs, nothing - and all to get two attack sets you don't need? You don't even end up with higher dps than other ATs. The one advantage a blaster gets is being able to fire despite mezzes; that's a real small advantage.

These guys could use an overhaul of some kind.

Squish.

Mac

Edit: Always a chance I missed something important that makes Blasters really useful but... I can't for the life of me figure out what it would be.

Just figured I'd post an update on my progress. Up to level 33 now, and this is by far my most loved char, both for RP reasons and for the powers. I'm beginning to feel the decrease in healing needed now. Much of the time, my little auto-aura is enough to keep a team steamrolling down the halls. I don't mind; that just means more free time to rain down fire and brimstone on the enemy, right? Scourgy goodness! Weee!

Pain Domination is interesting, in that three big (de)buffs are dead last in the order of powers you get access to. Now that I can begin shifting from spammy healing to more refined operations, I'm just reaching the point were I'm getting access to more buffs. Shared Pain, Enforced Morale and World of Pain are the ones I have access to so far, and I'm making as much use of it as I can.

Enforced Morale is a bit of a strange one though, as it has stacking mezz protection, but keeping it stacked on an entire team would completely absorb all my time, due to the single target operation, and the low duration. Just stacking it on 2-3 targets is a waste of time. As it is now, I tend to drop one on whoever is low on endurance (and since the regen doesn't stack, I don't stack either). Of course, I also use it whenever I see anyone being affected by any kind of mezz - as it quickly releases them.

Here's a big important question though: Is there any way I can easily detect when a team mate is being affected by a mezz? With sleep, confuse, yada yada, 60 icons per team mate in the list, and a million moving targets, allies and effects on screen, I find that I often don't notice until someone says something, ie "[Team]MrX: Sleep!".

Does the game have addons? Do addons work for a mac? I'd love one that clearly marks a team mate that needs a hit of Enforced Morale.

Mac